Archinect - News

OPEN Architecture turns 100-year-old fuel containers into "containers of culture"

2019-03-29T14:03:00-04:00

A project that took a little over six years to design and construct opened its doors this week along Huangpu River in Shanghai's West Bund. The brainchild of famed Chinese collector and businessman Qiao Zhbing, Tank Shanghai consists of five preserved oil tanks which are connected by OPEN architecture's "Super-Surface," a new ground that connects each tank underneath the surface. Along the Super-Surface is an Urban Forest which stretches along the entire site as well as two plaza spaces which will host ceremonies and events. The firm's goal was to pay tribute to the site's industrial past while creating a new urban life through a marriage of art and nature within the city.

Site's original condition before construction. Image courtesy of OPEN architecture

Tank Shanghai - masterplan, Image © OPEN architecture

TANK Shanghai located in Xuhui District in Shanghai, China Image © OPEN architecture

Historically, the site was the Longhua airport which stretched along Shanghai's Huangpu River. ...

Lunch pails 50 stories over Manhattan

2016-12-22T16:25:00-05:00

"The gallery captures the exuberance with which the U.S. trumpeted its industrial progress."

Metcalfe (with Art Guild Museums + Environments and Drexel University's Center for Cultural Partnerships) designed the exhibits for the 13,000 square foot National Museum of Industrial History that are housed in its 100 year-old former Bethlehem Steel facility.

The first Smithsonian Museum Affiliate, it tells the story of the American industrial powerhouse of steel, silk, and propane from the 19th through the 20th centuries. Centered on the Pennsylvania Lehigh Valley, the museum's story is international in scope.

Inventively-clad gentrification in the form of Bordeaux's "Urban Dock"

2016-12-22T13:13:00-05:00

Take an abandoned industrial neighborhood in Bordeaux, France, affix a masterplan by urbanist Nicholas Michelin to it, and then add in an inventive cladding system over a 56-unit apartment building, and you have the fundamental makings of "Urban Dock," a recently completed project by Hamonic + Masson & Associés. The title is rooted in a metaphor, the kind of idealistic gentrification that parachutes into a depressed urban swath and attempts to liven things up. Whatever one's feelings about that, the undulating series of extruded porches and shifting color schemes is eye-catching:

As a press release explains, "The building is clad in metal, which is occasionally perforated in order to allow loggias to appear whilst also highlighting the articulation of projections and recesses, creating intriguing vertical patterns. The cladding also produces an iridescent ‘double skin’ with different transparencies and a shell-like effect, with a shimmering exterior that provides a contrast to the...

HALLUCINATE creates a “surreal ambience“ in this sleek trading center

2016-08-17T10:00:00-04:00

Large industrial enterprises aren't typically known for conducting business inside jaw-dropping office environments. Shenzhen-based HALLUCINATE Design Office certainly defies that assumption in their Midwest Inland Port Financial Town project in China's Xi’an International Trade & Logistics Park.

Completed last December, Hallucinate won the commission to design the commodity trading center from Maike Metals Group, one of China's largest suppliers of non-ferrous metals and minerals.

Designed with an “unconventional open and tranquil style”, Hallucinate beautifully contrasts bold details and textures with a subtle yet sleek color palette that doesn't appear sterile. The 326,200m² office shows off a glass wall curtain and aluminum panels on its exterior, while its interior boasts a careful arrangement of materials like artificial stone, aluminum, hardwood flooring, and mineral wood. A mixture of natural light and soft LED lighting throughout the space creates a “surreal ambience”.

Most ...

Tesla's 5.8 million square foot "Gigafactory" to open in 2017

2016-07-27T13:38:00-04:00

Sixty-five hundred people and a sizable compliment of robots will work in the enormous, solar-panel topped, rail-adjacent Gigafactory when it opens in 2017, a structure which is described as a "joint venture" between Tesla, Panasonic and other supply partners. In this case, the drive to inexpensively produce lithium-ion batteries has created the need for the colossal structure.

As Wired notes:

The assembly lines will do everything from make the individual cells—cylinders a bit bigger than an AA battery—to assembling the immense packs that power a Model S or store energy in someone’s garage. Tesla doesn’t disclose its costs, but says doing it all in-house will drive down the cost of a battery by 30 percent.

Tesla in the news:

BOLLES+WILSON transforms historic Hanomag ‘U-Boat Hall’ into stylish retail outlet

2013-08-29T14:45:00-04:00

Bolles+Wilson was commissioned to redesign the historic Hanomag "U-Boat Hall" into an RS+Yellow Furniture Outlet in Hanover, Germany—yet another example in the repurposing of unused industrial spaces and fusing the past with the present.

The contemporary furniture pieces and the U-Boat Hall's warehouse atmosphere are an interesting juxtaposition, and both vie for visitors' attention. Wooden flooring and bright-colored accents contrast against the rusty columns of the structure, an intended U-boat production site that halted construction in 1944. A brick wall on one side of the building's interior adds hip appeal that complements the outlet store's colorful inventory. On the other hand, the structure's original components—in addition to its enormous size—are hard to ignore, almost to the point where it becomes the main showpiece.

What do you think of B+W's redesign? Scroll down to see some images and more details.

LIVE·MAKE Industrial Arts Center Cincinnati Results

2013-02-13T14:29:00-05:00

Results have recently been unveiled in the international design ideas competition LIVE·MAKE Industrial Arts Center Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in partnership with the Over-the-Rhine Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation had launched this competition as a call for architectural proposals of a membership-based facility that will [...] help shape a new economic opportunity for the city of Cincinnati, Ohio.