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Mashhad—home to the shrine of the 8th Imam of Shiites—is one of the most significant religious sites in Iran. It attracts many more visitors than the holy city of Mecca; almost 10 times as many per year. Given the economic and political power of the religious authorities in Iran, as tourism and travel overtake all industries around the world, Mashhad becomes the center of investment and development in this country.

The obvious need for accommodation and entertainment of the visitors has lead to major decisions in the recent Master Plan of the city. The Master Planning Vision has shifted from the strategy of isolation of the shrine via a green belt to a strategy of reconnection via boulevards. These boulevards are lined with large scale buildings with pilgrim accommodation and shopping as major functions. The site of the competition is located on one of the three main boulevards and acts as one of the three gateways to the religious site.

The competition called for entries for a 5-star hotel, hotel apartments, residential spaces, commercial spaces, a public park and a multi-story public parking in a development of about 80,000 m2. The site consists of 5 plots, however the brief allows for and the master plan of the city encourages the project to merge the 5 sites into one.

The competition was held by an architecture office; The Eight Company. The client was a private Iranian bank- Bank-e Pasargad. Of the twelve teams invited to the competition, 4 had been widely known foreign office associates (Atelier Bow-Wow from Japan, BIG from Denmark, BRT from Germany and Guallart Architects from Spain).

The Jury was composed of architects and developers from the city of Mashhad and prominent Iranian architects from the Association of Iranian Architects, including Iraj Kalantari, Abolfath Sepanloo, along with Seyed Reza Hashemi. Of the remaining 11 entries from 8 participating offices, 3 winners and 2 honorable mentions were awarded. The three winners of first to third place will be awarded monetary prizes. In addition, the first place winner will be awarded a contract to execute the project.

First Place: BRT Engineering GmbH (Germany) + Design Core [4s] Architects (Iran)

Design Team:
Iran: Sam Tehranchi, Maryam Kompany, Ali Nabi
Germany: Hadi Tehrani, Ingo Hartfil, Heike Heister, Alice Pape, Manal Fakhouri, Zarko Serafimowski, Evgeny Stolyarov
Structure: Markus Maier, Angelos Tsirigotis from LAP
Renderings: Bloomimages

The formal concept of the building results from stipulated building lines and construction heights in addition to site axis and road alignments. Thus, it creates a monolithic shape that follows the heterogeneous character of the plot in a subtle way.

A continuous band folds down on one end and defines a gateway toward the Holy Shrine while enclosing the block. Its continuity and elongated form emphasizes the direction along the main northern boulevard toward the religious site.

Public, semi- public and private spaces are created within the curves and folds of the structure. Thus a variety of public spaces, from loud and lively to spaces of reflection are created that respond to the brief. The shape of the building, defines an entry to the quiet courtyard in the back. This courtyard is planted with tall trees and water features which emphasize its peaceful character. With the access to the café, and controlled entry via a water feature, it provides a quiet space to linger in.

The hotel is located in a prominent space along the eastern main road on top of the building and defines its presence on the main intersection. It has a central lobby within a glass envelope that is equally accessed from the crossroad and the courtyard.

The residential is located in the western wing of the building. It is an independent part of the complex; technically, statically and functionally it is self-sufficient and can be constructed and operated individually.

Commercial spaces are located on the ground and first floors along the main northern boulevard as well as around the courtyard and form a pedestal for the building. An arcade runs around the pedestal in front of the shops on all sides and allows visitors to stroll around the building throughout the year.

Second Place: Bonsar Architecture Office (Iran), Guallart Architects (Spain), Delnaz Yekrangian (Iran)
(Mohamad Majidi, Vicente Guallart, Delnaz Yekrangian)

Design Team: Azar Farshidi, Vicente Guallart, Mehran Haghbin, Zahra Khaniki, Mohammad Majidi, Mehrnush Safdari, Hossein Salavati Khoshghalb, Delnaz Yekrangian
Structure: Mehdi Mirkhosravi
Sustainibility: Afsaneh Tafazoli
Renderings: Babak Taghikhani

A 5-star hotel, hotel apartments and a residential complex merge with a commercial center that contains in addition to shopping, opportunities for cultural, educational, health and religious promenades not only to accommodate but also to entertain the visitors. In a city where stroll in the city is the main tourist activity next to pilgrimage, the possibility of a stroll within the complex becomes a necessity.

