Archives: Portfolios

Established in 1871, the Art Gallery of NSW is the leading museum of art in New South Wales and one of Australia’s foremost cultural institutions. The Gallery showcases international and Australian art in one of the most beautiful art museums in the world and aims to be a place of experience and inspiration, through their collection, exhibitions, programs and research.

Director Edmund Capon’s last major building project at the Art Gallery of New South Wales was the transformation of basement storage into a new floor of 3,300 square metres of exhibition space, designed by its original architect Andrew Andersons from PTW Architects. The basement was repurposed when the state government provided funds to enable the Gallery to build a collection store offsite. The new gallery spaces were opened in May 2011 by Premier Barry O’Farrell. The inaugural hang in the John Kaldor Family Gallery showcased John Kaldor’s gift of over 200 international works of art.

Torre Iberdrola, designed by prestigious Argentine architect César Pelli, is the latest milestone reached in the process of transformation undergone by the city of Bilbao and the central feature of its new financial centre. The tower, built as Iberdrola’s headquarters, is the tallest building in the Basque Country and the city of Bilbao, and the eighth tallest building in Spain.

The tower was built in Abandoibarra, a former industrial area located next to the Nervión river that began to be renewed in the early 1990s and where other emblematic projects such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Euskalduna Conference Centre and Concert Hall have been built. Standing 165 m (541 ft) high along the river, the Torre Iberdrola, which plays the main role within this development, has become the new finance and business icon in Bilbao and contains approximately 50,000 square metres of rentable space.

The new National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid has gained back the identity of the 19th century edifice that had been built by Francisco Jareño, while taking on the personality pertaining to a bona fide contemporary museum, thereby joining the olympus of the Spanish capital’s cultural references. The successful transformation owes to six years of works and a carefully tackled project of Juan Pablo Rodríguez Frade, who has resorted to an efficient palette of materials: travertine and wood.

The intervention has effectively expanded the institution’s exhibition galleries from 7,000 to 10,000 square meters, facilitated natural lighting, and altered the composition of the entrance in order to enable visitors to follow, as they could never before, a clear-cut chronological route that goes from Paleolithic art to the 19th century through 13,000 archaeological treasures and 20,000 years.

Built between 1972 and 1979 to a Brutalist design by Eva and Nils Koppel, Københavns Universitet Amager, was originally only built as a temporary home for the Facility of the Humanities. As time progressed became a permanent solution and it was instead decided to expand and modernize the complex. In 1997, KHR Arkitekter won an architectural competition for the first phase of the expansion, KUA1, which was completed in 2001 and consisted of a series of long, six-storey buildings with a pale, travertine cladding.

KUA2 is the result of a first prize in an invited architectural competition. Arkitema designed the second phase of the expansion reusing structural elements from the original KUA buildings but adapting them with a cladding similar to the one used on KUA1. KUA2 is a new, central section of Copenhagen University, Southern Campus. The project is part of a trilogy, which includes faculties of the Humanities, Law and Theology. The new section forms a new organizational center for the Humanities and the Southern Campus as a whole.

Spanning two blocks in Qinghai Harbor’s Financial District, Hony Center’s sophisticated design matches its innovative Shenzhen neighborhood, introducing two glass and stone towers anchored by lush greenery.

The 55,000 square meter tower facing Guimiao Boulevard serves as the private equity firm’s new headquarters. On the other end, at the intersection between Guiwan 5th Road and Financial 8th Street, the residential tower extends 25,000 square meters. The two buildings are connected below grade by a parking lot as well as bridging for the subterranean subway system.

The base of Hony Capital’s headquarters welcomes tenants into the office space through a three-story lobby, which elevates and animates the development. The tower features two slim facades on opposite ends – one glass and the other stone. The glass allows ample natural light to fill the office space, while the juxtaposition of stone exists on the opposite end of the material spectrum, resulting in a lively and varied character. A column structure provides a highly flexible work environment.

As an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of classical arts and cultures, the Getty Villa serves a diverse audience through exhibitions, conservation, scholarship, research and public programs. Through an extensive international search and competition, Machado Silvetti was commissioned by the Getty Trust for the master plan and design of the proposed expansion.

The project includes the remodeling of the existing J. Paul Getty Museum – a re-creation of the Villa dei Papiri, a first-century Roman country house buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. – to house the permanent collection of antiquities; the transformation of Getty’s adjacent ranch house into a research facility and library; and the construction of new support facilities, public areas and gardens. New components such as the Entry Pavilion, the Fleischman Theater, the museum café and store, conservation laboratories, a scholar’s library and educational facilities are strategically integrated into the new gardens and outdoor spaces, setting the original villa as the visual centerpiece.