The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) headquarters, designed by the UK-based Zaha Hadid Architects, is a new landmark on the banks of the Tigris River in Baghdad. Now the tallest building in the city, the 170-meter-tall skyscraper aims to echo the values of the institution: solidity, stability, and sustainability. Blending innovation with the rich heritage of Baghdad, her birthplace, Zaha Hadid’s vision for the Central Bank of Iraq headquarters stands as a tribute to the city's enduring legacy.
According to Norman Foster, "as an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past." In this sense, present-day architecture, interiors, and furniture have undergone a radical evolution in recent years, driven by a paradigm shift in the conception of space and our interaction with it. This contemporary approach has steered us towards less constrained, more collaborative, and multi-purpose spaces, which can also provide privacy and functionality. In addition, they must serve as temporary workspaces in specific contexts, adapting to the dynamism of contemporary needs and activities.
From this new approach, architects and designers are reshaping interior environments to accommodate new behaviors, facilitating the discovery of renewed ergonomics in human activities. Today, architectural thinking is merging to create spaces that enable conducting our lives in motion, a trend particularly evident in dynamic environments such as airports, encompassing intimate and social moments with people on the move. Consequently, a new kind of furniture has re-emerged, becoming commonplace in airport settings and other shared spaces: the booth.
Shenzhen's China Merchant’s Bank Headquarters has reached its final construction phase. Designed by Foster + Partners, the project is a prominent element within a larger mixed-use complex, carefully shaping the neighborhood and the city’s dynamic skyline. Designed around the context of the rapidly urbanizing Shenzhen Smart City, the bank and its larger mixed-use components seek to be sustainable developments seamlessly integrating into the existing landscape.
Office spaces in design and architecture play a crucial role in shaping the way we work and interact in professional environments. They are thoughtfully designed to promote healthy output, encourage teamwork, and give workers a welcoming and motivating environment. After the Covid-10 pandemic, work lifestyles underwent a significant transformation. As a result, companies have been adapting and redesigning new ways of working, implementing flexible schedules and hybrid work policies.
This evolution in work lifestyles has father influenced office design, now more focused on prioritizing health, safety, personal space, and collaboration. Office spaces in design and architecture have been adapting to the changing work landscape for decades. As they evolve to meet the changing needs of the workforce, various design iterations are explored, promoting different values.
This week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture showcases projects submitted by the ArchDaily community highlighting different office spaces. Ranging from a more formal bank headquarters in Switzerland to a mixed-use business center in Ukraine, these designs heavily influence the way in which people work in the spaces.
Popping down to a high-street bank branch to pay in a cheque, get out some cash or even open an account are to-do list tasks of the past. With almost all financial services now available online and digital transactions taking more of the market share (up from 28% to 41% from 2019 to 2022), more and more retail branches are shutting up shop.
The complicated worlds of both technology and finance, however, continue to fill many customers with confusion and dread, so perhaps the friendly face of a physical bank storefront with actual humans still has a place. These evolved retail banking interiors hark back to a longed-for time when we knew our local bank manager’s name, but work in conjunction with technology to offer hybrid financial services alongside more personal advice, in comfortable and comforting surroundings.
The bank architect’s goal is to create a secure edifice. The bank robber’s? To subvert the edifice. And yet consider their commonality: their interaction with space. Both analyze plans and consider inefficiencies, both inhabit the space much differently than your average spectator. In fact, the Robber’s relationship with space is far more physical, urgent…nuanced. As Mehruss Ahi, a recent graduate from Woodbury University, puts it in his senior thesis: “The Architect is the Bank Robber…and the Bank Robber is the Architect.”
Ahi suggests a Robber-like “spatial hack” of the bank: an identification of its inefficiencies/vulnerabilities/paths of circulation. He also notes the necessity of giving priority to large storage space for goods rather than money (due to “the migration of banking services to the Web”). This new perspective, Ahi argues, will allow architects to design a smarter, more secure bank. The bank of the future.
Ahi’s assertion about the need for physical storage space (as banks turn to the Web), got me thinking. Our world depends less and less on physical storage, and more and more on the bits of information flying through the wires and cables of the internet. Ahi’s theory, while an interesting insight into bank design, is even more powerful when applied to the bank’s modern day equivalent: the Data Center.
