Architecture student shows 2011 - The Bartlett

Wendy Boon Ting Teo: Taipei Main Train Station.
The proposal generates power through transforming redundant heat and air exhausted from the underground transport system. Algae and hot water flow through the building skin expressing fluctuations in energy production. The scheme acts as a city gateway recalling the ephemeral qualities of Chinese landscape paintings.

Ronald Cheape: The Three Glens Dam Project. Scotland. Following on from the growth in the renewable energy sector in the NW of Scotland, the project proposes an inhabited multiple arch structure hydroelectric dam and a working holiday resort that inhabits the dam wall. 

Richard Beckett: The new Life Science Department, Taipei University.
The urban fabric of the northern Neihu District of Taipei is redesigned according to the biotic and climatic conditions of the site. By utilising the natural variations in soil fertility and porosity it establishes a geomantic approach that maximises the productive potential of the urban surface.

Jonathan Gales: Megalomania
The film project Fanciful Megalomania is described by its author Jonathan Gales, as some “Fanciful drawings of construction sites”. Gales is researching on the mixed use of film, animation, music and photography and says “the film is focused around the city and his fanciful speculations of it”, and this statement just makes us think on the current visions that artist and architects have on the term “city”.

Fernanda Fiuza: Independent Town Hall, Old Ottoman Prison, Jaffa. Jaffa used to be the economic capital of Palestine until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1947. Since then the city has lost its autonomy and has become a dilapidated neighborhood of Tel Aviv. The project considers the continuous erasure of the identity of Jaffa, as the Palestinian Arabs have been pushed out. Strategically sited on the boundary of the Jaffa hill, it aims to support new political projects for the local population.

 

Alicia Bourla: Floating Library Istanbul
A floating library for women and children, the Library celebrates the need of women for social encounter outside of the household.

Aaron Ho: In-between House, Havana. Responding to the Cuban government’s restriction on the buying and selling of houses, the proposal provides an agency for the swapping of properties and includes configurable temporary living units for ’swappers’ in transit between accommodations. 

Tess Martin: The New US Embassy in Havana. In the future world of post-embargo Havana, the US and Cuba are allies. While the new Embassy presents itself as a gift to the city and a gesture of friendship, the history of conflict casts an inescapable shadow on the newly reinstated relationship - the Embassy is prepared for an attack. The project explores the tension between the need for security and a US message of transparency and diplomacy. The Embassy holds a comprehensive catalogue of security devices - subtle takes on traditional defence mechanisms; from the moat and drawbridge, to escape pods and water cannons, which take advantage of its position on the Bay of Havana.

Kanazawa Umimirai Library by Coelacanth K&H Architects

Around 6000 holes puncture the concrete exterior of this library in Kanazawa, Japan, by Kazumi Kudo and Hiroshi Horiba of Japanese firm Coelacanth K&H Architects.

 

Libraries in Japan are moving towards a model that encourages readers to stay and linger, instead of their original function as spaces for collecting and lending out books. Reflecting the general trend for libraries to facilitate reading as well as other functions, this library uses compact automated shelves that operate as a closed stack system. This is combined with halls and meeting rooms that promote social exchange between its users, much like a community center. The facility is also expected to serve as a new hub for social life among the local community.

Solus4 conceptualises energy-generating vertical neighbourhood in New York City

New York City is the proposed location for an energy-conscious 950ft residential tower, designed by architecture and planning firm Solus4. Marketed as a ‘vertical neighbourhood’, this skyscraping blade comprises 50 full-floor four bedroom plus apartments at approximately 3,000 sq ft each, all of which will be serviced by a high speed destination-selective elevator system. These residential units will sit atop a communal base which includes a number of food and beverage outlets, produce retailers, a range of cafes, and recreation facilities including a gym, swimming pool and museum/gallery space.

The entire complex has been created under Solus4’s Sustainable Neighbourhood Collaborative Initiative principles (SNCI) which ensure that the all members of the design team work in an equal partnership to finalise a plan that is both innovative and sensitive to the site environment. 

Solus4 explains: “The entire structural system, designed by LeMessurier Consultants, is in-situ concrete with flat slabs supported by columns and shear walls embedded in the extruded core shaft leaving large portions of the perimeter free for the 14ft floor to ceiling glass. The exterior glazing makes up one of the tallest proposed hybrid double glazed skins.” 

A cantilevered fin extends from the main volume’s concrete frame, coated with transparent thin film photo voltaic panels. It is thought that this energy-generating system will provide a large percentage of the building’s power demands; some indications suggest that at certain times of the year the energy generated will be surplus to the building’s needs, and may therefore generate additional income for the tower’s residents. Mini turbines will also add to the levels of energy generated onsite, by taking full advantage of the vertical air movement within the building. 

Many new residential city developments look to encourage a reduction in the number of residents using cars as their primary form of transportation by incorporating stations for electric cars within a building itself. Solus4 has gone one further however by excluding parking facilities in their tower, aside from an undetermined quantity of all-electric cars which will be garaged onsite under the common ownership of residents.

Zorlu Center, Istanbul, Turkey

Zorlu Center, developed by Zorlu Property. Designed as a joint venture by Tabanlıoğlu Architects and Emre Arolat Architects, Zorlu Center is a mixed use commercial facility centred on an open-air piazza in Istanbul, merging residences, a shopping mall, a hotel, a Performing Arts Center, and various offices in a single complex, crowned with a public green platform.

Parasite office, 5-ya Kozhukhovskaya ulitsa Moscow

The «АRCH Moscow» architectural biennale is traditionally held in the end of May, in the Russian capital. za bor architects presented this year an essentially new idea of effective usage of inhabited areas with the aim of practical business spaces creation. For this project the za bor architects was awarded with the second prize entry by «ARCH Moscow» judges (the first prize wasn’t awarded to anyone). The concept is especially remarkable since Moscow is the biggest city in Europe with promptly growing economy and permanent shortage of "creative" office areas needed by numerous design-studios, modern art galleries and other organizations the activity of which is connected with art. Prominent feature of many Moscow areas is the presence of multi-storey buildings with blind end walls and wide passage between them. This project provides for usage of free spaces between buildings for creation of original and economic offices which do not block the court yard access. The first realization of this concept shall become za bor architects’ own workshop which is planned to be build in between the two houses at the 5th Kozhukhovskaya Street. The project provides for creation of a three-floor volume with an accessible roof area, divided with modular floor panels. The framework which shapes it, is a single structural unit clamped between the blind facades of the houses. The polygonal main facade solved in dynamical volumes, is made from light and durable cellular polycarbonate; the facade turned to the court yard is flat and completely glazed.

Robledo de Chavela, Spain

 

A project by: Arturo Franco.

The housing development, called Rio Cofio, is located on the outskirts of the village Robledo de Chavela; there at the edge of a cliff, a 1,400 m2 steeply sloped lot overlooks a small river.  The property is accessed by a road that runs right above it.  Directly in front, facing west over the valley, the mountain rises again, creating a natural park that is especially protected.

The site condition makes it possible to create a feeling of "hanging" the house in the middle of the valley, suspended at the top of a tree, almost at the other side, listening the murmur of Cofio River directly below.  

The solution is an iron structure like those of the visionary Russian Constructivists, a work by Tony Carr, a chair by Shapiro, a piece by Max Hill; something heavy and light at the same time; gravity, an issue; the scale, an instrument to work with; a large table or a small ship. The result a linear house with a rise to it. The straight line and an interior staircase with 90 cm. deep steps as in a garden, reuniting all functions.  Below it, a small therapeutic pool, 2 m. wide by 10 m. long.