This building is one of the latest build projects signed by Frank Gehry, and is located in Las Vegas. The center is funded and supported by Keep Memory Alive, and it’s supposed to become a national resource for the most current research and scientific information for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington ’s Diseases, and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) as well as focusing on prevention, early detection and education. The complete name of the project is Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, and from the images you can see that is nothing ordinary about it, as we were accustomed to Gehry’s projects.

Following images courtesy of Matthew Carbone:

The center hosts these 3 main spaces:

1. Medical building for patient care and research. Featuring simple, functional interiors and a lego like exterior of slightly disorderly blocks.

2. A breezeway between the medical building and the higher profile stainless steel Life Activity Center. The breezeway provides a shaded seated area to enjoy the Las Vegas weather while avoiding direct sunlight. There is also a small cafe and it is method to experiencing the reflection garden to the east.

3. The Life Activity Center – this is the portion of the project that has and will receive most of the attention. It is also the most misunderstood. Patients are not treated in the space, nor do they ever really interact with it except for the facade.

[via]

images courtesy a. asadov architectural studio

The russian team a. asadov architectural studio developed a complex grass hill for their proposal of the Taipei Pop Music Center. Various sections are based around craters and volcanoes. The center consists of 3 main sections an outdoor performance space, main hall and a green roof park. the hills are specially designed with sound protection for the surrounding areas.

images courtesy a. asadov architectural studio

images courtesy a. asadov architectural studio

images courtesy a. asadov architectural studio

images courtesy a. asadov architectural studio

images courtesy a. asadov architectural studio

images courtesy a. asadov architectural studio

images courtesy a. asadov architectural studio

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OPEN AIR LIBRARY

Great idea, and a great concept for a open air library in Germany, Magdeburg.

Architects: KARO Architecten / Antje Heuer, Stefan Rettich, Bert Hafermalz, Leipzig Architektur+Netzwerk, Sabine Eling-Saalmann, Magdeburg
Location: Magdeburg, Germany
Collaborators: Christian Burkhardt, Gregor Schneider, Mandy Neuenfeld
Project Partners: Bürgerverein Salbke, Fermersleben, Westerhüsen e.V.
Structural Engineer: Michael Kurt, Leipzig
Light Conception: Jürgen Meier, architektur&medien, Leipzig
Consultant: Ruth Gierhake, Köln
Commissioner: City of Magdeburg
Funding: Ministry of infrastructure, building and city development
Project Area: 488 sqm
Budget: $325,000 Euro
Project year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Anja Schlamann

OPEN AIR LIBRARY 2

The open air library, we established in 2005 in an abandoned district centre in East Germany has been started with a public intervention, using beer crates as building material: On the fallow site of the former district library a 1:1 model of a possible Open-Air-Library has been build up for two days and the shelves have been filled with book donations. The residents took over the energy of the temporary project and opened up an informal district library near the site which now offers more than 20.000 books. The outdoor space as an addition has been designed together with the residents and opened in June this year.

OPEN AIR LIBRARY SITE

Project Information

The southeast of Magdeburg belongs to these urban areas in Eastern Germany which are characterized by abandoned industrial plants and fallow land. A post-industrial city landscape with high unemployment and figures of vacancy up to 80%. This also concerns the district Salbke. The spatially intact city center stands almost completely empty. Its image is shaped by pasted over shop windows and fallow land. The encountered reality served us as a resource and starting point for an urbanistic experiment.

OPEN AIR LIBRARY BIRD EYE

In collaboration with the local residents the fallow zones of the former village library are developed as a “bookmark”. Remembrance, history and narratives provided the background for the “re-occupation” of the abandoned expanse. An old empty shop was used as base for a temporary library and camp for a building workshop. There, books were collected and design strategies for reclaiming the site were developed.

With more than 1.000 lent beer crates the favorite draft was constructed together with the locals in the scale 1:1 [2005]. The shelves of the temporary library were filled by the residents with books. A festival followed with poetry slam and readings to prove the everyday suitability of the new urban situation. Since 2005 more than 20.000 books were collected and the local residents pursue a reading café quite near the site. But it took some years to organize the money to build this so called “bookmark” for real. Since 2006 the project is part of a research project of the federal government and is funded as a pilot project for realization.

