This week on Rendering Redux, the weekly humorous examination of architectural images, we’ve got some wonderful (and wonderfully bad) examples lined up. Some of these are not that bad, but some really are. See below for Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha, and more! This winning design by CERBA for the Næstved Arena shows a Danish …Continue Reading
Archivo de la categoría: Herzog & de Meuron
Huge Erections: What’s Driving The Rise Of Super Towers?
Mine is bigger than yours: the proposed Sky City One for comparison against the Chicago skyline. Photo via webodysseum.com Is it just us or are towers getting taller and taller these days? Broad Group, a Chinese developer, recently announced plans to scale up its prefabricated building technology to unparalleled proportions. The proposed Sky City outside Changsha …Continue Reading
Herzog & de Meuron Breaks Ground on ‘Grand Stade de Bordeaux’
Nearly two years after unveiling the design to the public, Herzog & de Meuron broke ground this morning on the new ‘Grand Stade de Bordeaux’ in France. Surrounded by lush vegetation typically found in this green belt district, the stepped concourse transitions visitors through a forest of slender white columns to the stadium’s bowl, whose form ensures maximum flexibility and optimal visibility for all 43,000 spectators.
Completion is set for 2015, just in time to host the Euro 2016 football championship.
The architect’s description after the break…
Click here to view the embedded video.
Vision of a stadium
Our project for the new Bordeaux stadium is an expression of fundamentally new architecture. The pure shape of the volume, by contrast to its light and open structure, creates an at once monumental and graceful architectural piece elegantly suited to the grand landscape of Bordeaux.
Stadium architecture combines three constitutive elements: the bowl containing the game and its spectators, the concourse as the transitional element between the playing field and the outside surroundings and, finally, the overall appearance. Our approach is to reinterpret these three elements in light of the site-specific characteristics: the resulting architecture is thus one-of-a-kind, reflecting the intrinsic features of the site.
We aim to present an architectural object in which highest functional quality is combined with a unique identity. We are confident that allying these two criteria, functionality and strong identity, endows our project with an emotional dimension that the public can feel, and that is inextricably bound to the stadium’s traditional role of staging sports.
The bowl
Seating a maximum of some 43,000 persons, the bowl embraces the game area, its geometry affording optimal visibility for all, together with the maximum flexibility of capacity and usage.
The bowl consists in two superposed tiers divided into four sectors and protected from the elements by the roof. Consisting of a multitude of concentric strips, the ceiling’s homogeneous appearance guides the gaze to the playing field, while allowing sunlight to seep through thanks to the strips’ angle of slant. This open ceiling structure does not show through on the inside of the stadium, to avoid distracting the spectators’ attention.
Raising the bowl above ground level is a compact base integrating all the programmatic functions into a uniform and symmetrical volume. This plinth includes the VIP loges and salons evenly distributed east and west as well as media areas adjacent to the spaces dedicated to players.
The simplicity and pure lines of the architecture characterizing the bowl and its base guarantee a smooth flow of spectators and easy orientation.
The overall appearance
The bowl resting on its base is covered by an elegant roof which has an unusual rectangular shape. The choice of this pure and almost abstract form is the clearest and most efficient response to the site’s natural conditions, and to the main flow of spectators east-west.
This white rectangle seems projected earthwards thanks to the multiplicity of slender columns that shower down. A ribbon of food stalls and restrooms undulates through this forest of columns, brought alive by the movement of the crowd.
At once dense and light, this structure creates an evanescent rectangular volume from which emerges the sculpted and organic outline of the bowl.
In its specificity, this architectural concept confers a strong and unparalleled identity to the new Bordeaux stadium. Well anchored to its site, this elegant and diaphanous volume looks out onto the grand landscape its transparency revealing all the energy and activities which will fill this new symbol of the city of Bordeaux’s dynamism.
Landscaping
The stadium’s implantation is linked to a particular situation, serving as a juncture between a high-quality natural setting to be reinforced to the north and, to the south, a structured urban periphery area in need of new development. Hence, any plans for the upcoming stadium must represent a basic step towards introducing the Secteur Nord Rocade tree belt, a project already foreseen by the city of Bordeaux’s landscape development plan.
Our proposal aspires to draw up a preliminary rendition of these future development plans. It reinterprets the tree belt’s exceptional features comprising rows of trees lining the main access ways. It defines an overall structure and organizes the various land plots in a grid.
