Archinect - News

3XN's mass timber Sydney Fish Market project tops out in Australia

2024-12-20T13:16:00-05:00

Construction on the new Sydney Fish Market from 3XN has topped out in Australia. The 700,000-square-foot building will become the largest fish market and have the largest glulam roof structure in the southern hemisphere once completed. Its PV-paneled roof is calibrated to withstand high wind loads while meeting the spatial demands required by the marketplace, is held in place by 594 beams, and is capable of harvesting rainwater throughout the year.

The project offers a worthy follow-up to the Danish firm's award-winning work on the upcycled Quay Quarter Tower in Sydney. They are working locally with local architects BVN, GXN Innovation, and the landscape architects Aspect Studios.

Studio Gang updates progress on mass timber conference center at Harvard

2024-12-17T16:12:00-05:00

The new David Rubenstein Treehouse conference center project from Studio Gang for Harvard University has topped out near its campus in the Allston neighborhood of Boston.

What will become Harvard’s first-ever mass timber structure is included as part of the larger 36-acre Enterprise Research Campus (or ERC) development that was announced last summer along with designs from MVRDV, Moody Nolan, and Marlon Blackwell. It follows another creative higher ed timber design from Studio Gang, the new two-building campus expansion for the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, which was unveiled in November.

Zaha Hadid Architects continues work on Chengdu's 'Unicorn Island' tech hub

2024-12-17T09:35:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has updated their progress on the Unicorn Island tech hub development in Chengdu, China. The 165.5-acre project delivers worker housing and office/research space for 70,000. Buildings are arranged in clusters and established "organically" along a radial distribution since the project began completing its first buildings in January 2020. The master plan is located in the Tianfu New Area. The firm also completed work on the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum in the city last October.

Sculptural Façade of Zaha Hadid Architects' Shenzhen Institute of Financial Technology takes shape

2024-12-13T16:40:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid Architects’ upcoming Shenzhen Institute of Financial Technology Tower is taking shape. Construction work on the 46-story structure’s sculptural façade has begun.

Image: Xue Liang

Located on a narrow site in the center of Shenzhen’s Futian district, the tower aims to accommodate the Institute’s ongoing expansion to serve China’s growing fintech industry.

Image: Xue Liang

The roughly 818,000-square-foot building will house research and development laboratories, technology exchange, data centers, and a training campus, together with management, support, and administrative departments.

Image: Xue Liang

The tower’s composition is defined by its surrounding urban environment. Its volume features set-backs, which were determined by mapping and modeling the annual paths of sunlight across the site. The set-backs optimize the amount of direct sunlight that reaches the surrounding streets, public plazas, and buildings. In addition, the tower’s envelope is set to incorporate high perfo...

HOK begins construction of all-electric Etihad Park soccer stadium in Queens

2024-12-06T12:17:00-05:00

The first purpose-built home of the New York City FC MLS franchise has broken ground in Willets Point, Queens. The $3 billion project is being led by HOK, which was one of the top 300 performing firms globally last year thanks to its lucrative sports portfolio.

It yields a 25,000-seat stadium (also MLS’s first all-electric design) with a 35,000-square-foot public space that can be operated on non-match days. The plan also includes a 2,500-unit affordable housing component, a 250-room hotel, and 650-seat public school. HOK has said previously they expect the stadium's construction to be completed in time for the 2027 season.

Kéré Architecture breaks ground on new Ewe cultural space in Togo

2024-12-06T11:03:00-05:00

Kéré Architecture has announced the start of construction for the new Centre des Cultures et Spiritualités Ewés (CCSE) in Togo. The project helps preserve the culture of the local Ewe people and uses endemic red laterite brick as its primary building material.

Kéré said: "I am very happy to contribute to this important project, and to be able to support this initiative of giving a space to express and preserve identity. It is a joy to see how ideas and techniques embedded within my work have now become 'salonfähig' and widely accepted by people building on the continent. The centre will demonstrate how architecture can be a catalyst for communities to celebrate their cultures."

The firm expects the project to be completed in early 2026.

Image: © Kéré Architecture

MAD updates construction progress on new Lishui Airport in China

2024-11-24T08:00:00-05:00

MAD Architects is wrapping up work on their new Lishui (LIJ) Airport in Zhejiang Province, China. The project, which is expected to be delivered by the end of the year, yields an approximately 129,000-square-foot terminal that will help serve an expected five million travelers by the year 2050. The design is meant a aviary metaphor set against a mountainous landscape.

