Archinect - News

BIG’s cybersecurity and AI hub imitates its surrounding hills in Slovakia

2021-11-30T14:26:00-05:00

Days after BIG’s conceptual floating city idea was adopted by South Korea, the firm has unveiled its design for the European AI and Cybersecurity Hub on the ESET Campus in Bratislava, Slovakia. The 55,000-square-meter (590,000-square-foot) headquarters consists of twelve individual buildings organized around a central courtyard, with a form echoing the surrounding Carpathian Mountains.

Image by BLOOM

The campus replaces a former military hospital on the site and will house ESET’s 1,500-strong workforce, who research and develop cybersecurity solutions. Mimicking the peaks of the nearby hills, low-lying buildings along the outer perimeter of the campus are designated as public spaces, while four taller buildings towards the center house ESET’s operations.

Image by BLOOM

“Rather than a single hermetic entity, we have dissolved the ESET Campus into an urban village of interconnected buildings, framing public paths and urban squares,” explains Bjarke Ingels. “The diverse cluster of indivi...

This 40m2 wilderness cabin by Ark Shelter Studio offers a cozy glamping experience

2018-07-13T20:31:00-04:00

Three years in the making, this cozy wilderness cabin in Slovakia's Kysuce region looks much more spacious inside than its 40m2 size. Michiel De Backer and Martin Mikovčák of Ark Shelter Studio designed the modular getaway cabin with several large windows that help occupants reconnect with nature.

Photo: Jakub Skokan and Martin Tůma / BoysPlayNice.

Painted in a subdued shade of black on the outside, the main structure of the shelter contains a furnished kitchen space, lounging areas, and a bathroom. Next to the bathroom is a bed that can move up to the ceiling to reveal a jacuzzi underneath.

Photo: Jakub Skokan and Martin Tůma / BoysPlayNice.

Photos: Jakub Skokan and Martin Tůma / BoysPlayNice.

The main area is topped with an extra module that has another bedroom, and a large rooftop...

Hyperloop announces plans for first European routes

2016-03-11T13:23:00-05:00

In a joint statement yesterday the Playa Vista, California-based Hyperloop Transport Technologies (HTT) and the Slovak Republic’s economy minister held out the future vision of the Hyperloop whisking passengers at 760 mph between Vienna in Austria, Budapest in Hungary and the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. A Bratislava-to-Vienna route would take just 8 minutes at full speed, while a Bratislava-to-Budapest route would take 10 minutes.

Hyperloop previously in the Archinect news:

Providing egalitarian habitat for humanity

2015-11-30T05:04:00-05:00

more of them were built in the former Czechoslovakia — in a boom that stretched from 1959 to 1995 — than any place else on what was once Soviet earth. Today, about a third of all Czechs and Slovaks, from all income brackets, still call their panelaks home

Lisa Schwarzbaum traveled to Bratislava to explore its ubiquitous panelaks (aka "panel house"), Soviet era concrete high-rise housing units. The city is also the home of monuments to new capitalism, such as the Aupark shopping center and corporate complexes like Digital Park.

On a related note back in 2014, Hello Czech Republic interviewed architect Michal Kohout regarding possible future(s) for the panelak housing estates.