BIG + Fugére Architects National Museum of Fine Arts – Expansion Proposal in Quebec City
As one of the largest and most renowned cultural institutions in Québec, Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec houses extensive collections of historic and contemporary art and hosts major traveling exhibitions from across the globe. At present, the museum is located in three existing structures of varied history, purpose and architectural expression, but its small size has limited the scope of exhibitions it can mount. An international competition calling for proposals to extend the current museum was organized and generated worldwide interest, eventually won by OMA.
BIGs proposal developed jointly with Fugère Architectes for the extension is conceived as an open framework for exhibitions. The two main facades are conceived as gigantic windows revealing the changing content inside. In reverse the museum visitors will be able to enjoy the fantastic panorama of the Parc des Champs-de-bataille as well as the rare elevation of the church and convent courtyard on the opposite side. Visitors will enter along Quebec’s Grande Allé into the underside of the tilted volume of the new edition to the generous lobby underneath. This loft like space of industrial proportions in principle stretches all the way to the Charles Baillargé, hosting all the facilities related to ticketing, information, shop, art-café etc. We propose to expand and open the connections between the pavilions, transforming the museum complex into an integrated network of generous galleries rather than a cluster of distant rooms linked with tunnels.
To respond to the multiple demands and desires of the historical, urban and functional context the box is tilted to create an intuitive connection between street and museum as well as church courtyard and park. The new pavilion is designed to complete the convent, preserve the centenary trees while opening both courtyard and museum visually towards the park. The tilted volume encloses the courtyard while opening up to the park. The simple form and choice of materials reflect the Quebecoise sensibility, while the gesture of diving under the street transforms the simple stack of galleries into an abstract sculpture. An architecture so well integrated that it stands out.
At the middle of the concourse where the roof of the tilted pavilion touches the ground the main space opens up towards the sky revealing a cascade of art galleries from the top to the bottom – where the biggest gallery for temporary exhibitions continues all the way to connect with the existing museum. Essentially a big open skylit space for public life and changing exhibitions topped of with a stack of galleries overlooking the park. Our proposal for the new pavilion has been an exploration of these paradoxes. We propose to incorporate every single concern into the project exploring the freedom that lies within the confines of ancient courtyards, underground connections and the rootzones of the trees. Rather than leading to the lowest common denominator or compromise, these contradicting demands and opposing forces have skewed and battered the building into an alternative yet familiar form.
Cultural Center in Denmark / BIG Architects
A new cultural development in Frederiksberg, Denmark is on the works by BIG architects. The main idea is to create a new city monument for culture and movement that systematically blends programmatic elements with a spontaneous interaction.
The site is located in a crossroads of city bike paths, train routes and pedestrian pathways. While addressing this contextual issue, the project provides a framework for programmatic mixing which first stacks vertically and then fans out horizontally to provide a visual and physical overlap of elements.
This 180 degree array creates a variety of spaces ranging from the intimate to the monumental and provides accessible roofscapes that carry and blend function to the outdoors while engaging the surrounding context.
TED Cube Building in Taiwan/ BIG Architects
TED is a public building in Taiwan that uses a form and highly mixed program to encourage a large cross section of users. Designed by BIG Architects, the 57 meter cubed building has an open section, or ‘street’ to allow full public access through the building. The access rises and dilates near the top of the building and opens onto a rooftop garden. The roof is to be a public park and informal performance area.
Radiating from the street will be hotel, retail, office, restaurants, etc, with no particular formal arrangement. The building is an expression of a city bock packed into a more vertical system. The ribs, evocative of the underside of a mushroom form stairs through the structure and is repeated on the walls and ceiling thus creating a visually continuous facade. The access through the building allows for ventilation, shade, and increased fenestration for the occupants. The building site is not yet disclosed.
Underwater Architecture – Taiwan Skyscraper
Underwater Architecture
During the next few days we will showcase 5 proposals for sustainable underwater architecture. These projects were submitted for the Annual Skyscraper Competition from 2006 to 2009.
Project 5 of 5
The year is 2046 and the North and South Pole icebergs have melted, more than 40 percent of the Earth’s surface is underwater. The challenge is to build a skyscraper undersea with movable spheres and conducting tissue structures.
The new skyscraper would be located in the south western part of Eurasia near Taiwan. It will be equipped with a green ecosystem, residences, office space, and recreational areas.
Earthscraper in Mexico City
Finalist – 2010 Skyscraper Competition
Bunker Arquitectura
Esteban Suarez, Santiago Gitanjalli, Jorge Arteaga, Sebastian Suarez, Zaida Montañana, Arief Budiman, Adrian Aguilar
Mexico
The Historic Center of Mexico City is composed of different layers of cities superimposed on top of each other. When the Aztecs first came to the Valley of Mexico they built their pyramids (first layer) above the lake of Texcoco. When new and bigger pyramids were required, as the Aztec Empire grew in size and power, they did not search for a new site, they built them covering the existing ones. At the end, these pyramids are composed of different layers of historical periods. When the Spanish discovered America and ultimately conquered the Aztecs, they erected their Christian temples on top of the pyramids. Eventually their whole colonial city was built above the Aztec. In the 20th century, many colonial buildings were demolished and modern structures raised over the existing historic foundations.
