Archinect - News

Büro Ole Scheeren designs mixed-use Scenic City for Shenzhen's high-tech core

2024-07-10T17:15:00-04:00

Büro Ole Scheeren has shared images and project details of their underway mixed-used Scenic City design at the Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base in China.

As the new HQ for e-commerce giant JD.com, the project will feature prominently in Shenzhen’s Nanshan District when it is completed by the end of 2027. Scenic City will be realized at two million square feet after construction began in early 2022.

Image: © Büro Ole Scheeren

Reaching a maximum height of 200 meters (656.1 feet), the program comprises two towers for offices, hotel, retail, public facilities, and cultural uses connected via a podium and adjacent landscaped "urban spine."

Image: © Büro Ole Scheeren

Each tower’s facade features both vertical and horizontal voided openings that allow for the inclusion of open-air terraces meant to accommodate the region’s humid climate. This breaks apart their volumes while suggesting a contemporary ziggurat climbing vertically from the podium base to the roofline. A subtler waterfall...

Büro Ole Scheeren realizes The Axiom high-rise design in Shanghai

2024-04-02T15:37:00-04:00

Büro Ole Scheeren has announced the completion of their latest high-rise design in Shanghai, called The Axiom. The 918-foot, 49-story tower is the first of two that will eventually form the heart of a mixed-use corporate campus known as The Springs on a central site in the Yangpu district for developer Tishman Speyer.

The design is punctuated midway by a striking offset structural core, which, according to the firm, is unique to just 3% of the 500 tallest buildings in the world.

Image: © Büro Ole Scheeren

Founder Ole Scheeren describes: “The Axiom is an emblem of the innovation that is now synonymous with Shanghai and forms an elegant urban landmark as the gateway to Yangpu District. Designed as a strategic hybrid of functionalism and iconicity, the twin towers represent the fluidity and dynamism of the future-oriented businesses they will accommodate.”

Image: © Büro Ole Scheeren

Rising from a shared podium base called the Culture Gate that connects to the surrounding development’s ...

Büro Ole Scheeren's new Sanya Horizons resort offers itself as a tropical oasis on the coast

2022-03-25T17:38:00-04:00

One of South China’s most coveted vacation destinations is about to get a spur thanks to a new design from Büro Ole Scheeren.

Billed as an enhancement of the natural surroundings on Hainan Island, Sanya Horizons will stand 160 meters (525 feet) above the resort-dotted tropical coastline to offer itself as what the firm says is a “unique ecological leisure destination” on a massive 83,500-square-meter (898,786-square-foot) beachfront plot.

Image © Büro Ole Scheeren

The project will combine two hotels — the Regent Sanya Bay and Hotel Indigo Sanya Bay — into one development, with each arranged in a stack that frees up much of the space surrounding the structure for an even more enhancing program of natural gardens and swimming areas. The combination of the massing also creates a unique and memorable curvilinear form that is both more structurally and ecologically efficient. Scheeren described the cumulative effect as “the merging of architecture and nature into a space of synergetic ha...

Ole Scheeren designs luxury condominium tower in Vancouver featuring cantilevered volumes

2021-10-25T16:10:00-04:00

An Ole Scheeren-designed luxury condominium development is taking shape in Vancouver, the architect’s first North American residential building and the only one worldwide where he has designed both the interiors and exteriors.

Developed by Bosa Properties, in partnership with Kingswood Properties, the project was first unveiled in 2015 before being approved by the city council in 2018. Construction is set to commence in 2022.

The tower, named Fifteen Fifteen, will be slotted in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour neighborhood. It will stand 42 stories tall and take a distinctive form, featuring numerous stacked horizontal volumes. The design is based on the idea of what Scheeren describes as “three-dimensional living,” a typology that injects horizontality to high-rise living in order to reconnect architecture with the natural and urban environment.

“Its distinctive silhouette flows from the idea of activation,” said Scheeren. “Fifteen Fifteen is about connectivity—connecting people to each...

Ole Scheeren's MahaNakhon tower in Bangkok now complete with glass 'Skytray'

2018-11-27T19:22:00-05:00

The new Mahanakhon SkyWalk, however, is a thrilling addition to Bangkok's roster of family-friendly tourist attractions. Located at the top of Thailand's tallest completed building, King Power Mahanakhon, it's a 314-meter-high (1,030 feet) observation deck and rooftop bar that offers 360-degree views of Bangkok. The terrifying bit comes in the form of a large glass floor, which juts out over the edge of the building.

With the opening of its glass-floor observation deck high up above Bangkok's Silom/Sathon central business district the Büro Ole Scheeren-designed King Power MahaNakhon tower is now considered completed (construction of the main building concluded in 2016).

Photo: Srirath Somsawat © Büro Ole Scheeren

"The idea behind MahaNakhon was to take the life of the city and bring it up the tower in a dramatic, spiralling movement," explains Ole Scheeren.

Photo: Wilson Tungthunya © Büro Ole Scheeren

"Even the very top of the tower is surrendered to the public, so there is not only a public square at the ground, but human activity rises along the pixelated shaft to the top floors of the building which are given back to the public domain. It is a project that is strongly embedded in the city and the public realm, and expressively proclaims itself as an active part of it."

