City Gate / Westfourth Architecture

Posted on agosto 21, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Architects: Westfourth Architecture
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Design Team: Vlad Arsene, Călin Negoescu, Onar Gerelioglu, Raluca Ionescu, Antoniu Craiovan
Envelope Consultant: Aludesign
Structural Engineer: Popp şi Asociaţii
Project Year: 2010
Project Area: 93,000 sqm
Photographs: Andrei Mărgulescu

Located at the entry in Bucharest, in “Piaţa Presei Libere” and in the axis of the Exhibition Pavilion, the Citygate complex is being constructed on one of the most prominent locations in the city.

The complex consists of two 18- storeyed towers located across from each other and creating an entry plaza to the Exhibition Complex in between. A common three level garage connects the towers under the plaza. Two three-storeyed wings are attached to each of the towers achieving larger floor plates on the lower levels of the complex.

The circulation and service cores are located in the central sections of the towers, dividing the office areas in East and West wings. These wings are rendered as distinct volumes enhancing verticality and transforming the design in a composition of four vertical elements, grouped in two buildings. Furthermore, each of the volumes is articulated in high and low rise sections clad with different glass envelopes.The horizontal articulation between these high and low rise volumes varies in each of the four vertical sections.

The relation emphasized in the project, between towers on one hand, and between building wings and sections on the other, recall the concept of duality inferred by the image of «gate».

Ground Floor Plan

City Gate / Westfourth Architecture originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 21 Aug 2012.

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Apartment Building on G.Călinescu Street / Westfourth Architecture

Posted on agosto 15, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Architects: Westfourth Architecture
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Design Team: Vlad Arsene, Călin Negoescu, Zzing Lee, Sînziana Nicolae, Alexandru Cutelecu
Envelope Consultant: Aludesign
Structural Engineer: Popp şi Asociaţii
Mechanical Engineering: Air Control Systems
Project Year: 2009
Project Area: 3,000 sqm
Photographs: Andrei Mărgulescu

This 5 story apartment building is located in the Dorobanţi section of Bucharest, Romania.. This area became in recent years a fashionable district, full of cafes and upper scale boutiques, and a number of high end apartment buildings were built next to the existing residential structures that define the traditional urban fabric.

The apartment building presented here, is an insertion in this rather dense residential fabric, consisting in 4 and 5 levels buildings, raised mostly in the 50′s and 60′s.

The building, confined to the zoning envelope, is configured as a linear structure, having the narrow northern façade, fronting the G. Călinescu Street, while the southern end of the building is facing the dead ended Aricescu Street. The rest of the building constitutes a “book end” to the row of double residential lots on the East and is almost hidden behind the buildings that line up along the Beller Street, the main thoroughfare in the neighborhood.

Facing the back of close surrounding structures, the building closes into itself by limiting the size and number of its widows on its long western and eastern facades. While reducing the size of the openings, the design allows each apartment to have exposures on two elevations, and this way to be able to receive plenty of daylight. The two core configuration service two one bedroom apartments each per floor and facilitate the presence of two exterior walls in each living room.

The openings to two different exposures will permit the owners to experience the sunlight’s daily progression in each apartment. The penthouse floor’s two apartments are surrounded by a wrap around terrace. On the ground floor, a linear lobby constitutes a spine that allows entries on both ends, at G. Călinescu and Aricescu Streets. The small courtyard set between the cores facilitates daylight penetration in the central section of the elongated ground floor lobby. A glass enclosed six cars garage, a shop and the ramp to the underground parking occupy the western end of the building’s footprint.

Floors Plan

Apartment Building on G.Călinescu Street / Westfourth Architecture originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 15 Aug 2012.

