IJP Architects and structural engineers AKT II unveil their concept design for a new 230m Dubai Creek Harbour Central Footbridge. Commissioned by Emaar, the project will connect the soon to be world’s tallest tower, the Dubai Creek Tower and Dubai Creek Harbour. Marking the second collaboration between AKT II and IJP Architects, after the 2008 Henderson Waves Footbridge in Singapore, the pedestrian bridge, spanning the man-made canal in the center of the new town, is currently in the conceptual phase.

Blending modernity and tradition of Dubai, the project puts in place “a three-dimensional web of steel to produce a lightweight, cloud-like structure that floats over the canal”. The Dubai Creek Harbour Central Footbridge is about modernity and tradition. The dispersal of forces through a three-dimensional web of steel produces a lightweight, cloud-like structure with legible geometric patterns.

In this sense, DCH Central Footbridge expresses a state of harmony between the new and the traditional, between technology, art history, and Islamic culture. The underside provides shading from the heat of the sun for pedestrians whilst the upper deck level creates a travel route for golf carts and cyclists.

The striking architectural geometry mixes many features like technology, art history, and Islamic culture. Inspired by Islamic art, the project creates a double-height footbridge that paves a way-through for citizens. The bridge connects the quayside and the promenade, linking the city, the harbour and Dubai Creek Tower.

The steel frame of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is beginning to take shape in Los Angeles. Designed by MAD Architects, the project takes its name from Star Wars creator George Lucas and will stand at the gateway to the city’s Exposition Park. The landmark project will be MAD’s first museum built in the United States. Four cranes are on site as the building’s steel framework begins to rise above ground. Envisioned like a cloud or spaceship floating over the city, the project creates a canopy that shades the park below, exploring the relationship between nature and the built urban environment. The museum is comprised of gallery spaces, cinema theaters, a library, café and restaurants, along with an expansive landscaped rooftop that brings the greenery from the surrounding park up over the architecture.

MAD originally provided three unique designs for the museum scheme, each responding to three proposed site locations. Having originally unveiled a MAD-designed scheme in Chicago in 2014, Lucas abandoned the plans following concerns over the placement of a private museum on a public lakefront. In 2016, MAD unveiled two similar proposals, one in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco, with the Los Angeles scheme ultimately gaining approval in 2017. The five-story museum will house an expansive collection of narrative art, comprising more than 10,000 pieces that include comics, illustrations, paintings, photographs, moving images, sculptures, and other works of art and memorabilia linked to movies. The Lucas Museum broke ground in March 2018, and completion is scheduled for 2021.

Zaha Hadid Architects has been selected to build the new headquarters for OPPO, a Chinese mobile brand, in Shenzhen, China. China’s leading smartphone manufacturer has seen a rapid success ever since it has launched its first phone back in 2008. With over 40,000 employees in more than 40 countries, OPPO’s new headquarters will accommodate its growth, and will follow the company’s “commitment to connectivity through design”.

The 185,000 square meter project consists of four interconnected towers, reaching maximum heights of 200m with 42 floors, generating large civic spaces at street level. The first two towers offer “flexible, open-plan spaces linked by a 20-story vertical lobby, and two external service towers providing vertical circulation”. Shifting the service core to the exterior allows a more versatile space and encourages interaction between employees. Planned to be completed in early 2025, the winning proposal creates a new civic space for the city, including publicly accessible amenities like a landscaped plaza, art gallery, shops, restaurants and a direct link to the adjacent station of Shenzhen’s subway network. Moreover, the rooftop is also reachable by the public, offering panoramic views of the city. Once complete, the OPPO headquarters will also contain publicly accessible dining, leisure and entertainment facilities on the 10th floor, and a public viewpoint at roof level.

The mixed-use development, totaling over 560,000 square meters of building area, will host commercial, hotel, office, and residential functions. The development “seeks to restore the spiritual harmony between humanity and nature” through integrating contemplative spaces that merge nature with the demands of modern living.

