Guest post from christian gumpold

motion code: blue, which is an industrial design studio with emphasis on yacht design, has enhanced its areas of operation by another design discipline; they offer architectural concepts and its development until implementation planning.

The studio has just finished their reference project:  a Taiwanese shipyard was designed, planned and visualized.

Outgoing from an existing u-shaped hall and production building for motor yachts, the studio has the task from its customer to add an office building, green and recreational spaces as well as a showroom in a very representative and modern way, inspired by contemporary European architecture. Part of the briefing was also that the yard should get strong landmark-like characteristics.

The office building was designed as an elongated and elevated element which closes the u-shaped halls optically as well as for a floating appearance.

This structure contains VIP-areas, meeting rooms, offices for employees and CEOs, terraces, a yoga room and language course facilities. Supported by 2 infrastructure cores and columns, this part of the yard is both, very remarkable and functional.

Underneath, the designers planned a kitchen area and facilities as well as staff restaurants and a cafeteria. a very representative entrance area connects the showroom with the VIP-areas in the office wing, visitors and customers can enjoy information, interaction but also recreation, to visit the yard is a holistic and remarkable experience.

The Showroom is the heart of the building complex. It’s designed as a neutral room that offers a museum character in order to attract the interest of the clients on the beautiful vessels. visitors and potential customers should experience the yacht and the yacht brands values with all senses. the smell, the music, the lightening moods, the multimedia which is shown on walls, all materials and surfaces should fascinate and create a holistic and unique experience. lounge groups offer space for communication and discussion. a multimedia wall offers additional information.

In general, the showroom is multifunctional; from launch parties over press events to private presentations is a wide range of usages possible. the room is able to offer presentation space for max. three 50 feet yachts.

Large window surfaces enable fascinating views of the yachts without unveiling them fully, a gallery offer people to have a look on the boats from higher points of views; the room hosts the yachts and its design in an optimal way.

An adjacent green outdoor area offers space for BBQ, relaxing or walking around.

Small surfaces of water and waterfalls connect different levels as well as different in-and outdoor areas and create analogies to the yachts and to the sea, the façade with its ornamental-elements acts in reference to the water world and enhances the recognition value of the building.

The whole yard represents the attributes of modern motor yachts for design oriented yacht owners; it creates an attractive and aesthetically appealing atmosphere for the yachts production, presentation and selling.

Hal Ingberg, architect and artist, is well known for his installations with colored and reflective glass. He had to create a dynamic piece of public art in the National Capital Region of Canada, entitled Papa . The structure is composed out of colored glass panels that light up an interesting intersectin.

From Inberg himself:

My hope is that Papa will enable residents and visitors to share a dynamic experience at both the scale of the automobile and that of the individual- a visual happening that if only momentarily, returns us to a child’s capacity for wonder.

It’s been a while since we really seen something truly utopian here at Archtopia. So this post might please your curious side of the brain since the concept behind this facade is a neat and “alive” one. The design is created by architect Giselbrecht + Partner ZT GmbH and the amazing project is called “Dynamic Facade” better known as the Kiefer Technic Showroom in Bad Gleichenberg, Austria. The following images can give you a more clear vision upon what the modern architecture can and will do.

The Living Architecture | Dynamic Facade

Dynamic Facade Kiefer Technic Showroom

The latest creation of the brilliant team Herzog & de Meuron recently opened VitraHaus. The following images are the work of the french photographer Julien Lanoo. Over the years the Vitra Campus has become an architecture museum, featuring works by the most renowned architects:  Frank Ghery, Zaha Hadid, Alvaro Siza, Tadao Ando, Jean Pruvé, Nicholas Grimshaw, Buckminster Fuller and SANAA (under construction)

The five-storey building – situated on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany – has been constructed to showcase the furniture brand’s Home Collection.

Over the past few years Vitra has aquired a wide-ranging Home Collection. The quantity and variety of objects by many different designers led to the idea of building a showroom to present the items to the public.

There would also be additional space to be used as an exhibition venue for selected parts of the collection or even as an extension of the Vitra Museum itself. A shop, a cafe linked to the outside and conference rooms complete the program.

The products that will be on display are designed primarily for the private home and, as such, should not be presented in the neutral atmosphere of the conventional hall or museum but rather in an environment suited to their character and use.

There would also be additional space to be used as an exhibition venue for selected parts of the collection or even as an extension of the Vitra Museum itself. A shop, a cafe linked to the outside and conference rooms complete the program.

The Water Cube

MVRDV’s latest design, called The Water Cube, is a pavilion for the World Expo 2012 in Yeosu, Korea. The theme of the Expo is “The Living Ocean and Coast”.

EXPO-WONDERS

There are few things that men can call fantastic, or wonder, but this is between those. The world expo events are actual wonders. In the literal meaning. They show man kinds fantasies. They allow for this great opportunity to express excitement and admiration. The past has given a series of true world wonders that express that rare combination of entertainment and education, of research and achievement, like the Eifel Tower in Paris, the Sphere at the NY expo, the Montreal Habitat building, Buckminsterfullers dome in Montreal. What to add to this history? Can the chosen theme lead to a new powerful object? Will it create a change in our way of living and thinking?