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BTC Tower / Westfourth Architecture

Posted on agosto 13, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Architects: Westfourth Architecture
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Design Team: Vlad Arsene, Cristiana Ştefan, Antoniu Craiovan, Iulian Dimitriu, Crina Popescu, Daniel Bilan, Mircea Enescu, Karoly Markos, Marinela Paşca
Structural Engineer: Britt, Popp şi Asociaţii
Envelope Consultant: Aludesign
Electrical: Conseng
Project Year: 2007
Project Area: 27,000 sqm
Photographs: Andrei Mărgulescu, Ştefan Tuchilă

At 25 stories and 110 m, the BTC tower, is presently thee tallest building in Romania.

In spite of its size, the tower does not benefit from either a large site or a surrounding plaza. The relatively small 2,500 sq m site is set on Ion Mihalache Boulevard, next to the Filantropiei Hospital and close to Piaţa Victoriei. The tower, while situated in the second plane of reference, behind Piaţa Victoriei, constitutes a dead-end perspective point for the Lascăr Catargiu Boulevard, revealing most of its height from Piaţa Romană. An illusory presence, the tower seems to diminish behind the Antipa Museum, as one approaches Piaţa Victoriei, along the boulevard. Transcending its impact on the immediate neighborhood to the larger vistas of the city, the tower establishes an urban role for this much challenged typology in Bucharest.

The requirement for large open office areas, in the context of a relatively small floor plate, determined an eccentric location of the core in the building. The core is set on the southern wall leaving the northern exposure available for most of the building. The transition from south to north along the façade is marked by the reduction of the ceramic frit density in the silk screening of the curtain wall, changing the tower’s transparency towards north. The core mass that remains exposed on the south façade is clad with dark corrugated metal panels. The tower sets back above the four-level «base» containing larger office floors. This register reflects the height of the existing buildings along the boulevard. The base’s top two levels are cantilevered over the building entry, revealing the lobby doors, set in the circular body of the tower at its contact with the ground. Above, another cantilevered volume parallels the «base» and separates the tower into lower and upper sections. The «base» is clad with alternating dark and clear glass panels. The horizontal dark glass strips that mark the office zones in the glazed areas correspond to one-meter width bands of tinted vision glass, set at eye level. The vision-glass panels above and below these strips are silk-screened. Within the floors’ structure, these panels have a ceramic coverage between 30 to 50%. The slab structure and dropped ceiling areas are covered by «shadow-boxes», having the outer glass layer patterned in the same way as the vision-glass.

Section

BTC Tower / Westfourth Architecture originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 12 Aug 2012.

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Unicredit Ţiriac Bank HQ / Westfourth Architecture

Posted on agosto 10, 2012 by :: noticias arquitectura ::

Architects: Westfourth Architecture
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Design Team: Vlad Arsene, Călin Negoescu, Onar Gerelioglu, Silviu Chiţu, Karoly Markos
Envelope Consultant: Aludesign
Structural Engineer: Popp şi Asociaţii
Electrical: Conseng
Technical Consultant: Graphtech
Project Year: 2012
Project Area: 17,000 sqm
Photographs: Mărgulescu & Moldoveanu

Any large corporation will want a representative headquarters building that will enhance in the city its image as an important institution in the society. As notions of corporate image and representation are closer to marketing and real estate than architecture, translating the bank’s wishes for representation in architectural terms was one of the major challenges of the project. The building attempts to avoid the bank’s identity requirements through a simple formal gesture and engages a more complex architectural approach.

Located on the Expozitiei Blvd, the building addresses the same two site issues as the neighboring Gate Towers. One is the orientation towards the north and the entry into the city, the other is the relation with the National Exhibition Pavilion the main three dimensional event in the area. While The Gate buildings use duality and axial perspective in order to relate to these issues, Unicredit building employs translation and displacement. In doing this, the building creates in the process dramatically sized spaces, both in the interior atrium and the exterior covered entry plaza. Both the steel structure and the exterior envelope become tools with which the building is sculpting its shape and marks its spaces. By volumetrically defining its stance towards important city vectors and monuments, and by creating contrasting public spaces, the building becomes essentially urban.