Torres Blancas

Torres Blancas is considered to be one of the finest organic examples of architecture in Spain. It was supposed to be built in marble, but due to economical cut-backs it was made in concrete. The rooms in the apartments are cylindrical, with organic walls and ceilings. Some apartments has two levels and on the top floor there is a restaurant and a pool. To visit: Av. De América 37 subway 4, 6,7 & 9 station av. de américa

Lloyd's Building

The current Lloyd's building was designed by architect Richard Rogers and built between 1978 and 1986. Like the Pompidou Centre in Paris (designed by Renzo Piano and Rogers), the building was innovative in having its services such as staircases, lifts, ductwork, electrical power conduits and water pipes on the outside, leaving an uncluttered space inside. The 12 glass lifts were the first of their kind in the United Kingdom. Like the Pompidou Centre, the building was highly influenced by the work of Archigram in the 1950s and 1960s. The building consists of three main towers and three service towers around a central, rectangular space. Its core is the large Underwriting Room on the ground floor, which houses the Lutine Bell within the Rostrum. The Underwriting Room (often simply called "the Room") is overlooked by galleries, forming a 60 metres (197 ft) high atrium lit naturally through a huge barrel-vaulted glass roof. The first four galleries open onto the atrium space, and are connected by escalators through the middle of the structure. The higher floors are glassed in and can only be reached via the exterior lifts. "Whereas the frame of the building has a long life expectancy, the servant areas, filled with mechanical equipment have a relatively short life, especially in this energy-critical period. The servant equipment, mechanical services, lifts, toilets, kitchens, fire stairs, and lobbies, sit loosely in the tower framework, easily accessible for maintenance, and replaceable in the case of obsolescence." - Rogers

Hotel Iveria

The Iveria Hotel is a hotel in the city center of Tbilisi located on Rose Revolution Square. The hotel was built in 1967 as the premier luxury hotel of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and was named Hotel Iveria after the ancient kingdom of Iveria. As a result of the war in Abkhazia the hotel became a refugee camp housing more than 800 refugees. In 2004 the refugees were removed from the hotel and offered $7000 per room. The hotel was renovated and in 2009 reopened as the Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel.

Chemosphere House

rom the architect. Formerly called "the most modern home built in the world" by the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Malin Residence was the stereotypical scientific vision of the future brought to life when it was built by American architect John Lautner in 1960. Built for the client Malin Lautner, a young aircraft engineer, the design of the residence was in fact an engineering challenge due to its location on a forty-five degree slope in an earthquake-prone region. The house, nicknamed the "Chemosphere" hovers 30 feet over the city of Los Angeles resembling a UFO aircraft. When John Lautner was given the site in 1960, there were two common methods for building houses on the difficult sloped land. The ground could be cut to create a level platform or the house could be supported on an open steel framework. The client, however, had a small budget (only $30,000) so Lautner instead took advantage of the client's extensive imagination and rejected both structural methods for one that would cost about half of the conventional solution with retaining walls and land drains. Lautner perched the entire one-story octagon on a single 30-foot concrete column, leaving the natural surroundings untouched. Steel struts shoot out from the single column to support the floor of the house. The concrete column, however, is not the element that supports the roof of the residence. It actually does not even continue up into the interior. The inside of the house is a column-free open space. The north side of the house contains the public spaces, such as the living room, kitchen, and dining room, and the south side facing the hill slices into 4 bedrooms and a bathroom. At the peak of the house, where the column would have been, Lautner placed a circular rooflight in order to provide lighting in the deepest part of the plan. Under this rooflight there is a fireplace and a sitting area. The structure of the residence is made of steel and timber, and the roof is supported by curved portal frames of laminated wood. These materials were chosen due to the earthquake zone it's located in, and the house has actually withstood hurricanes and floods, proving its structure successful. Window openings were placed along the perimeter of the house, and there is even a window on the bottom part of the structure looking over the car port. This car port is the beginning of the entrance to the house. After the car is parked a private furnicular, or an inclined railway, ascends up the slope and lands at a narrow bridge which spans from the ground to the entrance near the kitchen. Lautner's futuristic "flying saucer" quickly caught the eyes of the Hollywood industry and the house has since appeared in films including Body Double and Charlie's Angels. The modern icon floats above the city and was named one of the all time top ten houses in Los Angeles.

