SOM unveils Shenzhen bank tower enclosed in diagrid

Architecture firm SOM has completed its headquarters for Shenzhen's Rural Commercial Bank, a steel-wrapped office building with an exterior that resembles an exoskeleton.

Located on the edge of a public park in one of Shenzhen's business districts, the 33-storey, 158-metre-tall tower is distinguished by its external steel diagrid, which is both a structural and solar-shading element.

The diagrid has the effect of supporting the building from the exterior, which enables column-free and flexible interior layouts and partially shields the tower from sunlight.

It reduces solar heat gain by an estimated 34 per cent, according to the studio.

SOM designed the Rural Commercial Bank Headquarters to suit Shenzhen's tropical climate

"We're always exploring opportunities to synthesise inventive engineering solutions with architectural design," said Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) design partner Scott Duncan.

"The Rural Commercial Bank Headquarters gave us the chance to incorporate a diagrid — similar to an exoskeleton — that pulls the structure to the exterior and effectively suspends the tower within to create column-free workspaces."

The building's exterior diagrid provides structural support while reducing solar heat gain

The diagrid forms a lattice-like pattern on the outside of the building. Its diamond shapes widen at the building's base to create entryways and provide framed views of the surrounding park and the nearby South China Sea.

"We explored numerous exoskeleton systems and determined that this particular density of diagrid provided the best balance of structural stiffness, exterior solar shading and interior daylighting levels and views," Duncan told Dezeen.

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Daylight-responsive sunshades and natural ventilation add to the building's energy efficiency. Two vertical atria span the height of the tower and are meant to function as its lungs, allowing it to "breathe".

Automated louvres let fresh air into the atria, and when the climate is pleasant, employees can open and close vents on their floor to allow that air through to their offices.

Wider sections at the base provide entry points and frame views of the park

The building's interior design was guided by Feng Shui principles that link water and wealth. Encircled by a reflecting pool, the lobby also features a wall of water by the main entrance and a 15-metre-high "rain curtain", with droplets of water cascading down thin translucent filaments.

As well as providing an aesthetic feature, the rain curtain has an evaporative cooling effect on the building.

Striated marble wall cladding on the elevator core is also meant to evoke water and its effect on stone.

The interior design of the building references the look and feel of water

Small gardens, seating areas and consultation suites also feature on the ground floor, while the tower is topped by operable walls and an outdoor deck.

The Rural Commercial Bank Headquarters was completed in 2021 and contains 94,049 square metres of floor space. The tower is LEED Platinum certified and is targeting a China Green Star certification.

The diagrid structure means interior spaces can be column-free

SOM's work on the project extended to the mechanical, electrical and plumbing, and structural and civil engineering.

The Chicago-based architecture practice was founded by Louis Skidmore, Nathaniel Owings and John Merrill in 1939.

Its best known buildings include the tallest building in the world, Dubai's Burj Khalifa, and New York's One World Trade Center, while its recent projects include the Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations in Manhattan and the SPLAM experimental engineered wood pavilion.

The photography is by Seth Powers.

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Cobalt-blue accents brighten interior of family apartment in Thane

The Act of Quad has introduced a smattering of blue furnishings and fittings to this high-rise apartment, renovated by the design studio in the Indian city of Thane.

The cobalt touches create a vibrant contrast inside the otherwise neutral-toned 101-square-metre home, which is shared by a middle-aged couple, their two daughters and a pet cat.

The Act of Quad dotted the apartment with cobalt-blue decor features

Mumbai-based The Act of Quad made a handful of structural changes to the apartment during the renovation, knocking down a wall in the entranceway to make the dining area appear larger and extending the third bedroom with the help of a convex partition.

Several sharp corners near the ceiling were rounded off, which the studio said helps to "soften the severity" of the existing architecture.

