BIG’s Landscape, Engineering, Architecture and Planning teams come together to give form to the future of education, business and living in the Wadden Sea on the west coast of Denmark. The masterplan for Education Esbjerg – a new educational institution and campus on the island of Esbjerg Strand is informed entirely by the site’s environmental parameters: the noise from the nearby ship recycling yard and offshore rigs, dominant westerly winds, high tides, storm surges and sunlight.

Wrapped with adaptive façade louvers that are oriented according to sun angles and building geometry to minimize solar gain, the façade will become a fingerprint for the building, with a specific imprint that exists only for the O-Tower, and only in Hangzhou. The fingerprint façade will reduce solar gain by up to %, providing significant savings for cooling loads and better thermal comfort for OPPO staff, while at the same time reducing glare, reflectivity and light pollution.

BIG&#;s design combines four universal archetypes across space and time into a new national symbol: the circle, the rotunda, the arch and the yurt are merged into the form of a Moebius strip. The clarity of the circle, the courtyard of the rotunda, the gateway of the arch and the soft silhouette of the yurt are combined to create a new national monument appearing local and universal, contemporary and timeless, unique and archetypal at the same time.

Trumpet is a fixture which accomodates many building services such as lighting, audio and ventilation. The subtle hyperbolic shape of Trumpet blends almost imperceptibly into the ceiling. The deeply recessed LED module provides lighting with minimal glare. With a specially developed surface with small laser-cut points, Trumpet creates an extremely homogeneous distribution of light. This versatility makes it ideal for use in offices.

The façade design builds off of Gowanus’ rich industrial history by harmonizing the warm tones of weathering steel and red-pigmented concrete with the neighboring red brick warehouses. Evoking an industrial logic, the building’s organic slopes are composed of only straight elements creating a unique faceted form. Through its architecture, public waterfront and diverse mix of program, our proposal aims to strengthen the distinct characteristics of Gowanus into an iconic community oriented destination.