Camenzind Evolution can be more than just proud of their brand new headquarters that is located in the beautiful city of Zurich in Switzerland. The architectural masterpiece that they have been gifted with is a compact, yet spacious structure that exudes a unique aura with its startling design, flowing form and exquisite features. The freestanding structure dubbed as the Cocoon sports a normal and sober look on the outside, but one little peep into its heart and you will be captivated by the form and functionality. With its spiral massing and a light-flooded, upwardly widening atrium that forms the centerpiece, Cocoon does away with the conventional way of marking personal space using partitions.

Unlike any other office room in the world, you are sure not going to find any tiny cubicles set in a robotic fashion inside this unconventional marvel. By doing so Camenzind Evolution wishes to create a unique work experience where sharing information and communication become a lot simpler and interactive. The winding ramps, twisted contours and warm lighting together create a less stressful environment to work in, while those visiting the place sure are bound to be taken in by its charm.

If you wish to give yourself a home court advantage in the corporate battles then an office space like this sure will tilt the balance in your favor. Subtle, minimalistic yet unconventional, Cocoon sure weaves a web around you!

worldarchitecturenews

Since the day the world first lay its eyes on the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube in Beijing, people have been obsessed with creating the perfect stadium, to hold international sporting events. The trend is understandable though with television making these grand engineering and designing marvels appear as symbols of national pride, creativity and capability. The main stadium for the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon is a multi-purpose delight that promises to provide us with some spectacular aerial shots as the opening and closing ceremony take place inside its expansive interior. Designed to ensure that 70,000 are comfortably seated and an additional 30,000 can easily take a stroll around it to enjoy the view, the flowing form of the stadium is in tandem with traditional Korean culture.

The design of the stadium is based on an uneven configuration with corporate and management facilities on its permanent western side, while the Eastern side sports a temporary seating arrangement that will give way to beautiful landscape once the games come to an end. The dynamic design, the integrated green parks around the main stadium, ample space that does away with congestion and the linking system to surrounding parks makes this design both practical and attractive. Of course, there still some time, lots of time, for the games to begin…

Populous

This stretch is too shallow for boats. And too deep for a high tide expedition. It also has an exposed seabed during low tide. The shelter is a habitat for a variety of birds and seals, and more so, can allow you to stay on at the sea during high tide. What’s more, you can even use it as a golden chance to learn more about wildlife on the seabed when it gets flooded.

More than that, it offers shelter for seabed living beings to take shelter during high tide too. In a lot of ways, the SeaShelter is an interface between humans and the sea environment.

Needless to say, its unique features have drawn attention and turned heads at the Design It: Shelter Competition. The design has won the contest, for making seafaring a unique experience. The people’s prize in the same contest went to David Mare’s CBS-Cork Block Shelter.
Via: Inhabitat, Gugenheim

The floating space schematic design is done to be anchored to the coastline, almost like a living organism would do, rising and falling with the tides.

That oceans and humans are interdependent is the core theme of this, while the architectural form draws on the curves and fluidity of living beings in the ocean. So much a far cry from the angled rigidity we see in architecture around us!
Once the pavilion is done with the expo, it could be continued to host a range of events, in other coastal cities too. The design has been conceived by Antoine Damery.

Via: Inhabitat, PTA, Adesigner

In the beginning of July, a preliminary study was published which was prepared by the Herzog & Of Meuron office, and contracted by São Paulo State’s government. Just one hundred square meters will separate the building of the Júlio Prestes Station – projected by Christiano Stockler of Neves and in which ten years ago Dupré inserted the Sala Sao Paulo – from the cultural compound that, according to the government will put São Paulo definitively on the map of the great projects of international architecture.

According to São Paulo’s government, the summons of Herzog & Of Meuron, contracted for well-known specialization, among other reasons, happened after the English company TPC Theatre Projects Consultants, had defined the profile of the complex and detailed the program of each item. Their technicians studied and analyzed the city to visualize a theater of unique characteristics.

From that study, the state government selected architects’ international offices that could be interested in developing the project: English Norman Foster, the Argentinian rooted in the EUA Cesar Pelli, and the Dutchman Rem Koolhaas. “We wanted to provoke a scandal in the Brazilian architecture. In the good sense”, it provokes the secretary of Culture, João Sayad.

Even holders of Pritzker, Oscar Niemeyer and Mendes of Rocha were discarded, according to Sayad, for they already have other projects in the city. In the secretary’s evaluation, Foster’s architecture, Pelli and Koolhaas turns their projects easily recognizable in any part of the world, while the one of Herzog & Of Meuron it is always revealed innovative, not vulgar.