Ceilings near the entrance were rounded off to soften the existing architecture

The Act of Quad created a number of bespoke furnishings for the space, including a three-legged quartz-topped dining table, a grey L-shaped sofa and a swing that is suspended in front of the apartment's expansive windows, allowing inhabitants to sit and sway while taking in the city views.

The interior is dotted with cobalt-blue accents, ranging from a tubular pendant light in the living room to the laminate that lines the arched drinks cupboard in the corner.

Nearby, one of the chairs features blue piping around its seat cushion and a matching arched backrest.

Several furnishings including the swing were made bespoke by the studio

"When we first suggested cobalt to our clients, they thought it was not a colour for a home," explained Priyanka Itadkar and Falguni Bhatia who lead The Act of Quad. "To them, it seemed very out of the blue."

"Now, our clients say that they can't imagine any other colour in their home," the duo added.

The bed in the younger daughter's room can double up as a sofa

Blue appears again in the younger daughter's bedroom, where cobalt-coloured paint covers a slim wall-mounted rail.

Two back cushions are suspended from the horizontal bar, allowing the adjacent bed to double up as a sofa during the daytime.

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A cosy blue cubby for the cat was integrated into the room's wardrobe and a geometric chair made from waste materials found on-site sits tucked under the desk.

The other bedroom, which belongs to the older sister, is largely dominated by crisp white surfaces.

A blue cubby for the cat is integrated into the wardrobe

But a niche accommodating a small work table is rendered in peachy pink, together with the orbs fixed to the outside of the wardrobe for holding coats or bags.

The studio established a slightly warmer feel in the parents' bedroom, which was designed to evoke the wood-lined hotel suites the couple used to frequent during their holidays in northern India.

Pink spheres fixed to the wardrobe provide storage for bags and coats

Birch plywood was used to craft the room's floor-to-ceiling storage units as well as the bed frame and headboard, while surfaces in the en-suite are clad in a veiny brown stone.

The primary family bathroom is covered with cobalt-blue tiles and has a large organically shaped mirror mounted above the sink.

Birch plywood fittings give the parents' sleeping quarters a warmer feel

The Act of Quad completed another residential project in India just last year, in which the studio merged two Mumbai flats to form a "minimal but playful" home for three generations.

The photography is by The Fishy Project.

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Postmodern architecture celebrated in illustrations by Adam Nathaniel Furman

Designer Adam Nathaniel Furman has created a vividly coloured illustration series called Postmodern Icons, which celebrates buildings such as London's Isle of Dogs Pumping Station and Chicago's James R Thompson Center.

The series is a personal project that Furman started during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown, when he decided to revisit an old hobby of sketching buildings that he liked and creating 3D models of them.

After adapting one such model into an illustration and enjoying the process, he decided to make an ongoing series, focusing on postmodernism because there was "a gap" in its artistic representation.

Furman's series mainly focuses on postmodern buildings, such as London's No 1 Poultry

"There's a lot of illustrations of modernist buildings and Victorian buildings and the great monuments of our cities from other periods," Furman told Dezeen. "There are not readily available ones much of postmodern architecture, which is something that I really like."

Often colourful and eclectic, postmodern architecture flourished in the 1980s and 1990s as a pushback against the functional ethos of modernism.

Furman tries to illustrate the buildings in a style that is as simple as possible, using just a few lines and blocks of bright colour to convey their essential character.

For Shin Takamatsu's Syntax building, Furman created a more detailed illustration

For some of the buildings, such as London's No 1 Poultry by James Stirling and Isle of Dogs Pumping Station by John Outram, the result is a highly simplified illustration that Furman describes as containing "just the right amount of information and no more".

Others, such as Kyoto's now-demolished Syntax building by Shin Takamatsu, are rendered in more detail, which Furman considers necessary to communicate the brilliance in Takamatsu's work.

A couple of the illustrations, including ones of Kengo Kuma's M2 and Philip Johnson and John Burgee's AT&T building, appear as an abstract collections of shapes.