Ma Yansong described it as being "not greedy for big, but pursuing convenience and humanity, and pursuing a dialogue with the natural environment."

MAD says it likewise "redefines how infrastructure can be both functional and deeply tied to the land it inhabits." Another soon-to-be-completed project in China, the Hainan Science Museum, will open in 2025 as per our last update this May.

MVRDV updates Expo 2000 Pavilion transformation in Hannover

2024-11-22T16:39:00-05:00

MVRDV has updated its progress on the adaptive reuse of the Dutch Expo 2000 Pavilion in the German city of Hannover. The project will yield two new buildings surrounding the renovated pavilion—an original MVRDV design that's set to be transformed into a co-working office facility with a third-floor garden, maintaining the "stacked landscape" concept critical to the original. The pavilion had sat abandoned for 23 years before construction began.

Image courtesy MVRDV via Threads

LACMA sets April 2026 opening date for David Geffen Galleries

2024-10-30T18:26:00-04:00

The LA Times is reporting that the new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA will finally open to the public in April of 2026. This ends speculations as to when exactly the 110,000-square-foot Peter Zumthor design would debut after multiple delays to the orginally $750 million project. Spaces inside the new building will be open to the public for a two-week period once the city grants a temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) in May of 2025. The newspaper had previously reported the project budget to be in excess of $835 million as of our last update.

Watch LAX's new Midfield Satellite Concourse South taxi to its final destination

2024-10-28T17:14:00-04:00

Woods Bagot has shared a video from the recent overnight installation of its Midfield Satellite Concourse South (or MSC South) project at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

The project adds around 146,000 square feet of space and eight gates designed to hold narrowbody aircraft.

Video courtesy Woods Bagot

Its realization was made possible by an innovative new process called Offsite Construction and Relocation (or OCR), which calls for an in-situ delivery staged in nine segments in order to avoid costly disruptions to air traffic operations after the process began earlier this year just north of the airport's northernmost runways. Buro Happold (structural engineering, sustainability, lighting, and acoustical design) was able to ensure its delivery in partnership with RAW International.

Image: Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA)

The next step after this major hurdle will be to assemble each of the segments through 2025.

Image: Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA)

Woods Bagot’s Ian L...

BIG updates KING Toronto construction progress

2024-10-23T18:00:00-04:00

Here’s a brief construction update on the BIG-led new KING Toronto development with Diamond Schmitt Architects. The design pays homage to the definitive modularity of Moshe Safdie’s seminal Habitat 67, with 514 units rotated on a 45-degree angle and arranged as through a canyon overlooking the nightlife-centric King Street West corridor. Ingels says it will top out soon at 16 stories after beginning construction in mid-2020. This "experimental" addition will be the Danish firm’s third project for developer Westbank, following Vancouver House and the Telus Sky tower in Calgary.

Saudi Arabia's record-breaking Mukaab tower begins construction in Riyadh

2024-10-23T15:28:00-04:00

Preliminary construction work on the mind-boggling Mukaab tower scheme has been reported in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The cube-like structure, whose volume is equivalent to 64 million cubic meters (more than 2.2 billion cubic feet), is apparently large enough to contain 20 Empire State Buildings. It will become the centerpiece of a new downtown core for the city called ‘New Murabba’ once completed.

Image courtesy New Murabba

At its core, another tower-like structure anchors over 21.5 million square feet of floor space dedicated to shopping and inspired by traditional Islamic architecture. Montreal-based AtkinsRéalis has been named as the designer.

Promotional video for the Mukaab tower scheme. Via Public Investment Fund/YouTube

Its stated dimensions mean it would surpass the Boeing Everett Factory in Washington State to become the world's largest building upon completion. Construction is said to require some 900 workers on-site daily and will likely wrap up by the end of 2030.

...

SOM breaks ground on new 53-story office project in Shenzhen

2024-10-16T15:11:00-04:00

Another important new project for Shenzhen—the SOM-designed CIMC Global Headquarters—just broke ground on its path to a 2029 completion. By that time, the 53-story, 886-foot tower will begin welcoming the first of its 60,000 anticipated daily users. Located in the Qianhai commercial district, the design targets both LEED and WELL Platinum certifications.

SOM (currently hiring for three project manager positions on Archinect Jobs) also recently broke ground on the $336 million new NJPAC redevelopment scheme with Weiss/Manfredi in Newark, New Jersey.

