João Morgado shared with us his recent photography of House of the Arts in Miranda do Corvo designed by FAT – Future Architecture Thinking.

The Casa das Artes (House of the Arts) in Miranda do Corvo expresses the meeting between two identities, rural and urban, in a landscape marked by the Lousã Mountains.

courtesy Future Architecture Thinking © João Morgado

courtesy Future Architecture Thinking © João Morgado

The building features a contemporary and volumetrically expressive language. The sloping roofs establish a dialogue with the geometry of the mountain landscape, in an analogy to the village rooftops. The dynamism achieved through the continuity between façades and roof is accented by a strong red colour, emphasizing its design and highlighting the building through the surrounding landscaped area vegetation.

courtesy Future Architecture Thinking © João Morgado

More than a building, the Casa das Artes pretends to be an iconic landmark, celebrating the place where people meet, where culture and art happens, a space capable of promoting and stimulating creative activity, increasing the population quality of life.

The project was conceived by creating versatile spaces, technically suitable for different kinds of events, in order to serve all segments of the population.

courtesy Future Architecture Thinking © João Morgado

The deployment area was optimized to favour landscaped spaces, allowing the creation of an amphitheatre for outdoor events, integrated in a garden which is a public space for the village, with several spaces and inviting pathways for leisure.

courtesy Future Architecture Thinking © João Morgado

The building consists of three volumes reflecting different sorts of use: the first one containing the stage areas, the second comprising the audience and foyer, and the third with a cafeteria and a future museum area, which constitute a visually independent volume.

The proposed diversity of accesses for the building attempts to emphasize the characterization of this site as a public space, while allowing the public direct access of specific places, such as the museum area and cafeteria, independently, without passing through the auditorium.

courtesy Future Architecture Thinking © João Morgado

The main entrance is through the foyer. This space may function as exhibition area which can be divided into two by a short flight of stairs. From here depart two paths to an auditorium for nearly 300 people, with a motorized orchestra pit and six technical levels, properly equipped for holding theatre performances, opera, concerts, conferences or lectures.

courtesy Future Architecture Thinking © João Morgado

The cafeteria can operate independently from the rest of the building, or even serve as an entrance point providing access to the auditorium. This space has a covered terrace with a skylight oriented west, channelling sunset light into its interior. The terrace area gives access to a multimedia room. The facade of the museum area is facing the northern part of the garden where one of the main entries is located and the outdoor amphitheatre.

+ Project facts

Client: Municipality of Miranda do Corvo
Location: Miranda do Corvo, Portugal
Area:  2.360 sqm
Architect: FAT – Future Architecture Thinking
Project Team: Architect Miguel Correia, Architect Cláudia Campos, Architect Sérgio Catita, Architect Patrícia de Carvalho, Architect Miguel Cabral, Architect Margarida Magro, Architect Sara Gonçalves, Architect Telmo Maia, Architect Gabriel Santos, Architect Hilário Abril, Engineer José Pico, Landscape Architect Sara Távora
Builder: TECNORÉM – Engenharia e Construções, S.A.
Year: 2010 / 2013
Photography: Future Architecture Thinking © João Morgado

+ About FAT – Future Architecture Thinking

Led by Architect Miguel Correia, FAT – Future Thinking Architecture is an internationalized company developing projects from Lisbon to the entire world, with a developed portfolio for over 25 countries.

