Ecca collection

Copenhagen aquarium "The Blue Planet"

Inspired “by the shape of water in endless motion”, Denmark’s new national aquarium, the Blue Planet, is northern Europe’s largest and most modern.

The whirlpool concept on which this unusual edifice originates is, according to Copenhagen-based architectural practice 3XN: “in a narrative about water, and as an image, is at once both abstract and figurative”. The practice also cites shoals of fish and swirling starlings for influencing the vortex-like form of the building.

Images courtesy of Adam Mõrk

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ROC Carolus School

The first impression of the ROC Carolus building is deceptive, and deliberately so. Passers-by and visitors see a ‘crazy’ building, a fractured and playful facade, with irregularly polygonal windows breaking up the variety of shades of grey in the prepainted metal cladding that floats above a glazed ground floor. This cladding in turn has ‘fault lines’ along it, as if the whole could shatter in an instant. It takes a moment to realise that this is disguising the fact that the building in fact consists of relatively regular blocks joined by glazing. The overall assembly is largely rectilinear, but with one end curving to a point like the prow of a ship. Far from this being an example of unexplained exuberance, careful consideration has gone into making the facade, like the rest of the building, hard working and affordable.

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Head office of the Parish Council

The first thing you notice when you look at the new head office of the Parish Council of São Pedro Fins in Portugal’s Oporto region is a shiny metal cube tilted onto its edge. So strong is this impression that you could come away from a cursory view of the building, believing that this is all that it consists of.

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