Apartment Building
Mangroves Inspire Screened Luxury Apartment Building
The architects brief was to design an iconic building to be used for luxury apartments in Australia overlooking the central business district of Brisbane across a river – on a site had been previously occupied by a dilapidated motel building from the 1950s.
So architects Damian Barker & Paul Brace of Jackson Teece used biomimicry to pay homage to the angles created by mangroves and melaleuca trees to create an iconic building while responding to the sub-tropical climate, riverside environment.
Inspired by nearby mangroves and melaleuca forests, the sinuous screens provide a
visual identity and visual privacy, while providing thermal protection from the fierce tropical heat beating down in this part of Australia.
Up close, these nature-inspired screens formed of cast concrete elements, are authentic reproductions of the organized randomness found in nature, as if organically grown – on an assembly line.
A Sweet Garden Home in Tokyo from Ryue Nishizawa
This strange, charming, ethereal residence wedged between two much more solid structures in downtown Tokyo is barely more than a series of white platforms interspersed by greenery.
The tiny house from Ryue Nishizawa and Sou Fujimoto drifts in place within the tiny lot, with barely any boundaries, so that apparently nothing but vases, planters, concrete benches, plexiglass railings and curtains form its sides.
Essentially just a series of platforms for plantings, living here would create a feeling of living within a hanging garden. An adjustable “wall” of curtain, hanging from a curved curtain rail is a shockingly ethereal cladding material for a residence.
By dispensing with walls, natural light floods the interior. Privacy is protected to some extent by little more than filmy curtains that let in light, but blur the view in.
The narrow structure, with no true facade is tightly wedged between two buildings that are are mostly just walls on each side.
A Cozy New Student Center at Coventry University
Student’s centers are those comfortable hang-out spots at universities that combine studying with social life during your years of college.
Coventry’s new student center ‘the hub’ (sited at the center of the university campus) designed by Hawkins\Brown Architects is one of the best.
For many students at university, this is their first experience of living away from home. Coventry University in the UK tries to make that a little less of a sudden adjustment to the cruel world with a new student center that exudes cosiness, intimacy and security.
Covering an area of 91,000 square feet and able to comfortably accommodate 1,000 students at the same time, the new student center really gives the feeling of a home away from home in what could be a large and impersonal setting for the 10,000 students enrolled at the university.