Image courtesy OPEN Architecture Garden School, Beijing, China by OPEN architecture. Click on the slideshow button to see more images. A 45,000-square-meter public middle school designed by OPEN architecture breaking ground in August in the new town of Changyang, in Beijing’s Fangshan District. The competition-winning design is the first major commission for partners Li Hu (who had been a partner at Steven Holl Architects) and Huang Wenjing (who had worked for Pei Cobb Freed & Partners). The project is part of an initiative spearheaded by Wang Shi, head of Vanke, China's largest real-estate developer, to create 10 significant buildings in
Enlisted to craft an understated yet visible Shanghai flagship for Uniqlo, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson teamed with Candela Lighting Design to transform a quirky existing structure into a lustrous icon for the popular Japanese brand.
Shanghai’s Nanjing Road is the center stage of the city’s shopping culture. Its eastern end features a pedestrian zone with towers of neon signs competing for attention. Its western side has dramatic storefronts for high-end brands, including a brightly lit five-story suitcase for Louis Vuitton.
Drawing courtesy of Plasma Studio The Theme Pavilion, which is faced in solid bronze sheets, offers views of an adjacent lake through windows in its finger-like wings. Drawing courtesy of Plasma Studio London-based Plasma Studio is completing its competition-winning project for the Xi’an International Horticultural Exposition 2011, which opens on April 28 and expects to host 12 million guests. Called “Flowing Gardens,” the project is a series of buildings and landscapes set along an axis to create a centerpiece to the 418-hectare site. The Expo lies outside the ancient capital of Xi’an in the newly formed Chan-Ba Ecological District where
In an Expo where pavilions use iconic forms to represent their countries—Israel’s shell, Romania’s apple, Switzerland’s ski lift—it makes some sense that the United States Pavilion takes the form of a shopping mall.
Most pavilions present their country’s cultural history and progressive urban ideas in an effort to convey a clear sense of national values and identity.