Medieval Bologna

Between the 12th and the 13th century, the number of towers in the city was very high, possibly up to 180. The reasons for the construction of so many towers are not clear. One hypothesis is that the richest families used them for offensive/defensive purposes during the period of the Investiture Controversy. Besides the towers, one can still see some fortified gateways that correspond to the gates of the 12th-century city wall which itself has been almost completely destroyed. During the 13th century, many towers were taken down or demolished, and others simply collapsed. Many towers have subsequently been utilized in one way or the other: as prison, city tower, shop or residential building. The last demolitions took place during the 20th century, according to an ambitious, but retrospectively unfortunate, restructuring plan for the city. Of the numerous towers originally present, fewer than twenty can still be seen today. Among the remaining ones are the Azzoguidi Tower, also called Altabella (with a height of 61 m), the Prendiparte Tower, called Coronata (60 m), the Scappi Tower (39 m), Uguzzoni Tower (32 m), Guidozagni Tower, Galluzzi Tower, and the famous Two Towers: the Asinelli Tower (97 m) and the Garisenda Tower (48 m).

Santa Maria presso San Satiro

The edifice has a nave and two aisles with barrel vault. The nave is surmounted by an emispherical dome at the crossing with the transept. The choir, which had to be truncated due to the presence of a main road, was replaced by Bramante with a painted perspective, realizing in this way one of first examples of trompe l'oeil in history of art.

8 House

he bowtie-shaped 61,000 sqm mixed-use building of three different types of residential housing and 10,000 sqm of retail and offices comprises Denmark’s largest private development ever undertaken. Commissioned by St. Frederikslund and Per Hopfner in 2006, the 8 House sits on the outer edge of the city as the southern most outpost of Orestad. Rather than a traditional block, the 8 House stacks all ingredients of a lively urban neighborhood into horizontal layers of typologies connected by a continuous promenade and cycling path up to the 10th floor creating a three-dimensional urban neighborhood where suburban life merges with the energy of a city, where business and housing co-exist. The 8 House creates two intimate interior courtyards, separated by the centre of the cross which houses 500 sqm of communal facilities available for all residents. At the very same spot, the building is penetrated by a 9 meter wide passage that allows people to easily move from the park area on its western edge to the water filled canals to the east. Instead of dividing the different functions of the building – for both habitation and trade – into separate blocks, the various functions have been spread out horizontally. “The apartments are placed at the top while the commercial program unfolds at the base of the building. As a result, the different horizontal layers have achieved a quality of their own: the apartments benefit from the view, sunlight and fresh air, while the office leases merge with life on the street. This is emphasized by the shape of 8 House which is literally hoisted up in the Northeast corner and pushed down at the Southwest corner, allowing light and air to enter the southern courtyard,” Thomas Christoffersen, Partner in Charge, 8 House, BIG. A continuous public path stretches from street level to the penthouses and allows people to bike all the way from the ground floor to the top, moving alongside townhouses with gardens, winding through an urban perimeter block. Two sloping green roofs totaling 1,700 sqm are strategically placed to reduce the urban heat island effect as well as providing the visual identity to the project and tying it back to the adjacent farmlands towards the south. “8 House is a three-dimensional neighborhood rather than an architectural object. An alley of 150 rowhouses stretches through the entire block and twists all the way from street level to the top and down again. Where social life, the spontaneous encounter and neighbor interaction traditionally is restricted to the ground level, the 8 House allows it to expand all the way to the top,” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG. The 8 House uses size to its advantage by creating immense differences in height thereby creating a unique sense of community with small gardens and pathways that remind you of the intimacy of an Italian hill town. With spectacular views towards the Copenhagen Canal and Kalvebod Faelled’s protected open spaces, 8 House provides residences to people in all of life’s stages through its 476 housing units, including apartments of varied sizes, penthouses and townhouses as well as office spaces to the city’s business and trade in one single building. “8 House is our second realized example of architectural alchemy – the idea that by mixing traditional ingredients, retail, row- houses and apartments in untraditional ways – you create added value if not gold. The mix allows the individual activities to find their way to the most ideal location within the common framework – the retail facing street, the offices towards northern light and the residences with sun and views to the open spaces. 8 House is a perimeter block that morphs into a knot, twisting and turning to maximize the life quality of its many inhabitants,” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG

