Product Description

AV Proyectos 96 Dossier Mecanoo

Heatherwick in Shanghai · Seven Glass Details · Printed in North Korea · The Whale Competition: Mandrup, Snøhetta, BIG, RRA · Tom Hegen

AV Proyectos 96 Dossier Mecanoo

Mecanoo. Reaching the Sky
Founded in 1984 in Delft, Mecanoo architec- ten is a multidisciplinary team of professionals from 25 countries around the world whose work focusses on key aspects such as the process, consultation, context, urban scale, and the integrated strategies of sustainable design. Directed by Francine Houben (Sittard, 1955), the Dutch office manages a broad architectural repertoire, and tries to find specific solutions to address the needs of the program at hand, paying special attention to the conditions of the site and to the cultural and social environment of each one of their projects, always incorporating issues like technological innovation, ecoengineering, and mobility.

The Whale. Design Competition
Andenes is a small town with a population of 2,600 on the island of Andøya, in Northern Norway. Just 300 kilometers from the Arctic Circle, it is one of the best places in the world to spot whales thanks to a deep-sea valley that stretches almost all the way up to the shore. From there one can appreciate the rich sea life, and a huge variety of cetacean species. The international competition to build The Whale, a visitors’ center, was organized to promote tourism in the area while inspiring learning and conservation of whales and their environment. The proposal by the team of Dorte Mandrup was chosen out of 37 participants in the competition, with BIG, Snøhetta, and Reiulf Ramstad as finalists.

Glass. Seven Details
Thanks to its physical and mechanical properties, glass is one of the most widely used construction materials. Its presence, mainly on facades, provides answers to very different needs, depending on the technical characteristics and the interaction with the structure that supports the glass in each case, as the projects included in this dossier show. The technological development of the glass industry and the constant introduction of new projects with added or improved functions turn glass into a material that defines a building’s external appearance and controls sunlight and privacy as well as temperature, contributing to energy efficiency.

Heather-wick in Shanghai. 1,000 Trees
Just twenty minutes from central Shanghai, by Suzhou River in a historic industrial area now transformed into a flourishing cultural and artistic hub, the new mixed-use complex 1,000 Trees takes inspiration from the mountainous landscape of the region and from the beauty of the waterfront and neighboring park, and unfurls topographically to occupy two sites, separated by a band of 300,000 square meters. Two tree-covered mountains of columns function as structure and merge with the surroundings, creating a smooth border between the city and the building while minimizing the impact of its contact with the artistic district and the park.

Printed in North Korea. Nicholas Bonner
Born in 1961, the British landscape architect, documentalist and writer Nicholas Bonner has lived over the past twenty years in Beijing, base from which he organizes cultural exchange programs with North Korea. His interest in the art of this country has taken him to gather a large collection of prints that Phaidon presents in the book Printed in North Korea: The Art of Everyday Life in the DPRK. The volume brings together more than 200 works dating back since 1950, and invites to explore a culture that is practically unknown in the West, offering insight into the unique social, economic, and political conditions in which the North Korean artists live and work.

Tom Hegen. Series
The shine of the colors, the geometries of the landscapes and the almost tactile textures make the images of Tom Hegen (Königsbrunn, 1991) look like impressive abstract paintings, when they are actually objective documents of reality. The photographer and designer shows, through aerial images, the impact of the human being on Earth, searching for artificially transformed territories and inviting the observer to discover the world from a different perspective, placing them face to face with the dimension of their interventions and making them aware of their responsibility in the preservation of our planet. The underlying story and concept in each series is the key motivation for the German artist.

Mecanoo, Reaching the Sky

Sport Complex Mondorf-les-Bains (Luxembourg)
Ede Wageningen Train Station, Ede (Netherlands)
Manchester Engineering Campus, Manchester (United Kingdom)
Grand Central, Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
Futian Civic Cultural Center, Shenzhen (China)
Qianhai Data Center, Shenzhen (China)
Hengli International Headquarters, Shenzhen (China)
Konka Group Headquarters, Shenzhen (China)
Taiwan National Archive, New Taipei City (Taiwan)
Taichung Green Corridor, Taichung (Taiwan)

The Whale Competition, Norway

Dorte Mandrup
Snøhetta
BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group
Reiulf Ramstad Architects (RRA)

Vidrio al Detalle, Seven Details

Safdie Architects
Jewel Changi Airport, Singapore (Singapore)

Zaha Hadid Architects
Leeza SOHO Tower, Bejing (China)

OMA
Timmerhuis, Rotterdam (Netherlands)

Archismith Co., Ltd.
The Glass Fortress, Bangkok (Thailand)

Belzberg Architects
Gores Group Headquarters, Beverly Hills (United States)

Trahan Architects
Magnolia Mound Visitors Center, Baton Rouge (United States)

Broissin
Crystal Treehouse Chantli Kuaulakoyokan, Mexico City (Mexico)

‘1,000 Trees, in Construction
Heatherwick
Shanghai (China)

Printed in North Korea, The Art of Everyday Life in the DPKR
Nicholas Bonner, Phaidon (2019)

Tom Hegen, Series
‘Aerial Landscapes’