Architecture and Urban Planning are the main activities of FAT that also develops Landscape Architecture and Design projects, combining the expertise of the work developed by this architect over 27 years with the support a solid and specialized team.

www.fat.pt

+ All images and drawings courtesy Future Architecture Thinking | photo © João Morgado

courtesy PPAG architects, Vienna and Milan Mijalkovic

Following the awarded competition entry for a new parking garage in the centre of Skopje, PPAG in cooperation with Milan Mijalkovic has been commissioned to build the façade of the Ulica Mito Hagjivasilev Jasmin parking garage. The city's wish for a baroque façade is interpreted in a way that only can occur in the present time.

courtesy PPAG architects, Vienna and Milan Mijalkovic

courtesy PPAG architects, Vienna and Milan Mijalkovic

The starting point is a collage by by Anna Popelka (made from photographs her daughter Andrea took) distorted perspective views of a historic Vienna street façade – added to form an endless pattern. For the new façade, this collage was again materialized in 3-D, fragmented in 4 layers and assembled to an endless pattern. A high-tech process leads to a product that in its impression seems to fulfill the sentimental desires of the community's decision makers. The façade elements can be laser-cut without overlap out of white panels. During the day the light enters through the ripped body and casts a silhouette of shadows onto the cars. In the evening the light shines out of the parking garage, the façade becomes a lampshade.

courtesy PPAG architects, Vienna and Milan Mijalkovic

courtesy PPAG architects, Vienna and Milan Mijalkovic

+ Project facts

Client: City of Skopje, Macedonia
Design garage: Goricanka Architects, Skopje
Design facade: PPAG architects, Vienna and Milan Mijalkovic
Structural consultant: Nace Gicevski, Skopje
Construction garage: Granit Construction Stock Co., Skopje
Construction facade: TORAX a.d. Skopje
Surface facade: 3.550m²
Start of costruction: July 2011
End of construction: September 2013

+ All images courtesy PPAG architects, Vienna and Milan Mijalkovic

© photoarchitecture

The overall restructuring of Albert Einstein High School, ends with the completion of the last building renovation developed by the architect agency NBJ (Elodie Nourrigat / Jacques Brion / Romain Jamot) associated with François Privat architects.

The High School is a vast building of the 60's. Built following a strict and repetitive pattern, it is composed of large linear buildings from 60 to 80 m length and large metallic workshops surrounded by large dilated and unattractive space. Site's analysis shows several functional gaps. It is important to change establishment's image by the way of idea and contemporary vision. The objective was to think a new spatial organization of the site in order to provide at students, teachers and the administration staff, a workspace and a real place of life appropriable by all. A restructuring strategy was established in three main points:

• Reconquest's strategy
• "Find place's scale"
• A real landscape project to join over time

© photoarchitecture

The overall restructuring of Albert Einstein High School, ends with the completion of the last building renovation developed by the architect agency NB (Elodie Nourrigat & Jacques Brion) associated with François Privat architects.

The High School Albert Einstein, Brassens site, is a vast building of the 60's. Built following a strict and repetitive pattern, it is composed of large linear buildings from 60 to 80 m length and large metallic workshops surrounded by large dilated and unattractive space. Site's analysis shows several functional gaps. Today it is important to change establishment's image by the way of idea and contemporary vision. The objective was to think a new spatial organization of the site in order to provide at students, teachers and the administration staff, a workspace and a real place of life appropriable by all. A restructuring strategy was established in three main points:

© photoarchitecture

Reconquest's strategy "Find place's scale"

The stake is to reconquest the human scale in building and outdoor spaces by a better distribution of the buildings. The project draws one's inspiration from campus model, which presents the advantage to be flexible and to allow a better identification of education's poles. This intervention process also allows to students to find easily a way and fit into a social life while being supervised (easy reading of circulations, gratitude of spaces)

Thereby a centrality, a heart of establishment close to all functions has been possible. The court is the major element of the project, a meeting's place but also a transition place. Its localization offers directs connections with the cafeteria, the restaurant place, administration, workshop, general teaching and school life rooms. Its allows to gather the students during their free time. That is why it is necessary to propose qualities of specific spaces, easily appropriable, playful and to bring a feature to the exteriors arrangements. The landscape treatment of the court is voluntary urban type like a central place, mainly mineral, allowing a differentiation with the gardens.

To find this human scale, it was also necessary to achieve low heights buildings with low influence on the ground to get a better distribution and space's occupation. This flexibility allows an adaptation to the program and to the discipline in constant evolution.