KARO Architekten did a great job with this building, taking library architecture to a brand new level, and sensations.

via ArchDaily

The Frontier Project, located in Cucamonga, Southern California, is a 14,000 square foot demonstration building that will educate all in the community about the latest information, technologies and approaches regarding environmental friendliness.  The project will make resident consumers, commercial builders, and sustainable advocates aware and informed of the alternative building methods to encourage sustainability.  HMC Architects’ building will not just be something for visitors to look at and admire; rather, the building will become more of a learning experience as visitors are welcomed into its spaces and sustainable strategies are pointed out with their importance explained. “Everything from material and plant selection, the layout of space, and the maintenance regime will have a purpose, demonstrating the principle of green design for home owners, consumers, contractors, design professionals, sustainability advocates and the general public,” explained the Frontier Project founders.

Four concentric layers of building shells each have a different purpose: the outer shell, constructed of insulated concrete forms, acts as thermal mass protecting the building from the solar heat; the second shell is a cast in place concrete wall that provides lateral integrity to the building structure; the third shell, a mostly north facing glazed curtain-wall, maximizes diffused daylight and visual connection into the building; the inner shell, made of salvaged red wood from the local winery, shades the south facing wall of office/conference wing.

These four shells define the interior spaces.  Such spaces are ”open and fluid to maximize spatial flexibility and interconnectivity for ventilation and daylight.”  The exterior and interior spaces were both designed with the intent to constantly push the visitor onward in his journey of experiencing the building.

The project goes “beyond the norm of sustainable buildings as merely machines of green technologies by combining architectural and ecological design principals as equal forces in the formation of the building,” explained the architects.  With plans to achieve a LEED Platinum Certificate, the building is designed to constantly educate visitors on the many options of sustainability.  From the time the visitors enter the landscaped gardens at the ground level that show rain filtering strategies to the moment the visitors make their way to the roof to see numerous sustainable roofing stategies, the users are constantly being exposed to different environmentally friendly solutions.

via ArchDaily

Architects: Ecker Architekten
Location: Zimmern, Germany
Client: Gemeinde Seckach
Construction Area: 1,100 sqm
Project year: 2004-2005
Photographs: Constantin Mayer, Köln

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Built to house cultural events in a town with active club membership, this hall also hosts sporting events and seasonal festivals. A composite use required flexibility, durability, and safety. Seating 500, the project houses a youth club, offices for local officials, and the town doctor. The sectional resolution of the entrance at street level and the main hall four metres below, generates the space. A broad corridor provides access to public facilities, and provides an overview of activities taking place in the hall.

Stairs terminate both ends of this tribune, connecting the upper and lower levels. Food service, storage, green rooms and mechanical areas are housed beneath the entrance block. Code requires that these rooms receive daylight and fresh air. Concrete sewer culverts mounted at 45 degrees to the foundation walls fulfill environmental requirements and lend a dramatic character to the streetscape. These light cannons are lit for events, signaling activities to the community

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Via Archdaily

Architect: Fearon Hay Architects
Location: Great Barrier Island, New Zealand
Constructed Area: 250 sqm
Project Year: 2007-2008
Photographs: Patrick Reynolds

Located on the Eastern coastline of the Huaraki Gulfs, Great Barrier Island the ‘Great Barrier House’ is a relaxed holiday destination that references traditional notions of bach occupation. Drawing inspiration from the idea of two sheds linked by stretched tarpaulin, the house consists of two habitable areas joined by an expansive floating pavilion. Wide expanses of sliding glass doors & adjustable blinds allow the pavilion to respond to different environmental conditions while providing the location for eating dining & relaxing within the natural surrounds of the property.

Clad in band sawn ply sheet the ‘sheds’ provide a modern take on the use of vernacular building materials. Coupled with the use of permeable metal screens the ability to manipulate outlook and environment from within the ‘sheds’, provides further reference to traditional notions of holiday occupation and response to site. As locations for the bedrooms and bathrooms these built forms offer a sense of refuge from the open pavilion space.

A roof deck upon the Northern ‘shed’, gives outlook and sea views, otherwise restricted by the site location behind the Medlands beach sand dunes and nestled amongst the neighboring properties. Standing upon the roof deck looking South-West towards aging corrugated farm sheds and looking North-East towards the expansive seascape, the Great Barrier House sits comfortably within its environment; offering a private retreat while allowing an occupation that embraces the surrounding landscape and context.

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