Today, the Historic Center is in desperate need of a programmatic make-over. New infrastructure, office, retail, and living spaces are required. Federal and local laws prohibit demolishing historic buildings and height regulations limit new structures to eight stories.
The main plaza of Mexico City, known as the “Zocalo” is 57,600 square meters (240m x240m), making it one of the largest in the world. It is bordered by the Cathedral, the National Palace and the Federal District Buildings. This is the location of the proposed Eathscraper, an inverted skyscraper that digs down through the different layers of Mexico City.
The Earthscraper preserves the iconic presence of the Zocalo and the existing hierarchy of the buildings that surround it. It is an inverted pyramid with a central void that allows all habitable spaces to enjoy natural light and ventilation. The first ten stories are dedicated to a pre-Columbian museum. The next ten stories are retail areas and housing while the deeper 35 stories are offices.
Earthscraper: Underground Architecture
Project submitted to the 2007 Skyscraper Competition
Designed by: Fernando Castiñeira, Hernan Goldfarb, Alejandro Ispani, Alex Nelken, Javier Maratea, Malena Verni
Well City – Underground Architecture
Special Mention - 2007 Housing Competition
Project by: Anna Rita Emili, Barbara Pellegrino, Massimo Ilardi
Imagine a landscape where the predominant colors shift from yellow to brown, where the only materials are sand and dry clay, and where variations are determined by slight differences in shades. Imagine yourself in a place characterized by contrasting elements; bright light, strong shadows, total darkness, torrid heat, and intense cold. You will inhabit a place without references or variations.
We propose a new kind of residence named ‘Well House’, a universally applicable dwelling or refuge with all the characteristics of hipogeos architecture. Our project is based on the Italian St. Patrizio’s sink, characterized by a series of spaces around a central space that contains water.
The ‘Well House’ is closed to the outside world and environment, and opens to an inner core surrounded by the living room, kitchen, aquarium, hydroponic green house, and bedrooms.
There are two more levels with a water recollection cistern for rain and ‘foggare’ (a south Italian way to capture underground condensation through linear canalizations) and a geothermal plant that regulates the dwelling temperature while providing the necessary electricity through a serpentine system.
Green Ribbon Skyscraper in Paris
Finalist – 2010 Skyscraper Competition
Meurisse Frederic, Huyghe Lieselotte
France
The main idea of this project is to create a green ribbon of parks and recreational areas that will connect the Vincennes and the Boulogne forests – the two major lungs of Paris. The ribbon will be equipped with a series of skyscrapers that will inject programs to the city. Some of them will be used as housing while others will have museums or restaurants. Its triangulated steel structure is a three dimensional network of voids and surfaces inspired by the Origami pleating game.
Vertical Confluence – Skyscraper in Paris
Special Mention
2010 Skyscraper Competition
Jiang Yuan, Xu Yang
France
Vertical Confluence is a contemporary skyscraper that integrates to Paris’s historical urban fabric. The volume morphs according to its program and relationship with the existing urban spaces and landscape. The lower volume contains an auditorium and an open-air theatre facing the Seine River. In the middle there is a public library with views toward Paris’s biggest green space known as “The Bois de Vincennes”. In the upper levels, facing the city’s skyline, there is a museum, a restaurant, and a café.
Flying Planes Skyscraper in Paris
Finalist – 2010 Skyscraper Competition
Kevin Hemeryck
France
The city of Paris is recognized worldwide for its beauty, architecture, and urban planning. Unfortunately the lack of green areas has been a constant problem for decades. The Flying Planame (paname refers to Paris in French slang) is an utopist project that proposes multiple layers of green planes throughout the city. The main concept is to maximize the outdoors areas while making use of the structure for commerce and housing. Similar to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the rice growing terraces of Yunnan, China, this project proposes equilibrium between the natural and built environments.
Anti-Smog Tower in Paris
Architect Vincent Callebaut designed a sustainable tower in Paris to filter air particles and harvest wind and solar power. The project would be located in the 19th Parisian district which characterizes for being an extremely polluted area surrounded by old factories.
The project is divided in two; a “Solar Drop” located on top of abandoned railway tracks and a “Wind tower”. The Solar Drop is designed to transform polluted into clean air through a system of filters covered with titanium dioxide which break the pollutant particles. Along with the green technologies, the building is equipped with recreational areas for the city such as gardens, pools, galleries, and commerce. The Wind Tower equipped with turbines in its entire façade produces enough energy for the neighborhood and houses a museum and learning center on renewable energies.
Ecological Skyscraper in Paris with Green Terraces in Each Floor
French architect Jaubert Francois proposes a new skyscraper for Paris that consists of two towers joined by a vertical park that starts at the ground plane and finishes at a soccer pitch on the rooftop. The “Hyper-Tower” is a mixed-use development with residential and sports facilities on the top levels and commercial and leisure areas in the first floors.
The structure is a reinterpretation of the Arche de La Defense but instead of creating an un-programmed void, Jaubert Francois creates a lush garden for the city. The interior spaces spill into the green void through terraces in each level.