Niterói Contemporary Art Museum

The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, also know as the MAC, was designed by the famed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and completed in 1996. This iconic saucer-shaped structure, situated on a cliffside above Guanabara bay in the city of Niterói, brilliantly frames the panoramic views of the city of Rio De Janeiro and encapsulates the simple, yet brilliant signature aesthetic of Niemeyer. Speaking of the MAC's rocky cliffside site, Niemeyer claimed that the "field was narrow, surrounded by the sea and the solution came naturally.” This “natural,” intuitive solution was an elegant, curvy structure that rises from a water basin, creating an ambient sense of lightness and allowing for full panoramic views of Sugar-Loaf Mountain and the Guanabara bay. Although the MAC is often described as UFO-like, Niemeyer’s poetic intention was for the form to emerge "from the ground" and "continuously grow and spread," like a flower that rises from the rocks. The sixteen-meter high structure is situated on a paved public square, accessed via a swirling, red-carpeted, 98 meter-long ramp. The 50 meter diameter copula contains three floors, set on a 2.7 meter diameter cylinder, anchored in a 60 centimeter deep 817 square meter pool. The hexagonal main hall provides 400 square meters of a column-free exhibition space surrounded by a circular viewing promenade with windows slanted at a forty degree angle. The MAC’s unmistakable iconic form transformed “the city across the way” into a landmark destination and resulted in a small-scale “Bilbao Effect,” drawing visitors predominantly for the remarkable architecture.

Farnsworth House

From the architect. The Farnsworth House, built between 1945 and 1951 for Dr. Edith Farnsworth as a weekend retreat, is a platonic perfection of order gently placed in spontaneous nature in Plano, Illinois. Just right outside of Chicago in a 10-acre secluded wooded site with the Fox River to the south, the glass pavilion takes full advantage of relating to its natural surroundings, achieving Mies' concept of a strong relationship between the house and nature. The single-story house consists of eight I-shaped steel columns that support the roof and floor frameworks, and therefore are both structural and expressive. In between these columns are floor-to-ceiling windows around the entire house, opening up the rooms to the woods around it. The windows are what provide the beauty of Mies' idea of tying the residence with its tranquil surroundings. His idea for shading and privacy was through the many trees that were located on the private site. Mies explained this concept in an interview about the glass pavilion stating, "Nature, too, shall live its own life. We must beware not to disrupt it with the color of our houses and interior fittings. Yet we should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together into a higher unity." Mies intended for the house to be as light as possible on the land, and so he raised the house 5 feet 3 inches off the ground, allowing only the steel columns to meet the ground and the landscape to extend past the residence. In order to accomplish this, the mullions of the windows also provide structural support for the floor slab. The ground floor of the Farnsworth House is thereby elevated, and wide steps slowly transcend almost effortlessly off the ground, as if they were floating up to the entrance. Aside from walls in the center of the house enclosing bathrooms, the floor plan is completely open exploiting true minimalism. With the Farnsworth house constructed about 100 feet from the Fox River, Mies recognized the dangers of flooding. He designed the house at an elevation that he bellieved would protect it from the highest predicted floods, which are anticipated every hundred years. The man-made geometric form creates a relationship the extraneous landscape surrounding it to exemplify "dwelling" in its simplest state. As Mies stated on his achievement, "If you view nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it gains a more profound significance than if viewed from the outside. That way more is said about nature---it becomes part of a larger whole."

Serpentine Gallery 2009

An undulating aluminum structure sits on top of a delicate column system, providing a series of connected spaces while keeping a continuous view through the park. The aluminum reflects the trees, the ground and the sky, for a dramatic blending effect as you can see of the photos.

The Highline

The High Line is an elevated freight rail line transformed into a public park on Manhattan’s West Side. It is owned by the City of New York, and maintained and operated by Friends of the High Line. Founded in 1999 by community residents, Friends of the High Line fought for the High Line’s preservation and transformation at a time when the historic structure was under the threat of demolition. It is now the non-profit conservancy working with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation to make sure the High Line is maintained as an extraordinary public space for all visitors to enjoy. In addition to overseeing maintenance, operations, and public programming for the park, Friends of the High Line works to raise the essential private funds to support more than 90 percent of the park’s annual operating budget, and to advocate for the transformation of the High Line at the rail yards, the third and final section of the historic structure, which runs between West 30th and West 34th Streets.

Kastrup Sea Bath

From the architect. Reaching out into the Øresund from Kastrup Strandpark in Kastrup, Kastrup Sea Bath forms a living and integral part of the new sea front. The project consists of the main building on the water, the new beach and an ajoining service building with lavatories and a handicap changing room. A wooden pier leads the visitor round to a circular construction, gradually elevating above the sea surface, and ending in a 5m diving platform. The building material is Azobé wood, chosen for it's durability in sea water. The Sea Bath stands on slender legs about a meter above the water and the load baring constructions are exposed in its exterior. The building consists of 870 m² wooden deck, 70 m² changing facilities and of 90 m² service building on land. The Bath is conceived as a sculptural dynamic form, which can be seen from the beach, the sea and the air. It's silhouette gradually changes as the beholder moves around it. The circular shape creates a concentrated interior, shelter from the winds, and concentrating the sun. The shape opens up towards the landside to connect to the beach and to invite visitors inside. A continuous bench runs along the pier, thus creating an additional rest and leisure area. An important part of the concept for the Sea Bath is that is free of admission and open to the public at all times. The bath is designed to be a rather untraditional framework for exercising sports activities. There is room for a peaceful evening swim as well as exercise and playfulness. It is envisaged that old Mrs Jensen, will be as comfortable as the younger more sports orientated visitor. Ramps, and other special features and facilities allow the less mobile members of the population full access to the sight.

