flexiblefullpage
billboard
interstitial1
catfish1
Currently Reading

Bjarke Ingels' BIG proposes canopied, vertical village for Middle East media company

Office Buildings

Bjarke Ingels' BIG proposes canopied, vertical village for Middle East media company

The tensile canopy shades a relaxation plaza from the desert sun.


By BD+C Staff | February 3, 2015
BIG proposes canopied, vertical village for Middle East media company

Two towers are connected by a giant tensile canopy that slopes down, mimicking the tents traditionally used by cultures of the region. Renderings courtesy BIG.

A Middle Eastern media company—whose identity remains unreleased—held a competition for its new headquarters. Bjarke Ingels’ firm BIG has released designs of their submission, which designboom describes as a building that “will provide a framework for international broadcasting that simultaneously seeks to remain grounded within the region’s culture.”

The 650,000-sm complex is formed by two rectangular towers with cubes protruding from the structures on various levels, making up a “vertical village” of newsrooms, broadcast studios, and amenities for the company’s employees such as dining facilities, a gym, bank, and auditorium. 

The two towers are connected by a giant tensile canopy that slopes down, mimicking the tents traditionally used by cultures of the region, such as the Berbers or the Bedouins. Underneath this canopy is a shared plaza for informal interactions. For workers higher up in the building, the main towers’ protruding cubes create rooftop terraces for relaxation.

Designboom has more on the story.

 

Related Stories

Office Buildings | Jan 11, 2019

Open offices are bad!

The Harvard studies on the unintended effects of open office defines it as space where 'one entire floor was open, transparent and boundaryless… [with] assigned seats,' and the other had 'similarly assigned seats in an open office design, with large rooms of desks and monitors and no dividers between people's desks.'

Office Buildings | Dec 18, 2018

Google announces new $1B Hudson Square campus project

The 1.7 million-sf campus will expand the company’s New York City presence.

Office Buildings | Dec 13, 2018

Apple selects Austin for $1 billion campus

The company will also build smaller expansions in six other U.S. cities over the next three years.

Office Buildings | Dec 4, 2018

Brookfield launches contest for startups to receive two years of free office space

This is part of a larger campaign to burnish the image of L.A.’s Wells Fargo Center. 

Office Buildings | Nov 28, 2018

Amazon HQ2 and the new geography of work

The big HQ2 takeaway is how geography and mobility are becoming major workplace drivers.

Office Buildings | Nov 13, 2018

Amazon selects HQ2 cities

Both cities are on the East Coast.

Mixed-Use | Oct 25, 2018

Philadelphia’s uCity Square kicks off major expansion drive

This innovation center has several office, lab, and residential buildings in the works.

Office Buildings | Oct 25, 2018

Stantec consolidates three Portland-area offices into one downtown location

Stantec worked with Ankrom-Moisan Architects on the design.

boombox1
boombox2
native1

More In Category



Sustainable Design and Construction

Northglenn, a Denver suburb, opens a net zero, all-electric city hall with a mass timber structure

Northglenn, Colo., a Denver suburb, has opened the new Northglenn City Hall—a net zero, fully electric building with a mass timber structure. The 32,600-sf, $33.7 million building houses 60 city staffers. Designed by Anderson Mason Dale Architects, Northglenn City Hall is set to become the first municipal building in Colorado, and one of the first in the country, to achieve the Core certification: a green building rating system overseen by the International Living Future Institute.


MFPRO+ News

San Francisco unveils guidelines to streamline office-to-residential conversions

The San Francisco Department of Building Inspection announced a series of new building code guidelines clarifying adaptive reuse code provisions and exceptions for converting office-to-residential buildings. Developed in response to the Commercial to Residential Adaptive Reuse program established in July 2023, the guidelines aim to increase the viability of converting underutilized office buildings into housing by reducing regulatory barriers in specific zoning districts downtown. 

halfpage1

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021