OMA creates three open-air terraces for Prince Plaza in Shenzhen

Dutch architecture firm OMA has built Prince Plaza in Shezhen, an office skyscraper with three cut-outs for terraces lined with golden hexagons.

Located on the waterfront in Shenzhen's Shekou district, the 200-metre-tall tower was built for property company China Merchants Shekou Holdings (CMSH).

OMA created the open-air terraces – called "sky decks" – high above street level by cutting into the shape of the tower, which is made of four volumes clustered around a central core.

Prince Plaza sits in the sightline of views down from the mountains to the sea, so these terraces are intended to lessen the impact of the building on the skyline while creating more vantage points for the public.

A multi-storey podium at the base of the office tower houses a shopping centre with a rooftop garden.

This shopping centre extends several levels below ground, where it connects Prince Plaza to two of Shenzhen's metro lines.

The golden hexagon-patterned filigree used to decorate the sky decks appears again on parts of this podium, visually connecting the complex.

The hexagonal design creates patterns that appear to rise and fall, chosen to reflect the ridges of the mountains and the waves of water that surround the city.

To bring light into the office spaces of Prince Plaza, OMA set two of the vertical volumes of the tower back from the other two.

The offset allows more light in through the wide glass panels of the facade and gives the occupants striking views.

Founded in 1975 by Rem Koolhaas Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp, OMA has untaken several buildings in Shenzhen, including the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the upcoming International Conference and Exchange Centre.

Photography is by Seth Powers.

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Project credits:

Client: CMSK (China Merchants Shekou Holdings)
Partner-in-charge: David Gianotten
Project architect: Bauke Albada
Competition team: Andreas Viglakis, Chee Yuen Choi, Lingxiu Chong, Luke Lu, Xu Yang, Yang Shi with Max Bergman, Helen Chen, Tim Cheung, Vanessa Chik, Jocelyn Chiu, Ikki Kondo, Erick Kristanto, Charles Lai, Anthony Lam, Federico Letizia, Arthas Qian, Jue Qiu, Roberto Requejo, Ricky Suen
Design team: Ka Tam, Saul Smeding, Vincent McIlduff, Wanyu He, Yin Ho, Yongwon Kwon, Xu Yang with Daan Ooievaar, Jedidiah Lau, Jenny Ni Zhan, Kathleen Cayetano, Luke Lu, Mavis Wong, Paul Feeney, Slobodan Radoman, Thorben Bazlen, Vincent Kersten
Construction team: Ka Tam, Saul Smeding, Xu Yang, Yongwon Kwon
With: Christina Kuo, Hafsa Siddique, Joanna Gu, Mark Kanters, Yutian He
LDI & MEP: Huasen, Li Hongdi, Li Lian, Lian Xianrong, Liu Chong, Tan Lan, Zhong Yubo
Structure: RBS, Li Shengyong, Zhang Wenhua
Traffic: SUTPC, Jiang Jie, Shao Yuan
Commercial: World Union Properties, Ivy, Luo Yu, Zhang Lin
Facade: ARUP, Jason Paget, Lian Hongbo, Max Wu, Nina You, Robert Wu, Simon Wu
Interior: Benoy, Arnold Kee, Chris Lohan, Elaine Tao, Kai Chung Ng, Kali Chan, Keith Chau, Peter McCaffery, Sandy Tsui
Sustainability: Yuezhong, Songbo Shu, Yuanchang Yu
Landscape: Metrostudio, Ando Kraithera Lolurlert, Antonio Inglese, Lionella Biancon, Valentina Ticino, Zhang Fangfa
Metro station integration: China Railway Tunnel Survey & Design Institute, Hu Jianguo
Lighting: CD+M, Patrick Yu, Sunny Kang, Ted Ferreira, Tony Pascocello, Patrick Yu
Models: OMA / RJ Models
Renderings: OMA / Silkroad

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A 400-Year-Old ‘Friendship Book’ Contains Hundreds of Signatures of Historical Figures

Between 1596 and 1647, art dealer and diplomat Philipp Hainhofer traveled around Europe amassing an incredibly rich collection of signatures in the “Große Stammbuch,”  or “Album Amicorum.” Akin to an autograph book, Hainhofer’s register is replete with the marks of Cosimo II de’ Medici, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, and Christian IV of Denmark and Norway, to name a few. Covered in red velvet, “Album Amicorum” was part of a larger trend to record family, friends, and acquaintances that began in the 16th Century.

Hainhofer compiled the signatures during the course of 50 years, beginning when he was a college student. As he gained religious figures and royalty as clients, he’d ask them to sign his book and commissioned about 100 detailed illustrations to sit alongside. The elaborateness of the illustrations directly corresponds to the signatory’s status and rank in society.