© photoarchitecture

A real landscape project

Spaces are treated and easily recognizable to assert an idea of sequences and gratitude education's pole. Densify the gardens between the buildings can provide a plant screen that enhances the visual and thermal comfort facades comfort. Visual borderlines are more and more wide thanks to the preserving of the green space in the Northwest of the High School. The project proposes to create an alternation between dense wooded areas, buildings, more minerals places like the circulations areas equipped with benches and shade structures, and specific soil treatment which provide landscape diversity. The objective is to find a building / plant balance.

© photoarchitecture

To join over time

Restructuring an educational institution is to plan ahead and think about the long term.. It is not enough to produce a building operating during its delivery. It is necessary to give to it the strength to cross the time and to be a successful tool. Our intervention takes into account the educational project, the architectural flexibility, the environmental protection and the public character of the building. For it, it is necessary to become aware of the place in which the intervention will fit and bring to the foreground its fundamental qualities. The natural elements have to become the symbols of the equipments even more when it is about places of training. The architectural project becomes itself an educational object, because it shows a conscious act of a reality but especially stakes in the environmental scale, in a concern to leave with the future generations a healthy living environment.

Thinking a sustainable development project requires taking account of qualitative materials, technical work on energy management, but also a logical layout of workplaces.

It is in the sense that we began this project, by joining in the time.

The intervention that we propose allows to restore coherence and feature to the set by means of a new spatial scenography.

The last building designed with landscaping, reflects this logic and strategy of reconquest the place. It hosts an application restaurant as well as teaching rooms. Particular attention has been given to the building envelope. Working on a set thickness of the transitional area between the inside and the outside, the skin of the building is available in a colorful alternating between aluminum panels painted and sun breezes. The sun breezes offer vibrations that contrast with the concrete shell. The facilities offer specific meeting places around vegetated entity.

+ Project data

Official project name: Lycée Albert Einstein
Location: Bagnols sur Cèze
Client: Région Languedoc Roussillon
Assistant of the Client: Languedoc Roussillon Aménagement

Architects/ Designers:
Elodie NOURRIGAT & Jacques BRION – NB Architectes
François PRIVAT – Partner architect

Project area: 2300m² + landscaping
Cost: 5.02 Millions €
End date of the project: November 2012

Photo Credit:
Paul KOZLOWSKI
©photoarchitecture
Website: http://www.nbarchi.com

+ All images courtesy NBJ Architects \ photo © photoarchitecture

courtesy 3XN

Denmark's new National Aquarium, designed by 3XN, has won the Display Award at the prestigious World Architecture Festival (WAF)

Inspired by the shape of water in endless motion, Denmark's new National Aquarium, The Blue Planet is shaped as a great whirlpool, and the building itself tells the story of what awaits inside.

courtesy 3XN

The WAF judges were delighted by the entrance experience and the sculptural form. They said, "It deals successfully with the site and finds opportunity where there is little context. It overcomes significant engineering and technical challenges."

The whirlpool concept originates in a narrative about water, and as an image, is at once both abstract and figurative. It stirs attention with its distinctive vortex blades, but at the same time, as a building, changes dramatically depending on viewing angle, distance and daylight conditions. From the air, almost entirely white, its contours are reminiscent of a starfish. From the front, the building's organic lines are evocative of silvery-grey waves or a vast sea creature, and on closer inspection, the facade patterning is reminiscent of fish scales. This is a building that invites interpretation.

courtesy 3XN

The World Architecture festival culminates with a prestigious awards ceremony on Friday evening, October 4th, where Principal of 3XN, Kim Herforth Nielsen will collect the WAF award for The Blue Planet. "It is amazing to be among the WAF award winners, especially because we are competing against some of the very best architecture projects in the world", says Kim Herforth Nielsen.

courtesy 3XN

Flexibility

The Blue Planet is located on an elevated headland towards the sea, north of Kastrup Harbor. The building’s distinctive shape is clearly visible for travelers arriving by plane to the nearby Copenhagen Airport. The facade is covered with more than 33,000 small diamond-shaped aluminum shingles, which adapts to the building’s organic form.

