Scale defines spatial experience. From a single room or space to entire masterplans and urban designs, moving between scales shows how designers zoom in or out. Working across programs and contexts around the world, architects are exploring the possibilities of scale to shape human experience. For unbuilt work, these proposals combine ideas of structure, materiality and form to redefine typologies and the future of urban environments.
This week’s curated selection of the Best Unbuilt Architecture focuses on diverse scales of building. Drawn from an array of firms and local contexts, they represent proposals submitted by the ArchDaily Community. They showcase different approaches to designing at diverse scales, from the size of a single room to a high-rise. The projects include a log driving museum in Oslo and a center for health in Hawaii, to a laboratory in Shenzhen and a skyscraper in Costa Rica.
Read on to discover 10 curated projects highlighting design across scales, along with their project descriptions from the architects.
National Log Driving Museum
Proposal for a new log driving museum and marshland center in Fetsund, Oslo. The project aims to incorporate the museum into the nature along the banks of the river Glomma. By making a series of courtyards well-integrated into the overall flow of the building, the nature will be a vital part of the research, learning and museum facilities.
Peggy Cove
The new Accessible Viewing Platform was born of a desire to tackle many of the long-standing issues that have been identified by the community and visitors to Peggy’s Cove. Safety, accessibility, a diversity of experiences, and a pedestrian-friendly environment were a few of the items identified throughout our community engagement and master plan work over the past few years.
Ohana Center for Health
This project looks at how neuroscience insights guide the design of the project and serve as a prototype for future behavioral health facilities across the country. The project’s garden-like environment and spaces dedicated for staff breaks, are designed to lower levels of fatigue and as a result, staff burnout. Specific plants, including those with pinenes, are located throughout the project, a result of research which shows they boost immune function by 40%.
Shenzhen Pengcheng Laboratory
International architecture practice 10 Design has been appointed to realize the design vision of the Shenzhen Government for phase one of the city’s forthcoming flagship scientific research facility, the Shenzhen Pengcheng laboratory. The practice won the project following a national public tender process held by the Shenzhen Government and Pengcheng Laboratory. Phase one of the schemes’ wider masterplan will manifest in circa 436,500sqm of laboratory space incorporating a series of research spaces, with accompanying recreation, dining, sports and social facilities.
Mitosis
The need for healthy homes has hardly ever been more apparent than during the current global condition. The current efforts to reduce the negative impacts of buildings are inadequate. Therefore the built environment must be designed in a different way. To bring regenerative collective habitation to all scales of development, Amsterdam architecture practice GG-loop, sharing the vision with Arup, is developing Mitosis: a modular building system created by a parametric design tool following biophilic and user-centric design principles.
House in Colares
The project of the house in Colares stared with a topographical research in mind, finding the most dramatic cliff between Cascais and Cabo da Roca, for a weekend house, on the west coast of Portugal, at the closest point to the Americas on European land. The site is located in the Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais, just between the famous Lighthouse of Cabo da Roca and the nearby Santuário da Peninha, it is part of a territory which is constellated by windmills and local production of wine.
Shenzhen COFCO Joy Plaza
The AECOM architectural design team won the design right of Shenzhen COFCO Joy Plaza in a competition with four strong international teams. The project is located in the Meilin area of Futian. It is an urban renewal transforming from an old industrial area to innovative technology research and development. The high-density vertical industry community is the research direction that the AECOM team is iterating.
Cyprus University of Technology Student Halls
Eraclis Papachristou Architects
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Eraclis Papachristou Architects has been selected as the winner of the CUT student halls competition in Limassol. The brief asked for innovative proposals for a new neighborhood for 485 students along with recreational facilities. The masterplan for the old Verengaria site focuses on urban relations and connects this new area of public and private uses to the existing area to create a strong identity.
Torre del Bicentenario
For the bicentennial of Costa Rica in 2021, Inverse Project has designed a tower to commemorate this important milestone. It is located on the newly revitalized train lines in San Jose. It is a 65 level, mixed use tower accommodating retail, a transit hub, a campus, co-working, apartments, a hotel and a muti-level observation deck. The building rises to 294m, the tallest in Central America. The form is derived using parametric design and is inspired by the majestic tropical trees found in Costa Rica.
House of the Rising Sun
Our idea was to create an interactive composition with architecture being a plastic system interacting with other systems (including humans). This poured concrete, almost-monolithic architectural structure communicates with human through its form, appearance, and reflected light. The calm nature landscape of a sunset accompanies the round-shaped building and creates a peaceful and silent atmosphere.
HOW TO SUBMIT AN UNBUILT PROJECT
We highly appreciate the input from our readers and are always happy to see more projects designed by them. If you have an Unbuilt project to submit, click here and follow the guidelines. Our curators will review your submission and get back to you in case it is selected for a feature.
