Foster + Partners Is All Over the Map (in a very good way)

Foster + Partners is a British international studio for architecture and integrated design; its headquarters is in London. The practice (founded in 1967), led by its founder and chairman, Lord Norman Foster, has constructed many high-profile glass-and-steel buildings. And they also do bridges, government, corporate, residential, higher education, and mixeduse buildings, cultural facilities, transportation centers, sports facilities and so much more.

They have a worldwide reputation for thoughtful and pioneering design, working as a single studio that is both ethnically and culturally diverse combining the skills of architecture with engineering, both structural and environmental, urbanism, interior and industrial design, model and film making, aeronautics and many more – the collegiate working environment is similar to a compact university. These diverse skills make the studio capable of tackling a wide range of projects, particularly those of considerable complexity and scale. This is just a small sampling of the magnificent designs of this very creative firm.

1.The Millau Viaduct (2004) is a cable-stayed bridge in southern France. It was designed in conjunction with French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux. It is the tallest bridge in the world with a height of 1,125 ft. (See top picture)

2.Bloomberg, London won the 2018 RIBA Stirling Prize — the annual award that celebrates the UK’s best new architecture. The company’s new European headquarters credited as the world’s most sustainable office comprises two environmentally friendly buildings connected by a bridge.

3.Apple Piazza Liberty, opened in July 2018 in the center of Milan, includes a grand public plaza above the retail outlet. Visitors are greeted with a glass fountain that serves as both the entrance to the store and as a backdrop to the large outdoor amphitheater. Foster + Partners has a very special relationship with Apple, having designed is headquarters in Cupertino, CA (see #15) and unique Apple stores in France, Japan, Dubai, Turkey, Singapore and Macau as well as several in the U.S.

6.The AQWA Corporate Project (2017) is an office development along the waterfront in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The project is part of an extensive land reclamation in the historic port area of the city. The development has been designed to achieve LEED ASHRAE Gold certification, responding to the particular local tropical climate by establishing an enhanced self-shading strategy to the building elevations as well as providing effective sun protection and rain cover in all the principal open-air public circulation and amenity spaces.

4.Still in Planning: A planning application was submitted in November 2018 for The Tulip, a new public cultural attraction which would be situated next to 30 St Mary Axe, also known as The Gherkin (which was completed in 2004 – also by Foster + Partners) in London.

5.York University Subway Station’s (2018) design considers the surrounding public space and connections to the city and uses natural light to intuitively guide passengers from the entrance down to the platforms. Its striking roof canopy provides a new ‘front door’ for the university. Designed to comply with Toronto Green Standards, the building is entirely naturally ventilated, with mechanical back-up from the tunnel ventilation fans only in extreme conditions.

7.The Steve Jobs Theater (2017) embodies the extraordinary collaboration between Apple and Foster + Partners at Apple Park. Positioned atop a small hill, some way into the park, the Theater is reached via a gentle, winding walk through verdant parkland.

8.The Bund Finance Center is a major mixeduse development close to the Shanghai waterfront, designed jointly with Heatherwick Studio. The 4.5 million + development of eight buildings combines premium offices with a boutique hotel, a cultural center and a wide variety of luxury retail spaces, all arranged around a landscaped public plaza.

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9.The National Bank of Kuwait is located on a prominent site in Kuwait City’s growing financial district. The design combines structural innovation with a highly efficient passive form, shielding the offices from the extremes of Kuwait’s climate.

With both passive and active measures to reduce water and energy consumption, the project targets a LEED Gold rating.

12.Under Construction: Hermitage Plaza is a project consisting of a podium and 6 buildings, including two towers, in the business district of Paris. Upon completion in 2024, the two 1,060 ft tall towers with 86 and 85 floors will be the tallest buildings in the European Union.

16.Under Construction: for Dubail Expo 2020 are some of country’s most iconic designs in the past four decades, including the Index Tower and the firm’s own masterplan for Masdar City.

