Ecca collection

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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Bottrop

An unusual undulating facade has been retrofitted to a building in Bottrop, west central Germany, as part of a complete energy-efficiency overhaul by architectural practice Oliver Helmke in cooperation with Bayer Material Sciences and Innovation City Bottrop.

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Radisson Blu Hotel

Completed in March 2013, the Radisson Blue Riverside hotel in the Swedish port city of Gothenburg overhangs the Göta river like a shimmering shard of titanic proportions.

Constructed for Radisson Hotel’s owner the Winn Hotel Group by major Swedish contractor Skanska, this striking building accommodates 266 guest rooms, together with conference facilities, a bar and restaurant with outdoor seating, and a deluxe roof-top spa.

Images courtesy of Alcoa Architectural Products

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