The stadium’s surrounding areas (parvis, parking area, green corridor) belong to this language: organic tree lines serve as screens in a setting where, following the north-south orientation, they offer a variety of views while preserving a clear frontal view of the stadium’s facade. Surrounding the stadium, an entirely pedestrian public area is accessible from all sides.
The ground of the square around the stadium consists of three elements: grass-jointed concrete paving, natural lawn dotted with groups of trees forming open spaces and, facilitating stadium entry and exit, hot-rolled asphalt on surfaces around the stadium and defining the bus parking area to the east. The parking area to the north holds onto its for the most part mineral ground already anticipating the tree belt with its densely planted trees interspersed by plant beds.
These mixed area types set the stadium within a defined landscape, closely correlating the stadium site with its surrounding woodland setting.
Herzog & de Meuron Breaks Ground on ‘Grand Stade de Bordeaux’ originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 15 Apr 2013.
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Herzog & de Meuron Breaks Ground on Public “Bathing Lake” in Riehen
In 1979, just a year after founding their practice, Herzog & de Meuron won a competition to design a public swimming pool for the Swiss municipality of Riehen. After developing several unrealized iterations over the following years, the project was put on hold indefinitely in 1982. Twenty-five years later, in 2007, Herzog & de Meuron were commissioned to rethink the project and proposed to abandon the conventional pool concept with its mechanical and chemical water treatment systems in favor of a pool closer to natural condition with biological filtration.
Understood as a bathing lake, Naturbad Riehen was modeled after the natural pool on the local “Badi”, Basel’s traditional wooden Rhine-side baths, which combine a lively atmosphere with a timeless appearance.
Planted filtering cascades purify the water and define the soft edge of the lake, as the site’s southern perimeter opens up to the river, bounded only by a green hedge. A multi-functional timber wall, that offers a 200-meter long sheltered solarium with recliners, shields the site on the north and west from the adjacent roadway as it connects to an entrance on the east that provides support amenities.
The biological water treatment basins – the non-mechanical “heart” of the baths – are embedded in the sloping landscape on the opposite side of the road. Together with various leisure facilities provided here, they form a recreational area open the whole year round to the municipal population. In terms of ecological cleaning capacity, the baths are designed to accommodate 2 000 bathers per day.
Refernce: Herzog & de Meuron, Naturbad Riehen
Herzog & de Meuron Breaks Ground on Public “Bathing Lake” in Riehen originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 09 Apr 2013.
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Beirut Terraces / Herzog & de Meuron
Beirut Terraces rethinks the concept of the skyscraper, creating a vertical village composed of thin, elegant platforms layered in a playful formation. By offering lavish outdoor spaces, breathtaking views, and meticulously composed lofts, architects Herzog & DeMeuron bring an unprecedented way of living to crowded and dense Beirut.
More on these contemporary living spaces after the break…
The architects’ most conceptual work – the VitraHaus project – is most likely the root of the “stacked” methodology adopted for this project in Beirut. However, the Beirut terraces are much more complex in composition, offerings apartments that range from 250sqm to 1050sqm and come in the form of simplexes, duplexes, and townhouses. Moreover, the project’s most seductive quality, its terraces, range from 28sqm to 400sqm.
The building sits on a podium that occupies the entire lot, with the tower rising on 65% of the surface area. All 132 living units benefit from terraces and views, and they are placed with no relation to their size. A 300sqm apartment could exist on one of the highest floors just as an 800sqm is placed on one of the lower ones. Apartments often take form as one large surface, with glass separating interior from exterior and some plants separating a bedroom terrace from a living space’s (usually) larger terrace.
Small decisions draw the line between a more communal versus a typical residential building. Take, for instance, the idea of allowing all apartments to share a single large lobby surrounded by a 2000sqm shallow body of water accessed from four separate circulation cores. Every time a resident comes home he is reminded of nature’s presence and welcomed by a crowd of people inhabiting the populated structure.
Sensitivity to space and light is not something unexpected from the architects. Think of their Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, done with Ai Weiwei: the roof shares similar qualities to the platforms that compose the Beirut Terraces. Moreover, the fluidity of the space as well as its relationship to greenery and the exterior are equally present in the Beirut Terraces.