Image: Atchain © SOM

Populous breaks ground on new NBA training facility in Cleveland

2024-10-16T14:27:00-04:00

The initial vertical development included in Cleveland’s massive $3.5 billion Cuyahoga Riverfront Master Plan has broken ground in northeast Ohio. Designed by Populous, the Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center will encompass some 210,000 square feet and support athletic training for the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA franchise. Construction project will culminate in 2027. The plan, which was tendered to Adjaye Associates in 2022, covers 35 acres and will be delivered over a 15-20 year timespan.

Image rendering courtesy Populous

California Science Center's Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center expansion tops out in Los Angeles

2024-10-15T18:16:00-04:00

Construction has topped out on the ZGF Architects-led design for the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at the California Science Center in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park.

The 200,000-square-foot project expands the museum’s programmable exhibition space by 110,00 square feet and shelters the decommissioned Space Shuttle Endeavor in a 200-foot-tall central space that organizes all three levels. Completion of the $425 million project is scheduled for mid-2025. Construction at the site began in June of 2022. Arup is the engineering partner.

Image courtesy California Science Center

Rendering courtesy California Science Center

Snøhetta's Shanghai Grand Opera House project nears 2025 completion

2024-10-11T13:21:00-04:00

Construction of Snøhetta's Shanghai Grand Opera House is rapidly progressing towards a 2025 completion in the city's Pudong District. The firm, which is working with ECADI locally, won an international competition for its design in 2019. We last updated its progress in October 2023. The two firms have also collaborated on the new Beijing Library, which was named the winner of the 2024 IFLA/Baker & Taylor Public Library of the Year Award yesterday.

Zaha Hadid Architects updates progress on Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum construction

2024-10-10T10:26:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects is moving towards the end of construction for the Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum.

What will become the "pearl" of the city’s Guangming Science City district is just a few short months from completion. When it opens, it will yield about 1.35 million square feet of learning and exhibition space wrapped in a high-performance envelope that emerges from Guangming Park to address the city to the east orientation.

ZHA tells us: "The museum’s procurement, full life-cycle performance and adaptability for future configuration are also evaluated and assessed to reduce embodied carbon and achieve the highest Three-Star rating of China’s Green Building Evaluation Standard."

Changi Terminal 5 design by KPF + Heatherwick sets date for 2025 groundbreaking

2024-10-09T19:04:00-04:00

KPF and Heatherwick Studio’s collaboration on the new Changi Airport Terminal 5 is set for take off in Singapore after officials there announced plans for to break ground on the $10 billion project in the first half of 2025. Once it is ready by the mid-2030s, the terminal will serve around 50 million passengers annually. This is Heatherwick Studio's third project in Singapore and follows the completion of KPF’s undulating design of the new Terminal A at Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi in February.

MAD tops Fenix Museum of Migration with spiral stair feature in Rotterdam

2024-10-03T10:29:00-04:00

MAD Architects have updated the progress on the new Fenix Museum of Migration in Rotterdam. The project, now in its final phase, is united by a distinctive stainless steel spiral stair feature and joins the adaptive reuse of a warehouse space next door into the new Danshuis center, which was announced in March of 2023, in one program celebrating the diversity and creative spirit of Rotterdammers.

Ma Yansong has said previously about dance that it was the "flowing art of space", and that the latter project would emphasize this notion while highlighting the city’s "yearning for freedom and embracing of diverse global cultures."

This represents his firm’s first European commission. MAD expects the Fenix Museum to open in 2025.

REX previews copper facade screen for Brisbane office tower

2024-09-26T11:48:00-04:00

REX has posted a preview of a forthcoming new 205 North Quay office project in Brisbane. The firm is coming off a banner year in which its $500 million Perelman Performing Arts Center, which features its own unique facade made from marble combined into insulated glazing, won several major honors in New York and internationally. The $600 million North Quay project tops out at 37 stories and is scheduled to make its debut in Australia's third-largest city by mid-2025.

Zaha Hadid Architects updates mixed-use Taikang Financial Centre's construction in Wuhan

2024-09-17T18:19:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)’s Taikang Financial Centre is off and running in Wuhan, China. The construction update posted this past week to the firm’s Instagram shows progress on three ultimately glass-enclosed cores separated by a lush "urban canyon" that envelopes skybridge-connected towers of 52, 50, and 47 floors separately within the Hankou Riverside Business District.