Eight gardens within the project with individual characteristics defined by their location, activities, or their particular vegetation connected via public spaces compose this promenade as an extension of the city within the project. The strategy of the linked gardens provides an opportunity to combine pleasure with sustainability. The openness of the project and its permeability make natural light and ventilation accessible everywhere inside.

The structure of the building is derived from a decorative motif found on the entry courtyard to the Shrine. The decorative calligraphy is exaggerated in scale and defines the entire building. The interpretation is done in a subtle way to avoid an iconic presence for the project which tries to pay homage to the only icon of the city; the holy Shrine of Imam Reza.

The Zarih and the readings of it done by contemporary Iranian artists, in particular Tanavoli are inspiration for the simple orthogonal façades.

Third Place: Fluid Motion Architects
(Catherine Spiridonoff – Reza Daneshmir)

Design Team: Pouria Khodaeiani, Mohsen Tajeddin, Ehsan Hasanpour, Mehdi Bakhshizadeh, Ahmad Khosravi ,Avideh Kamrani, Bahareh Alaei
Structure: Hooman Farrokhi
Mechanical & Electrical: Mohammad Reza Ghoddusizadeh

Land plats
The project begins with an evaluation of the 5 sites- that all together form the L-shaped site- based on geometry, views and sound pollution. Then it dedicates the brief’s different programs to each site. The plat along the main boulevard and away from the crowded intersection is dedicated to the 5-star hotel. The middle plat to the apartment hotel, the plat along the east boulevard to residential and the other plats are dedicated to the park and the multi-floor public parking, according to the brief.

Architectural Concept
Considering the similarity among the plats’ functions, the necessity of harmony in the project composition and in order to make an effective urban character, the design process is developed as below:

• First, the potential occupied area and the demanded gross area of buildings on each plat, and the over-all massing are determined according to the brief and the master plan codes.
• The permitted ground area and masses to build for each complex are extracted from the L-shaped site and transformed into an unshaped abstract and generic form.
• The ground plate and the generic abstract form are sliced by the lines defining entrances and opening areas, and again revamped to the initial form.

Wall
The idea of a continuous wall, containing the 5-star hotel and small apartment units, is developed in a twisted form along the 3 plats of the site. The entrances and the inner courts emerge from the rotations and fractures of the wall. The wall, in addition to the variety in form, gives a distinctive urban identity to the project. All in all, the wall and the opening areas of the complex are connected to each other via the slicing lines, providing a single continuous landscape.

Spatial organization
The first and second floors are dedicated to commercial and public activities as the codes demand these functions projected on the northern Boulevard. As a result, the 5-star hotel and the commercial spaces are connected and tied together on the first floor via two separated ramps, one emerging from the interior space of the hotel and the other from the outdoor space.

Honorable Mention: RAVAND-E-HAMAHANG [LINK] (Iran) + BIG (Denmark)

Design Team:
Iran: Ali Hamidi Moghadam, Nima Farzaneh, Neda Heidary, Saina Majidi, Mahan Abolghasem Shirazi
Denmark: Bjarke Ingels, Doug A Stechschulte, Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Kuba Snopek, Cat Huang, Gaetan Brunet, Takumi Iwasawa

What is a hotel? 

To reach the required density and respond to the city codes, the two buildings are bent into two V-shaped volumes creating three triangular urban spaces: a sunken market, an open courtyard and a public park in the middle. To meet the demands and desires of individual guests, the hotel has been designed inside out. As a result each V-shaped slab is composed of a fish bone structure of rooms looking towards the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza.

