Like a Danish city, the Danish pavilion was best experienced on foot and by bike. The exhibition could be experienced in two speeds, as a calm stroll with time to absorb the surroundings and as a dynamic bicycle trip, where the city and city life rush past. This way, the pavilion’s theme Welfairytales (Welfare + Fairytales) re‐launched the bicycle in Shanghai as a symbol of lifestyle and sustainable urban development.
The interior treatments of these spaces, particularly the live room, take its geometric inspiration from a rigorous understanding of acoustic principles. Cladded floor to ceiling with highly polished oak, the live room possesses a naturally delicate ambience heavily favored by recording artists and provides an outstanding aural experience, inspiring artists to create their greatest hits of all time.
At Rue de la Verrerie the façade pushes a bridge across the street to connect to its neighbor. The traditional elements of architecture fuse into a continuous warped surface: wall becomes roof becomes ceiling becomes gate becomes bridge. At a glance the new architecture blends seamlessly with its neighbors. On closer inspection it is a social sculpture shaped by the flow of people passing between its streets and archways, courtyards and rooftops.
The new OPPO R&D Headquarters, or O-Tower, resolves these competing requirements by translating a traditional office slab with the perfect depth for access to daylight into a cylindrical courtyard building that is compact yet also providing large, contiguous floor area. Pushing down the southern edge of the building to the ground minimizes the external surface area of the more solar exposed façade while maximizing views out from the inward façade, which is in turn self-shaded from solar gain by the geometry of the tower. The massing is a manifestation of a building form optimized to reduce energy use and maximize access to natural light.
The House creates two intimate interior courtyards, separated by the bowtie knot which houses m of communal facilities, available for all residents. At the very same spot, the building is pierced by a m wide passageway that allows people to easily move from the park area on its western edge to the water filled canals to the east. Instead of dividing the different functions of the building for both habitation and trade into separate blocks, the various functions have been spread out horizontally.