Its design loans from the previous Leeza SOHO tower finished in 2019 in Beijing's Fengtai financial precinct. The firm had previously announced the mixed-use project's completion for 2025 but now says it's 'TBC' along with other underway developments in the region on its web page.

LACMA updates design details, public opening timeline for David Geffen Galleries

2024-09-16T13:04:00-04:00

Here’s a brief update on the progress of Peter Zumthor’s David Geffen Galleries at the LACMA. The project now won’t open in full until 2026, the museum's J. Fiona Ragheb wrote in a staff memo obtained by the LA Times. The memo states that public access may be granted for two weeks after a temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) is obtained in May of 2025 and before the installation of the permanent collection. Galleries are to be arranged thematically based on six oceanic regions thereafter. Christopher Knight, who first reported the news, quoted an internal museum source as saying the project’s budget is now in excess of $835 million.

BIG and ICON break ground on Liz Lambert's 3D printed El Cosmico resort in Marfa

2024-09-12T13:17:00-04:00

What could be the world’s first 3D printed hotel development has just broken ground near art and design-rich Marfa, Texas. The vision of a Texas native, the noted Austin area hotelier Liz Lambert, will come together with design and logistical support from BIG and ICON. Both entities announced the project in March of 2023, at the time promising a concept defined by a high desert vernacular that equally purports a "primordial architectural language."

All images courtesy ICON and Bjarke Ingels Group

Their design for the expanded El Cosmico resort calls for multiple structures comprised of different organic forms to be 3D printed on a plot totaling more than 60 acres. Private residences and affordable housing units connect to a hotel with a new amphitheater for the Austin-based Long Center for the Performing Arts included.

All images courtesy ICON and Bjarke Ingels Group

Individually, the homes are to be realized at between 2,000 and 2,500 square feet. The project expands the process and ...

Take a look inside Rafael Viñoly's The Greenwich before its long-awaited debut

2024-09-05T12:07:00-04:00

Archinect has received a first look inside The Greenwich by Rafael Viñoly and its March & White (MAWD)-led interior design. After a four-year hiatus, the 912-foot, 88-story new landmark is drawing near completion in the Financial District with 272 residences.

Each apartment, along with the building's 27,000 square feet of upper-floor amenities spaces, features one of three (Terra, Aqua, and Stratus) earth-toned color palettes designed to match the corresponding vistas at each level. The units all have floor-to-ceiling windows. Viñoly's son Román says the project "embodies the essence of my father's uncompromising modernism," adding, "It is an elegant and powerful testament to my father's creative vision."

Photo: Laura Randall, Optimist Consulting

Image: Evan Joseph

Photo: Laura Randall, Optimist Consulting

BIG updates status of one of EU’s largest mass timber projects in Luxembourg

2024-09-03T17:48:00-04:00

BIG has provided an update on its Skypark Business Center at the Luxembourg Airport in Luxembourg. What will be one of Europe’s largest hybrid mass timber designs is now almost fully enclosed and stands as the first completed structure included in the Airport City grounds expansion. Metaform Architects is collaborating with BIG locally on the project, which was won after a 2018 international competition. Construction will yield approximately 840,000 square feet for offices and other commercial activities.

Bjarke Ingels recently spoke with our Niall Patrick Walsh in an interview about their noteworthy 3D printing innovations.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kai-Uwe Bergmann (@kaiuwebergmann)

Herzog & de Meuron's mass timber HORTUS project advances in Switzerland

2024-08-27T12:13:00-04:00

The new mass timber HORTUS office project from Herzog & de Meuron is advancing towards completion in Allschwil, Switzerland. Construction will yield 600 workplaces and be fully offset after 31 years in use. The firm says it is “one of the most sustainable office buildings in the German-speaking world.”

PEI Architects adds a new geometric gateway to the Shanghai Free Trade Zone

2024-08-21T12:57:00-04:00

The latest addition to Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone from PEI Architects, a two-tower scheme defined by double-laminated insulated glazing units (or IGUs) facades is moving forward.

The pair of angular 40-story towers are designed to house a hotel and office component and “separated by a taut vertical void but bound by a singular point to create a unique expression of a traditional arch structure,” according to the firm's press announcement. Two offset pyramids, a "gesture of outreach and cooperation", unite atriums at the uppermost levels. The project's total square footage will come out to just under 2 million square feet once completed. A new full-scale retrospective of I.M. Pei's influence is currently on view at the M+ museum in Hong Kong.

