Completed in 2012, One Central Park of Sydney, Australia is another well-known work of French architect Jean Nouvel. The building complex contains two residential apartment towers as well as a centrally located retail shopping center. What makes this building special, in my opinion, is its living facade, as seen in Nouvel’s other works, such as his Tower 25. Various types of climbing plants spread out along planted terraces and serve to break up the inorganic components of the building, which helps to blend the building into its natural surroundings. This blending of nature and architecture has led to the building becoming an architectural icon within Sydney. Also noteworthy of One Central Park is its highly sustainable and energy efficient design. The building complex uses its own low-carbon natural gas power plant, predicted to reduce CO2 emissions by 190 kilotonnes over 25 years, for power, and also contains its own internal water recycling plant. This water plant interestingly houses the world’s largest membrane bioreactor and is capable of harnessing water from multiple unusual sources, such as runoff from roofs and sewage from the public sewer of Sydney. This revolutionary approach to sustainability has led to One Central Park achieving a 6 Green Star rating, making it an icon after which future buildings should be designed.

Tower 25 is a mixed-use high-rise building designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and located in Nicosia, Cyprus. The tower is 67 meters high and composed of 16 floors, with 6 of these being office areas and the remainder apartments. Like many of his works, this building is completely original in its design. For instance, instead of each floor having a balcony of uniform size, the balconies vary in width and depth. This serves to give the tower a sense of life and character. Another interesting feature of this building is its unique facade, which is perforated with a patterning of rectangular holes. Aside from creating a unique aesthetic appearance, these holes also function as a form of natural ventilation. Located on the south facing wall of the city is what is known as a “living facade,” which is essentially a landscape of plants that cover the face of the tower. These plants are also multifunctional; they act to shield direct sun during the hot summer months of the Mediterranean, but maximally allow in light during other times of the year. This attention to functionality that incorporates the climate and surroundings of the building is what makes this a truly masterful work of architecture.

Rising above other architecturally renowned buildings in Chelsea, New York, such as Frank Gehry’s IAC Building, 100 Eleventh Ave. is a 23-story residential apartment tower designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. Nouvel describes his building as a “vision machine,” designed with the intent of creating excitement in its viewers. Located between the first and seventh floors, the “Loggia” is a semi-enclosed atrium within the building that features modern design concepts such as suspended gardens. Ornamental trees seem to almost float in the air, lending a somewhat futuristic feel to the space. Another eye-catching feature of this building that drastically sets it apart from its surroundings is its glass panels — each panel on the exterior of the building is tilted at a different angle. As there are some 1,650 of these window panes, the curved shape of the structure takes on a somewhat peculiar mosaic patterning due to the reflection of natural light. Indeed, this dynamic patterning can take on a wide range of hues over the course of a day as the intensity and direction of light shift. It is this distinctive form, representative of modern architecture, that makes this building perfectly at home in its culturally unique and diverse environment within Manhattan.

One of the most significant works of the architect Jean Nouvel is Doha Tower. Used predominantly as an office building, Doha Tower is an unmistakable landmark of the skyline of Doha, Qatar due to its unique cylindrical shape. It is this characteristic form that has led residents of Doha to refer to the tower as the “Condom Tower.” Indeed, Nouvel himself has admitted to the phallic nature of his work. The tower is 46 floors tall, and including its spiral, stands at an impressive 238 meters, making it the 6th tallest building in Qatar. Aside from its use as an office building, the tower also contains a restaurant and private luxury residence, both of which are located near the top of the tower above the office floors. Another distinguishable feature of this building is the intricate facade screen that covers the exterior of the tower. Paying homage to dominant culture of the area, the pattern of the facade screen is known as Mashrabiya, which is a geometric pattern repeatedly found in Islamic culture. Besides from providing some shade from the desert sun, the screen also serves to prevent decay of the glass by reducing the amount of sand that comes in contact with the glass. It is this multifunctionality and attention to culture that has led to this building being awarded numerous architectural awards and accolades. For instance, the building was awarded the title of Best Tall Building Worldwide Award by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in Oct. 2012.

The Josephine M. Hagerty House was a residential project designed by Walter Gropius. It was designed in collaboration with architect Marcel Breuer. The house was built in 1938, and is located in Cohasset, Massachusetts.  It was built as a family home for Josephine Hagerty, but like the Gropius house, it is now on the National Register of Historic Places that outsiders can tour. The house incorporates most of the design elements that Gropius was known for such as geometric shapes, flat roofs, lots of glass, and linear or horizontal features. For this particular house he emphasized the use of local materials, wood, and stone.

I thought this project was unique compared to this other project because of the large amount of stone that was used. Most of his projects incorporated hard and smooth textured exterior materials with large glass windows, but this house had large amounts of tan colored natural stone that added a lot more texture. There are plenty of large glass windows as well as two balconies on the side of the house that face the water, in order for guests to enjoy the pretty views.