Utøya Memorial

The concept for the Memorial Sørbråten proposes a wound or a cut within nature itself. It reproduces the physical experience of taking away, reflecting the abrupt and permanent loss of those who died. The cut will be a three-and-a-half-meters-wide excavation. It slices from the top of the headland at the Sørbråten site, to below the water line and extends to each side. This void in the landscape makes it impossible to reach the end of the headland. Visitors begin their experience guided along a wooden pathway through the forest. This creates a five to ten minute contemplative journey leading to the cut. Then the pathway will flow briefly into a tunnel. This tunnel leads visitors inside of the landscape and to the dramatic edge of the cut itself. Visitors will be on one side of a channel of water created by the cut. Across this channel, on the flat vertical stone surface of the other side, theh names of those who died will be visibly inscribed in the stone. The names will be close enough to see and read clearly—yet ultimately out of reach. The cut is an acknowledgment of what is forever irreplaceable. This experience hopes to bring visitors to a state of reflection through a poetic rupture or interruption. It should be difficult to see the beauty of the natural setting, without also experiencing a sense of loss. It is this sense of loss that will physically activate the site. People will find their way around the landscape surrounding the cut, looking down at the channel and to the names from a higher perspective, or looking out to Utøya, establishing their own private ways of seeing and remembering.

Cloud Gate

Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor's first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect Chicago’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a "gate" to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives. Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high.

Makoko Floating School

Unpredictable climate changes along the world's most vulnerable coastal communities, have produced some fascinating design solutions that test the resiliency of architectural possibilities and the need for adaptation that will produce these changes. The coastal community of Makoko, a slum neighborhood, off the Lagos Lagoon in Lagos, Nigeria is receiving an upgrade to its current solution, which is building homes supported on stilts within the lagoon's waters. NLE Architects, with sponsoring from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Heinrich Boell Foundation from Germany, designed the Makoko Floating School, phase one of a three-phase development that will become a floating community of interlocked and floating residences. Construction on the project began in October 2012 and was completed just last month with grand appraisal from the community and UN visitors. The Makoko Floating School and the total planned projects makes use of local materials and resources to produce architecture that applies to the needs of people and reflects the culture of the community. Wood is used as the main material as the structure, support and finishing for the completed school. The overall composition of the design is a triangular A-Frame section. The classrooms are located on the second tier. They are partially enclosed with adjustable louvered slats. The classrooms are surrounded by public green space, there is a playground below, and the roof contains an additional open air classroom. NLE has also employed strategies to make the floating architecture sustainable by applying PV cells to the roof and incorporating a rainwater catchment system. The structure is also naturally ventilated and aerated. But how does it float? The completed structure rests on a base of typical plastic barrels. This simple solution reflects a reuse of available materials that can provide multiple uses. The barrels at the periphery can be used to store excess rainwater from the catchment system. The second phase of the project will include the construction of individual homes that follow the same aesthetic as the school. These elements will be able to connect to each other or may float independently. Phase three will allow for the development a large community of floating architecture. An aerial view of Makoko shows how less dense the homes become as the homes get further and further into the lagoon. The architecture, as it exists today, is supported on stilts. NLE's vision will bring a new layer of homes, floating just beyond where the Makoko Floating School is indicated on the map. Largely a self-sustaining, self-governing fishing community, this past summer the Lagos government destroyed and evicted residents to seize property for redevelopment along the waterfront. What the future of Makoko will be is unclear - by political or environmental standards. But NLE's design and development of a sustainable floating community and its UN support indicates that the community is looking forward to adapting a resilience to its architecture.