A series of low-rise buildings and footbridges allow the scheme to unfold onto the city, with curving, ascending corridors and elevated pathways weaving through commercial buildings. The routes are activated by public gardens and social spaces, to “create a spiritual and poetic retreat in the middle of the city.

White glass louvres create the evocative forms of the towers, which are designed to look as if they have been shaped by wind and water over millennia. Mountains were also the inspiration for Nanjing’s NBBJ-designed exhibition centre. Along the site’s perimeter, mountain-like towers appear “carved out by wind and water.” White curved glass louvers “flow” like waterfalls, merging with ponds, waterfalls, and brooks to echo Nanjing’s surrounding mountains and rivers. Nature has a deliberate presence in the complex, with ponds, rivers, waterfalls and pools integrated into the masterplan. Trees and entire structures covered in greenery break up the futuristic forms of the cityscape. Nanjing Zendai Himalayas Centre seeks to restore the spiritual harmony between humanity and nature through the integration of contemplative spaces that, while immersing inhabitants in nature, still meets the conveniences of modern day living. The development has entered its third and final stage of construction and is due to complete in 2020.

Serving as a new gateway to Mainland China, the new section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed rail service, which is 142 km in length, connects with the National High-speed Rail network all the way to Beijing, the length of which is more than 25,000 km. The Hong Kong West Kowloon Station has a strong civic element, acting as a new landmark with an immediate sense of arrival, fit for the site’s prominence on Victoria Harbour immediately adjacent to the future West Kowloon Cultural District. The station is the first major construction project to complete in that district.

Andrew Bromberg’s design of the station introduces over 3 hectares of ‘green plaza’ to the site. The outside ground plane bows down towards the entrance, whilst the roof structure above gestures towards the sky. The resulting space is a 45-meter high volume, whose energy and focus are directed towards the south façade, Hong Kong Central skyline and Victoria Peak beyond.

People are furthermore encouraged to walk up on the station’s rooftop, aligned with mature trees and shrubs and enjoy the new views and gain new connections with the city. The curved ceiling is made of over 8,000 tonnes of steel which is almost the weight of the Eiffel Tower. The interior of the hall is almost like a forest, with leaning steel columns supporting a giant floating roof and lifting up 4,000 glass panels to bring in natural daylight into the building, and, a glimpse of the city even from the lower levels of the station.

Inspired by Villa Savoye and the openness of vernacular architecture, the house is a steel box sitting resting above columns, freeing up the ground floor space. The design is an answer to the minimal contemporary lifestyle of the young professional, who possesses an extensive collection of cars in the tropical climate of Ho Chi Minh City. The basement has the capacity for seven cars, with a central courtyard for natural light and ventilation. The main entrance begins here, following a ramp through this open space filled with greenery, leading up to the upper level with the open living, kitchen and dining space.

The ground floor is open and completely transparent, without any dividing wall, giving a visual connection across the whole site. The functional space is designed to be directly opened to the courtyard and the surrounding landscape. From this floor, residents can have a direct view of the automobile collection. The structure is minimized, utilizing long spanning beam, giving the space its openness and elegance.

The space is covered with an expansive canopy to protect the space from the harsh tropical sun and monsoon, while allowing users to experience these natural elements. The design is inspired by the act of layering present in Vietnamese tradition. Vietnamese vernacular architecture reflects the same ethos. Buildings are covered with layers of skins, made of timber or natural materials, or strategically covered through layers of awnings, corridors, and halls.

The project is proposed with the concept of a “Family Lodge”, which aims to house a complete family of 4 generations, and friends. Located in the south of Chile, in the Region of Los Ríos, which is a very rainy place. The first words are; “a mantle to protect from the rain”, inspired by the precarious tents, which are made by the local lumberjacks, in the forest. With a nylon tensioned by threads, and sometimes with a central pillar to let the water run off the simple construction.

