Schmidt Hammer Lassen

“schmidt hammer lassen architects have won a competition for a Congress and Hotel Centre on the central harbour front of Helsingborg in Sweden, which is a 15-minute ferry trip from Elsinore in Denmark. The property development competition was won in conjunction with Swedish developer Midroc and engineering/architect consultants Sweco.”
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Project Details:
Address: Ångfärjan, Helsingborg, Sweden
Client: Midroc Property Development (Sweden)
Area: Hotel and congress 16,900 m2/ Housing and shops 17,100 m2
Competition year: 2009
Competition type. Property development competition
Architect: schmidt hammmer lassen architects
Project Partner: Kim Holst Jensen, schmidt hammer lassen architects
Project Architect: Kristian Lars Ahlmark, schmidt hammer lassen architects
Contractor: Midroc Property Development
Landscape architect: schmidt hammer lassen architects in collaboration with Masu Planning Landscape (Denmark)
Executive consultants: Sweco (Sweden)
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“The project consists of a 16,900 m2 congress and hotel facility and 17,100 m2 housing on the most attractive area of Helsingborg – the former central ferry dock Ångfärjan in the city centre. The new facilities will play an important part in the ongoing development of the promenade running the length of the city waterfront.

The building is characterized by a deformation of the grid into a crystalline expression that has coined the nick name “The Salt Crystals”. The 12-storey hotel volume in the south east corner with its light, generic and broken facades will become the new landmark of the city.

The congress centre starts in three stories at the opposite end and grows gradually to become the 12-storey hotel. The hotel has 230 rooms. The Congress and Hotel Centre run along the sea promenade to meet the apartment blocks that are separated from the congress centre by a small pedestrian street. The apartments have the same ‘salt crystal’ grid, while the facades have a shifting rectangular pattern to reinforce their open and light structure.
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The two new structures will be an important catalyst for the city life in the harbour area with cafés, shops and several squares and green spaces for citizens and visitors.
The façade of the hotel with its broken expression is extended in the pavement across the plaza to the water edge connecting the vertical and horizontal surfaces.
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The apartment blocks vary from two to nine stories. The highest unit is placed in the north corner of the block to provide sun and daylight from the south to all 130 apartments. ”
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Source: WISA Design Hotel

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Project Description:
“The WISA Wooden Design Hotel is a temporary building that will remain in place in Valkosaari until the end of September 2009. The building can provide overnight accommodation for a few people, but it is not designed for general hotel use.”

“The first thing that catches the eye is the atrium courtyard in the centre. The long curved pine boards half-covering the patio form a trellis that titillates the imagination. The trellis protects against the wind and filters the long rays of the Nordic sun into the courtyard. The charming interplay of light and shade can be observed throughout the day, as the bright morning light gradually turns into the red glow of the Northern midnight sun.

The striking wood architecture makes its way to the living quarters. The pine floor is complemented by the light ethereal beauty of Nordic birch. The walls and the ceiling are panelled with beautiful and durable birch plywood. Light comes in at both ends of the living quarters through floor-to-ceiling windows that brighten the interior. From the bedroom you can admire the morning sun and the sea, while the view from the lounging area opens onto the city and the evening sun.

This is how designer Pieta-Linda Auttila describes her idea: “In the beginning was the roaring sea. Powerful waves lifted from the depths a wooden block, already darkened by sea water, and threw it against a rock. The force of the blow broke the wood in the middle.” The curved part, slashed into strips in the middle, forms a trellis and shelters the atrium of the hotel. As for the unbroken ends, they are the living quarters. The dark exterior and light interior of the WISA Wooden Design Hotel likewise represent a broken block of wood. When the dark surface of the block is broken, the original lightness of the wood comes to light.”

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from Architectural Record

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The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) released renderings today of their forthcoming MahaNakhon tower and plaza in Bangkok, Thailand, with design led by OMA partner Ole Scheeren, head of the firm’s Beijing office. The 1.6 million-square-foot, $515 million complex plans to include 200 apartments, a 150-room “Bangkok Edition” hotel operated by Marriott Group International with hotelier Ian Schrager, and mixed-use public and commercial space. Construction begins later this year with an intended completion in late 2012.
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“The centerpiece of MahaNakhon is an elaborately designed 77-story tower. At a planned 1,017 feet, it will be the tallest structure in Bangkok. A spiraling incision of “architectural pixels” travels up the building, interrupting the curtain wall to reveal a series of terraces for larger units and shared spaces. This frenetic expression, according to Scheeren, came out of the psyche of Bangkok itself, which he describes as “the most intense and chaotic” of Southeast Asian cities. Throughout the “pixels,” the tower’s conventional glass curtain wall is disintegrated into cubes that will feature a variety of vegetation circling up the building, reflecting what Scheeren calls “the constant struggle between civilization and nature” in the tropical city.

Another primary feature is the fully operable “bi-fold balcony window” that allows the glazed wall to open completely in the building’s smaller units. Scheeren says that this strategy grew out of the fluidity of indoor and outdoor space in Bangkok’s tropical climate. Instead of a separate outdoor terrace—which would have made smaller units much more expensive—Scheeren says the idea was that “suddenly you can open your whole living room facade in to a balcony.”

At ground level, the design attempts to reinvent the tower podium by creating a “valley” between two series of terraces—one at the bottom of the tower and the second as part of an adjacent structure called the “Cube”—which together frame a public square with restaurants, cafés, and other commercial space, creating a connection to the street and surrounding city. This sense is tied into the name of the tower itself, according to Scheeren: “The full name of Bangkok in Thai is Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, which means ‘Bangkok Great Metropolis’—naming the tower MahaNakhon expresses the ambition of the project to be a metropolitan center for the city.” ” Architectural Record
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An analysis of nearby Bangkok skyscrapers, which Scheeren describes as “a collection of very strange characters.”
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This diagram shows the intended dynamism of the ground level “valley,” absorbing activity into the spiraling “pixels” of the tower.
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An elevation of the site, showing the public plaza framed by the tower and adjacent “Cube.”
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