Archinect - News

Site preparations begin for Norman Foster’s One Beverly Hills

2024-01-03T14:49:00-05:00

Site preparations are underway in Los Angeles in advance of the 50-month construction phase that will bring the Foster + Partners-designed One Beverly Hills residential towers to a plot adjacent to the Beverly Hilton and other area hospitality icons.

Gensler is serving as the project’s executive architect while RIOS has been contracted to deliver the landscaped portion of the design, which occupies the total 17.5-acre site that includes another 8.5-acre botanical garden in compliment of each tower’s biophilic terraces.

The project will be realized at 28- and 31-stories, respectively, making them the tallest design in Beverly Hills since the Bank of America building at 9454 Wilshire Boulevard opened in 1968. According to Urbanize LA, the scheme calls for 255 condominiums, 79 hotel suites, and approximately 30,000-square-feet of commercial space, along with subterranean parking spaces for up to 1,900 vehicles.

Image rendering courtesy DBOX for Alagem Capital.

The project will cost ap...

Ronald Lu & Partners completes Hong Kong tower offering ‘nature on every doorstep’

2023-12-28T12:34:00-05:00

Hong Kong-based Ronald Lu & Partners has completed a residential development in Kowloon described as a “real forest building.” Named Garden Crescent, the scheme was designed with the philosophy of “nature on every doorstep.”

Image credit: Ronald Lu & Partners

Externally, the building features slanted structural supports to create solid and void spaces that are designed to create multiple avenues for natural ventilation and passive cooling. On the podium level, the scheme’s biophilic elements include a landscape of trees, shrubs, and plants aimed at improving air quality, reducing the urban heat island effect, and enhancing the local microclimate.

Image credit: Ronald Lu & Partners

As the tower rises, voids in the form create six multi-layered green courtyards. Designed to be fully accessible to birds and insects in an effort to repopulate the area’s biodiversity, the courtyards are also intended to give residents imme...

10 firms currently hiring Landscape Architects and Designers

2023-09-29T08:09:00-04:00

Archinect's latest curated jobs roundup from Archinect Jobs highlights 10 architecture and design firms across the country with exciting Landscape Architecture opportunities.

To learn more about the various positions firms are offering, make sure to check out Archinect's Guide to Job Titles series. Also, consult our Archinect Tips collection for helpful guidance on how to get that next job.

Balmori Associates seeks a Landscape Designer
Location: New York, NY

Details: "Balmori Associates is looking for a landscape designer with a high-level of digital design skills, graphic ability to represent design ideas, and a strong understanding of space. Exceptional knowledge of 3D design software is required." Read more here.

Farm Landscape Design seeks a Landscape Architect - Project Manager and a Landscape Design Associate
Location: Shelter Island, NY

Landscape Architect - Project Manager Details: "We are currently in the process of renaming and rebranding Farm Landscape Design to better re...

UNStudio completes Booking.com City Campus HQ in Amsterdam

2023-06-28T14:39:00-04:00

A new HQ project from UNStudio for the Dutch travel site Booking.com has opened in Amsterdam, offering a dynamic central location it says will serve as a “recruitment machine” while creating a more inclusive, healthy, and socially engaging experience for the company’s 6,500 employees.

Video courtesy UNStudio on Vimeo.

Designed to maximize connectivity for its users and visitors to the campus’ Oosterdokseiland location, the nearly 700,000-square-foot plan creates a highly-visible, activities-laden consolidation of disparate office locations that, for over a decade, had been spread throughout the city.

Image: © Hufton + Crow

Anchored by a striking main building made of glass and steel and sited on a double-height plinth that creates an urban element underneath and around a cantilevered overhang, the development was influenced by years of research into comparable corporate headquarters and engenders a “platform for human activity,” the architects say.

Image: © Hufton + Crow

A network o...

Tetro’s new residence floats and weaves through the Brazilian rainforest

2023-06-12T11:49:00-04:00

Brazilian architecture studio Tetro has offered a look inside their completed residential project in the Atlantic Rainforest. Named Casa Açucena, the development was constructed on a steep slope amidst a landscape of dense trees and shrubs.

Photo credit: Jomar Bragança

The scheme was designed to occupy the space between existing trees without removing or altering the topography. The design team’s dedication to preserving the existing landscape also saw the house elevated off the ground to allow animal and plant life to develop underneath.