The house stands on a structure of steel pillars, which take the shape of the landscape, creating a space underneath, for the service facilities, a barbecue area and hot tub. The central element of the first level, is the access and common area, with the kitchen integrated with the dining and living room, raised in the concept of “ga-loft – mix of the North American loft with the traditional shed of the south of Chile. All accesses are done in steel ramps with a wood cladding.

This mix of local and contemporary typologies is made using a contemporary language, with the picturesque views offered by the place and the location in the landscape. Language achieved through these pavilions, linked together by the “mantle”, geometrized fuselage, coated on the outside in steel plates worked in situ, which were left to oxidized naturally and were then sealed once they took the desired color.

Federation Tower is a complex consisting of two skyscrapers – the 63-storey Tower West and the 97-storey Tower East – on lot 13 of the Moscow International Business Centre in Moscow. The two towers stand on the same mixed-use plinth. The most recognizable high-rise landmark in Moscow, Federation Tower has a memorable silhouette in the form of two glass sails which face one another. The Federation Tower complex ascends to 374 meters. The design is based on the concept of the vertical city. Each of the towers has a combination of office and residential floors, interspersed with sports and entertainment functions. The six-storey plinth likewise has offices and a shopping gallery.

The basis of the foundations of the Federation Tower complex is a massive concrete slab. Both buildings rely for their stability on a mighty concrete core whose walls are 1.4 meters thick at its base, as well as on 25 perimeter columns extending all the way through the towers from the foundations to the top storeys. Every 25-30 storeys there are outrigger storeys made from high-strength steel structures. The façades have been glazed using the very latest glazing systems: the surface of the glass reflects the sun’s rays while preserving the optimum temperature in the building. In terms of density, the glass comes close to the thermal performance of a brick wall. At the time when use of the latter technology began at Federation Tower, it was being used in no other skyscraper in the world.

Form of Wander is situated to host new outdoor activities and new memories of the Tampa’s active waterfront. As an inverted mangrove, the green-hued aluminium canopy announces itself among palms as a signal on the Hillsborough River.

The tree-like structure appears to float between water and land. Seven trunk-like columns straddle this path onto the water, inviting visitors to walk around and through on a winding path. They thrust up into a tangle of branches, not unlike the root structures of mangroves which take root along Florida shorelines–part of the resilient ecology, evolved to withstand hurricane force winds.

An atmosphere of filtered light and reflected currents is to be found there, under faceted members that split, arch, and recombine to produce an open network. Gradients follow linear stripes pale green to brilliant white, which, alternately highlight cantilevered edges and shadow the interior portions. Somewhere between the natural and the iconic, the piece is identifiable on the riverfront, regardless of the direction of approach, but emphasizes the greenery to be found on the newly opened Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park.

A destination for your Sunday stroll, a meeting point for your morning runs, an obstacle course for games of tag — Form of Wander is an experience as much as it is a signal on the horizon. From within its boughs, the structure performs as a framing device for the surrounding landscape, both heightening the scenery and providing new visual access to it.

Poly Courtyard is in Chenxiang Town, northwest of Changtai County, Zhangzhou adjacent to Xiamen. The architectural form is established through, transformation and combination of modern composition methods. The large overhangs, used in the main façade can depict the overall image, intensify the sense of space depth at the entrances, and correspond to the limit access in the actual internal function area. The building is designed in three storeys corresponding to different environmental factors, thus creating different space feelings.

The ground floor connected to the natural landscape level will serve as a private leisure area, with more semi-open spaces to blur the indoor and outdoor boundaries. The second floor, under the arc roof will serve as a quiet meditation area to better experience the special fun inside the traditional elements. The first floor directly connected to the city will serve as a public activity area to link and open up the upper and lower floors.

A core area is set for penetrating and connecting the semi-passage area, where, the arc of the roof changes, which undertakes main transport function and manifests the characteristics of each part at the same time. The curtain wall keel is transformed to integrate with external texture tightly, creating a changing light and shadow indoors with the shifting of time and light ray. The roof and wall naturally matching into an integral whole through red terracotta panels can display a sense of modern composition in a tile-mimetic color.