The intrinsic concept to the project of Herzog & Of Meuron was to mix and combine the maximum possible activities, transposing in the building, the dynamics of the metropolis. The group possesses four pavements (and medium height of 23 meters), from which it’s possible to do a lineal external reading nor to define a hierarchy among the facades.

A possible approach is the suspended square, composed by a game of sheets interlaced in the two senses, that integrates into the green areas that the architects propose.

This project is part of the renovation of São Paulo’s downtown, an area that until the 90s used to be dilapidated and is now becoming the most important cultural center in Brazil.

Via: Arcoweb.

Since centuries ago women’s beauty and sensuality have been celebrated the world over in many different ways; be it in the form of paintings, sculptures, architecture, furniture, so on and so forth. This time the paradigm has been shifted from ‘women’ to ‘men’.

Samal Design, a popular Paris based design studio has come up with their new line of furniture collection called “Human Furniture” that celebrates men’s beauty and sensuality. All the furniture in this collection display men’s semi-naked body, some of which show the upper body and some other the lower body. There definitely is a sexual connotation involved with this collection. Although many men may find it difficult to digest or to even give a second glance, women perhaps will like this collection. For once women can also have the freedom to celebrate men’s beauty. Time has changed so has the gender roles (although gradually).

The furniture is realized in MDF and plastic with metal structure inside for support. This collection is really nice and, in addition to celebrating men’s beauty and sensuality, the creativity that Samal Design has brought out with this collection should also be celebrated equally.

Via: Cubeme

Designed by Omar Rivas, the shelter is a set of concrete beams interspersed with flexible material that gives it a spring-like feel, that sit on a frame. The project is titled Accordion and is part of Guggenheim’s Design It shelter design competition and was submitted a month back.

The shelter can compress and also expand, in the forward and backward action at the same place. This is meant to generate more interior and exterior spaces in the same place without having to pay for the spaces accordingly.
Design innovation in housing is the need of the hour and with space constraints competing against the urge to do less damage to the environment, designs such as that of Omar Rivas fit the bill perfectly, in the basic architectural need for space utility.

Via: Guggenheim

Daniel Burnham was one of the eminent figures of the Plan of Chicago, which is also known as the Burnham Plan. To commemorate the centennial of this well celebrated plan, various events were conducted during this year alone, like the Union Station 2020 Competition and the Burnham Memorial Competition. In addition to these events, two pavilions designed by UN Studio and Zaha Hadid have also been temporarily installed at the Millenium Park, which will be opened to public until the 31st of October, 2009.

Interestingly, Zaha Hadid’s pavilion is a beautiful blend of modern formal concepts and the memory of Burnham’s bold, historic urban planning. Some of the innovative concepts laid by Burnham, such as the spatial structures with hidden traces are overlaid and inscribed too within the structure of the pavilion to create a dynamic combination.

This innovative creation of Zaha Hadid rightly complements the concepts that Daniel Burnham believed in. He encouraged bold plans and big dreams with innovative ideas and technologies. This will further challenge and ameliorate the modern day architecture and engineering. Indeed, these novel ideas should be encouraged even more.

Via: Arch Daily

Australian designer Leon Fitzpatrick has a reason to rejoice. After all his inspiration strained from various objects has done wonders. In an attempt to create a modular prefab home, he has created a mobile structure built of foam concrete and polyurethane and called it Echelon.

Echelon comprises large concrete sections pre-cast using wood molds that glide from side to side by means of a simple track system to control the light within and to create a sense of space. The furnishing is composed of a frivolous and soft seating surface on a concrete base so that the occupants can arrange it according to their tastes and needs. Lightweight, breathable fabric canopy forms the roof. The luggage system also would have a soft cover instead of the boring old fastener.

The dwelling seems to give a new facet to the concept of mobile homes and new hope to the ideas of many designers

Via LeonFitzpatrick

MOS, the winner of this year’s MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program—I, built a very unique and somewhat weird courtyard pavilion in the form of P.S.1. At first look, you would think that the apparent fur on the giant structure that looks more like a giant shelter made from the skin of a wooly mammoth will actually cause the place to heat up, rather than cool down. But take a personal look at it and your view will be altered radically. Constructed by a technique which uses a series of chimneys creates an air-pressure differential to cool the interior and palm-fiber thatch from Indonesia called ijuk, the P.S.1 is a lot more sophisticated than you think it is.

The architectural value of this one-of-a-kind wacky structure truly is found out when you stand underneath its shade and experience the pleasant breeze drawn into it. While its rough exterior and smooth interior present a great visual contrast, there is no doubting its efficiency and value!

Via: metropolismag / mos-office / ps1