*️⃣King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture (Ithra)

Architect #Snohetta
City #Dhahran close to #Dammam
Country #SaudiArabia #ME

🔤Situated in the hot desert, the high-tech pebble composition emerges from its semi-arid landscape. Its main tower stretches 110 meters up in the sky, surrounded by additional pebbles.

Like a roman arch, where the Keystone holds the construction together and prevents it from collapsing, the pebbles are seemingly frozen in time. Reflecting the idea of cultural interdependency, the arch-like formation reminds us that culture is not composed of singular, independent efforts but interconnected forces and ideas that work together to create a strong unity.

The timeline is strongly embedded into the architectural expression itself, as the building is partially set deep into the bedrock, a symbol of the past, and partially stretching up toward the sky, a symbol of the future.

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Colour #grey
Material #steel
Function #entertainment #venue
Address: 8386 Ring Rd, Gharb Al Dhahran, Dhahran 34461, Saudi Arabia
Google street
Exhibition hall google street

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pics by #IvanBrodey and architects
text by architects

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*️⃣Norwegian National Opera and Ballet

Architect #Snohetta
City #Oslo
Country #Norway #EU

🔤The opera house is part of Oslo's revitalization strategy to redevelop the city's historically industrial waterfront into an active public space and was the first building to be completed in the Bjørvika area. It is built on piles in the Oslo fjord, abutting reclaimed land that extends Oslo's harbor, giving more of the city's waterfront space back to the public.

Outside, its open plaza and sloping, walkable roof make the building as much landscape and public space as architecture, making it a local landmark and a destination also for non-opera and ballet audiences. Generous windows at street level give the public a glimpse of the scenery workshop activities.

Inside, its horseshoe-shaped main hall is reminiscent of classical theaters of the past.

Project was selected by #WAF as the best building of the year 2008 in culture category. #award

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Colour #white
Material #stone
Function #mixeduse #public #community #entertainment #concerthall
Feature #onwater
Address: Kirsten Flagstads Plass 1, 0150 Oslo, Norway
Google street #BestGS@simoderna🔥
Interior google street
Google earth

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pics by #IwanBaan and Wikimedia
text by architects

#bonus@simoderna (Tenet movie by Christopher Nolan had a scene filmed here)

*️⃣King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) Metro Station

Architect #Hadid #ZahaHadid #ZHA
City #Riyadh
Country #SaudiArabia #ME

🔤Contributing to the identity of Riyadh’s new metro system, the KAFD Metro Station’s design prioritizes connectivity. The station's predicted rail, car and pedestrian traffic has been modelled, mapped and structured to optimize internal circulation and avoid congestion. The resulting configuration is a three-dimensional lattice defined by a sequence of opposing sinewaves (generated from the repetition and frequency variation of the station’s daily traffic flows), which act as the spine for the building’s circulation.

The façade’s geometric perforations reduce solar gain as a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional environmental sheltering within the region’s vernacular architecture. The composition of the station’s façade echoes the patterns generated by desert winds in sand, where multiple frequencies and reverberation generate the complex repetition of patterns evident in the natural world.

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Colour #tan
Material #concrete
Function #transportation #metro
Feature #interior
Address: QJ8V+X6, Al Aqiq، 7239 - حي - 3260, Riyadh 13519, Saudi Arabia
Google street

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pics by #HuftonCrow
text by architects

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*️⃣Calgary Central Library

Architect #Snohetta
City #Calgary
Country #Canada #NA

🔤The crystalline geometry of the façade is carved away to reveal an expansive wood archway that embraces visitors as they approach. Framing the entrance of the building, the form references the Chinook cloud arches common to the region.

The triple-glazed facade is composed of a modular, hexagonal pattern that expresses the library's aims to provide a space that invites in all visitors. From these shapes emerge familiar forms: parts of the pattern might resemble an open book, snowflake-like linework, or interlocking houses, anchoring the ideas of the collective and community.

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Material #wood
Function #public #library
Feature #interior
Address: 800 3 St SE, Calgary, AB T2G 2E7, Canada
Google street
Underway google street
Google earth

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pics and text by architects

*️⃣Beijing Sub-Center Library

Architect #Snohetta
City #Beijing
Country #China #AP

🔤The design emphasizes the book’s physicality and the act of page-turning as a primary experience within a picturesque setting of hills, trees, and the Tonghui river.

At the heart of the library is a sweeping, nearly 16-meter-tall welcoming forum off of which rise stepped terraces that follow smooth, rhythmic curves and a central meandering pathway known as the Valley. The Valley mirrors the course of the nearby Tonghui river, seamlessly continuing the experience of the landscape beyond.

Punctuating the large reading space to transition between the scale of the Valley and the books are tall, slender #white columns that mushroom into flat #steel panels shaped like ginkgo leaves—referencing a 290 million-year-old tree species native to China.

For the ginkgo tree columns, a single module type is rotated on a 9x9m grid to give the appearance of variety while being efficient to fabricate and install. These columns also house integrated technology to control interior climate, lighting, and acoustics, as well as collect rainwater for reuse. The roof has integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) construction elements for renewable energy production. #sustainability

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Function #public #library
Feature #interior
Address: China, Beijing, Tongzhou, Tonghu Ave, 76号院1 邮政编码: 101199

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pics by #YumengZhu
text by architects