Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany

The Phaeno Science Center is an interactive science center in Wolfsburg, Germany, completed in 2005. Phaeno arose from progressive urban planning by the City of Wolfsburg. In 1998 City officials were developing a plot of vacant, public land immediately adjacent to Wolfsburg's railway station and just south of VW's huge, then-unfinished attraction Autostadt. An art museum was planned for the site, but Dr. Wolfgang Guthardt, then the City's Director for Culture, Sports and Education, knew that such an institution would compete with Wolfsburg's successful Kunst Museum (Art Museum) and needed other options. Guthardt visited Technorama, a science center in Switzerland and became convinced that a science center in Wolfsburg would complement both Autostadt and the Kunst Museum.

Phaeno Science Center (Photography © Werner Huthmacher)

An architectural design competition was held in January 2000 and the prominent architect Zaha Hadid won, in conjunction with structural engineers, Adams Kara Taylor. The design won a 2006 RIBA European Award as well as the 2006 Institution of Structural Engineers Award for Arts, Leisure and Entertainment Structures.

Dr. Guthardt is now Phaeno's first Executive Director. Phaeno has enjoyed high attendance and broad public acceptance since its opening.

The Concept By Zaha Hadid

Located on a very special site in the City of Wolfsburg it is set both as the endpoint of a chain of important cultural buildings (by Aalto, Scharoun and Schweger) as well as being a connecting link to the north bank of the Mittelland Kanal -Volkswagen’s Car Town. Multiple threads of pedestrian and vehicular movement are pulled through the site both on an artificial ground landscape and inside and through the building, effectively composing an interface of movement-paths.

Volumetrically, the building is structured in such a way that it maintains a large degree of transparent and porosity on the ground, since the main volume – the Exhibition – is raised thus covering an outdoor public plaza with a variety of commercial and cultural functions which reside in the structural concrete cones. An artificial crater-like land-scape is developed inside the open exhibition space allowing diagonal views to the different levels of the exhibition-scape, while volumes, which protrude, accommodate other functions of the science center. A glazed public wormhole-like extension of the existing bridge flows through the building allowing views to and from the exhibition space.

Photo Gallery of  Phaeno Science Center

Phaeno Science Center (Photography © Werner Huthmacher)

Phaeno Science Center (Photography © Werner Huthmacher)

Phaeno Science Center (Photography © Werner Huthmacher)

Phaeno Science Center (Photography © Werner Huthmacher)

Phaeno Science Center (Photography © Werner Huthmacher)

Phaeno Science Center (Photography © Werner Huthmacher)

Pierres Vives building, Montpellier, France

The Pierres Vives building of the Department of Herault in Montpellier, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects is due to start on site at the end of this year.

The building is a unique combination of three civic institutions - the archives, the library and the sports department - within a single envelope.

All the public entrances are located on the western side of the building; whilst the service entrances for staff and loading bays are on the eastern side. In this way the tree-trunk analogy is exploited to organise and articulate the complexity of the overall "cite administrative".

Zaha Hadid consistently pushes the boundaries of architecture and urban design. Her work experiments with new spatial concepts ranging widely from urban master planning to products, interiors, and furniture.

She is best known for her seminal built works - the Vitra Fire Station in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany (1993); the Hoenheim Nord Terminus in Strasbourg, France (2001); the Bergisel Ski Jump in Innsbruck, Austria (2002); the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, USA (2003); the BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany; the Hotel Puerta America interiors in Madrid, Spain; the Ordrupgaard Museum extension in Copenhagen and the Phaeno Science Centre in Germany (all 2005).

In 2004 Zaha Hadid won the prestigious Pritzker Prize for Architecture

Concept of Pierres Vives

The Pierres Vives building of the department de l’Herault is characterised by the unification of three institutions – the archive, the library and the sports department – within a single envelope. These various parts of this ‘cite administrative’ combine into a strong figure visible far into the landscape. As one moves closer, the division into three parts becomes apparent. The building has been developed on the basis of a rigorous pursuit of functional and economic logic. However, the resultant figure is reminiscent of a large tree-trunk, laid horizontal.