All images courtesy PEI Architects

Zaha Hadid Architects updates progress on Central Bank of Iraq Headquarters in Baghdad

2024-08-16T18:09:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects has shared new construction photos of its Central Bank of Iraq Headquarters design in Baghdad. Sitting on a narrow site right by the Tigris River, the tower's exoskeleton rises from a podium and gradually widens upwards to reach a height of 560 feet.

The late Zaha Hadid is credited for the design (along with Patrik Schumacher), making this project a significant contribution to her city of birth.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zaha Hadid Architects (@zahahadidarchitects)

BIG's garden-like Suzhou 'art oasis' tops out

2024-08-09T13:45:00-04:00

Another museum project in China from BIG, the 646,000-square-foot Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art, topped out recently ahead of its scheduled 2025 opening. The project, a "tribute to the rich garden heritage of Suzhou," includes 12 separate small pavilions, which are united by walkways covered by a sheltering envelope of ribboned roof eaves to form a village-like concept. It stands as the centerpiece of the ongoing Jinji Lake redevelopment.

"The result is a manmade maze of plants and artworks to get lost within," Bjarke Ingels commented on the design scheme created in collaboration with ARTS Group and Front Inc. "Its nodular logic only becomes distinctly discernible when viewed from the gondolas above."

View this post on Instagram A post shared by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group (@big_builds)

Snøhetta's Joslyn Art Museum expansion teases first photos ahead of September opening

2024-08-09T11:39:00-04:00

Work on Snøhetta's Joslyn Art Museum expansion in Omaha, Nebraska, is wrapping up ahead of an anticipated September 10th opening. Since our last update, the new 42,000-square-foot Rhonda & Howard Hawks Pavilion has finished construction. Founding partner Craig Dykers says it will “become a vessel for inspiration and creativity to flourish.”

Bird's-eye view rendering of the completed Joslyn Art Museum expansion. Rendering courtesy of Moare.

The project is part of a multi-billion investment into downtown Omaha to which the Joslyn serves as a key cultural anchor. The existing 1931 Art Deco Joslyn Building was also renovated through the project, which is valued at $100 million. Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture is involved as a design partner.

Here are two more teaser photos the museum just released, showing details of the facade and the interior.

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Archinect - News

3XN's mass timber Sydney Fish Market project tops out in Australia

Studio Gang updates progress on mass timber conference center at Harvard

Zaha Hadid Architects continues work on Chengdu's 'Unicorn Island' tech hub

Sculptural Façade of Zaha Hadid Architects' Shenzhen Institute of Financial Technology takes shape

HOK begins construction of all-electric Etihad Park soccer stadium in Queens

Kéré Architecture breaks ground on new Ewe cultural space in Togo

MAD updates construction progress on new Lishui Airport in China

MVRDV updates Expo 2000 Pavilion transformation in Hannover

LACMA sets April 2026 opening date for David Geffen Galleries

Watch LAX's new Midfield Satellite Concourse South taxi to its final destination

BIG updates KING Toronto construction progress

Saudi Arabia's record-breaking Mukaab tower begins construction in Riyadh

SOM breaks ground on new 53-story office project in Shenzhen

Populous breaks ground on new NBA training facility in Cleveland

California Science Center's Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center expansion tops out in Los Angeles

Snøhetta's Shanghai Grand Opera House project nears 2025 completion

Zaha Hadid Architects updates progress on Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum construction

Changi Terminal 5 design by KPF + Heatherwick sets date for 2025 groundbreaking

MAD tops Fenix Museum of Migration with spiral stair feature in Rotterdam

REX previews copper facade screen for Brisbane office tower

Zaha Hadid Architects updates mixed-use Taikang Financial Centre's construction in Wuhan

LACMA updates design details, public opening timeline for David Geffen Galleries

BIG and ICON break ground on Liz Lambert's 3D printed El Cosmico resort in Marfa

Take a look inside Rafael Viñoly​'s The Greenwich before its long-awaited debut

BIG updates status of one of EU’s largest mass timber projects in Luxembourg

Herzog & de Meuron's mass timber HORTUS project advances in Switzerland

PEI Architects adds a new geometric gateway to the Shanghai Free Trade Zone

Zaha Hadid Architects updates progress on Central Bank of Iraq Headquarters in Baghdad

BIG's garden-like Suzhou 'art oasis' tops out

Snøhetta's Joslyn Art Museum expansion teases first photos ahead of September opening

Take a look inside Rafael Viñoly's The Greenwich before its long-awaited debut