10.This 2,000 seat venue was completed in 2000, by which time it had earned its affectionate nickname, due to the similarity of its shape to that of the animal of the same name. The SEC Armadillo (originally known as the Clyde Auditorium) is an auditorium located near the River Clyde, in Glasgow, Scotland.

13.The new headquarters for Ferring Pharamceuticals A/S in Copenhagen, Denmark will open this year. The triangular form of the building is driven by the shape of the site, surrounded by water on all sides. The layout of the interior spaces was derived from in-depth studies of Ferring’s way of working, creating workspaces that are tailored to the company’s specific requirements.

14.City Hall is the headquarters of the Greater London Authority (GLA), which comprises the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. It opened in July 2002, two years after the Greater London Authority was created.

17.Starting Soon: The 80,000-seat Lusail Stadium for the 2022 world cup in Qatar, the largest venue to be used during the tournament (scheduled to kick off on November 21, 2022).

18.The firm is part of a consortium set up by the European Space Agency to explore the possibilities of 3D printing to construct lunar habitations. Addressing the challenges of transporting materials to the moon, the study is investigating the use of lunar soil, known as regolith, as building matter. The practice has designed a lunar base to house four people, which can offer protection from meteorites, gamma radiation and high temperature fluctuations. The base is first unfolded from a tubular module that can be transported by space rocket. An inflatable dome then extends from one end of this cylinder to provide a support structure for construction. Layers of regolith are then built up over the dome by a robot-operated 3D printer to create a protective shell. The structure is groundbreaking in demonstrating the potential of 3D printing to create structures that are close to natural biological systems.

11.Under Construction: The robotics giant Dajiang Innovation Headquarters in Shenzhen, China features two mirrored towers connected via a dramatic sky bridge. The floors are arranged in floating volumes cantilevered from central cores by large steel megatrusses – creating large, column-free spaces throughout, with unique quadruple-height drone flight testing labs.

15.Apple Park is the corporate headquarters of Apple Inc., in Cupertino, California, Opened to employees in April 2017, it is located on a suburban site totaling 175 acres (71 hectares), it houses more than 12,000 employees in one central four-storied circular building of approximately 2,800,000 square feet. Steve Jobs wanted the whole campus to look less like an office park and more like a nature refuge. Eighty percent of the site consists of green space planted with drought-resistant trees and plants indigenous to the area, and the center courtyard of the main building features an artificial pond.

See more of these marvelous architectural masterpieces at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_and_Partners

TORONTO GOES BIG WITH GESAMTKUNSTWERK KING TORONTO – VITALITY FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

I f you’re a regular reader of the network, you know that we are big bans of BIG – the Bjarke Ingels Group. Recently approved and soon to begin construction is KING Toronto – a redevelopment integrating a residential community with heritage commercial properties on the site. It consists of sets of pixels (each set at the size of a room and rotated 45 degrees from the street grid to increase exposure to light and air) which extrude upwards to create space for housing, retail and boutique offices. The building kinds of brick – red brick, yellow brick, black brick –and finally ended up with glass brick,” Ingels explained. “We created roomsized Lego pieces – places for living, sleeping, outdoor space – and with those elements you can compose any kind of home,” Ingels explained.

(17 stories and 514 condo and retail units) is organized as a traditional perimeter block with a public plaza in the center. The condos (one of a kind suites) start in the mid $700,00s go to over $1,000,000 - $1,600 psf.

The project points to the enduring idea of the gesamtkunstwerk – the holistic merging of architecture and art, of form, function and detail. Ingels calls it a “boxilated landscape” which will transform Toronto for the next generation. “We wanted to have a dialogue with local materials. We tried all

Located in the heart of downtown Toronto at the convergence of three 20th century neighborhood parks, the King Street West Condos mixed use development will give residents access to just about everything. With a ‘walk score’ of 99/100 and a ‘transit score’ of 100, residents will enjoy easy access to cafes, restaurants, shopping centers, parks and many nightlife venues.

See more about BIG’s spectacular worldwide projects at https://big.

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