A board game that teaches children to build cities
“Kids Build Cities”, is the name its creator, the architect Naama Blonder, has given it. It aims to involve children in the planning and development of cities. The project was born from a community consultation in a neighbourhood in the city of Toronto; concerning the remodelling of one of its most emblematic establishments and where the architect was present. Thanks to her experience, she helped to enter deeper into the dialogue and concerns of the neighbours, assuming that citizens don’t often understand the rules with which designers are confronted. This lead her to develop “Kids Build Cities”, a board game [...]
The world’s largest single dome tropical greenhouse
France is not known for having a tropical climate, but far from that, it’s preparing itself to house one of the world’s largest tropical greenhouses and the largest under just one dome. It will be in the north of the country, in the Pas-de-Calais area, with Coldefy & Associates as the developer of this megaproject. It is hoped to be operational by the end of 2021 and expects to receive around 500,000 yearly visitors. “Tropicalia” will have an area of 2 hectares and will be surrounded by an enormous aluminium frame, which will support the material that will cover it. [...]
E-Sports stadium
In recent years we’ve been witnessing exponential growth in so-called E-Sports; videogame competitions that enjoy great popularity. In order to function correctly, these competitions need appropriate facilities that are capable of accommodating such specialised content. Making use of our experience as creators of leisure spaces, we have developed a new building typology that covers all the needs created by this kind of competition. Starting from a hexagonal geometry, common in strategic games, a multi-purpose building is developed capable of adapting to multiple uses and different capacity demands. The building’s footprint, of 6,500 m² is organised around a central core, [...]
The building’s skin: New kinetic façade
We’re working on the architectonic development of a building that has a kinetic skin, giving it an emblematic character. During daylight, the façade is presented as a sculptural ensemble with a vertical tendency, made up of organically cut panels. These panels, anchored to the façade forming different angles, protect the building from solar radiation. As time passes, the façade offers a new visual appearance, as the panels open and favour the entrance of natural light at dusk. These two visual perceptions are achieved with differential movement on the axis of each vertical piece. In effect, a score of vertical structures [...]
Architectural project: Cultural centre
We’re working on the architectonic project of an emblematic building destined for housing a Cultural Centre, which includes a library, media-library, exhibition and education spaces, as well as a staged area suitable for both theatre and concert productions. Our challenge is to achieve an emblematic and elegant visual appearance, without reducing the complex’s functionality, or entailing exorbitant and unaffordable costs. An attractive façade structure formed by an ensemble of walkways and terraces, creates a permeable surround around the building perimeter. Next to the building, a double-helix access-core filters the flow of traffic to the different areas of the Cultural Centre. [...]
The building’s skin: Logistics infrastructure
We’re working on an architectural project of a logistics infrastructure; a latest generation distribution centre. It has a central volume occupied by different storage and goods management areas. It consists of a central volume occupied by various areas of storage and merchandise management. This volume, built with the technology of a common industrial facility, offers a powerful visual image, in accordance with the status of the owner company. This building’s skin, a unique and unmistakable sculptural volume of great plasticity, is represented by a series of serial vertical planes, in which each plane is a cross section of the volume. [...]
The Building’s skin: formal harmonies
We’re preparing an architectonic project based once more on the defence of functional and economic architecture, with a flexible and symbolic surrounding which we call the building’s skin. Our proposal incorporates two conceptual elements: the inclusion of vegetation and the aesthetic and harmonious equilibrium of the shapes that compose the skin. Furthermore, the building that will have academic use, has sustainable architectural features, designed on passive design strategies to reduce the building’s energy demands and with the aim of establishing a compromise between the architecture and the environment. The building’s façade is formed by small pieces that are evocative of [...]
