This process has required a careful, parallel coordination of design development and optimization with the production drawings, technical detailing and site-work. In order to successfully complete this gigantic task within the short time frame allocated, IAD along with engineering partners Arup Spain have implemented a working method that relies wholly on the Building Information Modelling paradigm. This methodology is currently permitting the simultaneous coordination of architectural and environmental design, structural, mechanical and electrical engineering, as well as code-compliance, project management and cost-control, all within a single, unified virtual model. The widespread use of intelligent 3D models allow the Design Team to create complex thermal models which have allowed for the full integration of sustainable design and optimization of wall structures, solar shading and mechanical systems as well as the achievement of acceptable daylight standards. The whole campus seeks to comply with the exacting LEED criteria for environmental design. Presented here are two examples of this immersive, collaboration methodology currently being completed, namely the Educational Faculty and Central Teaching Buildings.

Total area_95 000 sq.m.

A clear yet flexible path is punctuated by surprises in the form of crossed-views to other levels, the main patio with its sunken garden, as well as exposition platforms scattered and hidden along the main walkways. Standing out among the formal solutions utilized is what became known as the ‘hula-hoop’ or ‘transmission gearbox’ of the main circulation lining the perimeter of the vast central space. Self-supporting structural rings are offset from floor to floor, allowing for generous cantilevers and dramatic platforms and hinting at the concept of kinetics – homage to the movement in, about and around the architectural object. A docklands reference of a white, sculptural pile of boxes on both the main and interior façades generates interest from the exterior and creates a constantly changing shadow-play from the cantilevered volumes, contrasted during the night by a carefully studied lighting design that transforms the necessarily opaque exterior into a glowing object. Dynamic, vector-formed stratified bands swoop around from the rear of the building, finishing as the lit ends as a coil of fiber-optic cable.

Total area_78 000 sq.m.

As a motive of repetition and in order to re-divide the scale and make it more human, we find this duality between glossy black contrasted with white lacquered glass in the common parts of the renovated building, perfectly and geometrically designed to fragment the interior spaces. The play of reflections, materials and systems permeates the building in a more sophisticated yet equally strong and poetic manner of a hybrid, mutated building... A collage, a green, varnished stamp in an urban universe.

Total area_16 900 sq.m.

Sky-Gardens / Structure: The force of the metaphorically plant-like structure cut-out from the constructive frame it supports is what provides meaning for the vertical garden.
Structure / Skin: The skin respects the plant-like structure and plays with it. It is cut along the branches of the structure and passes before and behind it, a movement generated by the programmatic organization. In this manner, the structure disappears, allowing the fenestration patterns of the curtain wall to be seen in the tourist section of the hotel, only to reappear and reaffirm itself as structure in the area corresponding to the immense executive hotel atrium. 
Skin / Passive Solar Protection: The passion for cinematographic arts, film sequences, fragmentation, and repetitiveness have led the project towards a clear rationality, in this case manifest by perpendicular planes of solar protected dark glass that travel the whole height of the facade, creating this desired dynamic parallaxical vision.
Passive Solar Protection / Sky-Gardens: We return to the essence, the garden... These perpendicular planes used as protection adapt to become supports for dense climbing plants as well as architectural barriers that determine pathways among the vertical gardens.

Total area_120 000 sq.m.

 

3_content / form: Tecnoparc is a skin, a shell that encloses all its functions and generates a homogeneous image: a single image for a hybrid object. This skin can be understood as a plural dimensional façade, as 5 facets, as visible from the ground as from the sky. 4_skin / program: Tecnoparc unravels as a ribbon, a ramp that passes through the public spaces of the building thus connecting the different main anchor elements of the program. This ribbon folds over itself at one end, becoming a roof for the same spaces it connected and manifests itself as more than a simple façade: it is an architectonic event that reveals the building when seen from the main thoroughfare. 5_autonomy / dependence: Tecnoparc is evidently technologic. Its autonomy resides in its intelligent skin that captures and filters solar energy, instinctively closing itself towards the south and protecting its main façade. Sustainable, human energies depend on this veritable display tu flow and generate social activity.

Total area_30 000 sq.m

...I have decided to make beauty by contrast. I will find its complement and establish a play between crudity and finesse, between the dull and the intense, between precision and accident. I will make people think and reflect...”, said the master! This object, emblem of the “new brutalism” has invited us to play a crude game of cutting and folding ribbons that generates the urban silhouette of our sensitive space, our personal village. These white ribbons allow for an alternation of built programmes (the city-side office spaces and vertical typology, green parking structure and lofts) that dialogue face to face with the unbuilt programmes (private streets, atypical landscaped lanes repeated at each void that gather their strength as public, civic spaces). A landscape between residences.

