The Busan Camellian Opera House provides a harmonious connection between the existing dense urban fabric of the city and the port with its myriad of waterfront activities. Camouflaged beneath its contoured envelope, it erupts from the landscape in the form of densely planted tectonic petals that connect city and sea, urbanity and landscape, providing a major cultural hub, not only extending Busan's influence as the gateway to Eurasia, but establishing it as an international maritime city of culture.

Busan Camellian Opera House, render courtesy Matteo Cainer Architects

Conceived as a cultural link, the project has been carefully designed as an attractive and serene venue for opera and other performing arts. As a hub it will foster and attract a variety of social groups of differing ages, encouraging contact between art forms and the world of music. The project reflects on how music, nature and architecture can coexist and interact, with often unexpected results and insights.

Busan Camellian Opera House, render courtesy Matteo Cainer Architects

The project itself responds to the city and its cultural background through the camellia flower and its lush, deep green leaves, symbolising the citizens of Busan. It reinterprets the qualities of the camellia through a series of transformations, an evolving floral plan where the densely planted fragmented petals will result in a lush green landscape. This interpretation was developed for its symbolic meaning and its versatility as an urban and cultural form.

The project comes to life as an island bloom nourished by the city that engages in a dialogue with the site. It connects with the sea through the lush green landscape that reaches the water, and the dramatic cantilevered high level restaurants with their spectacular vistas.

Busan Camellian Opera House, render courtesy Matteo Cainer Architects

It has a dialogue with the maritime park nearby through the magnificent north facing rehearsal halls that overlook the island, and reinforced by the high level promenade that presents an integrated landscape that traverses at a variety of levels, with commanding views along its length. Connections with the city instead are established in two ways: through a number of strategically located large digital screens that display current and future events, and live open air concerts, where the multi-functional theatre opens up to face the city.

Busan Camellian Opera House, render courtesy Matteo Cainer Architects

The centre expresses a human scale with an extensive number of accessible roofs at varying levels, creating shaded outdoor spaces for impromptu gatherings and events. The use of glass illuminates external surfaces and dapples light through the lush green landscape. This sensation will be particularly effective in the Grand Foyer where lush internal planting and a huge interactive light installation is inspired by flock behaviour. This flexible space allows for multiple functions and is linked to both the lyric and the multiform theatres, and as a large open space, becomes an event space where audiences pour from the halls into a densely vegetated space. To reinforce accessibility and monumentality, the roof-scape is openly accessible to the general public, with planted landscapes laid out on horizontal and sloping roofs. The proposal will achieve a low-carbon impact using green technologies which will enhance eco-efficiency, minimizing any adverse environmental impacts.

The highly visible fly tower of the main opera will define the entire complex as a point of arrival. As a beacon overlooking the city and the ocean, glazed elements within the tower walls expose to view the mechanical workings of its interior, displaying the hidden secrets of the theatre. The resulting architectural solution is a seamless ensemble of architecture and landscape, with open air activities immersed between the sea and greenery and that of music opera and recreational activities like open air theatre and event spaces. The project through light sinuous architectural forms, expresses both balance and vitality, reflecting the strength and character of Busan.

+ Project facts

Architect: Matteo Cainer Architects Ltd
Location: Busan, Korea
Use: Opera House and Multiform theatre
Seats: Opera: 2180seats, MT: 1360- 2220 seats
Site: Marine cultural region, North Port, Jung-gu, Busan, S. Korea.
Site Area: 34,928m2
Total floor area: 56,600 m2

The house was for a young couple without children, and had some initial programmatic requirements which were pretty conventional (a garage, three bedrooms, a study, etc). The plot, which was triangular and around 400m2, was part of a land promotion protected by the Incasol for self promoters and was subjected to a tight schedule for the development of the house.

House 712, image courtesy H ARQUITECTES

While designing the project, both the clients' requirements as well as our own ones had to be redefined so that the final price could be lowered while respecting most of the specifications of the couple, the land and the (social and economical) context. During this process the cost was reduced to 65%.

House 712 - Site plan & section, drawing courtesy H ARQUITECTES

Firstly, it was decided not to take any action in relation to the plot; the idea of concentrating exterior space in any of the facades had to be relinquished since this strategy needed a two-floor building and it was understood that in order to meet both the building and the economical objectives a ground-floor building was needed… this volumetric sacrifice implied a programmatic one: there would be no garage, no hall and just one bathroom.

