Josep Liinas, Atlantida cultural centre, Barcelona

Its been a while since we last posted a purely European project and we found this project to be the perfect opportunity to do just that.Atlantida is a cultural center, designed by the Catalan architect Josep Llinas, situated in Vic, just 60 km north of Barcelona.The 10.500 m2 of the Atlantida cultural center, feature an 800-seat theatre, a 400-seat auditorium, a music school, 100-seat performance space, a library and a restaurant.
According to the architect in relation to the location, the site is placed between the boundary of the consolidated town and the future expansion areas. The transition from one fabric to the other is articulated by a strip of natural land supported by the Meder River. In the northern edge, the consolidated town is composed by courtyards where the rear façades of row housing look over.
The imposing asymmetrical building which is destined to become a landmark for the city of Vic, opened its doors in April 2010.

Frank Gehry, Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Las Vegas

Frank Gehry’s newest project, the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, in Las Vegas, is a leading research centre for degenerative brain diseases.

The sculptural building cost almost $100 million and consists of two wings connected by an open courtyard.

In the ordinary northern part of the building is a research center and hospital, in the creative south part – the life activity center.

In this project the architect manipulates space and materials to create stunning structures that captivate the imagination and although the two parts of the building differ from each other, they also act like two parts of the whole.

The Gehry teams have created a masterpiece of architectural design, blending strong visual impact with superior efficiency in patient care.

According to WAN, Gehry decided to design the building because he, like founder Larry Ruvo, has been affected by degenerative brain diseases. Ruvo’s father had Alzheimer’s and Gehry’s analyst’s wife had Huntington’s disease.

Therefore, this building is like a tribute to those they lost, and also a beacon of hope for finding treatments or cures for these unfortunate ailments.

Van Egeraat, Dynamo Stadium, Moscow

Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat has won a competition to redevelop the Dynamo Moscow Stadium and surrounding park in Moscow.

Called VTB Arena Park, the project comprises the redevelopment of the Dynamo Moscow stadium and its surrounding park Erick a contemporary multifunctional urban regenerator, that will play a key role in transforming its wider surroundings.

Erick van Egeraat’s 300,000-m2 multifunctional culture, health and sports centre will be developed on a 116,000-m2 site and will comprise a 45,000-seat Stadium Arena for Dynamo Moscow, a 10,000-seat Arena Hall, a Retail and Entertainment complex, restaurants, parking and other facilities.

VTB Arena allows the existing park to be completely preserved as a public, green area. Parking facilities will be included underground, and horeca and sports training facilities will be included above ground, with the park continuing over the roof of these functions.

Erick van Egeraat partnered with Russian architect Mikhail Posokhin for the project.

CEBRA Architects, Iceberg Project, Denmark

CEBRA Architects along with JDS, Louis Paillard and SeArch, have won the competition to build an innovative housing complex, inspired by icebergs – the ocean’s very own colossus, at the Aarhus docklands development in Denmark.The Iceberg project provides a huge opportunity to renovate Aarhus’s old and out-of-use container terminal.The area will develop into a living city quarter, which comprises of a multitude of cultural and social activities, with generous amount of workplaces, along with a highly mixed and diverse array of housing types.
The development will create 25,000 sqm of housing, with 200 apartments and is due for completion in 2010.
A third of the project’s 200 apartments will be set aside as affordable rental housing, aimed at integrating a diverse social profile into the new neighborhood development.
“With the Iceberg we get unique housing qualities as well as a city architectural expression of the highest quality”, says Kent Martinussen, adm. dir. of DAC (Danish Architecture Centre).

Magén Arquitectos, Environmental Unit Headquarters, Zaragoza

Located in Zaragoza, Spain and in built-up area of the city center, the Environmental Unit Headquarters, offers an impression that floats above the garden and panoramic view of a continuous projection on the floor and roof level. The project is based on two fundamental ideas. The first idea is in response to the special urban and landscape importance of the location; the second aims to express the intrinsic relationship between the environmental commitment of the project and its materiality and the building programme. The relationship with the adjacent urban spaces and the topographic features of the site become active conditions for the implementation of the building; it can clearly be seen in the project section that also expresses the extension of the public space of the entrance, via the roof and the configuration of the building as a platform-viewpoint onto the Ebro river. The roof is an essential element within the landscape design of the building as well as the main image of the building. It is configured as a viewpoint at different levels, which are joined together by gentle ramps and a terraced grandstand, designed as an outdoor amphitheatre for possible recreational uses.