Philip Johnson and John Burgee's AT&T building is reduced to abstract symbols

Furman chooses buildings that he loves for his illustrations, focusing largely but not exclusively on postmodernism, although not all his favourites have been suitable for the series.

The subjects have to be able to stand on their own, without their urban context.

Read:

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"They are shown as sort of solitary objects floating – like souvenirs, effectively," said Furman. "And I've always been obsessed with souvenirs, just generally."

"If you look, a lot of my design work kind of revolves around the idea of the souvenir, this sort of encapsulation of something standing on its own representing something bigger."

One of Furman's aims is to bring attention to buildings that are under threat, such as Helmut Jahn's newly saved James R Thompson Center

Furman posts the illustrations on Instagram, and sells them as prints and merchandise, such as mugs and tote bags, on his website. He also tries to use the work to call attention to architectural heritage causes.

The designer has illustrated Helmut Jahn's James R Thompson Center in Chicago, which was recently saved from demolition, as well as Wojciech Jarząbek's Solpol building in Wrocław, which earned Furman some ire from Polish commenters.

"I got loads of angry comments from Polish people like 'this disgusting building should be demolished!' – which is the reaction that very often happens to a style when it's not come back into fashion yet," he said.

Wojciech Jarząbek's Solpol building is another that is set for demolition

"The same thing happened with brutalism, and now it's everyone's favourite. Postmodernism is just going through the same thing," he continued.

Known for his colourful and playful designs, Furman considers himself part of a movement he has dubbed New London Fabulous.

His recent work has included the Proud Little Pyramid installation at King's Cross in London and pastel-coloured anatomically shaped chairs that explore cuteness and queerness.

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The Center Won't Hold is a geometric pavilion designed to optimise public space

Multidisciplinary design office The Open Workshop has created an experimental pavilion that proposes how Chicago's vacant public spaces could be used for communal living.

Called The Center Won't Hold, the geometric pavilion comprises a green-painted, timber-framed cuboid with two more rotated cuboid frames within it. The arrangement forms open-air spaces concealed only by thin, gauzy curtains.

The Center Won't Hold comprises three timber-framed cuboids rotated inside one another

The project was presented as part of last year's Chicago Architecture Biennial, but remains in place despite the event's conclusion in December.

Titled The Available City, the biennial asked participants to explore the impact of collective urban spaces.

Curtains create private spaces within the pavilion

Created by San Fransisco-based studio The Open Workshop, the pavilion was positioned on the site of the former Overton Elementary School in Chicago's Bronzeville neighbourhood, which closed in 2013.

According to its architects, the pavilion attempts to explore how the many vacant lots in areas of the city, such as Bronzeville, might be reclaimed as shared public space in order to promote communal living.

The project was commissioned by the Chicago Architecture Biennial

"The Center Won't Hold is a flexible youth meeting space that serves as a prototype component to a larger network of sharing," The Open Workshop founder Neeraj Bhatia told Dezeen.

Designed to be adaptable, the installation can be reconfigured from one large room to up to nine smaller ones, with a "purposefully straightforward" floor plan that allows communities to determine how they would like to come together.

Each "room" could be filled with various objects – from tables and chairs to potted plants.

It was designed to empower local communities

"The idea behind compartmentalising was to have a framework for the community to curate different ways of gathering, mainly aimed at knowledge production for youth," continued Bhatia.

"Also, the spiral nesting of the squares enables more or less privacy with the surrounding environment."

Read:

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Informed by the teamwork of traditional communes, The Open Workshop designed the pavilion with what Bhatia called a DIY ethos in mind.

"We wanted the materiality to be very simple so that any carpenter could build the installation with regular tools and dimensional lumber," said Bhatia.

The installation was constructed by five trainee builders from local nonprofit organisation Revolution Workshop, which offers woodworking development to unemployed or underemployed people.

The pavilion is located on the site of a former school

The Center Won't Hold remains at its site as part of Creative Grounds, an initiative by architecture office Borderless Studio that seeks to make use of various disused school grounds in Chicago.