House 712 - Floor plan, drawing courtesy H ARQUITECTES

The triangular geometry of the plot was assumed and a systematic distribution was established based on two basic and equivalent spaces which were only qualified according to its orientation and its relationship with the exterior: three spaces from 8 to 10 m2 and three from 15 to 18m2. All of them on facade and based around a central triangular space which had not been programmed before, but which had surface enough to assume unforeseeable uses (storage room, summer dining room, study, bicycles…)

House 712, image courtesy H ARQUITECTES

Taking into account the willingness of working with an economic system of load bearing walls working on pure compression, a technology which could be assumed by any traditional builder was designed and any building system which was not available to any of the interlocutors was discarded.

Although the strict budget control which had been carried out, at the time of asking for credit facilities, the clients met with the banks 'refusal of providing the initially foreseen 250.000 €. From that moment, a process of revision, simplification of technologies and the total elimination of coverings was carried out; therefore, the budget was lowered to the final 120.000 €, with the builder's approval.

House 712, image courtesy H ARQUITECTES

The house was built with a double wall made of perforated bricks with an air chamber, with the structural wall in the internal side in order to avoid thermal bridges. This wall, which had the perforated bricks arranged to be seen, was based, together with the interior load bearing walls on an oversized insulating suspended ground floor, which allowed us having the concrete paving completed before the building of the walls. Thanks to this action, the joints were hidden and the difficulties which usually arise from building concrete paving a posteriori were avoided.

House 712, image courtesy H ARQUITECTES

The closing exterior wall, -the facade-, was made with the same perforated bricks at full sight but turned round, with the holes facing outside; this means the facade is ventilated and there's a cavity that easily drains the water thanks to the bricks' geometry. The deck framework has small beams and joists strictly lying on the load bearing walls in order to avoid the transmission of bending momentum to the wall structure. The deck was protected with recycled material of ceramic waste from same the building works.

House 712, image courtesy H ARQUITECTES

As for the openings, only the rooms which were furnished as bedrooms (two of them) were closed with wooden sheets put on top of (and not fitted in) the load bearing walls. All the vertical installations for electricity and data were left at sight, hiding the horizontal ones into the concrete deck slopes.

Finally, all the interior ceramic works were painted white.

Outside, in order to level and slightly flatten the land, a system of reinforced earth walls was used and with its corrugated steel beams a light fence which will act as a stand for the vegetation was built.

+ Project facts

Name of work: HOUSE 712
Situation: Gualba, Barcelona, Spain
Author: H ARQUITECTES (David Lorente, Josep Ricart, Xavier Ros, Roger Tudó) | www.harquitectes.com
Collaborators: Montse Fornés, architect (Harquitectes)
Anna Bonet, interiorista (Harquitectes)
Iñaki González de Mendiguchia, technical architect
Year of realization: 2008-2011
Surface constructed: 127,40 m2
Budget: 130.000€
Constructor: Construcciones Jufraed 2001, S.L.

+ All images and drawings courtesy H ARQUITECTES

UNStudio‘s design for the new Transfer Terminal and Air Traffic Control Tower for Kutaisi Airport was officially presented yesterday by the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Kutaisi Airport, render courtesy UNStudio

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who personally demolished one of the walls of the old airport yesterday announced,

We will build an international airport here, which will take aircraft from Munich, Rome, Baku and other cities as of next year.

The Netherlands’ Ambassador Pieter Langenberg said that the next year to be finished airport in Kutaisi would be a landmark for Kutaisi. Dutch architects firm UNStudio is well known from projects all over the world (Mercedes-Benz Museum , Galleria Centercity, Raffles City) and Georgia, as a country in transformation, rapidly modernising, would fit well in their list of prestigious projects. I'm hoping that the airport will be a landmark for Dutch investment too, the Netherlands being one of the biggest investors in the country.

UNStudio has designed the new Kutaisi Airport which will serve domestic and international flights for use by international diplomats, national politicians and for tourism.

Kutaisi Airport, render courtesy UNStudio

Georgia, a young state in the Caucasus which has undergone considerable development in recent years, is moving its Parliament from the capital Tbilisi to the city of Kutaisi. A new parliament building is currently under construction in Kutaisi and in 2012 the first parliamentary meeting will take place.

In recent years growing numbers of tourists have been discovering Georgia, a country with an ancient and engaging history. As a result there is increasing demand from airlines to fly to Georgia. By virtue of its geographical advantages and the nearby location of two of Georgia's most important Unesco monuments, Kutaisi was selected as the destination for a new airport. The new Kutaisi airport will in addition provide an economic impulse to Georgia's second city and its new seat of Parliament.

