*️⃣Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre

Architect #Dudler #MaxDudler
City #Berlin
Country #Germany #EU

🔤The great reading room (the taller section of the building protects it from direct southern light) was arranged in receding levels. Through its size and its many-tiered, almost scenic design, the space effects a sense of the outdoors, which is further emphasized by the large plates of glass used in the “sky” glazing. An unob- structed view of the clouds nearly gives one the feeling of reading under the open sky.

The discussion about whether one central reading room or several separate rooms should be built was resolved by deciding in favour of both.

In terms of urban planning, architects bore in mind the fact that Berlin in a very flat city, tending more toward the horizontal than vertical, whose buildings are as a rule no more than 22 meters tall – with the exception of public buildings. In order to mark the significance of the library as a public place of collected knowledge and as an urban architectural emblem of the book, one part of the building was designed to cross the lines of the upper city limits reaching 38 meters high.

In order to make full use of the thermal mass of the ceilings and to make the climate of the rooms as pleasant as possible, suspended ceilings were avoided. All building automation fixtures have been placed in the floor or in the concrete ceilings. The air circulation vents in the ceiling activate the thermal mass of the concrete. The bare ceilings are thereby cooled and, in turn, absorb the warmth of the rooms. #sustainability

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Material #wood
Function #public #library
Feature #interior
Address: Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1-3, 10117 Berlin, Germany
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pics by #Mueller
text by Archdaily

*️⃣Tama Art University Library

Architect #Ito #ToyoIto
City #Hachioji close to #Tokyo
Country #Japan #AP

🔤This is a library for an art university located in the suburbs of Tokyo. The existing cafeteria was the sole place in the university shared by both students and staff members across all disciplines, so the first impetus for our design was to question how an institution as specialised as a library could provide an open commonality for all.

To let the flows and views of these people freely penetrate the building, we began to think of a structure of randomly placed arches which would create the sensation as if the sloping floor and the front garden’s scenery were continuing within the building.

The characteristic arches are made out of steel plates covered with concrete. In plan these arches are arranged along curved lines which cross at several points. With these intersections, we were able to keep the arches extremely slender at the bottom and still support the heavy live loads of the floor above.

The new library is a place where everyone can discover their style of “interacting" with books and film media as if they were walking through a forest or in a cave; a new place of arcade-like spaces where soft mutual relations form by simply passing through.

🔤
Material #steel arches covered in #rawconcrete
Function #public #library
Feature #interior
Address: 2 Chome-1723 Yarimizu, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0375, Japan
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Interior google street
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pics by #IwanBaan
text by Archdaily and Dezeen

*️⃣MAXXI Museum

Architect #Hadid #ZahaHadid #ZHA
City #Rome
Country #Italy #EU

🔤As declared by the architect, the museum is 'not a object-container, but rather a campus for art', where flows and pathways overlap and connect in order to create a dynamic and interactive space. Although the program is clear and organized in plan, flexibility of use is the main goal of the project. Continuity of spaces makes it a suitable place for any kind of moving and temporary exhibition, without redundant wall divisions or interruptions.

The main idea behind the project is directly related to the objective of creating a building for the presentation of the visual arts. The site is “furrowed” by exhibition spaces, the walls that cross its spaces, their intersections defining interior and exterior space. This system works on three levels, the second of which is the most complex and richest, with it various bridges that connect the building and the galleries. Visitors are invited to dive into a dense, continuous space instead of confronting the compact volume of an isolated building.

Project was selected by #WAF as the best building of the year 2010. #award

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Material #rawconcrete
Function #public #museum
Feature #interior
Address: Via Guido Reni, 4a, 00196 Roma RM, Italy
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Interior google street
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pics by #HuftonCrow
text by Archdaily and Dezeen

*️⃣Alberni by Kengo Kuma

Architect #Kuma #KengoKuma #KKAA
City #Vancouver
Country #Canada #NA

🔤"We wanted to create a new kind of skyscraper not as an isolated object, but instead defined by strong relationships to its setting. We also wanted nature to be present throughout the ground floor. Here, an open-air moss-covered amphitheater invites people under a kigumi cloud for musical and theatrical performances, engaging the city with a natural place for cultural activity."

The tower’s characteristic silhouette results from its response to the city and to the vast natural surroundings. Large, sweeping arcs carve the building volume according to view corridors of the adjacent buildings, toward the Harbour and the mountains beyond (google earth).

These big scoops reveal the exposing wood patterning beneath the eaves. Elsewhere, the harder vertical facades comprise units of glass, opaque aluminum and grille panels, reflecting and filtering the ever-changing Pacific Northwest light. It is a tall, distinctive presence on the skyline, but made of visibly smaller pieces. No two views of the building are the same, its shape elusive.

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Colour #grey
Material #aluminium
Function #residential
Feature #skyscraper
Address: 1568 Alberni St, Vancouver, BC V6G 0E3, Canada
Entrance google street
Scoop google street
Google earth

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pics by Ema Peter, George Handford, Jonathon Folke and Lukas Dong
text by architects

*️⃣Russian Copper Company (RCC) Headquarters

Architect #Foster #NormanFoster
City #Yekaterinburg
Country #Russia #AP part

🔤RCC is one of the world’s leading producers of copper and the triangulated form draws inspiration from the chemical structure of copper. The crown of the building integrates RCC’s new logo – a rebranding which has, in turn, been inspired by the architecture.

Very textured facade of a distinctly copper color, solved in the form of a crystal lattice. On the one hand, such a cover, of course, very clearly and directly refers to the main type of activity of the company, but its role is not limited to metaphor. At the same time, it is also an important part of the building's climate concept.

The pyramid-shaped "crystals" that form the facade consist of four triangular faces, two of which are made of metal and two of which are made of glass. Transparent and opaque segments are combined in different order depending on which side of the world a particular module is facing: its glass faces catch sunlight, focusing on the mostly low sun in these latitudes, while the upper metal "hoods" protect the interior from overheating during those short weeks of the year when it rises high over the horizon and really hot.

And – a few words about why the facades, designed to symbolize belonging to the copper mining industry, are not made of copper. Probably only lazy did not joke about this, but for both Foster + Partners and RMK in this matter, considerations of expediency and manufacturability were in the first place – copper facades are not only an order of magnitude more difficult and more expensive to produce, but also unpredictably capricious in operation and especially in interaction with the environment.

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Colour #bronzen
Material #steel
Function #office
Feature #skyscraper
Address: Ulitsa Gor'kogo, 57, Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, 620026
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pics by RCC
text by architects and archi.ru