Total area_30 500 sq.m

The separation of the tower structure into two halves, further accentuated by the horizontal displacement of the blocks creates a tension that has been resolved by the torsion of the inner façades that bridge the 15m void and create a suspended atrium within the building envelope, as well as a monumental ogival-arched barrel vault below, a feature reminiscent of monumental Islamic architecture. This symbolic roof-space creates a protective vault for the oasis garden below. The proposal shows architecture apparently free from formalism, a logical application of the triple programme (retail, offices, and hotel). This intellectual rigor applied to the programme generates necessity and surprise, obliging these two uncompromising buildings to connect through an emblematic and formal gesture: a kiss.

Total area_175 000sq.m.

FUNCIONALITY _ the rationality of the proposal affirms its modernity, while meeting all prerequisites of safety, comfort and economy. The object, enshrouded in its surroundings, allows for an optimization of the shear surface of built façades and uses modular, prefabricated bleachers without resting architectural quality. The ‘fifth’ façade formed by the roof-ring maximizes the protection and comfort of the spectators. This object becomes a public plaza, a polyvalent space dedicated to leisure time and spectacles, be they sporting or cultural, with a clear reference to Roman arenas, a civic space for the citizen.

CONTEXTUALITY _ conceived as a response to the horizontal extension of the surrounding fields and the extremity of local meteorological conditions, the Stadium proposal defines itself as a landscape-architectonic gesture with the creation of an artificial hill space - an active bump - that gently holds the playing field in its centre.

Total capacity_10 000 spectators

The façade’s vertical geometry curve at the base, thus generating covered areas over the main entrance and terrace oasis, creating solar shielding – quite necessary in the climate of Riyadh. Positioned in the continuation of the main lobby, are the complementary elements common to such a large hotel.
The congress center, commercial area, parking, services and personnel areas, loading bays are organized within the white chiseled prism that creates a dialogue with the typically horizontal urban context. This project dedicated to a large hotel chain through a private promoter had as its main challenge the integration in a peripheral, triangular site. Its rational development being associated to an international image and the compliance of the hotel program have brought us to this object, this tool of immediate use yet sophisticated perception.

Total area_80 000 sq.m

This sculptural work that carries within it the implied notion of juxtaposition of two different types of spaces can only be the outcome of a programmatic analysis and fragmentation of the building. The administrative courthouse is a public space, a fundamentally public space. It needs to procure a typology for its entrance, its meeting point with a clear direction and monumental stairway, as if it were an urban plaza. The main void, resultant of the building’s form, becomes an active patio on the first three storeys, a space dedicated to the meeting of public and professional worlds. The administrative courthouse is a professional space, requiring a maximum of compartimentation where privacy and confidentiality are the rule. The upper three storeys, dedicated to the professional activity of the courts, utilize the central void as a source of LIGHT for the administrative offices that re-orient themselves at each level towards semi-exterior patio gardens, providing a protected exterior façade for the judges chambers - the main actors of the ensemble. This transformation of the typical functional scheme, with its excavations within the initial volume, create a new ergonomy, a new functionality disposed by the void, the matrix of this space. That the form should be determined by space and not the other way around reminds us of Debussy, when he stated that “The music is the silence between the notes”.

Total area_27 000 sq.m

Modern high-rise buildings frequently rise abruptly from ground level, and in that sense they can be very antisocial structures. When we came to design the preliminary schemes of the project, we saw a great opportunity in the lack of a car park area to create a generous urban space and produce an elegant and green pedestal. The self-supporting façade of the designed building is shaped with 4400 x 1600 mm modules bounded by rails for an automatic cleaning system and floor and ceiling boards. Modules are equipped with a coupling system for the outdoor LED lighting. The use of light in this unique project is established not only to efficiently illuminate a work destined to be a landmark in the city of Jeddah. The lighting design has been conceived to seek cohesion with the surrounding community, and explores a broad range of emotions, feelings and perceptions. A complex system of LED lights will cover much of the exterior of the building, marking at different levels the profile of the exterior skin with dynamic lighting of very low frequency cycles.

Total area_150 000 sq.m

The existing MEP installations and the low floor height called for the elimination of a new continuous ceiling: “...we wanted to make the ceiling disappear, darkening it and re-creating a lower, more dynamic white plane that accentuated the virtual paths of the visitors...”. These suspended ribs follow the geometry of the Mall and accentuate the retail perspectives with a succession of random curves. A renovation mission for a shopping center is always a challenge for an architect. To get down to the essence of retail vocabularies, recreate perspectives, simplify the itineraries of visitors who do not readily welcome new habits, to generate a new environment in accordance with the shop-owners definitely represents an exercise in balance. Upon first visiting the center, S. Cottrell and J. Michelangeli’s first reaction was to generate a global project, developed not from its details but on the interaction between volumes and light. To convert the center into a single store with its own ergonomics, esthetic, to interactively and dynamically mark the fluxes and connections of the center.

Total area_60 000 sq.m