BUNKER ARQUITECTURA,Chapel in a Garden – La Estancia Chapel,2008,México.

Designer: Bunker Arquitectura
Location: Mexico

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‘harads’ tree hotel by tham & videgard hansson arkitekter
all images courtesy tham & videgard hansson arkitekter

this is a concept for ‘harads’ a tree hotel created by swedish architectural firm
tham & videgard hansson arkitekter. the cube design incorporates a kitchen,
sleeping area, living area and a terrace.

http://www.tvh.se

Bird Island is a stunning urban renewal project that is currently being developed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Designed by Graft Lab architects for the YTL Green Home Competition, the project comprises a zero energy home made of sustainably-sourced silicone glass fabric. Its lightness and flexibility will allow it to sway organically with the breeze just like a treetop, and slots in the fabric will give visitors a unique peek into the sky as the wind ebbs and flows.

The YTL Green Homes Competition challenged eight architects and designers from around the world to submit designs for six eco-friendly homes on Bird Island. Graft Lab’s proposal is an airy voluminous structure that utilizes a variety of energy-efficient building practices. The building consists of a lightweight bamboo frame wrapped in a tensile, environmentally-friendly fabric. The material reflects sunlight, keeping the interior cool and reducing the need for AC. Bird Island will also be outfitted with a grey water recycling system that channels water from sinks and showers back into the plumbing.

Graft states: “We have applied an integrated strategy of developing a zero-energy house that seamlessly dovetails the economic and environmental advantages of environmentally friendly living with the needs of a demanding and cosmopolitan clientele. The environmental and economic features of this way of living do not conflict with our client’s lifestyle; rather it furthers their ability to comfortably enjoy their time at home.”

As of yet, no construction date has been set.

+ Graft

+ Bird Island

Construction of the building started in in January 2003 and in December 2003 it was finished. House architecture is based on Jan Marcin Szancer (famous Polish drawer and child books illustrator) and Per Dahlberg (Swedish painter living in Sopot) pictures and paintings.

Image via: brocha

2. Forest Spiral – Hundertwasser Building (Darmstadt, Germany)

The Hundertwasser house “Waldspirale” (“Forest Spiral”) was built in Darmstadt between 1998 and 2000. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the famous Austrian architect and painter, is widely renowned for his revolutionary, colourful architectural designs which incorporate irregular, organic forms, e.g. onion-shaped domes.

The structure with 105 apartments wraps around a landscaped courtyard with a running stream. Up in the turret at the southeast corner, there is a restaurant, including a cocktail bar.

Image via: Kikos Dad

3. The Torre Galatea Figueras (Spain)

Image via: manuelfloresv

4. Ferdinand Cheval Palace a.k.a Ideal Palace (France)

Image via: Mélisande*

5. The Basket Building (Ohio, United States)

The Longaberger Basket Company building in Newark, Ohio might just be a strangest office building in the world. The 180,000-square- foot building, a replica of the company’s famous market basket, cost $30 million and took two years to complete. Many experts tried to persuade Dave Longaberger to alter his plans, but he wanted an exact replica of the real thing.

Image via: addicted Eyes

6. Kansas City Public Library (Missouri, United States)

This project, located in the heart of Kansas City, represents one of the pioneer projects behind the revitalization of downtown.

The people of Kansas City were asked to help pick highly influential books that represent Kansas City. Those titles were included as ‘bookbindings’ in the innovative design of the parking garage exterior, to inspire people to utilize the downtown Central Library.

Image via: jonathan_moreau

7. Wonderworks (Pigeon Forge, TN, United States)

8. Habitat 67 (Montreal, Canada)

Expo 67, one of the world’s largest universal expositions was held in Montreal. Housing was one of the main themes of Expo 67.

The cube is the base, the mean and the finality of Habitat 67. In its material sense, the cube is a symbol of stability. As for its mystic meaning, the cube is symbol of wisdom, truth, moral perfection, at the origin itself of our civilization.

354 cubes of a magnificent grey-beige build up one on the other to form 146 residences nestled between sky and earth, between city and river, between greenery and light.

Image via: ken ratcliff

9. Cubic Houses (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

The original idea of these cubic houses came about in the 1970s. Piet Blom has developed a couple of these cubic houses that were built in Helmond.

The city of Rotterdam asked him to design housing on top of a pedestrian bridge and he decided to use the cubic houses idea. The concept behind these houses is that he tries to create a forest by each cube representing an abstract tree; therefore the whole village becomes a forest.

Image via: vpzone

10. Hang Nga Guesthouse a.k.a Crazy House (Vietnam)

The house is owned by the daughter of the ex-president of Vietnam, who studied architecture in Moscow.

