In the endeavour to reinvigorate and renew places, it is vital to treat historic places as a recorder of time. For the latest rejuvenation of St James Power Station to become the headquarters for Dyson—after previously being a nightlife venue till 2018—the architects sought to link it to the heritage trail of the larger Harbourfront […]
Read More… from St James Power Station: Linking historic and renewed layers
In Hokkaido Prefecture—the northernmost region of Japan—this hotel was designed as the first hybrid high-rise timber structure of its kind, aiming to reduce use of emission-heavy concrete and place a spotlight on the local wood industry. Beyond simply providing accommodation, the hotel makes a space that welcomes the community, showcases local talent and facilitates an […]
Read More… from Japan’s first hybrid timber high-rise hotel: Royal Park Canvas Sapporo Odori Park
Food is a cherished element in Singaporean culture. But due to limited land—with only 1 per cent available for production1—the city-state currently imports almost 90 per cent of its food. To improve food security and resiliency, Singapore has an ambitious goal to locally produce 30 per cent of its nutritional needs by 2030. The current […]
Read More… from Agropolis: Achieving Food Resiliency Through Urban Agriculture | FAP 2022 Merit
Jakarta’s commercial blocks were conceived to strategically aid the city’s commercial development. However, over time, their resilience—by nature of their development—has been affected by factors such as the changing nature of socio-cultural influences, urban regulations and land values; as well as the inability to adapt that has led them to become inactive spaces in the […]
Read More… from FluxToActive: Resolving A Permanent Problem | FAP 2022 Merit
Ho Chi Minh City as the largest urban area in Vietnam is facing problems of pollution and increasing temperatures, hampering citizens’ quality of life. These problems are exacerbated by the growth of hardscaped land alongside a lack of green space. According to the General Department of Forestry, the ratio of tree cover in Vietnam’s large […]
Read More… from Q Gallery Building: A large ‘tree pot’ in the city
In an era when online shopping is increasingly common, this eyewear store in Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture rethinks the retail experience to offer something more than a usual commercial space. The nature of suburban shops is to be visited via car by customers with a particular goal in mind, as opposed to downtown retail where […]
Read More… from JINS PARK Maebashi: A fresh vision for suburban retail
Bali-based practice IBUKU, known for their specialty in designing bamboo buildings, has created an open-air studio with an undulating copper dome called Alchemy Yoga Center. While the design process for most of their bamboo projects were driven by physical models, this building also involved structural analysis software. “This was the first time we designed a […]
Read More… from Alchemy Yoga Center: Balancing artistry and technique
Building on SOM’s tradition of pioneering structural engineering solutions, the 158-metre-tall Shenzhen Rural Commercial Bank Headquarters showcases innovative applications of existing concepts of natural ventilation and diagrids. SOM inserted a floating diagrid—similar to an exoskeleton—that serves as both the building’s structure and an important solar shading system against the region’s hot tropical sun onto the […]
As modern cities sequester people off into skyscrapers and dense living quarters on land, it might be easy to forget that two-thirds of the Earth’s surface consists of water—a necessity for life, but also an increasing existential threat based on recent heavy floods that disrupted major cities. While water is running dry in some cities, […]
In Asia, most office tower designs have highly glazed façades. Yet, the building occupants hardly get to enjoy the views outside, because the over-sized windows are exposed to excessive tropical daylight and glare, so that the occupants have no choice but to engage manual blinds on a near-permanent basis. However, once the blinds are down, […]
While the process of repurposing means making use of what is already built or designed—although oftentimes cosmetic or structural—to give a new lease of life to a project, it is not common to leverage a flaw and turn it into an ecological benefit. TAPPING FREE HEAT The crux of this transformation lies in the ingenuity […]
Read More… from Cocoa Craftsman Factory: The building as a chocolate melting machine
How many worn-out objects—antiques, odds and ends of broken items—are sitting idle in one’s storeroom, neither used nor thrown away? What if they could be assembled in new and artful ways? This is the mission behind Tekuni Dua, a three-storey rentable apartment in Kuta, Bali, where roughly 90 per cent of the finishes use recycled […]
Read More… from The art of putting together idle objects in Tekuni Dua
