Museum of Liverpool

The new Museum of Liverpool, opening on July 19th will not only tell the story of its importance as one of the World’s great ports or about its cultural influence, such as with the Beatles phenomenon. It will also serve as a meeting point for History, the People of Liverpool and visitors from around the globe. Therefore, according to the Architect, Kim Herforth Nielsen, the structure functions as much more than just a Building or a Museum.

Design team: 3XN

Client: National Museums Liverpool

Project partners: Engineer: Buro Happold

The Museum lies along the Mersey River in the center of Liverpool, and will function as a nexus, in that it physically connects the Harbour promenade with the Albert Dock, which today contains restaurants, museums and boutiques. The outdoor areas around the Museum offer seating with views to the water adding to the dynamic urban environment and serving as a meeting point for locals and visitors alike.

The theme is carried through into the Museum of Liverpool’s central atrium, with its sculptural sweeping staircase leading up to the galleries further encouraging social interaction. All of these functions result in Kim Herforth Nielsen choosing to describe the Museum as a structure that unites Liverpool.

’This Museum connects the city together on many levels - physically, socially and architecturally. The idea of creating a Museum as a nexus in both physical and symbolic expression has been central from the start. I am very satisfied to see that this ideal is carried out to the full in the completed structure.’

Birkbeck Centre for Film and Visual Media

The Centre is a unique research facility within the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media. The project’s chief objective was to provide the Centre with a range of purpose-designed accommodation that will enable it to expand its activities, recruit additional staff and ensure its long-term future.

Located within a Grade II listed terrace once occupied by Virginia Woolf & the Bloomsbury Group, the project is a refurbishment of the basement and ground floors of Nos 39-41 Gordon Square. This included the underutilized 2 storey 1970’s extension that needed to be brought into beneficial use.

The brief called for provision of an 80 seat, ‘state of the art’ digital cinema auditorium with projection room. This was to be accompanied by a seminar room, new office spaces for the academic staff, a viewing suite, and an open area for informal meetings and social activity. The College had a particular wish for the Centre to engender a sense of community and give a strong sense of visual identity within the Gordon Square site.

The Centre is our most intense formal and visual expression built to date. The vibrant inter-connecting spaces have a rich conceptual origin, the logic of which has been carried through to the detail.

Oppressive light

‘La Fabrique’ is a new installation by The Cloud Collective for the 22^nd International Post and Graphic Design Festival of Chaumont. The installation fills a small room in La Fabrique, a former textile printing factory, with a soft landscape of projected letters forming the poem “Oppressive Light” by Robert Walser.

A small pathway cuts through the murmuring wave, allowing visitors to “explore the landscape, read the poem in full and immerse themselves in the new connotations that arise between text and form.”

The collective are a collaborative of freelance architects and graphic designers who describe themselves as a “social, open and creative party that measures, explores, experiments, creates, produces and does research.”

The poem, in full:

“Oppressive light”
Robert Walser

Two trees stand in the snow
tired of the light the sky
Heads home nothing nearby
Where the gloom makes its abode

And behind the trees houses
Tower in the dark
Now you hear someone speak
The dogs begin to bark

The round beloved moonlight
Lamp appears in the house
But when the light goes out
A gaping wound stays in sight

What a small life to know
And much nothingness nearby
Tired of the light the sky
Has given all to the snow

The two trees dance with grace
Bend their heads and nod
Clouds race across the sod
Of the worlds silent face

new Marni store in vegas // eye candy

Shop address: The Crystals, Las Vegas
Client: Marni, Milan, Italy (Consuelo & Gianni Castiglioni)
Architect: Sybarite, London, UK (Simon Mitchell, Torquil McIntosh, Giorgia Cannici)
Site Architect: Creative Design Architecture, Las Vegas (Rami Atout)
Main Contractor: Modus srl, Italy (Massimiliano Tiezzi)
Specialist Contractor: Soozar, Shanghai, China (Susan Heffernan, Doukee Wang)
Shop Area: 220 m²

Sybarite Press Release Text: Project 284 – Marni Las Vegas

Sybarite’s design for the new Marni flagship at the Crystals in Las Vegas was inspired by the image of a cracking whip, seemingly suspended in mid-air as it unfurls. Defining the perimeter, this sinuous ‘lasso’ of stainless steel encircles the boutique, providing hanging space for the RTW collection. At one end it is anchored by the cash and wrap desk, and at the other it morphs into a sculptural wall inset with fibreglass shoe displays.

Elding Oscarso//townhouse in Sweden

i'm always drawn to ultra modern homes nestled in old neighborhoods, contrasted against traditional old cottages. this particular design by architects at Elding Oscarson is really interesting both from a socio-economical and design perspective.


the narrow site - only give meters wide, fills a gap in the street that has been vacant for over 50 years in Landskrona, Sweden.


Architects Elding Oscarson say of the site:

Immediately adjacent buildings are low, but the street is lined with buildings of various height, size, facade material, age, and approach. Behind the row of buildings is a colorful world of back yards, brick walls, sheds, and vegetation. We find this small-scale, naturally worn place extremely beautiful.

The building relates to the surroundings in scale, proportion and in the way it adds to the established rhythm of low and tall buildings along the street. Our intention is to use small means to create an array of different spatial experiences in this very small project.

The continuous interior space is opening up to the street, to the middle of the block, and to the sky above. The neighboring facades are closed, yet there is something deeply humane about their tactility, detailing, and ornaments. We want to contribute to the street with a faded border to the private sphere, with artifacts, furniture, plants, and patios; traces of human presence, consideration, and care.

