We’ve seen some stunning pavilions at the Shanghai Expo 2010 event: the Saudi’s desert oasis, the U.K.’s bizarre yet thrilling Seed Cathedral (see video footage of it after the jump) and, sadly, the most bland and boring pavilion of them all, the U.S. one which has been labelled by some ‘The Shopping Mall’.
Cruel, but true.
Still, one man’s mall is another’s Taj Mahal and you can now voice your opinion via the Expo 2010 Awards, being run by Exhibitor magazine.
There’s very few things – except maybe crude oil and coal – that can’t have the word ‘green’ shoved in front of it these days, in order to make it more eco-friendly. Many, sadly, are inaccurate and others are fads.
But when it comes to buildings, green building has become the new wave of construction. And right now, Norway is king of green building for the second year running, according to – take a deep breath now – the 2009 Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Global Zero Carbon Capacity Index. Phew.
The HOK design team certainly like to think so. This is how the winning team envision the revamp of one of the San Francisco’s most treasured historical buildings, the Mint, built in 1874 and survivor of the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire.
It’s now looking at a future as a new museum and visitor centre for the city.
As you can see, maintaining the character of the original is paramount and the covered courtyard is a clever approach to opening up the inner space to the outside, while showing off the original stonework – much of which will have to rescued from ‘modernisation’ over the years.
Overlooking the site of the London 2012 Olympics, the new View Tube café is not what you’d normally expect from your local coffee shop. In fact, there are probably very few coffee shops built from old shipping containers and, if there are, they probably don’t look quite as cool as this one. We like cargotecture for a number of reasons and you can find a number of excellent and innovative examples in our previous blog ‘Thinking Outside The Container’.
This is ‘cargotecture’ at its best and it’s the 40th structure built from old shipping containers at London’s Container City. Read the rest of this entry »
It may not be the biggest pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010 event but the Arabian City is the most expensive.
This is the Saudi Arabian pavilion, loosely described as a ‘silk road treasure boat’ or more simply the ‘Moon Boat’, which cost a whopping $146 million to construct.
You can definitely see the oasis-style theme to the place which sits amid a ‘happy desert’ with the top deck planted with a hanging garden, complete with water pools and featuring full-grown date palm trees.
There are even tents erected on top to give visitors a chance to experience a little bit of desert life, just without the scorpions.
The Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has revealed the winners of this year’s “Best Tall Building” awards.
For the Americas, the gong went to the Bank of America Tower, New York, while Europe’s best was Broadcasting Place, Leeds, England [pictured above].
The Pinnacle@Duxton, in Singapore took the prize for the Asia & Australasia region and Burj Khalifa, in Dubai secured it for the Middle East & Africa.
Check out some photos of the others after the jump.
Continuing our look at some of the best pavilions at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, we tip our hats to Canada, for producing one of the most entertaining.
Who’d have thought the normally conservative Canadians would hand over the design of their pavilion to a circus?
World famous Cirque Du Soleil, the acrobatic theater troupe, designed this giant letter ‘C’ over three floors to convey the Canadian values of ‘inclusivity, sustainability, and creativity’.
Compared to some of the other pavilions on show at the massive Shanghai Expo 2010 event, the US pavilion is possibly one of the dullest.
Apart from the political controversy surrounding the pavilion, which has been dubbed ‘The Shopping Mall’, thanks to the drab looks and all of the corporate advertising and logos indoors, the design is flat and uninspiring. Try comparing it to…..
When you see the words ‘clinic’ and ‘Las Vegas’ appearing the same sentence you’d be forgiven for thinking another gambling addiction clinic has opened for business.
Instead, we have the marvellously eccentric new Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health by design’s ’starchitect’, Frank Gehry. Love it or hate it [we love it] the new clinic will certainly stop people in the street, if only to help them make sure that the building isn’t melting.
It’s already dividing critics between those who believe it’s a fantastically innovative and jaw-dropping piece of design to those who believe it’s hopelessly derivative of earlier work and those who believe Gehry = Garish.
See what the LA Times reviewer said after the jump.
For the first time ever, Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid statue has left Denmark for its new, albeit temporary home, at the Shanghai Expo 2010.
It is to be the center piece at the striking Danish pavilion at the Expo, which is home to some of the most interesting and cutting edge architectural designs from almost 200 nations.
See a video of the the Little Mermaid’s unveiling at the pavilion after the jump.
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