Thai-Style Hotel: Sukhothai Heritage Resort

Sukhothai was the capital of the first Kingdom of Siam (Thailand) in the 13th and 14th centuries. It has a number of fine monuments, illustrating the beginnings of Thai architecture. The great civilization which evolved in the Kingdom of Sukhothai absorbed numerous influences and ancient local traditions; the rapid assimilation of all these elements forged what is known as the 'Sukhothai style'.

The historic town of Sukhothai lies a dozen or so kilometres from the modern town and still has a large part of its fortifications. The principal monuments include the monastery (wat) Mahathat, with its royal temple and its cemetery; Sra Si Wat, with its two stupas, their graceful lines reflected in the water of the town's biggest reservoir; and an impressive prang (reliquary tower typical of Ayutthaya art) from a somewhat later period. The site has been excavated and studied since the mid-20th century. In 1988 a 70 km² area was declared a historic park.

Sukhothai Heritage Resort:

Opened in October 2007, Embraced within vast organic rice fields, adjacent to the Sukhothai Airport, the low-rise accommodation is styled with ancient Sukhothai architecture and eclectic interior design inspired liberally by genuine Thai touch.

New district in Belgrade by Zaha Hadid

Location: Belgrade, Serbia
Area:       94,000 sqm
Design:    Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Function: Regenerate Historic Site
Cost:       200 million euro +

The Building complex located  only 500 meters away from the city center, next to Belgrade’s two rivers and the subtle monumentality of the Kalemegdan Castle. This mixed use project in the abandoned Beko textile factory in a style that directly reflects Zaha’s distinct style of Parametricism. Focused on urban regeneration, overlooking the junction of Sava and Danube Rivers.

Zaha Hadid Architect's Beko Masterplan aims to transform the currently inaccessible factory site into Belgrade’s next cultural hub. With the entire ground floor dedicated to civic space, the 94,000 square meter complex will feature residential, retail and commercial areas, along with a large scale convention center, five-star boutique hotel and an abundance of public destinations. Public, private, indoor and outdoor spaces are fused together by “flow lines”, as each space is meant to seamlessly connect to one another.

Zaha Hadid: “We are delighted to be working on the design for BEKO. The project focuses on urban regeneration of an important site at the intersection of key cultural artifacts. The masterplan follows the region’s strong modernist traditions and has applied new concepts and methods that examine and organize the programs of the site; defining a composition of buildings with the elegance of coherence that addresses the complexity of 21st century living patterns. The design for BEKO is embedded within the surrounding landscape of Belgrade’s cultural axis and incorporates essential public spaces. It is absolutely critical to invest in these public spaces that engage with the city. They are a vital component of a rich urban life and cityscape, uniting the city and tying the urban fabric together.”

More information about Zaha Hadid:

She is an Iraqi-British architect. She received the Pritzker Architecture Prize  in 2004—the first woman to do so—and the Stirling Prize  in 2010 and 2011. 

She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. There she met Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, and Bernard Tschumi.

She worked for her former professors, Koolhaas and Zenghelis, at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands; she became a partner in 1977. In 1980 she established her own London-based practice.

She has taught at prestigious universities around the world, including at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was the Kenzo Tange Professorship and the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Architecture.

She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria.

Santiago Calatrava, sir master of architecture

While I was trying remember who was the other worldfamous architect from my book at University, suddenly Mr Santiago Calatrava name appeared in my mind. Mr Calatrava is a Genius Spanish Architect.

Did I ever told you that best shoes made in Italy and Spain? It is not surprise,because in Europe the best fashion, furniture,sculptures,architect design came from Italy and Spain. If I would have time, I will write about  Venice Architect Biennal.... Best place what I visited ever! ( http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/index.html )

 

 

Now go back, and watch some projects from our Spanish Genius, Santiago Calatrava. I think he is the biggest master of bridges all over the world. I have seen his bridge in Venice, Italy and of course Dublin, Ireland. His design is brilliant, almost everybody adore his pojects.

Santiago Calatrava  (born 28 July 1951) is a Spanish architect, sculptor and structural engineer whose principal office is in Zürich, Switzerland. Classed now among the elite designers of the world, he has offices in Zürich, Paris, Valencia, and New York City.

Calatrava was born in Benimàmet, an old municipality now integrated as an urban part of Valencia, Spain, where he pursued his undergraduate architecture degree at the Polytechnic University of Valencia along with a post-graduate course in urbanism. During his schooldays, he also undertook independent projects with a group of fellow students, bringing out two books on the vernacular architecture of Valencia and Ibiza. Following graduation in 1975, he enrolled in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland, for graduate work in civil engineering. In 1981, after completing his doctoral thesis, "On the Foldability of Space Frames", he started his architecture and engineering practice.

 

Thanks Good, send us somebody to the Earth, who really feel what does it mean built environment!

He has a lots of projects. Now I would like to start with two bridges:

 

2008, Ponte della Costituzione footbridge from Piazzale Roma over the Grand Canal, Venice, Italy

 

 

2003, James Joyce Bridge, bridge over River Liffey, Dublin, Ireland

 

2009, Samuel Beckett Bridge, bridge over River Liffey, Dublin, Ireland

 

Not only bridges, here you are some buildings:

 

The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum with a collection of over 30,000 works of art serving over 350,000 visitors a year. The campus of three buildings is located on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee.

This is Santiago Calatrava first completed project in the United States, which opened on May 4, 2001. The structure contains a movable, wing-like brise soleil which opens up for a wingspan of 217 feet during the day, folding over the tall, arched structure at night or during inclement weather. The brise soleil has since become a symbol for the city of Milwaukee.

