UAE Federal National Council

New home for UAE Federal National Council blends traditional local heritage with 'global contemporary aspirations'

California-based Ehrlich Architects has beaten off stiff competition from fellow shortlisters Foster + Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects and Massimiliano Fukas Architects to secure first place in an international architectural competition to design the United Arab Emirates Federal National Council’s (FNC) New Parliament Building Complex.

Located on the waterfront on processional boulevard Abu Dhabi Corniche, the striking facility will be visible for miles across the water shared by six of the seven Emirates. A vast dome dubbed the ‘flower of the desert’ forms the key focus of the New Parliament Building Complex at 100m in diameter. At nightfall this arching structure will be lit from the inside, creating a shining beacon to the neighbouring Emirates as it reflects across the water. During the day, the shelter will form its own shaded micro-climate, casting Islamic patterns of dappled light onto the white marble Assembly Hall.

Flanking this dome are multiple Parliamentary buildings which house the bulk of the office and administrative services, meeting halls and visitors’ programme, richly toned in hues inspired by the surrounding natural elements – namely the desert sand. Ehrlich Architects’ Design Principal, Steven Ehrlich, FAIA, RIBA explains: “The New Parliament Building Complex will balance Islamic Heritage with U.A.E.’s global contemporary aspirations, where modernity and tradition are in harmonious balance. The architecture for the FNC’s new home will communicate its increasingly vital role in the lives of all United Arab Emirates citizens.”

Fishers Island, New York, United States - Box within a box

Garden pavilion for Fishers Island residence doubles as home for private artworks

Caught in a private spread of manicured foliage on Fishers Island, New York stands a delicately transparent pavilion. Its light-filtering trellis - a horizontal tracery of slender aluminum rods extending the roof plane - aligns with the canopy of trees before it. Architecture of subtlety, this quasi weightless structure is carefully planted between two existing wooded plains.

The pavilion's interior floor plane - fully visible through the glassy, Miesian shell - continues outward, its surface of bonised bamboo transformed into an exterior plinth of Indian black granite. The entry axis penetrates the pavilion's simple 4,600 sq ft volume, notching into its far side and emerging as a long, shallow reflecting pool.

A perimeter path lines the structure's transparent shell. Freestanding in parallel alignment, the interior walls never meet the enclosure. Instead, they form a virtual box within a box, an implied inner volume.

A one-bedroom retreat for a former museum director and his wife, this crystal pavilion is also home to a plethora of 20th century paintings, sculptures, and glassware. The artwork always figures into view out, even if only peripherally. Conversely, from the gardens, this colourful indoor collection projects a presence outdoors.

An arcing swath of vibrant yellow sedum in the garden resonates with the golden footbridge in a Chinese screen inside; a mossy rock garden projects into the pavilion's simple volume, while the bedroom nestles into a private apse of garden vegetation.

Parque Das Cidades Congress Centre - Portugal

Brilliant design from Regino Cruz Arquitectos...

Portuguese design firm Regino Cruz Arquitectos has been selected as the winner of a competition to design a new Congress and Exhibition Centre in the Algarve. Run by Faro and Louise Municipal Councils, the competition aims to develop the site to the Algarve Stadium with an impressive Congress Centre complemented by a four star hotel and retail and office complex.

The strong concept design comprises large volumes of internal flexible space, responding directly to the functional requirements of the building's users. The architect has been inspired by the

nearby ocean which is mirrored in a screen-printed glass wall that extends over the triple height of the main entranceway. This vast expanse of glass is contrasted by elements of tradisional local housing styles incoporated into the facade, such as whitewashed walling. Not only the pergolas

but also the roofs and their multiple triangulations that one sees time and again in the silhouettes of the surrounding towns and villages, inspired by the metrics of the structure and the geometry of the large glass structure. Energy efficiency plays a large part in the concept design, with a water recycling system gathering rainwater from the roof to store in tanks and facades on the south and west-facing sides which have the greatest thermal inertia more opaque than those on the north and east-facing sides.

Aviva USA - LEED Gold Building

Aviva USA Des Moines, Iowa goes for the gold- resource from WORLD ARCHITECTURE NEWS.COM Tuesday 25, Jan 2011

Aviva USA headquarters becomes the largest LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certified building in Iowa.

Among the project's features that contributed to Gold Certification are :

95% of employees have direct access to natural light

81% construction waste recycled and thus diverted from landfills

43% water savings

installation of low-flush water closets and urinals

low-flow sink aerotor and shower head fixtures

30% energy saving compared with a standard code-based building

occupancy and daylight sensing lighting controls in offices and conferences rooms

High performance, glazing, wall and roof systems.

Efficient indirect system lighting design

Hight efficiency water cooled chiller

Carbon dioxide sensing ventilation air control systems

Total energy recovery of ventilation air

27% materials quarried or purchased locally including Iowa limestone

18% recycle content value of construction materials.

The facility also offers priority parking for low-emitting and fuel-efficient vehicles as well as for those employees who carpool.

Welcome 2011

Salam New Year to all,

When the clock turns 12 on December 31st, the fire cracker shooting up on the sky and people from all over the world will cheer and wish each other. For some people the new year symbolize the beginning of a better tommorow. For some others, new year is not more than a change of the calender....well, whatever azam been created, and wherever celebration been organized, I will choose to look forward to a good year ahead. Pray for good for everybody and may happiness spread along peacefull, love and harmony..murahkan rezeki ku ya Allah dan sekalian saudara seislam ku..Moga kami hidup aman tenteram bersama-sama dengan yang lainnya.

Aminnnn...

Strata Tower - Abu Dhabi

STRATA TOWER - Abu Dhabi, UAE

Floor Area - 51 500 m sq

It is a 50 storey tower in the Al-Raha Beach development. The Tower's architecture is neither symbolic nor narrative, but rather seeks meaning through an abstract use of form and dynamic movement to work with the environment, the light, sea and atmospheres that envelop this magical place on the Arabian 'sea. The flow and movement of the surface affords the architecture its iconic status without being an overt gesture or building reliant on a set meaning or association. Rather, the mathematical procedures used not unlike those in the manifestation of the arabesque or abstract Islamic calligraphy afford the building its elegance and musicality.

Meant for luxurious residence, the building's design is also based on the flowing computer designed style of the New York architects. Despite the large number of buildings being erected in the UAE, few are as evocative of architectural quality as this one, a sign of the times surely because Abu Dhabi seems to have seen the interest of increasing the design excellence of its new structures.

Increasingly involved in interior and design. Asymptote has carried the exterior appearance of the building into the surprising flowing interiors.

Opus Office Tower - Dubai, UAE

Dubai, UAE. oh yea..this boom city quite sometime ago was a heaven for designers, architects and engineers - it like some kind of place for the creative people throw-out their extreme-crazy ideas that never been in mind before.

Opus Office Tower is the mixed-used commercial and retail complex formed a large cube that appears to hover off the ground, althought the design in fact consists of three separate towers 93 m high. A freely formed void cuts into these volumes, while the ground floor is developed as a transparent open field with multiple pathways that are drawn into the interior of the plan areas within the two separate lobbies. The void is lit from within at night, in a sense reversing the volumetric appearence of the building. Pixelated striations are to be applied to the glass facade reducing solar gain and giving it a degree of reflectivity and materiality. The architect explain that, "it is clear that from its inception this concept seeks interconnectedness and uniqueness. "

The continuity of the interior design with exterior forms is expressed here in a relatively restrained manner, and yet the whole flows from the exterior to the interior in an effortless continuum.Night lighting of the building and the contrast between its freely formed void and the actual buildings.