WOZOCO

This building was the first housing complex realized by MVRDV. The client, a large housing corporation, wanted 100 units for elderly people with a gallery-type circulation. The units however did not fit the site in an acceptable way, so MVRDV were invited to solve the problem. At the first meeting, a half joking solution whereby the houses that would not fit inside the gallery block were glued to the outer side of the volume drew attention. The client saw the potential and so MVRDV make it work. To maintain adequate sunlight in the surrounding buildings, only 87 of the 100 units could be realized within the slab. Where could the remaining 13 dwellings be positioned? If they were put elsewhere on the site, the open space would be further reduced. A deeper slab with narrower units did not seem possible. The North-South orientation of the block meant that the generator had to be a 7.20 meter module. By ‘cantilevering’ the remaining 13 units from the north façade, they are literally suspended in the air. The hanging East-West orientated types complete the North-South dwellings in the block with a view over the adjacent meadow. An economic layout for the main slab could lead to savings of 7 to 8% of the cost, enough to compensate for the 50% more expensive ‘hanging units’. The Spartan gallery flat becomes acceptable. Each gallery is given a different perspective. By changing window positions, balcony sizes and varying balcony materials, the different flats acquire their own character. With the party walls constructed 8 cm thicker than structurally necessary (for sound insulation) it became possible to use this extra thickness for the connection of the cantilever trusses without having to increase the weight of the load-bearing walls.When the project was completed, we were told, that we had realized the social housing project with the lowest building-costs in Amsterdam (applause). Almost 10 years later, averagely 2-3 touring-cars and numerous taxi's and rent-a-bikes with architectural tourist now visit the outskirts of the so called western garden cities to see the hanging houses of Amsterdam.

Tree Hotel in Harads

A tree hotel in the far north of Sweden, near the small village of Harads, close to the Arctic Circle. A shelter up in the trees; a lightweight aluminium structure hung around a tree trunk, a 4x4x4 meters box clad in mirrored glass. The exterior reflects the surroundings and the sky, creating a camouflaged refuge. The interior is all made of plywood and the windows give a 360 degree view of the surroundings. To prevent birds colliding with the reflective glass, a transparent ultraviolet colour is laminated into the glass panes which are visible for birds only. The construction also alludes to how man relates to nature, how we use high tech materials and products when exploring remote places in harsh climates (Gore-tex, Kevlar, composite materials, light weight tents etc). The functions included provide for a living for two people; a double bed, a small bath room, a living room and a roof terrace. Access to the cabin is by a rope bridge connected to the next tree.

 More info here

Wall-less House

The house is built on a sloping site, and in order to minimize the excavation work the rear half of the house is dug into the ground, the excavated earth being used as fill for the front half, creating a level floor. The floor surface at the embedded rear part of the house curls up to meet the roof, naturally absorbing the imposed load of the earth. The roof is flat and is fixed rigidly to the upturned slab freeing the 3 columns at the front from any horizontal loads. As a result of bearing only vertical loads these columns could be reduced to a minimum 55 mm in diameter. In order to express the structural concept as purely as possible all the walls and mullions have been purged leaving only sliding panels. Spatially, the house consists of a ‘universal floor’ on which the kitchen, bathroom and toilet are all placed without enclosure, but which can be flexibly partitioned by the sliding doors.

Curtain Wall House

The house is intended to be a reflection of the owner's lifestyle. It is open to the outdoors and utilizes contemporary materials in new interpretations of traditional Japanese styles. Wide deck spaces are attached to the east and south sides of the second-floor living room and tent-like curtains are hung on the outer facade between the second and third floors. Interior conditons are controlled by opening and closing this Japanese-style "curtain wall". In winter, a set of glazed doors (in combination with the curtain) can completely enclose the house for insulation and privacy. This thin membrane takes the place of shoji and sudare screens, and fusuma doors that appear in the traditional Japanese house.

House N

From the architect. A home for two plus a dog. The house itself is comprised of three shells of progressive size nested inside one another. The outermost shell covers the entire premises, creating a covered, semi-indoor garden. Second shell encloses a limited space inside the covered outdoor space. Third shell creates a smaller interior space. Residents build their life inside this gradation of domain. I have always had doubts about streets and houses being separated by a single wall, and wondered that a gradation of rich domain accompanied by various senses of distance between streets and houses might be a possibility, such as: a place inside the house that is fairly near the street; a place that is a bit far from the street, and a place far off the street, in secure privacy. That is why life in this house resembles to living among the clouds. A distinct boundary is nowhere to be found, except for a gradual change in the domain. One might say that an ideal architecture is an outdoor space that feels like the indoors and an indoor space that feels like the outdoors. In a nested structure, the inside is invariably the outside, and vice versa. My intention was to make an architecture that is not about space nor about form, but simply about expressing the riches of what are `between` houses and streets. Three nested shells eventually mean infinite nesting because the whole world is made up of infinite nesting. And here are only three of them that are given barely visible shape. I imagined that the city and the house are no different from one another in the essence, but are just different approaches to a continuum of a single subject, or different expressions of the same thing- an undulation of a primordial space where humans dwell. This is a presentation of an ultimate house in which everything from the origins of the world to a specific house is conceived together under a single method.