Considering that the site of the project forms the eastern gateway to the urban area around the Holy Shrine, the project proposes a building that shelters the residences and public spaces from the unpleasant noise and the crowd on the main Boulevard while opening up towards the religious area.  Moving towards the shrine, one experiences a closed and simple façade respecting Mashhad’s Holy icon. The scale of the wall is broken down; it is an accumulation of single rooms of different types based on a specific geometric pattern. Moving in the opposite direction, away from the shrine, one faces maximum transparency as the facades open up towards the holy site.

The complex is designed to provide each pilgrim or tourist with an optimal experience of the religious site. Each unit is sheltered from the traffic noise, screened from the views of neighbors and by-passers and only opens up toward the view of the shrine. The resulting architecture is simultaneously calm and varied, well integrated and outstanding, traditional and contemporary.

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Opening its doors to over 1,500 visitors is the biggest gathering of the global architectural community—the World Architecture Festival, just a few minutes outside Barcelona city center at the Centre Convencions International Barcelona (CCIB), started yesterday November 4 to 6, 2009. The festival, now in its second year, celebrates the work, concerns and aspirations of international architects. The curators have masterminded the exhibition and seminar program to respond to the common festival umbrella theme “Less Does More,” which in reflection of the current global economic climate will examine the challenges facing architects to produce more value for less cost.
 
Running alongside the main seminars is one of the world’s largest architectural awards program—the World Architecture Festival Awards. Unlike other award schemes, the WAF Awards give access to something more often reserved for a select few to see shortlisted architects present their schemes live to international judging panels, including the likes of Sir Peter Cook, Kengo Kuma, Renato Benedetti and Will Alsop and delegates, as they compete for the ultimate accolade of World Building of the Year 2009. Rafael Viñoly is chair of the super-jury which will choose the winner from 15 finalists announced at a glittering awards ceremony at the end of the festival this Friday, November 6.

House
Klein Bottle House, Rye, Australia by Mc Bride Charles Ryan, Melbourne, Australia - Previously featured on Bustler

Civic & Community
Emergency Terminal, Zagreb, Croatia by Produkcija 004, Zagreb, Croatia

Culture
Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre by Peter Rich Architects, Johannesburg, South Africa

Holiday
Restaurant Tusen, Ramundberget, Sweden by Murman Arkitekter, Stockholm, Sweden

Shopping
Havaianas Shop, São Paulo by Isay Weinfeld, São Paulo, Brazil

Housing
The Met, Bangkok by WOHA, Singapore, Republic of Singapore

Learning
Pearl Academy of Fashion, Jaipur by Morphogenesis, New Delhi, India

New & Old
TKTS Booth / Redevelopment of Father Duffy Square, New York by Choi Ropiha, Manly, Australia & Perkins Eastman, USA & William Fellows/PKSB Architects, USA

Office
Unileverhaus, Hamburg by Behnisch Architekten, Germany

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The result of the student competition ‘Urban Exchange: The Souk’ was recently announced at a reception held at the British Embassy in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE.

The announcement coincided with the formal launch of the new Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Gulf Chapter, which will provide local support for architecture, architects and co-professionals in the region.

The judges picked out five schemes which they felt gave the best response to the competition brief, and each student team will receive a prize of £500 and a Certificate of Commendation. They are:

The competition judging panel was chaired by Peter Jackson, Architect Advisor in the HH Ruler’s Office, Sharjah, and included Principal Judge Sir Michael Hopkins CBE, Dr Yasser Elsheshtawy of UAE University, Dr Adil A. Al-Mumin of Kuwait University and George Katodrytis from the American University of Sharjah, plus two observers from RIBA Competitions.

Students had been set the challenge to explore new visions and develop design proposals for ‘the city’. It set the challenge of re-addressing the nature of street culture and its human activities in an urban context. Students were asked to choose a site in an urban context which they felt was in need of rejuvenation, and come up with ideas and concepts representing a modern interpretation of the Souk.

