Ecca collection

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 Arconic Architectural Products

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Arcus College

The new campus of the Arcus College in Heerlen, in the southeast Netherlands is a regional provider of vocational training for the Limburg province. It was designed, says architect IAA Architecten, “to meet the challenges of contemporary vocational education, anticipating future developments in this field and creating an optimised learning environment for a new generation of students”. 

Photography: Little Planet www.littleplanet.be

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Swedish Pavilion - Shangai Expo

Designing the Swedish Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo was a slightly less daunting task than designing many of the other pavilions, because it had a clearly defined function. What makes these projects so difficult in general is the almost entirely open-ended nature of the brief – they have to convey something about the national character, and house an exhibition, but beyond that and the physical limitations of the site, it is possible to do anything. In the case of the Swedish Pavilion, however, there was at least a requirement to house meetings with potential trade partners, and this gave the design more of a functional programme than is customary.

Images courtesy of August Wiklund, Sweco, & Petter Eldin

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