This week The Herzog August Bibliothek purchased the centuries-old tome—which was thought to be lost until it emerged in a London auction in 1931—for about $3.1 million. It’s the library’s second attempt to acquire the historic book after August the Younger of Braunschweig-Lünebur, who was Hainhofer’s friend, failed to buy for the Wolfenbüttel, Germany-based institution in 1648. (via The History Blog)

 

Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II

Left: August II of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , 1613. Right: Ursula Duchess of Württemberg , 1614

Latin poems

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Héctor Zamora erects curved brick wall Lattice Detour on The Met rooftop

Mexican artist Héctor Zamora has created a perforated brick wall to frame views of New York's skyline for an installation on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Zamora's Lattice Detour compries a gridded brick wall that is 11 feet (3.3 metres) tall on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also known at The Met.

The wall gently curves in an arc and spans approximately 100 feet (30 metres) in length.

It is built with terracotta bricks made from Mexican earth laid out a lattice-like construction with thousands of hollow squares to frame views of the city skyline and Central Park.

The perforated chunks of Lattice Detour allow air to flow through space and also creates shade and filters sunlight.

Zamora referenced the perforated screens found in Middle Eastern and African architecture to create the design. Known as celosía walls, the dividers are often made with natural materials and provide ventilation and shade naturally.

"Using modest material, Hector Zamora's Lattice Detour interrupts and refocuses how visitors interact with this beloved space, situated atop The Met and surrounded by the Manhattan skyline, creating a meditation on movement, transparency, and interference," said The Met director Max Hollein.

"Manifesting itself as a protective wall, curved artwork, and permeable screen, Lattice Detour is a transformative, charged, and timely intervention."

Mexican architect Frida Escobedo has referenced celosía walls for her 2018 Serpentine Pavilion in London and for an Aesop store in Brooklyn that also uses reddish bricks from Mexico.

Zamora's wall cuts across The Met's open-air cafe the Iris and B Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, which reopened to the public along with the museum itself on 29 August after being closed since March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The site-specific installation is part of the museum's annual commission for its roof space and is open from 29 August to 7 December.

In 2017 Adrián Villar Rojas created a concept with white banquet tables for the project, and the year before Cornelia Parker built a Hitchcock-influenced structure. In 2015 Pierre Huyghe installed an aquarium with ancient species.

Photography is by Anna-Marie Kellen courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Timber-lined walkway allows sea breeze into Australian beach house by David Boyle

Australian studio David Boyle Architect has completed this holiday home on the country's east coast featuring a terrace elevated among fig trees, a timber breezeway, and a garden shower for washing off sand.

Breezeway House is named after the walkway that runs along its southern side, which has timber-framed folding windows that open up to allow fresh air inside. It is located in coastal suburb Macmasters Beach north of Sydney.

The breezeway starts at the entrance on the ground floor, with access to north-facing bedrooms, and has steps that lead up to the first floor containing an open-plan kitchen, living and dining room.

"It provides a dynamic, flexible space for the movement of air, people, and light," said David Boyle Architect.

"This carefully crafted timber spine warmly welcomes occupants and provides access to ground floor bedrooms that open to northern garden spaces," the studio added.

David Boyle Architect created the home for a Sydney family on a site in Macmasters Beach with a series of unusual features – including angular borders, a semi-public driveway and a group of fig trees. Its response was to make the main body of the house a linear volume on the southern side, leaving space for the trees and gardens on the northern side.

The studio flipped the traditional layout by placing the bedrooms on the lower level and living spaces on top, with each having access to outdoor areas. An angular volume projects from the first floor to break the linear shape and rests on angular steelwork. This forms an elevated terrace among the tree canopy on the upper level and a cover to areas underneath.

"The building form cantilevers into the figs providing an undercroft for both play and parking and a suspended treehouse balcony supported on an expressive branch-like bent steel post structure creating a symbiotic relationship between architecture and landscape," said the studio.

A staircase leads from this veranda to a rooftop viewing platform that offers views of the beach.

David Boyle Architect chose a rich material palette for the house including brickwork, woods, fibre cement and concrete.

Similar materials are used for the house's exterior and interior as part of the firm's ambitions to create an "ambiguity" between the indoors and outdoor. For example, blackened slats of Frencham Cypress covering the majority of the exterior and paler hardwood frames, are both continued inside.

"Surface sliding doors, and high level sliding panels contribute to a spatial ambiguity between being indoors and outdoors, which is reflected in its materiality of decking, and exposed hardwood framing and fibre cement cladding," David Boyle Architect said.

"Materials are natural, sustainable, and robust, and assembled in a way that the hand of the maker is obvious through the raw expression of the structure and the careful craftmanship of the details that can be discovered over time," it added.

Exposed concrete covers the ground floor, complementing wood bunk beds, a request of the owners who wanted a holiday home that could accommodate one, two or three family groups at one time. In total, the lower level has two master bedrooms, the bunk rooms for the children and "impromptu sleepovers".