Outdoor Fireplace by Haugen/Zohar Architects

Haugen/Zohar Architects have designed an outdoor fireplace in Trondheim, Norway.

From their site:
Together with the standard playground facilities we wished to combine an enclosed space for fire, storytelling and playing.

Given a very limited budget, reusing leftover materials (from a nearby construction site) was a starting point that led the design to be based on short wooden pieces. Inspired by the Norwegian turf huts and old log construction, a 5,2×4,5 meters wooden construction was built and mounted on a lighted and brushed concrete base.

The structure is made of 80-layered circles. The circles have varied radiuses and relative centre point in relation to each other.

Every circle is made out of 28 pieces of naturally impregnated core of pine that are placed with varied spaces to assure chimney effect and natural light.

The Otto Bock Building by Gnädinger Architects

Gnädinger Architects have completed the Otto Bock building in Berlin, Germany.

The building was designed for the Otto Bock HealthCare company, a world leader in prosthetics and orthotics. The organic-dynamic design of the six-storey building is based on the principles of nature – as a model of harmony between technology and people.

The facade bands have modeled the structure of muscle fibers that encircle the building structure in soft form. The “soft” appearance, combined with a unique facade media production, is an open, friendly and accessible institution, and thus contributes to the image building of the company.

whaaaat?! this house is INSANE

this incredible undergound house located (well, buried) in the mountainous ground of the Swiss Alps is the ultimate expression of architectural opposites fused into a single spectacular earthen living structure.

aqua tower ::: chicago

Studio Gang Architects recently completed the Aqua Tower in Chicago


Totaling over 1.9 million sf, Aqua Tower is an 82-story mixed-use high-rise that includes a hotel, apartments, condominiums, parking and offices. Unlike a tower in an open field, new towers in urban environments must negotiate small view corridors between existing buildings. In response to this, the Aqua Tower is designed to capture particular views that would otherwise be unattainable. Among the building’s notable features is the green roof terrace atop its plinth—which at 80,000 sf is one of Chicago’s largest—that contains an outdoor pool, running track, gardens, fire pits and yoga terrace.

A series of contours defined by outdoor terraces extends away from the face of the tower structure to provide views between neighboring buildings. These outdoor terraces, cantilevered up to twelve feet, differ in shape from floor to floor. The terraces inflect based on criteria such as the view, solar shading and size and type of dwelling. When viewed together, these unique terraces make the building appear to undulate, presenting a highly sculptural appearance that is rooted in function. Aqua creates a strong identity through its architecture and has become a landmark addition to the Chicago skyline.

“Aqua Tower was shaped by an organic, site-specific design process. Rather than starting out with the goal of creating an icon, we let the climate and views shape the building, weaving it into its surroundings and treating the building and its environment as interconnected not separate. Even though it may appear to be formally expressive, it is equal parts data and imagination.” – Jeanne Gang, Design Principal Architect

Architect: STUDIO GANG ARCHITECTS
Architect of Record: Loewenberg & Associates
Owner: Magellan Development
Program: Hotel and Residential High-rise with retail and commercial spaces
Size: 1.9 m SF including parking, 823 feet high
Completion: Summer 2009, currently under construction

world architecture festival ::: barcelona ::: Interiors Winner

Created for the 2009 Milan Design Week, Amanda Levete Architects’ Corian® Super Surfaces is both a demonstration of the versatility of the material and a usable space for multiple contexts.

A drop of water creating a series of ripples became the metaphor for transforming space through movement. Just as the ripple causes intricate moiré patterns in water, Corian® Super Surfaces is about revealing the moment of change through visual complexity, creating dynamic kinetic effects.

Moving through the space appears to animate it. Views are revealed and concealed as the surfaces transition between active and passive states creating countertops, display shelving, seating and a partition that seamlessly morphs from solid to transparent.

The project embodies opposites; simple yet complex, solid yet apparently kinetic, sculptural though not monolithic. The voids between the surfaces become as essential as the form and structure itself. Revealing the physical presence of the void creates maximum visual input with minimum means.

Click here for the rest of the WAF category winners.

//Torres de Hercules

The Spanish architectural firm of Rafael de La-Hoz, have completed the Torres de Hercules.
The two cylindrical white towers are located in the Bay of Algeciras in Southern Spain.

Architect Rafael de la Hoz completes the “Torres de Hercules” in Cadiz. They are a symbol of the legendary Pillars of Hercules and the tallest buildings in Andalusia. Two cylindrical, white towers rising from a flat pool of water. On the façade-a giant lattice-appears the mythical motto from the legend of the Pillars of Hercules, “Non Plus Ultra” (nothing further beyond), warning sailors in the Mediterranean of the edge of the known world. At a height of 126 meters, the “Torres de Hercules” rise up from the Bay of Algeciras, as a new benchmark in the Campo de Gibraltar and the transition of the Straight, as their uniqueness changes the area’s landscape.

World Architecture Festival category winners

The 9 World Architecture Festival category winners have been announced at the festival in Barcelona - The overall winner will be announced tonight. Images from a few of the winners:

Klein Bottle House, Rye, Australia
McBride Charles Ryan

Holiday home shaped like an origami Klein bottle.

Civic and Community
Emergency Terminal, Zagreb, Croatia
Produkcija 004, Croatia

The Met, Bangkok, Thailand
WOHA, Republic of Singapore

The Pearl Academy of Fashion, Jaipur, India
Morphogenesis, India


Unileverhaus, Hamburg, Germany
Behnisch Architekten, Germany