The project came in third place for Best Futura Project at the 2013 MIPIM awards, recognized as one of the best un-built sustainable projects. It is widely credited for bringing a new typology to Beirut’s waterfront.
Architects: Herzog & de Meuron
Location: Minet El Hosn
Partner In Charge: Stefan Marbach
Project Director: Tobias Winkelmann
Project Managers: Ursula Hürzeler, Claudia Winkelmann
Year: 2015
Photographs: Courtesy of Benchmark
Beirut Terraces / Herzog & de Meuron originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 02 Apr 2013.
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The Only Ai Weiwei-Designed House In America Hits The Market
As many of you know, Chinese artist, dissident, funny guy Ai Weiwei is also a skilled architect. Aside from his famous collaboration with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron for the design of the Bird’s Nest at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games (and later, the 2012 Serpentine Pavilion), Ai has worked with Basel-based HHF Architects on a series of projects, including this country home in upstate New York. The Tsai Residence, and presumably its accompanying Y-shaped, corten-clad guesthouse, have been put up on the market. Interested? If you are, you have to be prepared to lay down some serious coinage. Continue.
Cultural Complex Luz, Sao Paulo | Herzog & De meuron
Añadiendo a al creciente distrito cultural de sao paulo, brasil, el ‘cultural complex luz’ por la conocida oficinacontribuirá a
la ya destacada sala de conciertos, la universidad libre de la música, La pinacoteca del estado de Sao Paulo , y el museo de arte sacro, entre otros,
y es un componente clave para la revitalización de la luz. El centro interdisciplinario, que se inició en 2009 y programada para su inauguración en el 2016, combinará la danza y la música, aficionados con profesionales y artistas con los espectadores en un teatro de 1.750 asientos, de 500 asientos, sala de conciertos flexibles y un teatro experimental con capacidad para 400.
El programa se divide y se puede acceder de una manera única que apoya la circulación abierta y la colaboración entre los diversos grupos.
El proyecto de re-imagina la malla regular calle arquetípica y lo apila en las orientaciones perpendiculares a nivel medio, creando una malla tejida rectangular de elementos que permiten la libre circulación de personas entre los nodos estáticos creativos, rellenos con abundante vegetación y árboles. sobresale la rampa grande de la estructura como un paseo de entrada elevada que contiene también un lugar de espectáculos al aire libre y se conecta con el aparcamiento subterráneo de 850 garajes. La secuencia de entrada presenta al usuario una serie animada, en capas de los espacios que actúan como un servicio cuadrado tridimensional público para cada función: 2000-estudiante de música de la escuela, cafetería, jardín, caseta de entrada, o la compañía de danza. Los tres lugares de actuación se encuentra dentro de los huecos de la malla y anclar la matriz entrelazada de rampas en el sitio.
Herzog & De Meuron Have Big Plans For Sao Paolo Luz Cultural Complex
Herzog & De Meuron has recently released the renderings of the Luz Cultural Complex in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and let’s start by saying: Wow–it is huge! In fact, it is so big, that the architects who designed it started with a street grid. The grid turned into the actual venues of the complex, stacked perpendicularly at half levels and creating a weaved mesh of rectangular elements. This net allows guests to move freely between the nodes dedicated to creative spaces. Lush vegetation and trees fill every void of this entangled, textural building, making for lots of intimate spaces and an indoor-outdoor gradient. See more images!
The functional mix will include the 1750-seat Dance Theater, which forms the backbone of the building spanning its full length; the 500-seat Recital Hall; and the flexible Experimental Theater with up to 400 seats to be used for dance as well as opera, theater, and music performances. Students and professionals, performers and audience, production and rehearsal will combine in one place. Architects hope that the high degree of visibility and accessibility allowed by the building’s design will encourage interaction and stimulate creativity.
The main access in the complex is provided by a Grand Ramp, a slab projecting out from the heart of the building and sloping down to the adjacent plaza to gently collect pedestrians from the neighboring metro and train stations. The Ramp leads to a central node of circulation that distributes flows both vertically and horizontally, connecting the main open foyers and atriums of the building. Lighting completes the scene adding a dramatic spark to these spaces during performance evenings.
The Luz Cultural Complex is the newest addition to the growing cultural district of Sao Paulo, next to other prominent cultural facilities. Started in 2009, its completion is expected in 2016.
All images courtesy of Herzog & De Meuron