Source: Hagerty House architecture (archweb.com)

The Maison Louis Carre is a house that was designed by Alvar Aalto in 1956, yet again it is a beautiful house that incorporates nature and looks inviting just like many of the other buildings by Alvar Aalto. This house looks to me like a house version of the church Santa Maria Assunta which was one of my favorite buildings I have seen since starting this class in August so to have something like this but in a house form is amazing. Again Alvar Aalto seems to take the surrounding nature of his building and incorporate it into his design, this building looks like it belongs in its environment and that it’s not just there. [1] “This long path, as well as its distance away from Paris, gives the house a private, sanctuary-like feeling. Aalto specifically placed the house at the top of the site, providing ideal views to the south. The main exterior feature is the gradual sloping of the roof, which almost appears as an extension of the hill below.” The private aspect of this house is a lot like the other house he build called the Villa Mairea, it makes the overall feeling of the house feel quiet and peaceful. Again in this design, we see Alvar Aalto use the grass stair design that I like, he used this design on another project called the saynatsalo town hall, the way the grass stairs make it look like your gradually walking from nature to the house and vise versa is one of my favorite things he does, Alvar Aalto has done a lot of great work and Finland should consider themselves lucky to have so many great works still standing in their country, or France who still has the MAISON LOUIS CARRÉ which is the last standing building in France by Alvar Aalto, I have liked looking at his work and one day hope to see it in person.

[1] https://www.archdaily.com/356209/ad-classics-maison-louis-carre-alvar-aalto

photo from https://www.e-architect.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/maison-louis-carre-france-alvar-aalto.jpg

Villa Mairea is a guest house designed by Alvar Aalto, it was built in 1938 and finished in 1939, this guest house was built in Finland by a wealthy couple, the building seems to incorporate nature into its design while also using wood as one of the main design. [1] “It is a layout which automatically created a semi-private enclosure to one side, and a more exclusive, formal edge to confront the public world on the other. The lawn and the swimming pool are situated in the angle of the L, with a variety of rooms overlooking them. Horizontals and overhangs in the main composition echo the ground plane, and the curved pool weds the nearby forest topography. In contrast to these softening devices, the main facade has a more rigid, formal mood, and even possesses a canopy restated in a garden pergola vocabulary of bindings, poles and slats. The interiors of the Villa Mairea are richly articulated in wood, stone and brick.” This house is one that I like a lot because of the way he incorporated nature and the wood design, having lots of plants and trees and grass all around the walls of the house makes it look and feel peaceful. The way he uses wood to match the environment makes this house feel like it belongs there and not like it is out of place for a building in the woods. I like the shape he went with the L, it makes one side of the house look inviting and open for those who pass by but completely private for those on the other side, this is defiantly a house that I imagine retiring in someday, everything about it looks warm inviting and peaceful, this seems to be a trend with the Alvar Aalto and I really like it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Mairea

Photo from https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eYOiW9NzwmE/V5cusB17uWI/AAAAAAAAGss/6AjmciXmTngqYP7LypPibrGNrah9nWenwCLcB/s1600/1149.JPG

The Gropius House was built in Lincoln, Massachusetts in 1938. It was designed by Gropius as his family home that he would reside in while teaching at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. It is now considered a National Historic Landmark that no one lives in, but you can visit and set up tours. His house incorporates the modernism design features he was known such as geometric shapes and the wide use of glass, while also including traditional elements of New England architecture. For example, he used materials such as wood, brick and fieldstone which are commonly used in New England architecture. Most of the furniture in his house was made in the Bauhaus school workshop which he had founded.

One of the unique features of design of the house is that, like most of his work, the building looks different from every angle that you look at it. There is no central symmetry which makes it very intriguing to the eye whichever way you walk or look around it. I like how the main material of the exterior is white, but it contrasts with the outlining of the edges and trim of windows which are black. The spiral staircase is also a unique element since I bet those were rare in 1938. I also like how Gropius was able to include elements from his commercial work into a residential space and you can see the similarities and how he pioneered modernism.

Source: Gropius House | Historic New England

The next project that Walter Gropius worked on after the Fagus Factory was the Bauhaus Building. The Bauhaus was originally an art, craft, and technology school in the years following World War I in Weimar, Germany. Walter Gropius designed the new Bauhaus school that was moved to Dessau, Germany in 1925. A department of architecture was added within the new Bauhaus school, and the workshop within the school was used to make some of the interior features. Walter Gropius used most of the modernism design features from his Fagus Factory project for his design of the Bauhaus.

               One of the same similarities with Gropius first two projects was the glass façade and load-bearing framework. The building is also very modular and geometric, as well as incorporates the flat roof and horizontal features that Gropius was known for in his first project. There is no central view of the building, making your view change as you walk around all the different sides of the architecture. I also love how the main entrance is emphasized in both of his buildings because the solid material contrasts with the clear glass. It helps to make it known where to enter the building at both places.

Source: Bauhaus Building by Walter Gropius (1925–26) : Bauhaus Building : Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau / Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (bauhaus-dessau.de)