The outdoor space can be used for assembly and testing of pod components, large gatherings, and as social space for the staff. It provides visual connections between the different departments and references the courtyard of Virgin Hyperloop’s LA campus. The facility also houses a test portal, that provides a passenger interface into the pods while they remain in the vacuum tube. This first prototype will be applied in the first commercial Hyperloop portals and continue HCC’s legacy of the first architecture turned Hyperloop infrastructure project.

Umbracle in Catalan means something that provides shade. Rather than creating a building plus a pergola, BIG proposes to do both in one single move for the new building of Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST). By setting the building back at ground level, BIG creates a single, generous, sheltered public plaza at the foot of BIST. On the back, it gently retracts to preserve urban continuity.

The existing terrain is used to form the shell by casting concrete directly on the sand with all its layers including grasses, mosses, and seashells, like an amber sand dune frozen in time. Once the concrete is dry the space is excavated underneath, leaving the thin sheet of frozen beach hovering above. Like a new sand dune vernacular for Fanø, Lycium will appear as if it was always there, shaped by the winds and the water moving sand across centuries.

Rather than a traditional block, the House stacks all ingredients of a lively urban neighborhood into horizontal layers of typologies, organized around two smaller, more intimate courtyards. Connected by a continuous promenade and cycling path up to the th floor, the building has become a three-dimensional urban community where suburban life merges with the energy of a big city and where business, housing, and nature co-exist.

Due to its rotational period, as well as its axial tilt relative to the ecliptic plane, its season and day cycles are extremely similar to Earth&#;s. It is the home to the highest mountain in the Solar System, Olympus Mons &#; a staggering three times taller than Mount Everest. It is also home to Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos &#; the Greek gods of fear and terror.