On the southeastern corner of this level there is also a shower room with an adjoining garden. It has a door that opens onto a path from the beach, so occupants to wash-off before they enter inside.

"After walking from the beach, a semi-enclosed garden room provides a place to rest," the studio explained.

"A shower, expressive bent steel towel rail, and timber seating is playfully integrated into the high recycled brick wall."

Natural split state tile covers the floor of the living area upstairs and continues onto the northwestern terrace and barbecue area. The deck of the projected volume meanwhile has a weathered wood floor. A blackened wood wall curves from this deck to adjoin a brickwork fireplace for a wood-burning stove facing a seating nook inside.

Additional details in here are wood built-ins and leather furnishings, set against the backdrop of white-painted brickwork walls and wooden ceilings.

Breezeway House has been longlisted in the house interior project category of Dezeen Awards 2020.

Established in 2002, David Boyle Architect is based in Pretty Beach, a suburb of the Central Coast region of New South Wales. The studio's other projects include the renovation and extension of a psychologist's house in Sydney, which created a double-height living room, a mezzanine bedroom and a home office.

Photography is by Brett Boardman.

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Project credits:

Architect: David Boyle Architect
Builder: Paterson Builders
Engineer: SDA Structures
Landscape: Pangkarra Garden Design

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Fringed Paper Networks Peek Out From Vintage Encyclopedias, Textbooks, and Classics by Artist Barbara Wildenboer

“Kennis.” All images © Barbara Wildenboer, shared with permission

From the covers of René Descartes’s Cogito Ergo Sum and Homer’s The Odyssey emerge vast webs of spliced pages. Artist Barbara Wildenboer (previously) overlaps countless strands of paper as part of her ongoing Library of the Infinitesimally Small and Unimaginably Large series. The new sculptures similarly feature masses of fringed pages, with the hand-cut forms lining the edges of the opened texts and peeking through the hollowed covers. Each spine is left intact.

Wildenboer tells Colossal she’s been preparing for SUPER/NATURAL, a solo exhibition in November at Everard Read, that considers the relationship between science and the supernatural and has influenced her recent choices in books. Alongside photographic collages, the text-based sculptures “function as narrative clues, intertexts, or ‘subtitles,'” she says.

A lot of the new book works deal with subject matter that relate to my understanding of the nature of invisible or quantum reality—a reality that we cannot see with our physical eyes. Where nature is the visible realm, supernature also operates on ‘natural’ laws, although we can’t always see them, i.e. for example, magnetism, gravity, and electricity, the celestial orbits, and star cycles. But it’s all levels of ‘nature.’

Since Cape Town, where Wildenboer is based, was locked down due to COVID-19, she’s been altering the vintage copies she’s had stored. The result is sculptural series fashioned from the pages of Camera Obscura, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Inventions, and the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Compared to the massive encyclopedias and atlases she often utilizes, the smaller works appear almost miniature.

To keep up with Wildenboer’s sprawling artworks, head to Instagram.

 

“Cogito Ergo Sum”

“Classical Atlas”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Left: “Tales of Mystery and Imagination.” Right: “Illustrated Pocket Medical Dictionary”

“Aristotle’s Politics and Athenian Constitution”

Left: “Astronomy.” Right: “Homer’s Odyssey”

“The Garden of Lies”

“World Atlas”

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Banksy Finances ‘Louise Michel’ Lifeboat to Rescue Refugees From the Mediterranean

All images © Louise Michel, shared with permission

Banksy’s latest artwork can be spotted on a vessel rescuing refugees from north Africa, who are attempting to cross the Mediterranean to find safety in Europe. The anonymous British artist, whose work we’ve talked about extensively, used the proceeds from the sale of an artwork to purchase a former French Navy boat, which is named after anarchist Louise Michel. With a fire extinguisher, Banksy sprayed the exterior with pink paint and adorned it with a version of the iconic “Girl with Balloon.” This iteration outfits the child with a lifevest and swaps the red heart with a pink flotation device.

The project was conceived of in September 2019 when Banksy contacted Pia Klemp, who led several missions with NGO boats to rescue refugees. “Hello Pia, I’ve read about your story in the papers. You sound like a badass. I am an artist from the UK and I’ve made some work about the migrant crisis, obviously I can’t keep the money. Could you use it to buy a new boat or something? Please let me know. Well done. Banksy,” the artist wrote, according to The Guardian.

Now, Klemp and a professional rescue team helm the 31-meter lifeboat, which already has brought aboard hundreds of refugees. Capable of at least 27 knots, the boat is faster than most ships, allowing it to reach people faster and “hopefully outrun the so-called Libyan coastguard,” Klemp says. The project’s mission is explained on its site:

It might seem incredible there is need for a homemade emergency vehicle in one of Europe’s busiest waterways, but there is. The migrant crisis means that European states are instructing their Coastguard not to answer distress calls from ‘non-Europeans’ leaving desperate people to drift helplessly at sea. To make matters worse authorities prevent other boats from providing assistance, arresting crews and impounding boats that do.

