HENNING LARSEN WINS THE TECHNICAL COLLEGE SILKEBORG COMPETITION

Henning Larsen Architects has been selected as one of two winners in the competition for a 22,500 m2 new Technical College in Silkeborg, Denmark.

Construction of the new Technical College Silkeborg is expected to finish in 2016. The project is based on the vision of encouraging social interaction and knowledge-sharing across study programmes.

The college is designed to become a gathering point, promoting educational expertise while at the same time fostering a strong sense of community across study programmes.

A large central atrium forms the heart of the building and will become the place where students meet and the various study fields merge.

The new building will provide the setting for the school’s courses in Art and Creativity, Health and Gastronomy, IT and Technology, Media and Communication as well as Design and Crafts.

In addition, the new college will offer 200 student residences. Henning Larsen Architects’ concept design has been developed in collaboration with Moe Consulting Engineers and LIW Planning.

The team was up against four teams led by some of Denmark’s leading architectural companies. Aarstiderne Architects is the second of the two winners, and the two winning teams will now further develop their designs so that one final winner can be announced in the beginning of 2014. 

CHITKARA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS BY PLANET 3 STUDIOS

Planet 3 Studios were mindful of the context when they received the opportunity to design a School of Business at Chitkara University on the outskirts of Corbusier's city.

The client shared a brief with similar ambitions as the one Corbusier defined for the city, with additional expectation of an environment that enabled progressive learning and a building that effectively communicated that intent. The site is a linear footprint of an industrial shed within a larger campus with an open ground on the north side and within walking distance to campus amenities.

For ease of approvals from local planning authorities, the firm decided to stay within the constraints of the existing footprint and defer in scale to the surrounding buildings within campus. The building is perceived as a set of five clusters where each cluster is designed to accommodate the necessary programmed usable spaces within two minutes' walking distance.

The volumes are represented as circles that accommodate the programmatic spaces such as classrooms, staff rooms, discussion rooms, tutorial rooms, auditorium, laboratories, toilets and so on. The arrangements of circles are then packed inside a given boundary so that no two overlap and some of them are mutually tangential.

Interestingly, the fundamental concept of clustering similar requirements and interspersing them with green spaces echoes Corbusier's strategy for Chandigarh, except that Planet 3 dispensed with linear connections and allowed for organic linkages to develop. The layout provides interesting play within spaces of different scales as smaller interactive spaces like discussion rooms started emerging between larger rooms like classrooms.

This building will be framed in steel with solid surface acrylic cladding on the parts that extend beyond the roof line. Within the interior, drywall construction and cladding is used, painted white with an occasional dash of colour borrowed from Corbusier's many explorations around the city. At some level, this admits the transience of contemporary architecture and lack of ambition to last forever.

The client expects to use the building for a decade before putting up a new, larger structure in its place. The floor will be poured on site polished cement. Drawing on some of the very same first principles that define Corbusier's work in Chandigarh, this building is one statement on how ideas could be recontextualised and reimagined in keeping with the time in which they are expressed. This building has to give form to the ambitions of the students of this new college. A moment in time much like the city when it was born.

 

Location: Punjab, India

Architects:Planet 3 Studios

Design: Ongoing

Design Team: Kalhan Mattoo, Santha Gour Mattoo, Ashwini Hublikar, Shanky Jain, Shreyas More

Area: 7,435 sqm

Year: 2013

Client: Chitkara University

UNIVERSITY OF TARTU NARVA COLLEGE BY KAVAKAVA ARCHITECTS

New university built into destroyed old town area records both the absence of the Old Town and it’s rebuilding.

Narva is a border city between Russia and Estonia. Prosperity of the city was in 17th century, when under the Swedish reign new baroque-style city center was developed. The Old Town was destroyed during WWII and after when it was demolished and replaced with modernist city.

After the war local people were not allowed to return to the city, new habitants were brought in from Soviet Union. The college is built on the area of Narva’s no longer existent Old Town with the main façade opening towards the Town Hall Square. In front of the building is a square, marking the site of the former stock exchange building and creating main entrance to the college.

Main idea is to clearly mark the historical volume of the stock exchange building. New building consists of two conceptual halves – first half is the stock building reconstructed as a void and another half is a material building, new college itself.

