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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 EldinArchitect Sweco (Johannes Tüll) Location Shangai - China Company involved SSAB Website http://www.ssab.com -
Aluminium Centrum
Few buildings evoke the universal response ‘how on earth does it stand up?’ but the Aluminium Centrum in Houten, the Netherlands, is one of them. A flat simple slab of a building (although not as simple as it first looks) is supported on the slenderest possible of supports coming up out of the water. On a day when the light is right, with reflections in the still water, the effect is of the tentacles of a jellyfish – not the most structurally rigid of concepts.
Architect Abbink X De Haas architectures (Micha de Haas) Location Houten - The Netherlands Company involved 3A Composites Website http://www.3acomposites.com -
ThyssenKrupp Steel Kindergarten
“Understated, metallic and perfectly harmonised,” is how ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe describes its recently launched ReflectionsPearl® range, but it is also an accurate description the company’s colourful new kindergarten in Duisburg, which makes good use of the coil-coated steel façade system.
Architect Architekturbüro Karnowski (Carsten Karnowski) Location Duisburg - Germany Company involved Thyssenkrupp Steel Website http://www.thyssenkrupp-steel-europe.com