This past weekend, the Italian Coast Guard responded to distress calls from the vessel when it evacuated about 50 people, a process the crew has been documenting in a live feed on Twitter. To help aid the efforts, you can make a donation.

 

 

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A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on Aug 29, 2020 at 3:56am PDT

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Ten architect-designed swimming pools for cooling off at home

As summer continues, we've rounded up 10 of the most refreshing outdoor swimming pools that architects have designed for houses around the world, including a private lagoon, a "Roman bath" and hillside infinity pool.

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Casa Xólotl, Mexico, by Punto Arquitectónico

This outdoor pool weaves in and out of the stone walls of Casa Xólotl, a Mexican house that Punto Arquitectónico renovated after finding it in a state of disrepair.

The water is accessed by steps down from an outdoor living area or it can be enjoyed from an overhanging hammock. On one side of the pool, a waterfall feature has been incorporated within the doorway of the home's former cistern.

Find out more about Casa Xólotl ›

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Los Vilos House, Chile, by Cristián Boza

The late 20th-century retreat of architect Cristián Boza nestles into a cliffside in Chile that overlooks the South Pacific Ocean.

One of its key features is its circular, stone swimming pool that slots into the hillside, which is accessed via an elevated bridge that extends from a roof terrace. For residents who prefer wild water swimming, a large staircase leads down from the top of the site to the oceanfront.

Find out more about Los Vilos House ›

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Casa B, Malta, by Architrend Architecture

A rooftop swimming pool is the focal point of Casa B, a concrete house that Architrend Architecture has slotted within a traditional terrace in the seaside town in Malta.

The pool is visible from street level through a glass side that is framed by a square concrete arch, while its glass-bottom allows residents to observe bathers from inside the home's double-height entrance lobby.

Find out more about Casa B ›

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Oak Pass House, USA, by Walker Workshop

This picturesque infinity pool stretches 22 metres along the edge of the roof terrace of a Californian home, which Walker Workshop has carved into a hillside in Beverly Hills.

The pool sweeps beneath and reflects the bough of one of biggest of 130 protected oak trees abutting the site, around which the entire house was designed.

Find out more about Oak Pass House ›

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Casa Monterry, Mexico, by Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando's Casa Monterry features a long, linear pool that juts out from its hillside setting to provide uninterrupted views of the Sierra Las Mitras mountains.

Its minimalist appearance complements the geometry of the house behind it, which is composed of various horizontal and vertical concrete planes that appear to emerge from the landscape at different heights – including the poolside patio.

Find out more about Casa Monterry ›

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Canal House, USA, by Studio MK27

One of the most unusual private pools in Dezeen's archive belongs to Canal House in Miami Beach. The pool takes the form of a lagoon within which residents can swim with fish.

It measures 30 metres in length and is surrounded by vegetation to provide an "authentically manicured" natural environment, while concrete columns with in it support a meandering walkway overhead.

Find out more about Canal House ›

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Jellyfish House, Spain, by Wiel Arets Architects

This large glass-bottomed pool cantilevers from the roof of the Jellyfish House in Marbella to offer clear views of the Mediterranean Sea over neighbouring houses.

It overhangs a semi-enclosed terrace adjacent to the entrance of the home, bathing it in rippling light projections and shadows of overhead swimmers. It also shares a glass wall with the first-floor kitchen to provide glimpses of bathers inside the house.

Find out more about Jellyfish House ›

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Villa Molli, Italy, by Lorenzo Guzzini

Architect Lorenzo Guzzini designed a minimalist infinity pool for this grey-stone villa in Italy, which helps to retain focus on the panoramic views of Lake Como.

According to Guzzini, the pool "is not a mere cliche, but it has an architectural and symbolic function, uniting visually to the wild 'aqua dulza' of the lake".

Find out more about Villa Molli ›

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Ruckers Hill House, Australia, by Studio Bright

The elongated outdoor pool at Ruckers Hill House in Melbourne is designed to mimic a "collonaded Roman bath", lined with tall, white-brick walls inset with upturned arches.

It was built by Studio Bright as part of its extension of an existing Edwardian-era home and is framed through a large glass window within an open-plan kitchen and dining room.

Find out more about Ruckers Hill House ›

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Panorama, Argentina, by Fernanda Marques

A 10-metre-long pool shares a thick glass wall with the double-height living area of this Argentinan apartment, resembling a giant aquarium.

It was sewn into a narrow space in the apartment's garden while Fernanda Marques was carrying out an interior renovation. It is accessible from either the home's second floor or a statement folded stair in the garden.

Find out more about Panorama ›

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