Archinect - News

Construction begins on SHoP's record-setting Atlassian HQ hybrid timber tower

2022-09-21T17:42:00-04:00

SHoP has begun work on the 39-story Australian Atlassian HQ project it says will eventually hold the title of the world’s tallest hybrid timber tower upon its completion in 2026.

The project for local Sydney developers Dexus combines mass timber elements with a diagrid steel tube exoskeleton and staggered glass envelope to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions throughout the total 112,000-square-meter (1.2 million-square-foot) structure. It is envisioned as the anchor of Sydney’s new Tech Central district and will run completely on renewable energy sources according to Built, the Australian company serving as one of two main contractors for the $1.4 billion construction.

Image courtesy of Dexus

SHoP explains: “The tower is organized as six discrete but interconnected ‘habitats.’ Each four-level habitat is a freestanding mass-timber construction supported within the efficient steel exoskeleton. A naturally-ventilated zone, akin to an outdoor garden, is located at each level.”

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Atelier tao+c's Capsule Hostel and Bookstore is the 2021 World Interior of the Year

2021-12-03T20:03:00-05:00

In culmination of the two organization's shared annual awards program, the World Architecture Festival and INSIDE Festival of Interiors have just named the Capsule Hostel and Bookstore in Qinglongwu, China as the 2021 winner of the World Interior of the Year prize.

The design features a 20-person hostel and community bookstore space inserted into a 232-square-meter (2,500-square-foot) stone house set amongst the richly forested landscape of Zhejiang Province.

Image © Su Shengliang

Atelier tao+c's intention was to explore the idea of a “building within a building” by transforming the former mountainside residence into a combination of different competing uses with the particular challenge of ensuring privacy for the hostel guests while enacting a workable network of wayfinding for customers of the bookstore.

Image © Su Shengliang

Judges commended the project for its “sensitive and inventive remodeling of a modest traditional building in a remote setting,” stating that it was “a cross ...

JDS to Design New Youth Center in Lille, France

2011-10-28T14:39:00-04:00

JDS / Julien De Smedt Architects have just signed the contract to execute their first French project for the city of Lille. The project that houses a youth hostel, a kindergarten and offices is the result of an invited competition that JDS won in collaboration with EGIS, Agence Franck Boutté Consultants, and SL2EC.

Click here for JDS Architects' Archinect Firm Profile.

Talk about adaptive re-use: Baltic style

2011-07-07T21:08:00-04:00

Prora was designed to accommodate 20,000 people in one go. Hitler was convinced Germany lost World War I because its population lost its nerve. His idea was to create cheap package holidays to wed the nation to Nazism and to shape happy, strong, well-rested new generations capable of winning the next war.

Germany's newest youth hostel offers access to one of the best beaches the Baltic has to offer. Sunseekers are flocking to the place, which is booked out for the summer season and is already receiving bookings for summer 2012. The hostel stands just meters away from one of the best beaches the Baltic Sea has to offer, but is located in a building with a deeply troubled past. The 400-bed hostel, which calls itself "the longest youth hostel in the world," was opened on July 1 in a gigantic former Nazi holiday hotel that stretches for 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) along the coast of the island of Rügen at the resort of Prora.