House in Rokko

From the architect. I have been somewhat anxious about what an architecture in a place commanding a fine view should be. It is the state of affairs freezing affect towards the environment. What is the way, while enjoying the view, not to be dominant to the environment? At an end of the residential area developed in the past halfway up Mt. Rokko the site was broad but too steep to bring in heavy machines for driving piles. A plane of 3.5 m by 13.5 m was left when a sufficient distance was secured, for manual digging for foundation, from the old breast wall and heaped soil. The site was not necessitating much anxiety about people’s eyes. As people’s eyes from below would not reach the first floor, the first floor was walled with glass all around so that the fine view could be commanded to full extent, which was equipped with kitchen and visitor’s toilet. The first floor, while functioning as what is called LDK, was assumed to be used for such varieties of activities out of daily life as treating guests, creating music with friends, or taking care of his bicycles. A bedroom, storing facilities, facilities using water were arranged on the second floor, which was leveled high with a roof of conventional appearance to join in the existing rows of old houses. The high- leveled second floor was walled around with wide openings distributed equally for the ease of natural ventilation. Thermal storage system using midnight electricity was laid into slab concrete and on the second floor far-infrared radiation film floor heating system was supplemented. And in summer it is expected that balcony and eaves will block the sunlight and breeze from Mt. Rokko will carry indoor heat through. Steel-frame construction was adopted complying with the client’s wishes. As physical labor was obliged, small 100 mm by 100 mm H-section steel was selected and each construction material was limited to weigh about 100 kg for carrying up to the site. Steel plate of 4.5 mm thick was laid for the cantilever balcony all around to make up for the loss of level structural plane caused by a large cutout of the second floor for stairway.

Pantheon

A temple with a huge unreinforced concrete dome with a central opening, allowing sun and rain to enter the building. Pantheon was commissioned by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt later by Emperor Hadrian in about 126 AD. The building is circular with a portico of three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns under a pediment opening into the rotunda, under a coffered, concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres. A rectangular structure links the portico with the rotunda. It is one of the best preserved of all Roman buildings. It has been in continuous use throughout its history, and since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a Roman Catholic church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" but informally known as "Santa Maria Rotonda."

Mountain Dwellings

From the architect. How do you combine the splendours of the suburban backyard with the social intensity of urban density? The Mountain Dwellings are the 2nd generation of the VM Houses - same client, same size and same street. The program, however, is 2/3 parking and 1/3 living. What if the parking area became the base upon which to place terraced housing - like a concrete hillside covered by a thin layer of housing, cascading from the 11th floor to the street edge? Rather than doing two separate buildings next to each other - a parking and a housing block - we decided to merge the two functions into a symbiotic relationship. The parking area needs to be connected to the street, and the homes require sunlight, fresh air and views, thus all apartments have roof gardens facing the sun, amazing views and parking on the 10th floor. The Mountain Dwellings appear as a suburban neighbourhood of garden homes flowing over a 10-storey building - suburban living with urban density. The roof gardens consist of a terrace and a garden with plants changing character according to the changing seasons. The building has a huge watering system which maintains the roof gardens. The only thing that separates the apartment and the garden is a glass façade with sliding doors to provide light and fresh air. The residents of the 80 apartments will be the first in Orestaden to have the possibility of parking directly outside their homes. The gigantic parking area contains 480 parking spots and a sloping elevator that moves along the mountain's inner walls. In some places the ceiling height is up to 16 meters which gives the impression of a cathedral-like space. The north and west facades are covered by perforated aluminium plates, which let in air and light to the parking area. The holes in the facade form a huge reproduction of Mount Everest. At day the holes in the aluminium plates will appear black on the bright aluminium, and the gigantic picture will resemble that of a rough rasterized photo. At night time the facade will be lit from the inside and appear as a photo negative in different colours as each floor in the parking area has different colours. The Mountain Dwellings is located in Orestad city and offer the best of two worlds: closeness to the hectic city life in the centre of Copenhagen, and the tranquillity characteristic of suburban life.

Villa Vals

From the architect. Shouldn’t it be possible to conceal a house in an Alpine slope while still exploiting the wonderful views and allowing light to enter the building? Surprised that it was permissible to construct a pair of dwellings so close to the world famous thermal baths of Vals, the client seized the opportunity to develop the site, without disturbing the bath’s expansive views. The introduction of a central patio into the steep incline creates a large façade with considerable potential for window openings. The viewing angle from the building is slightly inclined, giving an even more dramatic view of the strikingly beautiful mountains on the opposite side of the narrow valley. The Local Authority’s well intentioned caution, that unusual modern proposals were generally not favoured, proved unfounded. The planners were pleased that the proposal did not appear ‘residential’ or impose on the adjacent baths building. The scheme was not perceived as a typical structure but rather an example of pragmatic unobtrusive development in a sensitive location. The placing of the entrance via an old Graubünder barn and an underground tunnel further convinced them that the concept, while slightly absurd, could still be permitted. Switzerland’s planning laws dictate that it is only possible to grant a definitive planning permission after a timber 
model of the building’s volume has first been constructed on site. This can then be accurately appraised by the local community and objected to if considered unsuitable. For this proposal, logic prevailed and this part of the process was deemed to be unnecessary.

