Archinect - News

NEOM updates progress on The Line and other satellite developments

2024-02-28T18:32:00-05:00

Progress on the Oxagon, Sindalah, and the 110-mile-long The Line centerpiece developments in Saudi Arabia’s NEOM megaproject has been documented in a new update released this week.

Aerial photos combined with drone footage displaying their construction progress surfaced on NEOM social media accounts with a note about its tangibility to naysayers skeptical of the $500 billion vision of the country's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Video: NEOM/YouTube

It follows previous video updates from January and October of 2023. Since then, several additional developments (including Leyja, Epicon, Aquellum, and Siranna) have been announced.

Image: NEOM/YouTube

The first construction phases will reportedly be completed by 2030, with the British firm Atkins retained to oversee delivery of The Line, which is by far its largest and most technically challenging portion.

Image: NEOM/YouTube

Around 60,000 workers are reported to be on each construction site combined. The Saudi state has spent $5.6 ...

Snøhetta's spiraling Shanghai Grand Opera House is taking form

2023-10-27T18:06:00-04:00

Snøhetta has shared photos revealing the construction status of their Shanghai Grand Opera House design ahead of its expected opening in 2025.

What’s most noticeable is the formation of the structure’s distinctive fan-shaped roof, which frames the Opera House’s spiraling form. This visual identity is evoked throughout the project, expressed through the winding staircase, the lobby, the halls, and the three auditoriums. The roof will operate as an accessible stage and meeting place, open to visitor access year-round.

Snøhetta was commissioned to design the Opera House following an international design competition.

Previously on Archinect: Snøhetta's spiraling design chosen for new Shanghai Grand Opera House

The project has set out to be an important component of a new urban master plan for Shanghai. The structure is being built in the Expo Houtan neighborhood, located at the convex bank in the riverside area near Huangpu River.

Check out more construction photos in Snøhetta's recent...

Check out the process behind Apex Plaza, the new tallest mass timber building on the East Coast

2022-05-05T16:17:00-04:00

William McDonough + Partners' new mass timber Apex Plaza project recently celebrated its completion in Charlottesville, Virginia. The 187,000-square-foot structure is now considered to be the largest such CLT project in the eastern United States.

Its completion is a major milestone for the use of the increasingly popular material in the U.S. and marks the end of a journey begun twenty years ago when the firm published a text from McDonough and EPEA International founder Michael Braungart outlining the “possibility of developing healthy and creatively interactive relationships between human settlements and the natural world.”

Apex Plaza, completed. Image © William McDonough + Partners

Construction images provided by the firm tell a narrative of its design features and the process behind McDonough's concepts of "Building like a Tree," "Design for Disassembly," and "The Five Goods." The timber products you can see below are said to be sustainably harvested and Cradle to Cradle-certifie...

Get an up-close look at Moynihan Train Hall’s massive new skylights

2018-09-08T17:52:00-04:00

The transformation of the historic Farley Post Office into a bright, modern transportation hub known as Moynihan Train Hall is on time and on budget for its late 2020 opening. To date, 800 people working every day have logged more than one million hours of labor, and the four, 92-foot-high skylights crowning the 225,000-square-foot LIRR and Amtrak concourse are perhaps the most stunning example of their efforts. Get an up-close look at these feats of engineering.

New photos of the interior and exterior of Apple's Norman Foster-designed campus

2016-12-14T12:34:00-05:00

French website Mac Generation has obtained photos of newly completed portions of the Apple Campus 2 as designed by Foster + Partners. The exterior, which in renderings possessed a certain monolithic frisbee quality, is far more vivid in real life. Here are photos of both the interior and exterior, including a shot of one of the roof's 59 skylights:

Apple is expected to start moving its operations into the building in 2017.

For more on the Apple Campus:

A peak into Snøhetta's massive new SFMOMA

2015-10-22T13:39:00-04:00

In the Bay Area, SFMOMA is now the largest art museum, surpassing the Oakland Museum of California at 110,000 feet. In the city, the de Young Museum is second at 84,000 square feet. Statewide, its exhibition space is 50 percent larger than the Getty Center in Los Angeles and is second only to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian of the West, which boasts 230,000 feet.

While the museum won't open to the public until May 14, 2016, the SFMOMA has allowed a photographer from The San Francisco Chronicle inside and out to survey its newsworthily-expansive Snøhetta-designed spaces: