architecture & construction

Danish retailer Vipp has expanded into the hospitality industry – it is now offering guests the opportunity to stay in a prefabricated micro dwelling in a Swedish forest, or in a loft apartment on top of its Copenhagen headquarters.

From 1 November, fans of the brand best known for its pedal-controlled metal waste bins can book a night at the Vipp Hotel, which the company described as "an untraditional hotel concept".

"The minute you check in at the Vipp Hotel, it's fully booked," the brand explained, "because the Vipp Hotel is not a hotel in the traditional sense. Instead of offering many rooms in one location, Vipp offers one room at different destinations."

Described as a celebration of the sun and a reinterpretation of Mashrabiya, traditional Arabic wooden latticed windows, the artwork will shade the outside terrace during the day and open during the evening to reveal the view of the waterside promenade and fountains.

Made entirely of lightweight carbon fibre, each wing has multiple layers of tubes forming a dense net.

Following an in-depth study of sun angles, the rods have been distributed in higher concentration where the solar radiation is most intense over the year.

The unique pattern allows clear views out for people standing on both levels of the store and the sunlight streaming through the wings casts dappled shadows deep into the interior.

Foster + Partners say the Apple store occupies the “most pivotal position in the city, alongside the iconic Burj Khalifa and overlooking the famous Dubai Fountains”.

Stefan Behling, head of studio at Foster + Partners, said : “The design of Apple Dubai Mall is about creating an exceptional architectural and social experience for visitors, bringing to the fore new ideas about the evolving role of Apple Flagships in the community. I am sure Apple Dubai Mall will become a true people’s place.”

These are usually considered in the context of strip foundations and are used mainly on sloping sites to reduce the amount of excavation and materials required to produce an adequate foundation.

A foundation constructed in a series of steps that approximate the slope of the bearing stratum. The purpose is to avoid horizontal force vectors that might cause sliding.

NOTE: This is a student's project from Mbeya University of science and technology (MUST), Ivan Josephat.

The competition seeks the creation of a middle school (age group 5-12) that completely negates the present day 'bench-table-chalkboard' idea of a classroom and a regularized building typology of a school. The competition seeks to radicalize the school system through architecture not only in terms of improving the quality of study environment but revamping the system and breaking all the physical and metaphorical class divisions into an entirely new school system. The competition seeks ideas from participants to create a fun built environment for a middle school that understands the individual needs of each child yet being very collaborative in nature. The school should strive to create a new pedagogical space that emphasizes on people-oriented design in behavioral terms as they interact and use spaces.

Berlin is the 21st century contemporary world's ideal capital. The city left its torrid history behind to quickly grow and cement itself into the intellectual and cultural core of the world. Berlin is the epicenter of any new movement that starts to demolish the old world order. The site for the competition is located in Templehof, Berlin and aims to create an exemplary prototype for all the new world schooling systems to follow.

Schedule

• Start of Competition and Early Registration: 1st April 2016
• Early Registration ends: 31st May 2017
• Standard Registration starts: 1st June 2017
• Deadline for Questions: 10th June 2017
• Standard Registration ends: 29th June 2017
• Closing day for Submissions 30th June 2017
• Announcement of Winners: 24th July 2017

*Note: All deadlines are 11:59 pm - 00:00 IST (India).

Awards

• Winning participants will receive prizes totaling INR 2,00,000 with the distribution as follows:
• First prize- INR 1,00,000/- + Certificate 
• Second prize- INR 60,000/- + Certificate
• Third prize- INR 40,000/- + Certificate
• 10 Honorable mentions

Winners and honorable mentions will be published on archasm’s website and several international architecture magazines and websites partnered by us.

Download the information related to this competition here.



Title
Open Call: School Without Classrooms (Berlin)

Type
Competition Announcement (Ideas)

Organizers
Archasm

Registration Deadline
29/06/2017 23:30

Submission Deadline
30/06/2017 23:30

Venue
Berlin

Price
Early Registration: From 1st April 2017 to 31st May 2017 : EUR 60 (per team);Standard Registration: From 1st June 2017 to 29th June 2017 : EUR 80 (per team)

The exterior character of a building is often determined by how structure relates to the building envelope.
  Architects frequently explore and exploit spatial relationships between these two elements in order to express their architectural ideas and generally enrich their designs.


  Structure plays numerous roles in contributing to the visual appearance of a building facade, through modulation, adding depth and texture, and acting as a visual screen or filter. In all of them the structural scale must relate appropriately to the scales of non-structure elements in order to achieve the desired outcome.