SOUMAYA MUSEUM
Location: Mexico City
Firm: FR-EE Fernando Romero Enterprise, Mexico City
Team: Fernando Romero, with Mauricio Ceballos
A silver swell rising from the ground, this shapely art museum has effectively transformed a former industrial site in the Polanco district on the outskirts of Mexico City into an international showpiece. The six-storey structure, formed by 28 vertical steel columns encircled with seven steel bracings, is clad in hexagonal aluminum modules, evoking fish scales or the floor tiles in a Parisian bistro. Some 6,000 square metres of exhibition space, connected by a series of ramps and brightened by a dramatic skylight, houses billionaire magnate Carlos Slim’s vast collection, including an impressive group of Rodins and other artworks that span six centuries.
RMIT DESIGN HUB
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Firm: Sean Godsell Architects, Melbourne
Team: Sean Godsell, with Hayley Franklin
Like thousands of eyes staring back at you, the 17,000 sandblasted glass disks that comprise the eight-storey facade of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Design Hub have ulterior motives. The operable modules pivot on a complex framework to filter the sunlight that enters the building, where students from a variety of disciplines, including fashion and aeronautical engineering, commingle in warehouse-type class-rooms. But the windows are also a testing ground. The school will retrofit or replace them as solar energy technologies advance, boosting the building’s energy efficiency and enabling it to adapt to future sustainability needs.
BARCLAYS ARENA
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Firm: SHoP Architects, New York
Team: Nadine Berger, Christopher Lee, Adam Modesitt and Ayumi Sugiyama of SHoP Architects, and John Cerone and Brian Sweeney of SHoP Construction
It’s remarkable what an inventive facade can do for a building. SHoP Architects rescued the Barclays Center in Brooklyn from a ho-hum fate when the other project architects, sports arena experts Ellerbe Becket, designed it as a big box after Frank Gehry’s original scheme was discarded for its colossal price tag. Wrapped in 11,500 unique metal panels with a pre-weathered finish, the facade’s swooping, nine-metre-high canopy – an otherworldly ring – hovers above the broad civic plaza, which was designed to allow passersby a glimpse into the sunken 18,000-seat arena bowl. Home of the Nets and, beginning in 2015, the Islanders, the Barclays feels as tough and brash as its neighbourhood.