Photo credit: Jomar Bragança

“The project is a response to a sensitive reading of the terrain, where first contact dictated the need to maintain its natural characteristics,” the team explained. “The act of looking upwards, from the ground to the fifteen-meter canopy of the trees, was decisive for the creation of a concept addressing the challenge of building in a place with such steep topograph...

Heatherwick Studio details progress on Toranomon-Azabudai district in Tokyo

2023-05-15T12:20:00-04:00

Heatherwick Studio has shared new photos of their nearly complete Toranomon-Azabudai mixed-use district in the heart of Tokyo.

The 20-acre plan includes a new school, temple, shopping center, and a 64,583-square-foot central garden with room for 1,400 residences, 150 retailers, and capacity for over 20,000 office workers.

The studio devised a pergola-like facade system in order to give the construction a distinctive visual character while adding a “vibrant piece of urban topography” to the city’s patchwork commercial Minato Ward area.

Previously on Archinect: Heatherwick Studio begins construction in the Toranomon-Azabudai district in Tokyo

Heatherwick says they are taking a “human-centred approach by integrating nature into the public spaces.”

Once in operation, the district is expected to attract some 30 million visitors annually. The project broke ground in August of 2019. Tokyo’s Mori Building Company is the client. Construction is expected to be finished by the end of this year...

New photos show progress on Heatherwick's Toranomon-Azabudai district in Tokyo

2022-12-08T14:57:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has shared construction photos of its soon-to-complete Toranomon-Azabudai redevelopment project underway in Tokyo.

The firm’s first Japanese project is set to bring a new school, temple, shopping areas, and a 64,583-square-foot central garden to a previously underutilized district in the heart of the capital city’s Minato Ward for developers Mori Building Company.

"It’s been very exciting working on the Toranomon-Azabudai project and much of our effort has been focused on designing the public spaces that everyone will experience when they spend time in this new area," Heatherwick said at the project’s initial announcement.

Previously on Archinect: Heatherwick Studio begins construction in the Toranomon-Azabudai district in Tokyo. Rendering by DBOX for Mori Building Co.

"For the design, we have taken a human-centred approach by integrating nature into the public spaces. A pergola-like façade system has been devised and scaled up to unify the project and to allow p...

View images of BIG and Carlo Ratti Associati's newly completed biophilic high-rise, CapitaSpring, in Singapore

2022-09-28T08:00:00-04:00

BIG and Carlo Ratti Associati, in collaboration with local firm RSP Architects Planners & Engineers, have announced the completion of their new CapitaSpring skyscraper in Singapore’s Central Business District.

After the project broke ground in February of 2018, the completed biophilic tower stands tall at 51-stories. The high-rise includes interior sky garden spaces, a rooftop park, Citadines serviced residences, multiple restaurants, premium office spaces, and a hawker center (food court center) that nods to Singapore’s iconic food culture. The project was commissioned by local developer CapitaLand in an effort to "set a new benchmark for the office of the future" in advance of the ultragreen city's 2030 Sustainability Master Plan.

Image: Finbarr Fallon

"As someone with Singaporean heritage, I have been honored and humbled by the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing evolution of architecture in Singapore as a distinct blending between the contemporary and the tropical," shared ...

Innovation is the key to 3XN and Itten+Brechbühl's new mass timber campus expansion in Switzerland

2022-08-18T09:00:00-04:00

A little more than 30 years after its opening in 1991, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Innovation Park in Ecublens, Switzerland, has announced a major campus expansion effort to be spearheaded by 3XN and the local studio Itten+Brechbühl (IB).

Their new masterplan, named Ecotype, includes 10 new mass timber structures and a smattering of biophilia-lined greenspaces that will gradually double the size of the entrepreneurial-oriented EPFL’s campus over the course of a ten-year timeframe. According to 3XN’s Jan Ammundsen, "Ecotope will be a campus that facilitates and generates disruptive innovative solutions by being the interface between EPFL and society at large."

Image render courtesy of 3XN.

The project is being undertaken in order to ensure that the 30 or so startups the Innovation Park produces annually will provide the physical spaces needed to thrive. The innovation park will be developed around six core "principles" of biophilia – "serendipity, modularity, ...

MAD's latest project, MoLo, will serve as the gateway to Milan's burgeoning Innovation District

2022-08-03T19:20:00-04:00

Fresh off the firm’s debut public housing effort in Beijing, MAD Architects has unveiled project renders for a commercial complex at the edge of Milan’s Innovation District called MoLo (short for Mobility and Logistics Hub). According to the firm, the new hub will serve as a “monumental gateway” to the city’s burgeoning high-tech economic zone.