Chand Baori

Chand Baori is a famous stepwell situated in the village of Abhaneri near Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It was built in the 9th century and has 3500 narrow steps in 13 stories. All forms of the stepwell may be considered to be particular examples of the many types of storage and irrigation tanks that were developed in India, mainly to cope with seasonal fluctuations in water availability. A basic difference between stepwells on the one hand, and tanks and wells on the other, was to make it easier for people to reach the ground water, and to maintain and manage the well. In some related types of structure (johara wells), ramps were built to allow cattle to reach the water

CCTV Building

Designed by OMA as a reinvention of the skyscraper as a loop, construction on the building began in 2004. At approximately 473, 000m2, CCTV – accommodating TV studios, offices, broadcasting and production facilities – is OMA’s largest ever project and its first major building in China. CCTV defies the skyscraper’s typical quest for ultimate height. Rising from a common platform, two towers lean towards each other and eventually merge in a perpendicular, 75- metre cantilever. The design combines the entire process of TV-making – formerly scattered in various locations across the city – into a loop of interconnected activities. The structure of the CCTV Headquarters, and the forces at work within it, is visible on its façade: a web of diagonals that becomes dense in areas of greater stress, looser and more open in areas requiring less support. The façade itself becomes a visual manifestation of the building’s structure.

Bird's Nest

From Arup: The Chinese National Stadium was the 2008 Olympic Games’ most striking structure, recognised all over the world. The building’s dynamic form and vast scale create a new icon for China and the city of Beijing. The circular shape of the stadium represents 'heaven', while the adjacent square form of the National Aquatics Center (Water Cube), also design-engineered by Arup, is a reflection of the Chinese symbol for Earth. The structural form of the stadium is popularly described as a 'bird’s nest', with its pattern inspired by Chinese-style 'crazed pottery'. Seemingly random, the pattern abides by complex rules for which advanced geometry was defined. To ensure a compact and optimum design, the seating bowl was established first, with the outer façade wrapping around it. The design ensures that all spectators are as close as possible to the action and have clear sight lines. As Beijing is located in one of the world’s most active seismic zones, Arup used advanced seismic analysis to test the stadium under various earthquake conditions and ensure that the structure can withstand major shocks.

Aqua Tower

The Aqua Tower is located at 225 North Columbus Drive, and is surrounded by high-rises. To capture views of nearby landmarks for Aqua's residents, Gang stretched its balconies outward by as much as 4 meters. The result is a building composed of irregularly shaped concrete floor slabs which lend the facade an undulating, sculptural quality. Gang cites the striated limestone outcroppings that are a common topographic feature of the Great Lakes region as inspiration for these slabs. The name 'Aqua' was assigned to the building by Magellan Development Group LLC. It fits the nautical theme of the other buildings in the Lake Shore East development, and is derived from the wave-like forms of the balconies; the tower's proximity to nearby Lake Michigan also influenced the name. Sustainability was an important factor in Aqua's design. Gang and her team refined the terrace extensions to maximize solar shading, and other sustainable features will include rainwater collection systems and energy-efficient lighting. The green roof on top of the tower base will be the largest in Chicago. The tower will seek LEED certification.

Casa da Musica

Casa da Música (English: House of Music) is a major concert hall space in Porto, Portugal, which houses the cultural institution of the same name with its three orchestras Orquestra Nacional do Porto, Orquestra Barroca and Remix Ensemble. It was designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas with Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Arup-AFA. Intended as part of Porto's designation as the European Culture Capital in 2001, it was only finished in 2005. It immediately became an icon in the city. Featuring a 1,300-seat auditorium suffused with daylight, it is the only concert hall in the world with two walls made entirely of glass.

