Anisotropic Sheet Morphologies – Pavilion at Beijing’s Design Week

Ban is the latest pavilion by architects Orproject which has been constructed for the Beijing Design Week 2012. The Chinese title refers to floral petals, and similar to the way that the shape of a flower is created by its bent petals, Ban is constructed from bent polymer sheets which form a self-supporting structure and create shapes and volume from a multitude of leaves.

Phyllon Lamp Mimics Leaf Structure

The Phýllon lamp designed by Nikolay Hristov Ivanov was inspired by the complexity of a leaf’s veins system. A novel process that employs computer simulation is used to generate a design that operates close to a micro-scale. It started as a research design-investigation based on the distribution of the veins of a single leaf blade. The goal was not to mimic the leaf’s pattern of veins, but rather to have a new reading towards using a speculative data set and reconnecting it within certain logic – establish direct connections – more like covered with a spider net, creating complexity via the quantity of the elements, rather than the elements themselves. Via exploring a numerous configurations of points and diverse connection logics of growth, it crystallized as extremely fragile, elegant or even precious single object design.

Kiriake Miniature Water Park / Takao Shiotsuka

The three “Kikuchi” public parks are carefully weaved into the neighborhood of Kikuchi, a city in Kumamoto, Japan. Designed by Japanese architect Takao Shiotsuka, they are a good example of an alternative approach to pocket parks. According to Shiotsuka, the goal of these three parks is not to add greenery, but to revitalize an old area of the city with “a new stream of people.”

League of Shadows Pavilion / PATTERNS

Designed by Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich of P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S, the League of Shadows Pavilion has been declared winner of an architectural design competition for a 1,200-seat outdoor pavilion at SCI-Arc. The pavilion would accommodate graduation ceremonies, lectures, symposia and other cultural events. The pavilion will be located in the school’s parking lot in downtown Los Angeles. It is set to be completed spring 2013.

Studio Fuksas Completes The Tbilisi Public Service Hall

Studio Fuksas have completed the Tbilisi Public Service Hall in Tbilisi, Georgia. Conceived as the largest social service center in the world, the landmark, which is located on Tbilisi’s waterfront, pairs an innovative program with flamboyant architecture. A giant corolla of eleven white petals covers the building, adorning the banks of the Kura River with a symbolic bloom.

Description from the designers:

The Tbilisi Public Service Hall is situated in the central area of the city and it overlooks the Kura River.

The building is 28.000 mq. It is made up of 7 volumes that contain offices (each volume is made up of 4 floors located on different levels). These volumes are placed around a ”central public square”, which is the core of the project,  where there is the front office services. Offices are connected to each other by internal footbridges that stretch on different levels.

Snøhetta Wins Busan Opera House Competition

Inspired by the dramatic coastal landscape of Busan, the Norwegian design firm Snøhetta has won the competition to realize the city’s opera house. The new Busan Opera House will be located by the port, and, as with the Opera House in Oslo, it will allow the public to walk on the roof. The house will have about the same size at its counterpart in Oslo, only exceeding it by a slightly bigger main hall with the planned capacity of receiving an audience of 1800 people.  According to the architects, the main guideline in the design process was the creation of an accessible and democratic space, turning the static into dynamic. The Opera is an interactive open stage that transforms the contemporary cultural spaces from elitist monuments into democratic arenas.