INSIDE OUTSIDE ARCHITECTURE WINS
A selection of the most beautiful buildings in the world right now recently won Archtizer’s A+ Awards for 2013. Elected by both jury and community, they are all jewels. Starkly different from each other, they flaunt a broad range of “beautiful.” From jagged facets to material light, these buildings make hearts pound.
One that we keep coming back to gaze upon the most is the pool room of the health and aging spa extension of Majorca’s Hotel Castell dels Hams, designed by A2 Arquitectos architects, Juan Manzanares Suárez and Cristian Santandreu Utermark. It is one of those rare rooms that plays the indoor/outdoor trick on you. And it does so very beautifully. Walls, windows, water, and light embrace each other. Rectangles of light, shining from all angles, turn the structure into an airy lace. You can feel the room breathe. You can feel yourself drift through the skylights as you float beneath them in the pool.
A common theme among this year’s A+ winners is the consideration of spirit and mind expansions and connections as an essential component in the designing the structures that house mere bodies.
(Photo: Courtesy of Architizer)
UNO Elementary School Soccer Academy, Chicago, IL
At first blush, the elementary school building that won the A+ Popular Vote, looks familiar, almost Jetson-ish. But it is gripping enough to keep you looking. And when you do, you see its brilliant new edges as they offset each other, the ground, and the sky. Designed by JGMA, the UNO Elementary School Soccer Academy, looks like it’s playing the field. The United Neighborhood Organization’s mission for the school program is as lofty as its facilities. It aims to help the US fall in love with soccer by creating a foundational link with community, family, education, health, and nutrition.
The Soccer Academy building’s educational concept matches its physical beauty, with its design focused on both reflection and connection, interlacing inside and outside space, energy, and people. There are no interior corridors, for example. There are several indoor and outdoor versions of the same kind of rooms. Regular access to both experiences is a joy, especially to a kid in school. It’s a wonderful place to expand a child’s mind. And with that, the community’s collective consciousness grows.
Another, very different approach to the same desire to offer an indoor/outdoor, yin/yang, sweet/sour mix is Leatop Plaza, a large office complex in Zhuijang, China. Over 90% of its occupants have a “visual connection with the outside.” That’s a tough feat in any structure, let alone one with hundreds of rooms bunched together.
(Photo: Courtesy of Architizer)
Leatop Plaza, Zhuijang, China
Leatop riffs off its neighbors, lifting curves and light lines from Canton Tower’s candy-colored spire and the dashed-harlequin columns of Guangzhou Twin Towers, each one better off for being in proximity to each other.
Designed by Helmut Jahn, Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido, and Michael Li, Leatop’s design also won high marks for its responsible functional core, with innovative eco-friendly centralized systems and clever materials. Achitizer A+ Finalist, Leaptop is LEED Gold .
Adding sound to the design equation, architect, Steven Holl considered the architectronics of music, in conceiving DAEYANG GALLERY AND HOUSE in Seoul, Korea. It is designed around large masses of sound, inspired by the “Symphony of Modules,” a score composed by Istvan Anhalt and included in John Cage’s book, Notations
(Photo: Courtesy of Architizer)
DAEYANG GALLERY AND HOUSE
Seoul, Korea
Flow, moving through walls of water and screens of bamboo, activated by changing natural light, helps this house plug into the universe. Further, with the line between home and gallery blurred, this house is all about the beauty of transition.
These of just a few of a few dozen winners in categories ranging from single residences to office buildings to hotels to bus stations. It is so worth it to see the rest.