The old Stock Exchange Building was situated straight in the centre of the town and covered partly even Town Hall’s main facade. New solution records exactly the situation but replaces former mass by conceptual void and allows the Town Hall to dominate on the Square.

New building refers directly to the Stock Exchange Building that stood there before. The previous building’s Baroque front elevation is marked by “in reverse” form on the College’s new festive main facade, which is cast in white concrete. Its projecting beak-shaped roof follows the gable line and roof of the Stock Exchange Building in reverse.

As a result, new square is formed in front of the College i.e. on the site of the Stock Exchange Building. New main façade with the “reversed” roof draw out the contours of the Stock Exchange Building that used to stand here. The rest of three sides of the building have discreet appearance.

The aim behind them is to follow nthe façade style characteristic to old Narva, which had mostly plain stone walls without subdivisions with only door portals and window frames rising upwards. There are regular window–openings in the plastered brick walls of the new building, nuances are added to strict layout by the various depths of the windows.

Glass walls looking towards the courtyard create a light and spacious impression inside a quite small building. The interior is compact but instantly recognizable – its purpose is to create an academic yet non-formal environment. Spacious foyer has solved as large steps to create a suitable background for the students’ interaction between the lectures.

Inner circulation has been arranged around the courtyard. Old basement of the Stock Exchange under the square is restored and partly rebuilt. Central room is vaulted similarly to the original one. The rooms will be used for exhibitions and events.

 

Location: Narva, Estonia

Architect: Kavakava Architects

Architect In Charge: Siiri Vallner, Indrek Peil, Katrin Koov KAVAKAVA

Project Team: Heidi Urb, Maarja Tüür, Andro Mänd, Sten Mark Mändmaa, Helina Lass

Interior design: Hannes Praks

Structural engineer: Maari Idnurm, Siim Randmäe EEB OÜ

Plot surface: 2 812m2

Built surface: 2 109m2

Year: 2012

Client: University of Tartu

Photography: Kaido Haagen,  Anu Vahtra

NEW MEXICO HIGHLANDS UNIVERSITY'S NEW STUDENT CENTER BY DIAMOND SCHMITT ARCHITECTS

An innovative and highly sustainable building has opened at New Mexico Highlands University. The Student Union Building is designed to respond to the American Southwest climate and connects the campus with the community of Las Vegas, New Mexico.

The gateway building anchors a key intersection of the university and presents a series of interconnected and transparent volumes that are legible and inviting from the street. Responding to a university need to produce both new and dedicated spaces for student activities in one location, the building organized a mix of one and two-storey program spaces around a three-storey light-filled atrium.

Student lounge spaces on all three floors animate the atrium while this central space acts as a circulation hub connecting the program elements. A key feature is the 75-seat student governance chamber that floats above this central space; to enhance its presence, natural light washes the curved surface of the chamber drum.

Designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects in joint venture with Studio Southwest Architects, this 65,000-square-foot facility has a dramatic exterior cladding of black iron spot brick, Corten steel panels and a glazed aluminum curtain wall. On three sides is one of the first motorized sun tracking louver systems in North America that shades the interior of the building from direct sunlight during the day and opens during the night.

“The louvers are held two feet off the main façade allowing sun shading to the grade levels without compromising transparency and view and the system drastically reduces mechanical loads”, said Martin Davidson, Principal at Diamond Schmitt Architects.

The ground floor contains a versatile ballroom/conference facility, theatre, bookstore, café, post office and cafeteria that opens onto a sheltered courtyard. The upper floors include lounges, a computer lab, student services offices, meeting rooms, a dining area, the student governance chamber and a bridge to an adjacent library.

The third floor is set back under large extending roof planes that reduce the overall scale of the building and provide shade and covered terraces. Future green roofs provide rooftop assembly areas with views to the mountains beyond. The building is targeting LEED Gold certification and a geothermal well field is part of the mechanical energy system.

Diamond Schmitt Architects is a leading full-service architectural firm based in Toronto with an international reputation for design excellence and sustainable design solutions. An extensive portfolio includes academic buildings, libraries, performing arts centres, sports facilities, master plans, residential and commercial buildings. Equally extensive is work completed for healthcare, with life science facilities, research laboratories and hospitals.

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 
Architect: Diamond Schmitt Architects 
Partner: Studio Southwest Architects 
Area: 65,000 sf 
Year: 2013 
Client: New Mexico Highlands University