There were 19 student entries to the competition, and the judges were pleased to see a wide variety of responses to the brief. Schemes had tended to fall into three broad categories: those that focused on the urban grain; those that were primarily ‘building specific’; and others which had chosen to focus on the process and generic issues around the theme. The result was a great diversity of ideas and approaches and this made for an interesting assessment.

Although no single winner emerged, the judges felt there were some quality elements within each of the five schemes selected hence the decision to make five equal Commendation awards.

Jury chairman Peter Jackson commented: “While the entrants might be disappointed that no 1st, 2nd, or 3rd prizes were awarded, this was not an easy competition brief. Student architects are generally taught to focus a great deal on the form and function of individual buildings, and as a result often fail to see buildings in relationship to one another, and in particular to the spaces we can create between them. It was these special qualities of urban and architectural design that this competition sought to draw out.”

“It is also important to demonstrate that the RIBA, and RIBA competitions are seeking design of high quality, and I believe that many of these entrants show the skill and ability to achieve this. The competition must be a learning experience for those of us who wrote the brief, for the Jury and for the students and their tutors. The Gulf Chapter is very much looking forward to our next competition!”

Sir Michael Hopkins added “The bringing together of the Schools in the GCC region to think about issues of context, place and sustainability, in their related but particular areas, is a very valuable exercise, which it would be worthwhile to repeat ….. I will come back next year to help judge it!”

The judges were highly appreciative to all entrants for providing such an enthusiastic and diverse range of submissions, and for their high standards of presentation.

Images: RIBA

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Danish Architects COBE, in collaboration with Public Architects, Grontmij Carlbro and Bartenbach LichtLabor, have yesterday been awarded first place in the international competition to design the new Norreport Train Station in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Norreport Train Station is the busiest train station in Denmark with around 250,000 persons passing daily. The new train station and surrounding urban space will be a new attraction for the area and a natural gathering place.

The project is conceived as a series of rounded, almost floating roofs covering individual transparent glass pavilions. All station facilities will be visible and easily accessible and the station will appear like an open and welcoming public space.

The project wants to show that Copenhagen is proud to be called the world’s best bicycle city. This is why all bicycle parking will be a visible and central element in the future urban space. In order to create a clear hierarchy between the area for bicycles and the area for city life, all bicycle parking is placed 40 cm below the city floor. The bicycle parking will be lighted by innumerable LED lights in the night.

Furthermore 11 ventilation towers will be placed on the plaza surrounding the train station. They will provide fresh air to the underlying train platforms. The towers will also function as lighting on the plaza and as digital information pillars with fully integrated LED screens for information about train departures, cultural events, advertisement etc.

“Norreport Train Station has a special significance for all residents in Copenhagen. We look forward to develop our proposal and deliver a new train station which will be a new useful urban space for all people in Copenhagen,” says Dan Stubbergaard, Partner-in-Charge, COBE.

Images: COBE

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Last week, Bustler reported that the Taipei Pop Music Center competition had announced three finalists and four honorable mentions.

Here’s a first glimpse at the entry that won Danish office JDS Architects / Julien de Smedt an honorable mention in this international competition:

Here a brief description from the JDS blog:

MORE THAN SYMBOLIC

The image of TAIPEI POP MUSIC CENTER should be able to present the innovative, vital and free essence of the unique lifestyle of the pop music scene. Differing from typical iconic buildings in Taipei City which symbolize only the appearance, we propose a space where events and activities are the symbol itself. The concept is to provide an open framework that generates its own creative space for constant flow of information exchange, performance, and activities.

Images: JDS Architects

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The Australian Institute of Architects’ National Architecture Awards have recently been presented to Australia’s most inspiring recent architectural projects and architects at an award ceremony in Melbourne. A total 32 awards and commendations across 12 categories were awarded to projects in Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

Presenting the awards and commenting on this year’s winners, Jury Chair and award-winning architect Howard Tanner said: “2009 represented a strong year for architecture, with new benchmarks set in a number of key categories – such as commercial architecture. In public architecture, educational projects spanning primary to tertiary facilities were also outstanding, with many Australian universities now comprehending the need for world class facilities to attract students.”

