Cool Design News

Cool Design News

Cool Design News featuring great design, architecture, fashion, graphics and innovation from across the globe.

 

Yoyo City

Yoyo City is a mixed-use development located in Yinchuan, China. The complex combines a five-storey shopping mall, a two-storey retail street and a fourteen-storey service apartment building. The site lies between a natural wetland park and a main expressway. Floating islands seen in the wetland inspired the flowing facade, which is clad in granite stone panels, linear aluminium fins and glass. Pedestrian routes are placed at ground level, while vehicles and the main drop-off area are set in the basement. Interior gardens link the mall to its natural setting.

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CapitaLand Ascendas Plaza Renovation

Ascendas Plaza Renovation is a mixed use building in Xuhui District, Shanghai, China. The project combines corporate offices, co-working space and retail within a thirty-story tower and a five-story podium. Glass curtain walls form the facade. An ordered frame curtain wall defines the office block, while transparent glass ribs open the entrance lobby and the co-working areas to the street. Mirror stainless steel on the podium reflects the urban green corridor, and vertical setbacks add depth to the facade.

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House in Okolitsa

House in Okolitsa is a residential building located in the Okolitsa villa community in the Moscow region, Russia. The house has a total area of 1500 square meters. The rhythmic architecture is defined by the complex topography of the wooded site. Each volume is separated by atriums, which protect the privacy of individual zones and link the interior with the landscape. The atriums contain planted trees and stones and form buffer zones. The materials include hand-formed clinker bricks, roof tiles, wood decking, stone and plaster.

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Zhuzhou Civic Center

Zhuzhou Civic Center is a public building that brings together convenience services, entrepreneurship services and leisure services for citizens. The building is divided into six modules arranged around a central green valley, and a walking path crosses the site to link the north and south parks. Passive energy-saving technology is used throughout, including insulation of floors, walls, doors and windows, a fresh air system, solar and geothermal energy, a green roof and sunshades. Energy consumption is about one sixth to one tenth of that of similar buildings.

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Nature Canvas

Nature Canvas is a sales center in Taichung with a total area of 495.86 square meters. The design is inspired by Uluru in Australia and by the cave dwellings of ancient times. The building forms a large stone-like volume clad with fiber cement board and painted with ceramic paint, which imitates a rough rock surface and adds weather and stain resistance. The white volume acts as a canvas for sunlight and shadow. Hexagonal openings with inlaid metal frames and a rhombus lattice, modularized by digital die cutting, shift in appearance with the changing light.

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Urban Oasis

Urban Oasis of Nexus is a sports centre located near a rural village area in Shatin, Hong Kong. The building holds a games arena, a fitness room, a dance room, activity rooms and a children play room. Courtyards and gardens on different levels form a green spine that leads visitors from the low-level entrance to the hill behind. Passive environmental design is applied, and the circulation spaces and lobbies use no air conditioning. Fair faced concrete, granite and timber are used to suit the natural setting.

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