It does not comply with any convention about house building, has unexpected twists and turns, roofs and rooms. It looks like a fairy tale castle, it has enormous “animals” like a giraffe and a spider, no window is rectangular or round, and it can be visited like a museum.

Image via: JonasPhoto

11. Chapel in the Rock (Arizona, United States)

Image via: santanartist

12. Dancing Building (Prague, Czech Republic)

Image via: jemil75

13. Calakmul building a.k.a La Lavadora a.k.a The Washing Mashine (Mexico, Mexico)

Image via: marj k

14.. Kettle House (Texas, United States)

Image via: y luckyfukr

15. Manchester Civil Justice Centre (Manchester, UK)

Image via: tj.blackwell

16. Nakagin Capsule Tower (Tokyo, Japan)

Image via: pict_u_re

17. Mind House (Barcelona, Spain)

Image via: angelocesare

18. Stone House (Guimarães, Portugal)

image via: Jsome1

19. Shoe House (Pennsylvania, United States)

Image via: James Gordon

20. Weird House in Alps

Image via: nicolasnova

21. The Ufo House (Sanjhih, Taiwan)

Image via: cypherone @ Taiwan

22. The Hole House (Texas, United States)

Image via: melinnis

23. Ryugyong Hotel (Pyongyang, North Korea)

Image via: Pricey

24. The National Library (Minsk, Belarus)

Image via: ledsmagazine. com

25. Grand Lisboa (Macao)

Image via: Michael McDonough

26. Wall House (Groningen, Netherlands)

Image via: Liao Yusheng

27. Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao, Spain)

Image via: disgustipado

28. Bahá’í House of Worship a.k.a Lotus Temple (Delhi, India)

Image via: MACSURAK

29. Container City (London, UK)

Image via: y Fin Fahey

30. Erwin Wurm: House Attack (Viena, Austria)

Image via: Dom Dada

31. Wooden Gagster House (Archangelsk, Russia)

Image via: deputy-dog.com

32. Air Force Academy Chapel (Colorado, United States)

Image via: dbking

33. Solar Furnace (Odeillo, France)

Image via: f2g2

34. Dome House (Florida, United States)

Image via: easement

35.. Beijing National Stadium (Beijing, China)

Image via: littlemalt

36. Fashion Show Mall (Las Vegas, United States)

Image via: b2tse

37. Luxor Hotel & Casino (Las Vegas, United States)

Image via: wallyg

38. Zenith Europe (Strasbourg, France)

Image via: Edouard55

39. Civic Center (Santa Monica)

Image via: karenchu121

40. Mammy’s Cupboard (Natchez, MS, United States)

Image via: Live Simply

41. Pickle Barrel House (Grand Marais, Michigan, United States)

Image via: the naked fauxtographer

42. The Egg (Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, United States)

Image via: iessi

43. Gherkin Building (London, UK)

Image via: Lawrie Cate

44. Nord LB building (Hannover, Germany)

Image via: iterby

45. Lloyd’s building (London, UK)

Image via: ryanfb

46. “Druzhba Holiday Center Hall (Yalta, Ukraine)

Image via: Argenberg

47. Fuji television building (Tokyo, Japan)

Image via: kamoda

48. UCSD Geisel Library (San Diego, California, United States)

Image via: ewen and donabel

49. Ripley’s Building (Ontario, Canada)

Image via: Bekah267

50. The Bank of Asia a.k.a Robot Building (Bangkok, Thailand)

Designed by Jure Kotnik Arhitekt, the 2+ Weekend House is a container house with a difference – it’s made with containers manufactured expressly for housing (vs. cargo containers). “As opposed to the other container projects, which mostly feed on the excess of available cargo containers, ConHouse pushes the development of containers manufactured especially for housing and office purposes.”. The 2+ is a two-level mini housing unit composed of two stacked containers perpendicular to each other. The upper container provides a projecting roof above the entrance and also serves to shelter the back terrace. The ceiling of the bottom container is the terrace on the first floor.

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swing lanterns part of ‘silent city’ tangshan earthquake memorial park

‘silent city’ is a proposal for the tangshan 1976 earthquake memorial park in china. designed by 
swedish architectural firm kjellgren kaminsky the park consists of intervened layers of topography, 
vegetation, water, paths, swing lanterns and message stones. the swing lanterns stretch throughout the park. 
as a contemporary interpretation of the traditional chinese rice lamp the swing lanterns which are intended 
to symbolize hope and remembrance. at the entrance 240 000 black stones are placed in metal meshes, where
visitors can write messages on the stones and choose a particular spot to place them.

rendering of ‘silent city’ tangshan earthquake memorial park

more:
http://www.kjellgrenkaminsky.se

Residential architecture has become less and less impressive nowadays. Lack of space, time or/and money could be some of the reasons behind the residential dull-design.