The design for MoLo includes a five-story car park, said to be the hub's "centerpiece." Amplifying their focus and commitment to sustainability, the complex will house 8,000 square meters (or 86,111 square feet) of photovoltaic panels atop a two-story commercial center. The team from MAD shares, "The MoLo was designed to perform as a welcoming entrance and education space for issues related to mobility in which visitors can drop off their cars to explore the district on foot and see innovative transportation technology in person."

Image render courtesy of MAD.

Continuing with their focus on nature-centered designs, as seen in the studio’s Gard...

Pininfarina unveils new green luxury tower design in Mérida, Mexico

2022-06-17T13:28:00-04:00

Pininfarina has released project images of their Light Towers design for a new residential development in the metropolitan city Mérida along the Yucatan Peninsula.

According to the architects, “The structure will consist of two distinct buildings rising 15 and 17 floors high, connected by a five-story base to form a v-shape. Anchoring the heart of Pininfarina's concept, a green valley fills the open-air core of the vertical community extending upward from the base of the structure––embracing the development’s Mexican roots and symbolizing the path ahead; a nod to new ideas, fresh perspectives, and hope for future generations.”

The new Light Towers for developers Branson will be Pininfarina’s first branded project in Mexico. The firm’s chief architect Samuele Sordi calls is at “a pivotal moment in its growth,” adding that “we look forward to leading the way with an example of how a multidisciplinary design approach can create a thoughtful balance between urban density and sprawl as t...

Living architecture: A design solution and a career choice?

2022-06-15T09:00:00-04:00

In late 2021, we covered a study by researchers at the University of Plymouth in the UK, which found that living wall systems can reduce heat lost from existing buildings by 31%.

The Plymouth study was symptomatic of a larger curiosity within architecture on the impact of integrating nature and biophilia with the built environment. In May, NASA undertook its own study to understand the potential for green roofs to lower temperatures in cities, while back in 2019, our Studio Snapshot series included a reflection by Habitat Horticulture founder David Brenner on the growing interest of living materials in architecture.

“Living walls are often considered an afterthought or a static accessory in architectural design,” Brenner told us. “Having said that, the tide seems to be shifting with proactive urban greening policies and the rise in popularity of biophilic design. I think we are only scratching the surface in understanding the impact living walls can have.”

Archinect Feature: Livin...

Biophilia: 10 new examples of nature and the built environment coexisting harmoniously

2022-04-22T07:00:00-04:00

Happy Earth Day! In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Biophilia.

Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!

↑ Field Office in Portland, OR by Hacker Architects; Landscape Designer: Lango Hansen; Sustainability Consultant: YRG; Photo: Josh Partee

↑ Nanbo Bay Reception Center in Yinchuan, China; Interior Design: SUNSON Design; Photo: Kanghui Zeng

↑ Restaurante 34 in Guimarães, Portugal by REM'A; Photo: Ivo Tavares Studio

↑ Lazy House in Zlín, Czech Republic by Petr Janda / brainwork; Photo: BoysPlayNice

↑ Restaurant Terrace [ Azuma ] in Odessa, Ukraine by JK Lab Architects

↑ Wine Cave in Texas Hill Country by Clayton Korte; Photo: Casey Dunn

↑ Art Villa in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica by Refuel works; Interiors: Fo...

Stefano Boeri releases documentary about 'world’s first social housing vertical forest'

2021-12-22T14:59:00-05:00

Stefano Boeri Architetti has released a short documentary on the Trudo Vertical Forest, which the firm bills as “the first social housing vertical forest in the world.” Built in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, the project draws its inspiration from the firm’s Bosco Verticale in Milan.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The 19-story tower rises 230 feet (70 meters) and contains 125 apartments designed to accommodate long-income users, particularly young couples. In addition, thirty homes in the building have been reserved for asylum seekers, political refugees, and people with disabilities.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The facades are adorned with 135 trees of various species as well as 10,000 shrubs and plants. To service the extensive greenery, the scheme contains four collection tanks housing 20,000 liters of rainwater eac...

BIG’s cybersecurity and AI hub imitates its surrounding hills in Slovakia

2021-11-30T14:26:00-05:00

Days after BIG’s conceptual floating city idea was adopted by South Korea, the firm has unveiled its design for the European AI and Cybersecurity Hub on the ESET Campus in Bratislava, Slovakia. The 55,000-square-meter (590,000-square-foot) headquarters consists of twelve individual buildings organized around a central courtyard, with a form echoing the surrounding Carpathian Mountains.