Kutaisi Airport, render courtesy UNStudio

The design for the new terminal in Kutaisi focuses first and foremost on the experience of the traveller by creating an inviting, safe, transparent and user-friendly airport. The desire to provide for and communicate equally with both international visitors and the local community is paramount.

Ben van Berkel

UNStudio's design for the new Kutaisi Airport incorporates both Georgia's historic landscape and its architecture. In Georgia public buildings and private houses employ their entrance lobbies as showcases for their individual identities. In the design for the new airport UNStudio embraces this architectural concept in order to manifest Georgia's young and dynamic democracy, along with its rapid development as a main crossing point in the region. Georgia is located on a crossroads of rich cultures, with a history of travellers passing through the Caucasus or arriving from the Black Sea.

It was particularly exciting for me to be able to design an airport which is not only linked to the new seat of parliament in Kutaisi, but which also creates an entrance condition which functions as a port for the international community. The airport presents a symbolic infrastructural gateway to Georgia and, from there, to the rest of the world.

Ben van Berkel

Kutaisi Airport, drawing courtesy UNStudio

The 4,000 m2 terminal building will house a central arrivals hall, a check-in area with lounge, cafe and car rental facilities, three gates for departure with retail, cafes, a CIP lounge area and exterior garden, an arrival area with customs and offices for the border police and an administration area with staff rooms and press conference facilities.

Kutaisi Airport - Organization, drawing courtesy UNStudio

The architecture of the terminal refers to a pavilion; a gateway, in which a clear structural layout creates an all encompassing and protective volume. The volume is structured around a central exterior space which is used for departing passengers. The transparent space around this central point is designed to ensure that flows of passengers are smooth and that departure and arrival flows do not coincide. These axes incorporate views from the plaza to the apron and to the Caucasus on the horizon. The design organises the logistical processes, provides optimal security and ensures that the traveler has sufficient space to circulate comfortably. Serving as a lobby to Georgia, the terminal could in addition operate as an art gallery, displaying works by Georgian artists and thereby presenting a further identifier of contemporary Georgian culture.

The 55m high, 300 m2 Air Traffic Control Tower is designed to compliment the design of the terminal. The traffic control cabin on the top level forms the focal point of the tower, with a spacious and comfortable interior ensuring a workspace of optimal concentration. 1,500 m2 of supporting office spaces are housed in a nearby building. The exterior of the tower is clad with a transparent skin with the potential to change color whenever there is a fluctuation in traffic. The Air Traffic Control Tower will function as a light beacon to the sky for the international airport, but also from the road to and from Georgia's new parliamentary city Kutaisi.

Kutaisi Airport - Floor plan, drawing courtesy UNStudio

The design for the new airport embraces the traveller by embodying the circumstance of the site. Moments of both leaving and returning are celebrated by the large span, open spaces and high ceiling of the terminal structure – reflecting the ways in which such gestures were employed in the great railway stations of the past.

Ben van Berkel

Kutaisi Airport - Section, drawing courtesy UNStudio

The design for the new airport aims to incorporate local and international sustainable elements. An onsite underground source of natural water provides the basis for the reduction of energy consumption through concrete core activation. The floors of both the Terminal and the ATCT will utilise this water for maintaining a regulated temperature in the two volumes. In the Terminal building cantilevered roofs provide sun shading on south and southwest zones. A hybrid low pressure ventilation system will be integrated into the terminal’s main structure and there will be a grey water collection system in the floor underneath the terminal building. To further lower energy consumption there is the possibility to implement large areas of PV-cells on the roof surface. Kustaisi airport will be Georgia's first airport to incorporate a strict segregation of waste. The aim is to establish a recycling system which could be further implemented into new and existing projects in Georgia.

Construction on the new Kutaisi Airport will begin in December 2011. The airport is scheduled to be operational in September 2012.

+ Project facts

Kutaisi Airport, Georgia, 2011 – 2012

Architect: UNStudio
UNStudio team: Ben van Berkel, Gerard Loozekoot with Frans van Vuure and Filippo Lodi, Tina Kortmann, Roman Kristesiashvili, Gustav Fagerström, Wendy van der Knijff, Machiel Wafelbakker, Deepak Jawahar

Client Terminal: United Airports of Georgia LLC
Client Air Traffic Control Tower and Offices: SAKAERONAVIGATSIA Ltd.
Location: Kutaisi, Georgia
Building surface: Terminal 4.000m2, Control Tower and Offices 1.750m2
Height Air Traffic Control Tower: 55m.
Building site: 11.000 m2
Programme: International Airport Terminal, Air Traffic Control Tower and Offices for Navigation
Status: Concept Design 2011, Construction 2012