Gateway Arch

From the architect. Built to commemorate the westward expansion of the United States, the Gateway Arch designed by Eero Saarinen became a futuristic marker that rose above the cityscape of St. Louis. In its design, this monument drew from previous symbolic constructs of similar aspiration, scale and mathematical precision. The catenary, an ideal form that exists largely in compression, was the starting point for Saarinen’s design. Sweeping a triangular section of variable size along this curve was the basis for its form. The mathmatical catenary was then distorted in order to increase aesthetic impact of the design while still maintaining its structural performitivity. The gateway arch preseved the tradition of mathematical rigor and formal simplicity in the design of American monuments, that began with the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, while instilling a notion of contemporaneity in the material and programmatic complexity of the project. The arch is comprised of steel-clad concrete triangular sections that vary from . It varies in thickness from 54ft (bottom), to 17ft (top). The steel plates are assembled very tightly against each other in order to increase its structral stability and also to increase its aesthetics—making it look even more slender than it is. Programmatically, Saarinen wanted his arch to also act as an observation deck. A complex system of elevator cars that climb diagonally to the top of the curved arch carry 12 people at a time to the top where visiters can view the surrounding landscape from 630 feet above the ground. These elevator cars were designed as futuristic pods that were inspired by the similar aesthetics of the time. In addition to the arch, the project sought to situate itself within a larger park of The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

Danish National Maritime Museum

From the architect. The Danish Maritime Museum had to find its place in a unique historic and spatial context; between one of Denmark’s most important and famous buildings and a new, ambitious cultural centre. This is the context in which the museum has proven itself with an understanding of the character of the region and especially the Kronborg Castle. Like a subterranean museum in a dry dock. Leaving the 60 year old dock walls untouched, the galleries are placed below ground and arranged in a continuous loop around the dry dock walls - making the dock the centerpiece of the exhibition - an open, outdoor area where visitors experience the scale of ship building. A series of three double-level bridges span the dry dock, serving both as an urban connection, as well as providing visitors with short-cuts to different sections of the museum. The harbor bridge closes off the dock while serving as harbor promenade; the museum’s auditorium serves as a bridge connecting the adjacent Culture Yard with the Kronborg Castle; and the sloping zig-zag bridge navigates visitors to the main entrance. This bridge unites the old and new as the visitors descend into the museum space overlooking the majestic surroundings above and below ground. The long and noble history of the Danish Maritime unfolds in a continuous motion within and around the dock, 7 meters (23 ft.) below the ground. All floors - connecting exhibition spaces with the auditorium, classroom, offices, café and the dock floor within the museum - slope gently creating exciting and sculptural spaces.

Penecost Island Land Dive Structures

An ancient bungy jump structure. The island is the spiritual birthplace of the extreme sport of bungee jumping, originating in an ages old ritual called the gol, or land diving. Between April and June every year, men in the southern part of the island jump from tall towers (around 20 to 30 metres) with vines tied to their feet, in a ritual believed to ensure a good yam harvest. The ritual is also now used to show acceptance into manhood.

New Art Museum

From the architect. Recently Pritzker laureate SANAA offers to architects, critics and customers very sharp architectures, outstanding and internationally recognized. Most of the times, the reason of this is the simplicity and clearness of the concept, and its clean translation into construction. The New Contemporary Art Museum in New York is a precious building with clear concept and strong impact. The location context, Lower Manhattan, with its squared blocks and buildings, can be considered as starting point for the Museum image: it replies the boxes surrounding, and stacks them one on top of the other in various sizes and heights, as the plot was a playground for a composition of cubes. By small but significant shifting of the cubes, the building gets dynamicity and an attracting shape, being different but similar to the near constructions. The program of the Museum consists of four public galleries at the first four floors, which have free and flexible spaces for exhibitions; a “white box” auditorium in the basement, Education Center at the 5th floor, offices at 6th, a multi-purpose room at the 7th. By shifting the boxes, all galleries get natural illumination, combined with artificial, and the offices and the private locals on the top floors get terraces and opening views to the cityscape. It is in that way that the project shows its concept: by simple repeated shifting, the intention of the building is clearly readable from outside, and combines a convincing language with the need of natural light from top: all at once, with one operation, the project shows its force. Wanting to be a light and clean object in the massive Manhattan cityscape, the materials and the façade appearance play a relevant role. The choice of a layer of anodized aluminium mesh on top of the white walls is not new and unknown to most of architects. But in the Museum it is used as a wrapped skin on all vertical surfaces, as a continuous blurring layer, that gives different light reflections and hides the offices windows, doors and balustrades of the terraces. The result is an elegant, light and white succession of surfaces, without any interruption or contamination by other elements: a semi-transparent dress for the shifting body of the building. Evidently, at night the Museum shows life from the inside with the artificial lights through the hidden openings, enhancing the gaps between the volumes and giving more lightness to the massive building. Inside, the Museum keeps its lightness by the white surfaces and ceilings. The steel structure of the perimeter walls supports the floors and sets them free from any column. The plan, with an off- centred core and free space all around, efficient and flexible, confirms the clearness of the concept.