Photo: Wilson Tungthunya © Büro Ole Scheeren

The MahaNakhon SkyWalk consists of an indoor observation deck with 360-degree panor...

“The Guardian Art Center is a lot more than just a museum”: Büro Ole Scheeren completes Guardian Art Center in Beijing

2018-01-24T15:19:00-05:00

“The Guardian Art Center is a lot more than just a museum,” says Ole Scheeren, principal of the eponymous Beijing practice Büro Ole Scheeren. The german architect has just completed a major project in the heart of Beijing: the Guardian Art Center, a custom-built auction house complete with museum quality galleries and state of the art conservation facilities as well as restaurants, a hotel, flexible event spaces, and integrated public transport infrastructure.

Photo by Iwan Baan.

“It’s not a hermetic institution, but rather an acknowledgement of the hybrid state of contemporary culture. It is a Chinese puzzle of interlocking cultural spaces and public functions that fuse art and culture with events and lifestyle” says Sheeren. Built near the Forbidden City and the National Art Museum of China, the Guradian Art Center is a new hybrid cultural institution that balances between the traditional and the contemporary, a concept that is growing more prominent as China undergoes major urban ...

How does an architect reflect the life of a city in an abstract skyscraper?

2016-07-06T12:46:00-04:00

Ole Scheeren wanted to meet his client's request for a skyscraper that would stand out in the already hyperbolic architecture of Bangkok primarily by designing something that wasn't trying so hard. Instead of going for a wild, crazy shape, Scheeren started by vertically extruding an abstract square.

However, as he notes in this CNN video, "Of course, this move exactly exemplifies the problem of the skyscraper. It is an abstract silhouette in a skyline that has no relationship to the city, and does not speak at all of the people that actually live in it or inhabit it. So I wanted to open up the new shaft of the tower and reveal the grain of its inhabitation. Through the usage of it, the people that will live in these three dimensional units will start to define the image of the building. The building will project the life of the people back to the city that gave it."

Watch the full video on CNN

Can Vancouver break out of its 'boring-architecture' mold with these new ambitious skyscrapers?

2015-09-21T17:03:00-04:00

A slew of innovative new condo towers are being proposed for Vancouver, as the city aims to take its arguably boring architecture to the next level. [...] Vancouver's move into adventurous architecture arguably began back in 2013, when Danish architect Bjarke Ingels revealed his design for twisting tower Vancouver House, which is now under construction.

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Büro Ole Scheeren reveals design of new Guardian Art Center hybrid auction house in Beijing

2015-03-10T15:21:00-04:00

Construction is already in progress for the new Guardian Art Center, China's oldest auction house, in Beijing. Designed by Büro Ole Scheeren in collaboration with Beijing Institute of Architectural Design and local planning authorities over four years, the Guardian Art Center is an embodiment of its significant historic surroundings that "explicitly pays respect to its context and location" while still functioning as an auction house, Ole Scheeren describes in a statement. In other words, the GAC is yet another structure that reflects the balance between tradition and contemporary, a concept that is growing more prominent as China continues to undergo major urban development.

The GAC is located at an intersection where commerce and culture meet: Wangfujing, Beijing's famous commercial street and Wusi Dajie, where the New Cultural Movement originated following the Qing Dynasty. As a souped-up version of its typology, the hybrid auction house consists of 8 levels above ground and 5 be...

UPDATE: World Architecture Festival 2014 adds Ole Scheeren as speaker + new conference sessions

2014-09-08T18:28:00-04:00

The anticipated 2014 World Architecture Festival is less than a month away! Taking place at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on October 1-3, WAF is expecting over 2,000 visitors from over 60 countries to experience a jam-packed program of conferences, seminars, workshops, and exhibitions. This year's WAF Awards shortlisters will also be preparing their live presentations to the Super Jury for the WAF Competition.

Just recently, WAF announced Ole Scheeren — the principal of Buro Ole Scheeren — as the latest addition to the notable lineup of keynote speakers. New sessions that were added to the program highlight building sustainable cities, a look into Heatherwick Studio's work, and a series of networking sessions titled "Meet your next client".

Details below.

Ole Scheeren announced as 2014 keynote speaker:

"The festival will start at 10am on Wednesday 1st from Ole Scheeren, Principal, Buro Ole Scheeren. Ole will give his unique perspective on the relationship between architects, architectur...

BIG, OMA & Buro Ole Scheeren win Axel Springer Campus Berlin competition - Who’s on top?

2013-12-18T14:45:00-05:00

In the international competition for the new Berlin Media Campus of German publishing house Axel Springer, the jury managed to agree upon their three favorite entries — but not quite yet in which order. Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), OMA (Rem Koolhaas) and Buro Ole Scheeren were selected as winners from a group of five finalists (including SANAA and Kuehn Malvezzi) that were invited to present their proposals to the jury on December 12. Eighteen submissions had been received altogether.

The competition brief had deliberately not placed tight restrictions on the submitted designs — something that the three winners will now have to finalize in their proposals before the jury selects the overall winner.

BIG:

OMA:

Buro Ole Scheeren:

All images courtesy of Axel Springer.

Who do you think will take the prize? Let us know in the comments below.