Ecca collection

Statoil Offices

After winning first prize in an open competition to design a new building for Norwegian energy producer Statoil, Oslo-based architectural practice a-lab found it had little time to celebrate.

Images courtesy of Luis Fonseca, a-lab and Ivan Brodey

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College André Maurois

One of the driving forces in French school design and redesign has been the disastrous fire at the College Edouard Pailleron in 1973.Built to a mid century pattern common to many schools throughout the country, it was of lightweight steel construction with no fire protection. The fire spread rapidly through voids and 20 people died of whom 16 were children.   There were more than 1,000 schools in the country built in a similar way, of which 57 used the exact same technique. These became known as Paillerons and were, quite rightly, slated for improvement or replacement.

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China Pavilion - Shanghai Expo

One of the most striking pavilions at last year’s Shanghai Expo came, appropriately, from the home country. It was obvious immediately that it was Chinese, through both the inverted pyramid of its shape, with strong horizontals, and the bright red that is immediately reminiscent of monuments such as Beijing’s Forbidden City. The horizontals, with ends cantilevering a short distance beyond the supporting elements below, pay homage to one of the most typical forms in traditional Chinese architecture, interlocking ‘dougong’ brackets. These were always realised in timber but here, in this modern interpretation, are clad in aluminium.

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