The whirlpool concept was chosen as ideal not only for its visual associations, but also because it resolved a a practical challenge in the design brief: it ensures that one or more of the whirlpool arms, with relative ease and without disrupting the building's integrity nor the operation of the aquarium, can be extended with more than 30 % in order to create more exhibition space.

courtesy 3XN

The Arrival and Interior

Visitors reach the entrance by following the first and longest of the whirlpool's arms, already starting in the landscape. With a smooth transition the landscape surpasses for the building, while the outdoor ponds mark the unique experience that awaits the aquarium visitors as they enter: the whirlpool has pulled them into another world – a world beneath the surface of the sea.

A circular foyer is the center of motion around the aquarium, and it is here visitors choose which river, lake or ocean to explore. By enabling multiple routes the risk of queues in front of individual aquariums is reduced. The interiors range from grand to intimate settings, allowing the architecture and the exhibits to jointly convey an array of diverse environments and moods. The curved ceilings of the aquarium are reminiscent of the baleens of a large whale.

The exhibition is a total concept offering all visitors a sensuous and captivating experience of life in and under the water. A mixture of light, sound, advanced AV-technology, projections, film, interactivity, graphics, illustrations and signs aimed at all age levels ensures that every visitor, regardless of background or interests, has the best experience possible. As the only aquarium in Denmark, The Blue Planet focuses on all aquatic life – from cold and warm waters, fresh and salt. In total, The Blue Planet contains app. 7 million liters of water and 53 aquariums and displays.

courtesy 3XN

Construction and Location

The building extends beyond the original coastline, placing special requirements on the facility’s structures in a terrain with tendency to subsidence. The structure is founded on piles and all of the sewage structures are suspended in the concrete structure. The building’s architectural facade design forms the basis for the design of the steel structures. The load-bearing system consists of 54 unique steel frames, which via their radial positioning and geometry forms the base of the curved facades.

A service line was built 1.7 km out into the Øresund to obtain suitable water for the aquariums. Moreover, the cooling system for aquariums and climate system for public areas also use seawater.

The Blue Planet has an outstanding location on the shores of Øresund, only eight kilometres from the Copenhagen City Hall Square. Motorways, Copenhagen Airport, the Øresund Bridge, Metro and international trains are within few hundred meters.

About the World Architecture Festival Awards

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is the world's largest festival and live awards competition dedicated to celebrating, and sharing architectural excellence from across the globe. The first WAF took place in 2008 and is returning for its sixth successive year in Singapore from 2nd to 4th October 2013. Over 2000 attendees have gathered in Singapore from over 68 countries for three days of live crits, parties and seminars from some of the world’s best-known architects.

Responsible for construction

Client: Bygningsfonden Den Blå Planet
Architect: 3XN A/S
Consulting engineers: Moe & Brødsgaard A/S
Consultant, landscape: Henrik Jørgensen Landskab AS
Consultant, exhibition: Kvorning design & kommunikation
Large constructions: MT Højgaard, Hoffmann A/S, Kai Andersen A/S, E. Pihl & Søn A/S
Aquarium technique, total construction AAT Advanced Aquarium Technologies
Client consultant: PLH Arkitekter A/S
Lighting Design: Jesper Kongshaug

Facts
Building completion: December 2012
Total budget, 2013 prices: App. 730 million DKK – inclusive the value of the building site etc.
Gross area: App. 10,000 square meters, whereof app. 5,000 square meters exhibition. Outdoor area app. 2,000 square meters plus parking area for 200 vehicles, in total parking for 575 vehicles

Main sponsors
Realdania: app. 300 million DKK
Knud Højgaards Fond: 100 million DK
Tårnby Municipality: The building site etc.
Dronning Margrethes og Prins Henriks Fond: 100,000 DKK