Ecca collection

Treatment Plant

Southwest from Paris, just 1km from the Porte de Versailles and within view of the Eiffel Tower, the town of Issy-les-Moulineaux sits on the bank of the River Seine. It has undertaken a commitment that all its major buildings should be of high environmental quality, and this is evident in one new structure, with its green roof and its river frontage half hidden behind trees planted on the upper levels. It is therefore surprising at first to discover that this building in such a prime position is fulfilling the decidedly unglamorous function of a plant for sorting and treating waste.

Read more

Residential Project Praam

While its clean, rectilinear profile and abundant glazing, the Praam residential building is very much what one might expect of IJburg, an artificial archipelago on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Designed by Eindhoven-based architects Marx & Steketee, the Praam is part of a rather old-fashioned and surprisingly intimate style of urban development.

Read more

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

Read more