MIXX Bar & Lounge / Curiosity

Nacasa & Partners

Designer: Gwenael Nicolas, Curiosity
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Client: Panorama Hotels One
Project area: 600 sqm
Project year: 2010
Photographs: Nacasa & Partners

Nacasa & Partners

The MIXX Bar & Lounge at the ANA Intercontinental Hotel in Tokyo recently opened with an interior space and logo created by Curiosity.
Spanning 600 square metres at the top of the 36-floor hotel, MIXX is a playful exploration of light and shadows offering an atmospheric window over the city of Tokyo.

Nacasa & Partners

Against a palette of neutral grey beige are multilayered materials of washed wood, rayskin covering, hammered bronze and stone complemented by textured fabrics handcrafted by textile designer Reiko Sudo of Nuno.
The space fuses traditional craftsmanship and Japanese art with modern design to create an invisible connection with the nation’s rich cultural heritage. The overall effect? One of softness, designed to highlight and enhance the sharp digital portrait of modern Tokyo that unfolds through the windows.

Nacasa & Partners

The entrance is marked by a “gate of light”: a wall of floating white fabric sculptures reflected through a play of mirrors, their delicacy balanced against the dynamism of the lighting.
Covering the floors is a uniquely designed carpet whose hues and patterns evoke the natural outdoor moss formations of a traditional Japanese garden.

plan

The first of three areas is an open bar space – complete with a randomly placed high counter, a warm and sociable spot for friends and dates meeting for cocktails or pre-dinner aperitifs before visiting the Pierre Gagnaire restaurant on the same floor.
Next is the main bar area. A signature 10 meter long counter sets a bold tone, taking centre stage against a backdrop of windows that reveal Mount Fuji by day and Tokyo’s digital light show by night.

Nacasa & Partners

Nacasa & Partners

Finally, there is the lounge. A white artwork of fabric hovering in the dark marks entrance, leading to a central table and more intimate sofas tucked snugly into the zig-zag line of windows that surround the space. Cocooned by a series of vertical lights, the lighting dynamically cuts through the atmospheric dark space.
True to its status as a hotel bar and a starting point for many first time Tokyo visitors, the three spaces that make up MIXX are carefully crafted to complement the urban landscape beyond its windows and act as an ambassador for the city.

Regional Council of Administration / AUM arquitetos

Courtesy of AUM arquitetos

Sao Paulo-based AUM arquitetos have won a competition to design the Regional Council of Administration in Santa Catarina, Brazil. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Courtesy of AUM arquitetos

The strategy of implementation of the Regional Council of Administration of Santa Catarina was based on the exploitation of the topography and its potential visual axes.
The program is distributed in two parts: the base, which includes the auditorium, plenary halls and chambers of courses, and the tower that houses the offices.

Courtesy of AUM arquitetos

The tower has only four supports, with spans of 20 meters in the longitudinal way and 10 meters in the transverse direction. Two steel beams with 30 meters structure the pavements’ slabs through metal rods every 5 meters.
Facing the sea, the position of the elevators allows all users of the building to enjoy a privileged view. To enhance the visuals to the sea and to the forest through the building, some modules go beyond the basic dimension of the tower, ranging from 1 to 2 meters in balance. These advances in the modules generate terraces on the upper floors, where it proposes to use a green cover to contribute to the thermal comfort of the building, and creating a pleasant work space.

elevation

Architects: AUM arquitetos
Location: Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil
Authors: André Dias Dantas, Bruno Bonesso Vitorino and Renato Dalla Marta
Collaborators: Aline Pek, Chan Hua Xin, Davi Lacerda, Filipe Romeiro, Maíra Baltrush, Mariah Carlini, Mariana Wilderom, Nathália Fávaro, Sarah Mota Prado, Victor Vernaglia, Alan Holanda, Aline Cerqueira, Carolina Paoletti and Germano Liao
Photographs: Courtesy of AUM arquitetos

Kaohsiung Port Terminal / Reiser + Umemoto

© Reiser + Umemoto.

Check out Reiser + Umemoto’s latest win for the Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Service Center in southern Taiwan. Working with Taipei-based Fei and Cheng and Associates, New York-based Ysrael A. Seinuk, PC and Hong-Kong based Arup, the new development exploits its waterfront placement as tumbling organic wave-like volumes cascade out toward the waves.
More about the winning proposal after the break.

© Reiser + Umemoto.

The port terminal is an experiment of “dynamic 3-dimensional urbanism” which amplifies the flow of pedestrian traffic through an elevated and activated boardwalk which runs continuously along the water. Meanwhile, beneath this level of public promenade, cruise and ferry functions are located just below. In this way, the layers create a dense range of programs, yet separating the cruises and ferries help maintain secure areas for departing/arriving passengers.

© Reiser + Umemoto.

The elevated space links the new Pop Music Center, the arts and shopping districts within a green necklace along the waterfront. Clusters of commercial entities will sprout along the walk, resulting in a vivacious public strip that will help “ensure the continuous economic viability of the port terminal, sustaining and amplifying the periodic maritime uses of the cruise terminal and ferries.”

© Reiser + Umemoto.

Formally, the building’s massing offers a poetic undulation where the height of the tower is balanced by the horizontally flowing tail ends. Programmatically, the Main Hall is divided into three different partitions – each related to a different itinerary for traveling by ship – while the concourses are oriented parallel to the waterfront to maximize the interface between water and land.

© Reiser + Umemoto.

Structurally, the building’s skin is a system of nested, long-span shells.  The shells are composed of an underlying steel pipe space frame which is sandwiched by cladding panels to create a useable cavity space. “Overall an experience of directed yet funactionally separated flows will lend an aura of energy to the point terminal space,” explained the architects.
The project is scheduled for construction in 2012 and expected to be in operation by 2014, with a construction budget of approximately $85,000,000 USD. The competition is sponsored by the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau, Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Taiwan, ROC.