Established in 2023 to protect nearly 13,000 hectares of the Vjosa River Region Park, the Vjosa National Park Europe’s first “wild river national park.” Danish architecture CEBRA has been selected to design a multifunctional visitor center and information center in the newly protected space. Located in Përmet, Tepelenë, and Vlorë in Southern Albania, the Vjosa Wild River National Park features a 190-kilometer-long free-flower river. CEBRA’s design supports conservation efforts and investigates how visitors can engage with their respective ecosystems.
The design by heneghan peng architects, Dublin, with Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Berlin, was awarded 1st prize in the international competition for the replanning and expansion of the Old Tower of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The competition’s purpose was to redesign the original West Tower, which was partially destroyed during a bombing by the Allied Forces in 1943, and return it to the tourist circuit as a war memorial and exhibition space.
Tourist facilities are a significant architectural program as they not only provide essential amenities for travelers but also encapsulate the cultural essence of a destination. Resorts and hotels experiment with ideas of comfort and leisure, restaurants bring visitors into the local culinary culture, while wineries merge craftsmanship, tradition, and modernity. Visitor centers are another facility often provided for travelers, serving as gateways to exploring the city. Besides their flexible program, these architectural interventions most often strive to relate and harmonize with the local context to enrich the narrative of the space and create a memorable experience for every visitor.
This week's curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights projects submitted by the ArchDaily community that showcase various amenities dedicated to tourists, from wine cellars, specialty restaurants, and visitor centers to isolated camping sites in the mountains or lavish spa hotels in the arid areas of the Middle East. Featuring projects from emerging and established architectural offices such as Melike Altınışık Architects, Lockhart Krause Architects, MUA, and OMBI Innovation Lab the selection includes a wide range of programs and scales, showcasing designs that rethink conventional tourist facilities while establishing a connection with their surroundings and cultural context.
Powerhouse Company, in collaboration with landscape architecture office DELVA, has unveiled the design for a new visitor center for the Koekamp, which will play an essential role as a gateway to the new Hollandse Duinen national park. This intervention will open part of Koekamp, a green expanse near The Hague’s Central Station, to the public. The visitor center, commissioned by the Dutch forestry commission, is expected to be completed in 2024.
This week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights museum projects submitted by the ArchDaily community. Through examples from all around the world, the article explores how these spaces of knowledge and discovery are designed to inspire and inform.
Featuring a vertically developed art museum in Finland, a structure that merges with the landscape in China, or a maritime museum shaped by the conditions of the shoreline in Brazil, the round-up spans various kinds of museums and art spaces, as well as different attitudes towards the built or natural environment. The following projects reveal the ideas that shape museums in different contexts, illustrating diverse approaches towards what constitutes an institution of learning.
MVRDV has revealed the design of an exhibition and visitor centre for the Port of Rotterdam, which would tell the story of Europe’s largest port. Scheduled to open in 2024, The Harbour Experience Centre features a stack of five rotated exhibition spaces framing views of the surroundings, and outdoor staircases wrapped around the structure provide visitors with a route up the various terraces and to the rooftop. The project is the successor of FutureLand, a temporary information centre from 2009, whose success prompted the creation of a permanent exhibition.