“THE WATER CUBE”

The world expo in Yeosu focuses on the power and beauty of the oceans. How to express that the best? Could it be done by – simply- making a pure visible block of water that obviously expresses the beauty and the power? A block that is extracted from the ocean.

The Water Cube

THE WATER SPACE

This block is hollowed out, to create a great water space, where one is surrounded by water. Along the sides, above and below. Where light filters through and give every activity a glance. That can be used for the exhibitions, the gatherings, during and after the world expo. One is in the water.

THE WATER FACADE

The object is constructed out of a surrounding wall with a series of water basins that are stacked on top of each other. Based on the maximum structural capacities of the glass facades and floors. It allows showing all the different aspects of the oceans! The façade turns into a mini museum, into a library of the oceans! A fantastic idea and concept, don’t you think?

The Water Cube

[via AD]

Chinese jade culture through its 8,000-year history will take center stage at the Taiwan-based Aurora Group’s Expo 2010 Pavilion. Jade symbolizes the national character such as gentleness, perseverance and the pursuit of peace, and the Expo will provide a platform to help promote such hopes, Tan Baijuan, deputy director of the pavilion, said yesterday while unveiling the design.

The pavilion will feature rare exhibits such as a piece of 2.5-ton jade and Beijing Olympic medals made of fine jade from the Kunlun Mountains in Northwest China’s Qinghai Province.

The theatre inside the pavilion will show Chinese myths and about 30 rare jade relics from the Aurora Museum will also be exhibited. The biggest challenge now is to squeeze the soul of jade’s history spanning thousands of years into a short journey of 20 minutes, said Tan. More images after the break.

via ArchDaily

These images show the futuristic building plans for the Museum of Middle East Modern Art to be located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The project is being lead by UN Studio, an architecture company in the Netherlands. Like many other projects in Dubai, this cultural building is defining new modern design ideas in a city that is investing in its future. The museum will be located in Culture Village near the banks of Dubai Creek (Khor Dubai). With the blossoming wealth of the region one can only hope that its collection will rival that of other modern art museums around the world. Via.

Thom Mayne has revealed his design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science at Victory Park, Dallas. Mayne describes the project as a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science”. The new facility will provide 180,000 sq ft of display and archive space on a 4.7 acre site in the north of downtown Dallas.

Museums, armatures for collective societal experience and cultural expression, present new ways of interpreting the world. They contain knowledge, preserve information and transmit ideas; they stimulate curiousity, raise awareness and create opportunities for exchange. As instruments of education and social change, museums have the potential to shape our under- standing of ourselves and the world in which we live.

As our global environment faces ever more critical challenges, a broader understanding of the interdependence of natural systems is becoming more essential to our survival and evolution. Museums dedicated to nature and science play a key role in expanding our understanding of these complex systems.

The new Perot Museum of Nature & Science in Victory Park will create a distinct identity for the Museum, enhance the institution’s prominence in Dallas and enrich the city’s evolving cultural fabric. Designed to engage a broad audience, invigorate young minds, and inspire wonder and curiosity in the daily lives of its visitors, the Museum will cultivate a memorable experience that will persist in the minds of its visitors and that will ultimately broaden indi- viduals’ and society’s understanding of nature and science.

The Museum will strive to achieve the highest standards of sustainability possible for a build- ing of its type. High performance design and incorporation of state of the art technologies will yield a new building that will minimize its impact on the environment.

This world class facility will inspire awareness of science through an immersive and interac- tive environment that actively engages visitors. Rejecting the notion of museum architecture as neutral background for exhibits, the new building itself becomes an active tool for science education. By integrating architecture, nature, and technology, the building demonstrates scientific principles and stimulates curiosity in our natural surroundings.

The immersive experience of nature within the city begins with the visitor’s approach to the museum, which leads through two native Texas ecologies: a forest of large native canopy trees and a terrace of native desert xeriscaping. The xeriscaped terrace gently slopes up to connect with the museum’s iconic stone roof. The overall building mass is conceived as a large cube floating over the site’s landscaped plinth. An acre of undulating roofscape comprised of rock and native drought-resistant grasses reflects Dallas’s indigenous geology and demonstrates a living system that will evolve naturally over time.

The path descending from the top floor through the museum’s galleries weaves in and out of the building’s main circulation atrium, alternately connecting the visitor with the internal world of the museum and with the external life of the city beyond. The visitor becomes part of the architecture, as the eastern facing corner of the building opens up towards downtown Dallas to reveal the activity within. The museum, is thus, a fundamentally public building – a building that opens up, belongs to and activates the city; ultimately, the public is as integral to the museum as the museum is to the city.

as seen on ArchTracker

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