Image by BLOOM

The campus replaces a former military hospital on the site and will house ESET’s 1,500-strong workforce, who research and develop cybersecurity solutions. Mimicking the peaks of the nearby hills, low-lying buildings along the outer perimeter of the campus are designated as public spaces, while four taller buildings towards the center house ESET’s operations.

Image by BLOOM

“Rather than a single hermetic entity, we have dissolved the ESET Campus into an urban village of interconnected buildings, framing public paths and urban squares,” explains Bjarke Ingels. “The diverse cluster of indivi...

Designing living walls and green roofs could be your next future-proof career move

2021-08-11T13:13:00-04:00

Exploring alternative options for building sustainability has become a critical part of the architectural design process. With climate change efforts increasing, living walls and green roofs are one of the many ways architects, landscape architects, and design professionals transform new and existing buildings.

Last week, we highlighted an opportunity to work as an Interior Architect for a Las Vegas Theatre company. This week we're profiling the North Carolina-based firm Living Roofs Inc. and their search for a Project Designer. This job position is ideal for someone looking for part-time work and passionate about horticulture and green infrastructure.

Living Roof team working on green roof that sits on top of Publix grocery story at the Smokey Hollow development in downtown Raleigh. Plant Materials Used: Native Perennials and Grasses. Image courtesy of Living Roofs Inc. via Instagram

The firm shares that their ideal candidate will help with "various drafting, graphic production, a...

Haptic Architects' team wins 2021 Davidson Prize with biophilic home design

2021-06-10T19:18:00-04:00

A multidisciplinary team led by Haptic Architects has won the £10,000 first prize in the inaugural Davidson Prize, a competition calling for new ideas that rethink the design of the contemporary home.

Titled HomeForest, the winning proposal comes from a diverse team. In addition to those representing Haptic Architects, the team includes poet Lionheart, interdisciplinary designer Yaoyao Meng, digital designers Squint/Opera, and musicians Coda to Coda. As stated on the competition’s website, multi-disciplinary creative teams are actively encouraged, however, each must include an architect registered with the Architecture Review Board (ARB) or the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI).

The theme of the inaugural competition is titled “Home/Work – A New Future”. It is based on the way the Covid-19 pandemic has blurred the boundaries between living and work spaces. While remote working has become commonplace and even preferred, the theme highlights the fact that homes are...

A case for nature: Architect and regenerative design strategist Amanda Sturgeon pushes for rewilding cities

2021-04-06T20:39:00-04:00

More cities are incorporating biophilic design approaches for several reasons. While some firms genuinely practice regenerative and sustainable design methods, others could be placed into the category of "greenwashing" to satisfy trends and bolster their firm's PR efforts. However, according to architect and regenerative design strategist Amanda Sturgeon, the goal is to have buildings "that are intimately connected to the living systems that have evolved with us, that celebrate the human-nature connection that is central to our wellbeing."

In her recent article for The Guardian, Sturgeon makes a case for rewilding cities. She explains, "rewilding is about adding nature everywhere, not just in parks, by using nature-based solutions or green infrastructure at the edges of our streets, in leftover spaces, and on and within our buildings."

Featured on Archinect: McMansion Hell's Kate Wagner dissects issues with big tech and the 'blurred line' between private and public space. Image cou...

Amazon HQ2 to feature a tree-covered swirling glass tower, 'The Helix'

2021-02-02T16:10:00-05:00

Amazon has unveiled the latest design plans for the second phase of its $2.5 billion Arlington HQ2 campus. The proposal for the PenPlace site includes three 22-story office towers, several smaller buildings, a 250-seat outdoor amphitheater, public green space, and a fourth 350-foot swirling glass tower as the development's centerpiece.

Dubbed The Helix, the tree-covered structure utilizes a similar 'biophilia' concept as the company's The Spheres HQ in Seattle — both designed by NBBJ.

Image courtesy of NBBJ/Amazon.

According to this Amazon project statement, "the Helix at our Arlington headquarters will offer a variety of alternative work environments for Amazon employees amidst lush gardens and flourishing trees native to the region."

Image courtesy of NBBJ/Amazon.

"A true double helix in shape and structure, this unique building will feature two walkable paths of landscaped terrain that will spiral up the outside of the bu...