Bhatia explained that members of the local community have expressed their intentions to steward the project forward and make it their own after the biennial.

"The message of the installation is that design can act as a catalyst for the community to take ownership of the spaces and land around them, and by doing so, foster new forms of care," he said.

Shadows are created by slats in the timber structure

"Many of these issues in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago have complex histories tied to policy, racism, capitalism, and resource distribution," Bhatia added.

"Architects and architecture could make those societal issues more legible. Unfortunately, architecture often normalises and naturalises these issues, obscuring them through the design of a city or building."

Founded in 2011, The Open Workshop intends to highlight and tackle societal issues through architecture.

Other pavilions at the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial included one by SOM weaved together from small pieces of wood that was designed to explore a low-carbon alternative to conventional timber framing.

The photography is by Neeraj Bhatia unless otherwise stated. 

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OMCM Arquitectos covers Reforma Alas house in Paraguay with ceramic screen

A brise-soleil made of orange-hued ceramic pieces is among the additions to an Asunción house that has been renovated by local firm OMCM Arquitectos.

The project, called Reforma Alas, is located in the Los Laureles neighbourhood in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. Situated on a rectangular, 520-square-metre site, the house faces a recently paved street that has begun to draw more traffic.

Reforma Alas is located in Paraguay's capital city

OMCM Arquitectos – a local firm led by led by Matías Ortiz and María Paz Chamorro – was initially commissioned to do a quick renovation that entailed fixing bathrooms, installing a couple of walls and general painting.

Upon investigation, however, the team determined that the house was deteriorating due to leaks and moisture issues. Moreover, the home had narrow spaces that did not offer good lighting and natural ventilation.

OMCM Arquitectos added ceramic screens to the front and rear facades

"Through a deeper diagnosis in consensus with the owner of the house, we determined that it would be appropriate to take advantage of the occasion to rectify such inconveniences," said OMCM Arquitectos.

"This challenge also gave us the opportunity to provide the building a new identity, more adapted to the requirements of contemporary life and to the climatic context of our region."

The screens help to reduce solar heat gain inside

Among the changes was the addition of ceramic screens on the front and rear facades. Beyond granting privacy, the screens help reduce solar heat gain – an important consideration in a subtropical climate.

The screens' ceramic pieces are arranged in a V-shaped formation, and gaps in the assembly enable wind to pass through to the home's interior.

Walls were removed to create a fluid public zone

According to the architects, wind speed increases as it passes through the screen – a phenomenon known as the Venturi effect, which was discovered by Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Venturi.

"Due to the difference in the inlet and outlet section of the flows, there is an increase of the wind speed and consequently a refreshing sensation, thus obtaining greater thermal comfort and energy savings," the team said.

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Within the home, the team made changes to the layout, particularly on the ground level, where walls were removed to create a larger and more fluid public zone.

Upstairs, bathrooms were reconfigured and added, and a front-facing terrace was significantly enlarged. Topping the terrace is a pergola made of salvaged wood.

Bathrooms were added upstairs

Beyond the main dwelling, the team rehabilitated a building in the back of the site that holds a barbecue area and service quarters. A channel slab was incorporated to extend and organise the building and make it more functional.

Overall, the home's renovation resulted in spaces that are brighter, larger and better suited for the congregation of family and friends. The revamp also enables the home to better adapt to its evolving context.

A swimming pool features in the back garden

"The result is a completely rethought house that is incorporated into the urban fabric in a more coherent and lasting way," the team said.

Other homes in Paraguay include a rural house by Bauen that cantilevers of over a steep and lush landscape, and a dwelling by Javier Corvalán that can be lifted open like the lid of a box.

The photography is by Leo Mendez.

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Project credits: 

Construction: OMCM Arquitectos (Matías Ortiz and María Paz Chamorro)
Collaborators: Mauricio Paiva, Camila Sosa
Interns: Ivan Rojas, Yeruti Amarilla

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