Luxurious Subterranean Oasis, Hampstead property

Luxurious Subterranean Oasis

Design: KSR Architects and Folio Design. KSR Architects and Folio Design (interiors) have completed an unusual development in Hampstead, located partly under two existing conjoined houses and below their gardens

City of Dreams Hotel Tower – Cotai, Macau building

City of Dreams Hotel Tower

Design: Zaha Hadid Architects. This is the fifth hotel tower at City of Dreams in Cotai, Macau. With 40 floors and a gross floor area of 150,000 sqm, the tower houses around 780 guestrooms, suites and sky villas. The hotel also includes a variety of meeting and event facilities, gaming rooms, lobby atrium, restaurants, spa, and sky pool. The tower building design resolves the many complex programs for the hotel within a single cohesive envelope.

Wave Tower Dubai: Skyscaper Building UAE

Wave Tower Dubai

Design: A-CERO Architects – the tower stands like a stylized stem with a light torsion, creating the elegant movement that characterizes the project. The base has the form of a pointed arch with smooth bends, imitating the shape of the waves in the Gulf Sea.

The structure is solved with “V” form unions between the different parts in the plan view. The installations and elevators are located in the central core. Interior gardens are present in all the common zones, improving the air quality and working as natural temperature regulators.

First and Mission Towers – San Francisco

First and Mission Towers

Design: Foster + Partners / Heller Manus Architects. In a joint venture, TMG Partners, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s largest mixed-use property developers, and Northwood Investors LLC, a leading privately-held global real estate investment firm, announce the selection of Foster + Partners and Heller Manus Architects as architects for the approximately 2 million sqft mixed-use development in San Francisco.

Belsize Park Property – North London House

Belsize Park Property

Design: Andy Martin Architects

A contemporary residential project designed by Andy Martin Architects: an ambitious redevelopment of an existing mechanics garage.
Mews 02 is a single residence set in Belsize Park; the owners, a musician and his designer wife, wanted this existing mechanics garage to be converted to a 4 level family home, with the emphasis on the entertaining areas and with the ability to create private compartments over for sleeping.

InterContinental Davos Hotel, Switzerland

InterContinental Davos Hotel 1

Design: OIKIOS GmbH. With its oval form and a metal façade that almost seems to be flowing, the main building of the InterContinental Davos Hotel has become an unmistakable new landmark. The undulating envelope wraps itself tightly around the structure, leading to an interplay between open and closed surfaces which appears different from every angle.

Villa N Arezzo, Italian House Design

Villa N Arezzo

Design: Architettura Matassoni. Project for a single-family residential building, currently under construction in the hills of Arezzo. The house is built around a patio on which are opened the most important environments of the living area; the transparency of the walls allows the visual perception as an extension of interior space.

Emporia Malmö Mixed Development

Emporia, Malmö

Design: Wingårdhs. Emporia is first and foremost an urban planning project in which offices, housing, and retail come together in a mixed-use development in Malmö. The main idea of the winning competition entry was to hide inward-looking retail behind a wreath of residential and commercial buildings.

Joel Solkoff’s Column, Vol.II, Number 3

Zaha Hadid Yacht 1

Where will I live? Plus…Writing on architects plus their role in the imminent global Baby Boom housing crisis, I have purchased two houses in my lifetime. The first was on Capitol Hill, in Downtown, Washington, D.C. which had a landmark plaque posted on the entrance. It was a beautiful house 100 years old where my former wife and I raised two children.

Urban Villa Florence, Italy House Design

Urban Villa Florence 2

Design: Architettura Matassoni. The project was created with the intention of transforming the strong physical limitations, in a series of architectural cues; the available surface is in fact quite limited in size and characterized from a trapezoidal shape and has a possibility of building relatively limited; the building area is inserted in an urban environment characterized by a low quality and from a certain density of the buildings.

Yellowtail Office Toronto Thornhill, Ontario

Yellowtail Office Toronto Thornhill, Ontario

Design: Reza Aliabadi [rzlbd]. The space is divided into three equal zones, which similar to a yellowtail fish, connects the head, body and the tail with a yellow strip. The yellow corridor on one side connects the rooms and minimizes the circulation space within the office.

5 Broadgate Development, UBS London

5 Broadgate Development London

Design: make architects. The new 5 Broadgate development, currently under construction for Swiss Bank UBS, has officially ‘topped-out’. The building, which forms part of the Broadgate Estate, was designed by international architectural practice Make, and will provide 700,000 sqft of Grade ‘A’ office space over twelve floors. The new building will allow UBS to consolidate its London trading operations into one building.

Kooyong Residence – Melbourne House

Kooyong House Melbourne 2

Design: Matt Gibson Architecture + Design. The brief for the renovation of this boom style double fronted Victorian home in Armadale originally called for full demolition (surprisingly – not being within a heritage overlay).