Archinect - News

Take a tour of UNStudio's newly completed Singapore towers

2018-11-28T16:23:00-05:00

UNStudio recently completed two impressive high-rise developments in Singapore, bringing the Amsterdam-based firm's portfolio of completed buildings in the Asian city state up to four: the 36-story Ardmore Residence tower (2013), Singapore University of Technology and Design campus (2015), and now also the mixed-use V on Shenton and the residential Scotts Tower.

Check out the two new kids on the densely populated block and watch the video below for a Ben van Berkel-guided tour of all four projects.

V on Shenton

"In addition to the office and residential programmes, the dual tower building houses a number of fully integrated sky gardens which provide panoramic 360 degree views of Singapore and house a variety of amenities," explains the project description, "such as a fitness area, swimming pools and a children’s play area, with lush green vegetation providing fresher, cleaner air. These areas provide spaces for shared communal activities, or for the residents to entertain guests."

V...

UNStudio's Raffles City Hangzhou is an all-in-one destination for living, working, and leisure

2017-09-19T15:48:00-04:00

Dutch firm, UNStudio, has completed their largest single building to date—the new Raffles City mixed-use development described by the firm as "a sustainable urban hub for living, working and leisure." Back in 2009, the firm opened their Shanghai office to oversee the complex's design and construction.

Conceived as a vertical city, the structure occupies almost 400,000 square meters of space and will offer a rich mix of 24/7 functions. The two streamlined, 250-meter tall towers house residential units, Grade A offices, the Conrad Hotel and a rooftop helipad. The six-story podium and plaza, which has direct underground connection to the metro, offer retail, restaurants, leisure facilities and parking.

The design is representative of the distinctive, sinuous style the firm has become known for. The pair of winding towers, featuring an outer layer of rotated, vertical solar shading fins, placed atop the curtain wall system, starts calmly at t...

Editor's Picks #434

2015-11-06T11:22:00-05:00

Julia Ingalls highlighted the work of Design Build Research (DBR), based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Currently a non-profit institute led by architect Michael Green and creative entrepreneur Scott Hawthorn, one of the earliest projects was building a theater when TED headquarters’ moved from Long Beach, California to Vancouver.

zenza commented "I was a part of the TED Talk stage design/build (I`m in the last photo actually!). It was a fantastic experience and I learned a lot...Having learned extremely little about construction and the act of assembling things in school, this program offered an awesome addition to my design education."

Meanwhile the latest edition of Screen/Print: featured the October 2015 issue of the Journal of Architectural Education , volume 69: "S,M,L,XL ".

News
Belmont Freeman (principal of Belmont Freeman Architects, an award-winning design firm in New York City) penned an essay questioning whether preservation has become too conservative and elitist? What Eva...

Building a collaborative practice: Caroline Bos of UNStudio lectures at LACMA

2015-10-30T16:00:00-04:00

Students and professionals nearly filled up the Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Tuesday night to listen to guest lecturer Caroline Bos, co-founder and principal urban planner of UNStudio. Bos spoke about UNStudio’s design process that continues to shift even after her 27 years of practice with co-founder Ben van Berkel and their growing international office. In highlighting a selection of the firm's projects, she outlined their focus on collaborative, research-driven design, with the ultimate goal to consistently create inventive, inclusive and “socially aware” architecture.

↑ Caroline Bos and Ben van Berkel of UNStudio.

To frame the discussion of UNStudio's design methods, Bos began her lecture by quoting from Richard Sennett’s 2008 book, The Craftsman. “Knowledge is gained in the hand through touch and movement," and, "Technical understanding develops through the powers of imagination”. According to Bos, the quotes in an architectural context describe the int...

uncube converses with UNStudio's Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos

2013-05-29T19:13:00-04:00

In contrast to postmodernism – to Krier but also to Tschumi and Koolhaas, who tended more toward approaching architecture through the political issues of that time – we started solely from architectural issues. We also wrote our first book about that, about how architecture itself can again be a source of fascination.