But when a project demands for high creativity and the architects are completely up to the task, you’ve got something like the Urban Villa Domus Malles popping up in the scenery. The 2,500,000 euro residential project is located in Bolzano, Italy and was designed by architects Andrea Boscietti, Alberto Francini and Enzo Fontana from Metrogramma. The 14 apartment residential building was started in 2006 and finished in 2007.

There are some very interesting bow windows patented by Metrogramma – Sogeca that fall perfectly into the fractured geometry of this residential building. The pictures were taken by Daniel Bellini.

The Klein Bottle House is located in Rye, australia and designed by Rob Mcbride. The unusual home design
was inspired by its namesake: the klein bottle. this 19th century invention is used to describe a form
which has no distinguishable inside or outside. The architects also wanted to move away from the paradigm
of designing buildings based on orthogonal methods and instead imbrace the complexity inhernt with
computer aided design (cad). while the desigm imbraced mathematics and digital design it also references
the vernacular australian cement sheet beach house. The house recently won the harold desbrowe-annear
award in architecture. it is made from concrete sheets and black metal, which are both folded and twisted
to create the multitude of angles.
http://www.mcbridecharlesryan.com.au

image © 2008 Virgile Simon Bertrand

NEIL BARRETT FLAGSHIP STORE [TOKYO, JAPAN] / 2008
CLIENT : Neil Barrett
PROGRAMM: Interior Design, Shop Tokyo
ARCHITECT: Zaha Hadid Architects
Design: Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Project Architects: Claudia Wulf, Elke Presser, Torsten Broeder
CONSULTANTS
Fabrication: Cutting Edge (UK)
Surface Material Supply: DuPont
SIZES
Furniture Dimension / Ground floor: /  H 3.00 m, W 2.60 m, L 15.80 m / Footprint: 2.00 m2
Furniture Dimension / First floor: / H 2.80 m, W 3.70 m, L 8.40 m / Footprint: 2.20 m2

text by Zaha Hadid Architects

Principle
Our concept for the Neil Barrett flagship store in Tokyo is based on the minimal cut of the brand`s fashion design and parallels its approach in using the same design parameters of fixed points, folding, pleating and cut outs.
Rather than defining a single room or space, our design creates a circular passage allowing the customer to experience the space in multiple ways and interpretations.
Furniture staged in key points throughout the store creates the spatial concept of a narrow enclosure changing to an open condition. In two formal elements the design shifts between architecture and sculpture, where a compact mass of surface layers unravel and fold to form the shelving display and seating. The emerging folds will be used as display area for the NB accessory collection.

Formal Language and Materiality
The concept of the store plays with the complementary characteristics and the related dualism between male and female. This is echoed in the furniture design on both floors through the formal language and tactile quality of the materials used. The furniture piece on the ground floor is designed as a strong, masculine and dynamic form whilst the piece on the first floor enunciates femininity through more fluid contour lines. The first floor is designed in a more playful manner creating different zones that maintain the perspective view between them.
This interplay between male and female is followed through in the general aesthetic concept , setting the furniture piece with a white smooth Corian finish against the raw fair faced concrete surface of the rest of the space. This is further accentuated through the contrast in colour and finish of the white matt furniture finish against a black glossy floor.

Production Process
The final designs are shaped by 3D computer generated models. These are processed by the manufacturer using further software to thermoform the sheet Corian into the 3D designed surfaces. A series of these surfaces will be fabricated with joints, ready to be assembled into larger sections on site. Using the latest 3D modelling and CNC programming solutions, we are able to guarantee a very precise and automatic translation of the design into the built structure.

According to the less alarming forecasts of the GIEC (Intergovernmental group on the evolution of the climate), the ocean level should rise from 20 to 90 cm during the 21st Century with a status quo by 50 cm (versus 10 cm in the 20th Century). As a solution to this alarming problem architect Vincent Callebaut came up with this ecotectural marvel that could serve as a luxurious future retreat for 50,000 inhabitants seeking refuge from rising waters due to global warming. He believes the world will be desperately seeking shelter from the devastations of climate change, and hopes the auto-sufficient amphibious city will serve as a luxurious solution.

Vincent Callebaut called this project “Lilypad“, but this ecotectural marvel is also called as “Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees”. The whole structure is covered in green walls and roofs, the top portion covered in grasses with the inner portion featuring a palm oasis, and the under portion serving as a bed for natural sea planktons and oceanic plants. Finally if you were already planning to reserve a place to this luxurious future retreat stay calm, because Vincent Callebaut hopes that “Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees” will make the transition from design to reality around the year 2100.