Ecological Skyscraper
Green Skyscrapers
In the next few days we will showcase 25 innovative proposals for green skyscrapers. These projects were submitted for the Annual Skyscraper Competition from 2006 to 2009.
Project 1 of 25
Jaume Canals Parellada, Jonathan Arnabat Vila
Spain
Ecological Skyscraper
We designed a building that provides infrastructure, urban facilities, green zone, office and living space. In our view, the real challenge of Mediterranean self-sufficient skyscraper lies not in their design but in integrating these within congested urban areas. What can be designed without damaging historical centres?
Within a well-known base and in the heart of Barcelona, a four million people city-area, the Eixample Quarter, we propose a series of Regenerating Hubs, a 335ft (102m) skyscraper, in essence a mechanism for living, breathing, producing energy, and recycling the huge quantity of waste we produce, for managing scarce resources such as water.
The regenerating hubs, located within the Eixample Quarter blocks.
Provide additional housing for increasingly atomized family structures, to account for the rise in the number of people living alone, reduction in the number of children per family unit, adapting living areas to their specific needs. Hubs would provide accessible housing to both the young and old bracket of the population, with the idea of counteracting rising house prices pushing them out of living in city centres.
Economic hub
Specialized clusters providing workspaces with shared technology. Working close to where you live is made easier, hence reducing traffic and the pollution it creates. Optimizing space on the basis of work schedules.
Social and cultural hubs
Spaces with facilities based on social need, be these of a pedagogic, healthcare, social or leisure nature.
Ecological hubs
Use of clean, non-polluting energies, gathering of organic and inorganic waste, storage and management; centralization of antennae for technology, television, telephony, Internet and radio; collection of resources such as water; attraction and absorption of pollution, creation of large green spaces. The building is structured along a great vertebral column, centre of communication and access areas. A large perimetal structure is created to support the building height. Housing, workspace and facilities are connected and supported by the same structure. In addition, every house is designed with five ecological and self-sufficient considerations, planned to take care of the management of energy and material resources.
Solar structure
collecting rays through photovoltaic panels, oriented according to the seasons; accumulation of energy, supplying the block as a support to already existing sources of energy; heating and air conditioning.
Recycling structure
conditioning of all housing, workspace and facilities with specialized recycling ducts. Ducts for glass, aluminium, plastic, paper and organic waste, functioning through gravity and suction. Placing of containers below the structure. Conditioning the whole block in order to centralize waste disposal and management.
Pollution and telecommunication
support structure: captivation of dust, heavy particles in suspension, through an electrically charged structure in the housing exteriors. This would result in a large concentration being formed around the building exterior and acting both as a thermal insulator and acoustic buffer.
Green structure
Each living space has a landscaped roof for cultivation of vegetables, plants and small trees and an annexed lateral green house. The green structure articulates the whole building, from the access areas to the heart of each block (as was contemplated by Cerdà) and each of the building decks, thus converting the whole area into a vertical and horizontal green space. The inhabitants will be in charge of a green space equal to the space rented or bought.
Water structure
Channelling of water coming off the decks, filtering and storage. Reutilization for irrigation, WC, washing machines, etc. Water collection from the constructed area’s whole surface and surrounding green zones.
Strata Tower in Abu Dhabi, UAE / Asymptote Architecture
The Strata Tower, a forty-story, luxury residential building designed by architects Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture of Asymptote, has broken ground on Al Raha Beach and is now under construction. The tower is scheduled for completion in early 2011 and, at a height of 160 meters, will be the tallest building in the Al Dana precinct, the centerpiece of Aldar Properties PJSC’s prestigious Al Raha Beach development. The project and development was showcased at Cityscape Abu Dhabi from May 13–15, 2008. The landmark Strata Tower is designed to signify a dignified and important future for Abu Dhabi and the region.
As a signature architectural statement, the Strata Tower’s articulate, striking physical presence seeks to encapsulate meaning through the use of abstract form drawn from both local cultural landscapes and motifs and dynamic forces of global influence. The Strata Tower’s design utilizes primarily mathematical means in its design to achieve both a poetic, as well as highly pertinent, architecture for the UAE, a region in flux with ambitions for continued rapid growth.
The Strata Tower’s innovative form was created using state-of-the-art, advanced parametric modeling tools and techniques from the onset of the design process to the production phase. The building’s design emerged from various influences and factors including economies of production and fabrication with special consideration given to environmental sustainability. Sophisticated computer modeling and tools were utilized to produce the building’s intelligent, environmentally responsive louver system that is held in a unique, cantilevered exoskeleton structure. The exoskeleton veils the entire tower in a shimmering curvilinear form set against Abu Dhabi’s surrounding desert and sea, embracing and reflecting the ever-changing light and atmospheres that enfold and contain it.
As architecture the Strata Tower resists being an overt, singular gesture reliant on a set meaning or association. Rather, the mathematical properties used, not unlike those in the manifestation of the arabesque or abstract calligraphy; give the building its supreme elegance, prominence and potential for meaning and significance.
Images: ©Asymptote Architecture