In addition to a gallery devoted to temporary exhibits, the pavilion houses the museum's store and its restaurant, Cafe Calatrava. The pavilion received the 2004 Outstanding Structure Award from the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering.

Interior at Milwaukee Art Museum

 

Some structure  inside the building... wow!!!

 

New Year start, introduce Mr. Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano is a world-famous Italian Architect.

I read the new Ryanair magazine during my flight back Dublin.
It remind my studied about him at University of Pecs.
Mr. Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1937 into a family of builders.  He was educated and subsequently taught at the Politecnico di Milano. He graduated from the University in 1964 and began working with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters.

From 1965 to 1970 he worked with Louis Kahn and Z.S. Makowsky. He worked together with Richard Rogers from 1971 to 1977; their most famous joint project, together with the Italian architect Gianfranco Franchini is the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1971).
 

 

He also had a long collaboration with the engineer Peter Rice, with whom he shared a practice (L'Atelier Piano and Rice) between 1977 and 1981.

In 1981, Piano founded the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, which today employs 150 people and maintains offices in Paris, Genoa, and New York City.

In 1994, Renzo Piano won the international competition for the new Auditorium in Rome. The Auditorium Parco della Musica, a large multi-functional public music complex situated in the north of city, was inaugurated in 2002.

The Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome

The Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome

 

Piano's recent expansion of the Art Institute of Chicago includes a 264,000-square-foot (24,500 m²) wing with 60,000 square feet (5,600 m²) of gallery space called the Modern Wing, which opened on 16 May 2009. It includes a "flying carpet", a sunscreen that hovers above the roof and a 620-foot (190 m) steel bridge connecting Millennium Park to a sculpture terrace that leads into a restaurant on the wing’s third floor.

Expansion of the Art Institute of Chicago

 

His current projects include the The Shard, Europe's tallest skyscraper which was opened on July 6, 2012, and the Centro de Arte Botín. The Botin Foundation,the largest private foundation in Spain, will invest over US $150 million for the construction and programming of a new Botín Center that will become an international reference in culture and education for the development of creativity through art.

Centro de Arte Botín, Spain

 

 

               The Shard, Europe's tallest skyscraper, London

The Mountain Dwellings

City:               Copenhagen
Location:       Orestaden 
Country:        Denmark
Design:          BIG Architects
Total area :   33.000 square metres (floor area)
Completed:   2008

 

The residents of the 80 apartments will be the first in Orestaden to have the possibility of parking directly outside their homes. The gigantic parking area contains 480 parking spots and a sloping elevator that moves along the mountain’s inner walls. In some places the ceiling height is up to 16 meters which gives the impression of a cathedral-like space.

 

The parking area needs to be connected to the street, and the homes require sunlight, fresh air and views, thus all apartments have roof gardens facing the sun, amazing views and parking on the 10th floor. The Mountain Dwellings appear as a suburban neighbourhood of garden homes flowing over a 10-storey building – suburban living with urban density.

 

Mountain’s formal conjecture cuts to the core of Modernism’s default rectangularity. A flat roof, it says, doesn’t satisfy contemporary needs. It questions the rectangle’s ability to make all equal and also its ecological performance. Mountain’s form in incredibly specific, but it’s strategies (roof terraces and a stepped massing) are transferrable. Like Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation before it, Mountain makes a lifestyle rather than just a building, its argument is green without being greenwash, a rethinking of typological models rather than a reskinning with technology. It’s also cheeky. Denmark has no mountains. A mountain lifestyle there is one so different it nearly constitutes a category error. In order for the lifestlye to be transposed it had to be simulated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metropol Parasol Urban Centre

City:            Seville
Location:     La Encarnación square, in the old quarter of  Seville
Country:      Spain
Architect:    Jurgen Mayer H. Architects,
Material:     Wooden structure

It is one of the most pronounced and impressive examples of biomimicry in architecture.

The metropol parasol scheme, with its impressive timber structures, includes an archaeological museum, a farmer's market, an elevated plaza, multiple bars and restaurants underneath and inside the parasols, as well as panorama terrace on the top of the parasol.

Metropol’s interlocking honeycomb of wooden panels rise from concrete bases, which are positioned to form canopies and walkways below the parasols. 

 

Its role as a uniqie urban space within the dense fabric of the medieval inner city of Seville allows for a great variety of activities such as contemplation , leisure and commerce. A highly developed infrastructure helps to activate the square, making it an attractive destination for tourists and locals alike.

The project had difficulties, May 2007 engineering firm Arup informed the municipal authorities that the structure was technically infeasible as designed, given that a number of structural assumptions had not been tested and appeared to violate the limitations of known materials. Much time was spent developing a feasible alternative plans to buttress the structure, which themselves proved impractical because of the added weight. A feasible design using glue as reinforcement was finally settled on only at the beginning of 2009.

Maritime Youth House

City:             Copenhagen
Location:     Sundby Harbor
Country:      Denmark 
Design:        PLOT Architects
Total area :  1600 square meters
Completed:  June 2004 

The Maritime Youth House is shared by two clients, a sail club and a youth house, who had very different programs. The youth house needed outdoor space for the kids to play, the sail club needed most of the site to park their boats. 

The curved deck is not about introducing an advanced formal discourse or architectural philosophy to the project. It is an example of simple reasoning on the basis of the complexity of a programme and a limited budget.

The building is the result of these two contradictory demands: The deck is elevated high enough to allow for boat storage underneath while providing an undulating landscape for the kids to run and play above.

The common room, where most of the daily activities take place, is located in the front house, the workshop and storage is in the back corner building.