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DETAIL Project of the Month — April 2008
This multimedia pavilion is part of the Jinhua Architecture Park, southwest of Shanghai. Artist and architect Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron were the curators in this collaborative project. The park extends the Jindong New District in a northerly direction over the Yiwu river, forming an 80-metre-wide ribbon alongside the river for a distance of roughly two kilometres.
DETAIL Project of the Month — August 2008
In the past, the building in the central Portuguese university city Coimbra which presently houses this centre for visual art has had a host of different uses. Although built in the sixteenth century in the heart of the historic centre to house the “Colégio das Artes”, for years it accommodated a courthouse and a correctional facility.
DETAIL Project of the Month — December 2007
Almost like something out of a fairy tale, this finely detailed weekend house stands in the midst of a wooded area an hour’s car drive from Tokyo. The adjacent roads and the steeply sloping ground made it difficult to sell the site, but when it was offered in conjunction with the weekend house designed by the young architectural practice TNA, interested parties turned up almost immediately.
DETAIL Project of the Month — December 2008
The New Royal Theatre in Copenhagen occupies a prominent position on the harbour. The tall brick face of the auditorium is a direct reference to the old warehouses in the area, while the glazed level for artists — with its storey-height steel load-bearing structure — forms a distinct element that cantilevers out over the water.
DETAIL Project of the Month — February 2008
The concept for the refurbishment and renovation of Dresden’s train station called for treating the existing structure with the utmost respect, reinforcing the impact it makes, and introducing forward-looking elements to represent modern-day rail travel. Daylight now streams into the train shed through the 30,000-square-metre translucent membrane roof of PTFE-coated, glass-fibre fabric. At night, artificial light reflects off the internal surfaces, and the roof emits a shimmering glow. The renovation work was carried out while the train station was in operation, which had previously been unheard of for a membrane of this size.
DETAIL Project of the Month — January 2008
A facade of woven willow reeds, reminiscent of a basket, envelops the pupils and teachers in the school in Schulzendorf. This thriving community on Berlin’s southern edge required new classrooms to accommodate the growing number of children. The grounds host a number of buildings: a school dating to the 1930s, a multi-purpose hall from the 1990s, a more recent day-care centre, and a “Magdeburg Type” school building, which was erected in 1965 with prefabricated wall and ceiling components.
DETAIL Project of the Month — July 2008
The new trade-fair hall north of Paris constitutes the first phase of a 300,000 m2 expansion. Since such spaces are only in use periodically, this new building is designed to host a variety of other events and to adhere to high environmental standards. Thus, the higher, free-span wing of the bi-partite hall can be transformed as needed; for example, an auditorium structure accommodating an audience of eight hundred to two thousand can be set up within it.
DETAIL Project of the Month — June 2008
The big visual attraction of Marmoutier in Alsace is a monastery dating from the 5th century. The wall surrounding the former gardens, in which the new nursery school has been built, is a protected historic monument. Conditions were therefore imposed.
DETAIL Project of the Month — March 2008
This monolithic structure — a printing works — is a welcome sight in an otherwise uninspiring landscape of industrial buildings on the edge of Augsburg. A simple, pragmatic volume, with a distinctive language of forms, it houses production facilities and a cafeteria on the ground floor and offices and an apartment for the managing director on the upper floor.
DETAIL Project of the Month — May 2008
The clear white cubic forms of this day-care centre stand in an open landscape between the mountains of Sintra and the sea. A whole new settlement will be developed here in the near future. The present building is flanked by two open spaces of quite different character. The quiet, enclosed courtyard with a cork oak and a shallow pool of water enjoys a view of the mountains to the north.
