Features
MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, has completed ‘Chaoyang Park Plaza’, which includes the Armani apartment complex. Positioned on the southern edge of Beijing’s Chaoyang Park – the largest remaining park in Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD) area – the 220,000m² complex includes 10 buildings which unfold as a classic Shan Shui painting on an urban scale.
The outer curved profiles and internal sweeping geometries of the prominent Oslo Airport extension may call to mind FC&A’s lighting feature from back in January. Those who checked in to our first issue of 2018 will recall the airport’s stunning illumination design which synchronises with Norway’s daylighting in a bid to save energy. Here, FC&A explores the Nordic – Office of Architecture-designed extension and finds out just how the scheme lives up to its appellation as ‘the world’s greenest airport’.
Billed as a ‘new London’, a ‘blank slate’ and an ‘almost island’ opportunity to create a completely different urban environment, the Greenwich Peninsula masterplan is possibly the most ambitious regeneration project the UK has ever seen.
Paul Lang, Chief Executive Officer at Caledonian, looks at how modular and off-site construction can help to alleviate the housing crisis in the UK.
Hudson Lambert, Director of Safeguard Europe, considers the issue of penetrating damp in new and converted properties, and how modern masonry treatments can solve the problem.
A major and ultra-prestigious application in the City of London could really put U.S. red oak on the European map.
Taking the concept of green roofs a considerable leap further, Milan-based architecture firm, Stefano Boeri Architetti, has announced the design of Trudo Vertical Forest of Eindhoven – a new social Urban Forestry project in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. This ‘Vertical Forest’ social housing project continues the Italian practice’s design activities in favour of sustainable architecture worldwide.
Beyond the traditional light gauge steel framing markets, the development of volumetric modular and pod products is becoming increasingly important. Steel framing systems provide many of the characteristics that the design and manufacture of these solutions require. Steve Thompson, Managing Director of EOS Facades, discusses future trends and applications.
Within creative industries, the workspace can be the perfect canvas for showcasing originality. So what role can the humble door play? Ian Chubb, Managing Director of bespoke manufacturer Deuren, explores how a one-of-a-kind pivoting portal became a focal point of the office for digital marketing agency, The Bigger Boat.
Having recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, LEGO has been a family-favourite for many generations. The creativity and ingenuity boost these vividly-coloured building blocks contribute to children’s creative education is unparalleled and still stimulates the minds of youngsters today. So, just imagine the enchantment a life-size LEGO house would offer a child, and the nostalgia it would present to adults. That’s precisely what Copenhagen- and New York-based architectural firm, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), has bestowed on the residents and tourists of Billund, Denmark; an out-of-this-world structure fabricated from one of the world’s favourite educational toys; LEGO.