The archive is located at the solid base of the trunk, followed by the slightly more porous library with the sports department and its well-lit offices on top where the trunk bifurcates and becomes much lighter. The branches projecting off the main trunk are articulating the points of access and the entrances into the various institutions. On the western side all the public entrances are located, with the main entrance under an enormous cantilevering canopy; while on the eastern side all the service entrances, i.e. staff entrances and loading bays are located. (http://www.zaha-hadid.com)

Photo Gallery of Pierres Vives

Casa da Música (House of Music)

Casa da Música (English: House of Music) is a major concert hall space in Porto, Portugal which houses the cultural institution of the same name with its three orchestras Orquestra Nacional do Porto, Orquestra Barroca and Remix Ensemble. The Building engineers were Arup (London) together with Afassociados (Porto). Inside Outside (Petra Blaisse) designed the large 13 curtains, ranging from 22mx15m to 65mx8m, and the gold leaf wood grain pattern on the large auditorium.

The place where the building now sits used to be a holding place for the trams that ran in Porto. The building's design has been highly acclaimed worldwide. Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic from the New York Times, classified it as the "most attractive project the architect Rem Koolhaas has ever built" and saying it's "a building whose intellectual ardor is matched by its sensual beauty". "Only looking into the original aspect of the building, this is one of the most important concert halls built in the last 100 years".

Casa da Música has two main auditoriums, though many other areas of the building can very easily be adapted for concerts and other musical activity (workshops, educational activities, etc.).

1. The large auditorium has an initial capacity of 1,238 people, but can vary according to the occasion.

2. The small auditorium is tremendously flexible, and has no definite number in relation to the capacity. On average the room has capacity for 300 people sitting down, and 650 people standing, though these can drastically change depending on the size of the stage, its location, the arrangement of the chairs, the presence and size of sound and recording equipment, etc.

3. The restaurant at the top of the building was opened far later than was originally planned. Functioning since August 2006, the restaurant's original planned capacity for 250 people was decreased to space for some 150. 

September 2008 Casa da Musica hosted the Orquestra Nacional do Porto taking part in explorative public presentations where performed music was captured alongside musician's and conductor's expressive gestures. Various sensor networks sourced and translated musical expressions into computer driven visual interpretations of lighting, projected images, and real-time improvisations for the audience to experience added nuance of performance. A scientific article informs on the concept.

Scientific articles are also published on special needs performances/workshops in Casa da Musica 2007 & 2008.

Picture Gallery of  Casa da Música (House of Music)

McCormick Tribune Campus Center

The McCormick Tribune Campus Center (MTCC) is a building on the main campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the south side of Chicago.

The McCormick Tribune Campus Center opened September 30, 2003. It was the first building designed by architect Rem Koolhaas within the United States. It is a single-story 110,000-square-foot (10,000 m²) building.

Design of the building began in 1997 during an international architectural design competition hosted by the school. Finalists included Peter Eisenman, Helmut Jahn, Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima, and the winner, Rem Koolhaas. He worked with Chicago architecture firm Holabird & Root, especially on structural engineering issues.

The site was previously a heavily used student parking lot with tracks of the elevated train passing overhead. Koolhaas tracked movements of students across the lot, which led to diagonal passageways as the center's interior thoroughfares. Campus functions which had been spread around campus, such as the student bookstore and a post office, were relocated between these pathways. They also connected to a new cafeteria in a renovated 1953 Commons building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. A major design challenge was the noise of the public transit tracks passing over the lot. The tube's support structure is completely independent of the building's, to minimize vibration passing between them.

Budget constraints precluded this, however. Original designs included a bowling alley, basketball courts and a skate park, but these were removed from the final design, supposedly because of security concerns.

The original project budget was $25 million, but the ultimate cost was $48 million. However, the university wanted an architecturally significant building to add onto its original main campus, which is home to the densest concentration of buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the world.

A computer model of the train tube was used in the splash screen for AutoCAD 2008.

The building, commonly referred to as "MTCC" by students, faculty, and staff, serves as a central hub for student life on campus. As of December 2010^[update], it housed the campus mail room, dining facilities, a coffee shop, 7-11 convenience store, the Campus Information Center, and many meeting spaces and offices.

Picture Gallery of McCormick Tribune Campus Center