Topping the list of winners, is the recipient of Australia’s top annual national architecture award - the 2009 Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture, awarded this year to the National Portrait Gallery in the ACT by Sydney-based practice Johnson Pilton Walker (JPW). In a double win for the firm, the gallery also received a National Architecture Award for Interior Architecture. The gallery is the most recent in a long list of major arts facilities designed by JPW, including the New Asian Galleries at the AGNSW and the Museum of Sydney, and is their first Sir Zelman Cowen Award.

Mr Tanner said: “The monumental concrete edifices of the National Gallery and the High Court dominate this precinct, to which the National Portrait Gallery is the new family member. Smaller, more precious, it seeks to resolve a public presence and public gallery with the intimate, often domestic-scaled nature of portraiture. He added: “The building, while a triumph in cultural terms and popular appreciation, is clearly too small for its public role and purpose – a reflection of contemporary governments’ aspirations and budgets. Government probably never foresaw that this would be an attraction to rival the National Gallery and the War Memorial.” Accordingly, the architects have designed the building for extension to the west in a series of pavilions.

National Awards for Public Architecture were also presented to educational facilities in Sydney and Melbourne - the All Saints Primary School at Belmore in NSW by Angelo Candalepas Associates and the Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy by Architectus Melbourne.

Melbourne’s newest and iconic center for the performing arts – the Melbourne Recital Centre and MTC Theatre Project by ARM – was awarded the Emil Sodersten Award for Interior Architecture, with the jury saying “all three performing arts venues achieve a very high standard of architecture in terms of excellent functionality within distinctive and memorable interiors”. They said the complex contains the most significant new performing arts venues in Melbourne, with easy access and effective egress being givens, along with sizeable lobbies and public areas, and a functional back of house. They added: “The most important aspect of the development is the performing arts spaces, their adequacy, sightlines and acoustics. All three are effectively boxes within boxes, isolated from the outside world and the ground to minimize noise and vibration transfer.”

Australia’s top award for international architecture, the Jorn Utzøn Award for International Architecture, was awarded to a small project in one of the ‘largest’, most iconic theater locations in the world, New York’s Times Square – being awarded to the ‘red steps’ TKTS Booth/Redevelopment of Duffy Square, New York by young Sydney firm Choi Ropiha, with Perkins Eastman, PKSB. (see separate media release)

The jury noted the particular strength of this year’s Commercial Architecture, which set new benchmarks in terms of providing exemplary ‘social’ spaces, adaptive re-use, regional architecture and staff accommodation where ‘happiness’ is acknowledged as a business asset. The Harry Seidler Award for Commercial Architecture was presented to ivy on Sydney’s busy George Street by Woods Bagot, in collaboration with Merivale Group and Hecker Phelan & Guthrie. In a double win, the project also received a National Award for Urban Design, with the jury saying: “The popular palaces of culture – the cinemas, stadia, and pubs and clubs – have, in recent years, rarely presented themselves as high architecture. ivy is a remarkable exception. Part Roman baths, part smart restaurants, part urbane gathering place, it has been fused into the city’s fabric in a presentable and ingenious way.” They added: “Ash Street and Palings Lane (now relocated to advantage) have become vibrant pedestrian thoroughfares, lined with shops, bars and cafes. In a clever move, this open space has become an urban hub, giving access to both the existing City Recital Hall and the two ivy facilities.”

National Awards for Commercial Architecture were also presented to Headquarter Sussan Sportsgirl in Melbourne’s Cremorne by Sydney practice Durbach Block Architects and Bendigo Bank Headquarters in regional Victoria by BVN Architecture + Gray Puksand – with the jury noting that both achieved new benchmarks. Sussan Sportsgirl set new precedents for workplaces, being designed to provide “one place for the client’s family of businesses, her art collection and her love of gardens, where happiness is a business asset, gained through a combination of light, openness, views, art and gardens”.

For the first time in four years, Australia’s most prestigious residential award returned to the nation’s biggest housing market – with the Robin Boyd