Many towns in Denmark have centrally located industrial silos; most are no longer in use, but continue to visually dominate the local skyline.

This is also the case in the town of Løgten north of Aarhus, where the former silo complex has been transformed into a 'rural high-rise', with 21 high-quality residences composed as individual and unique 'stacked villas'.

They are an alternative to standard apartments or to detached suburban sprawl, and are a mix of single storey flats and maisonettes, meaning that even the lower levels fully get to enjoy the views, and that no two flats are the same.

The actual silo contains staircases and lifts, and provides the base of a common roof terrace. Around the tower, the apartments are built up upon a steel structure in eye-catching forms which protrude out into the light and the landscape – a bit like Lego bricks.

Steven Holl Architects’ Linked Hybrid stands out as one of the most innovative projects to   be completed in the past couple of years. Inspired by the traditional polychromatic Chinese architecture, as well as the urban layout of older Beijing neibourhoods developed prior to the 1980s, the architects have designed a modern alternative to the current trend of individualistic urban towers. Here, a strong urban fabric is weaved on the ground as well as on the upper floors where a new public space is implemented within a ring that bridges all the towers together. In this small city, no building is an island.

With over 600 apartments sited adjacent to the old city wall of Beijing,   one of the central aims of this Hybrid Building complex is the creation of a new urban space; around, over and through multifaceted spatial layers.  The aspiration of the developer Modern Group is for an ultra-modern expression of 21st Century ecological urban living, within the 210,000 square meter that form thte project.

Current development in Beijing is almost entirely individualistic “object buildings” such as freestanding towers. As an alternative,   Linked Hybrid is conceived as a “city within a city”. It envisions the urban space as its central core, integrating the activities and programs that can support the daily life of over 2500 inhabitants: café’s, delis, laundry, dry cleaners, florists etc, line the main public passages.

The Lucien Rose complex, for the City of Rennes, includes 81 social housing units along with 1 public library. The original project was an initiative of Edmond Herve, Mayor of Rennes from 1977 to 2008. The design by architecture firm ‘Atelier du Pont’ reconciles the vocation of the project with perceptual identity of the neighboring area, that has historically belonged to the city’s more prosperous inhabitants: the downtown Thabor Botanical Gardens district.

The project could have degenerated in old trends from the distant past – a sort of ‘ghetto‘ where the poorer classes took over ‘posh’ neighborhoods but it has resulted in a happy marriage instead. An alchemy between radicalism and social integration, the old and the new, protected areas and sympathetic town planning, public facilities and social housing, the Lucien-Rose story is one of reciprocal enhancement for users and employees of the park and the library, and for old and new residents.

All photos © Luc Boegly

The site is in joint ownership between two brothers. Project Orange were approached with a tripartite brief; to redevelop the rear of the site to create a new family home, to upgrade and renovate the buildings onto the street and convert them into rental apartments, and to retain and renovate the existing ground floor business use to 115, extending it into 117 (taking over a café premises on a leasehold).


The client’s aim was to minimise disruption to trade of the office during building work. The private house should offer almost 3 times the floor area of the existing, and the new apartments provide the maximum rental income achievable from the site.

Photographs by Gareth Gardner

While the first Post about the FLOAT House introduced the project's concept and evolution, this article looks into the way the house works, and sheds more light on the Architect's vision.

The FLOAT House sits on a raised four-foot base, which has been reconceived as a high performance “chassis” – a prefabricated module, made from polystyrene foam coated in glass fiber reinforced concrete, which hosts all of the essential equipment to supply power, water and fresh air.

The chassis is engineered to support a range of home configurations. In the event of flooding, the chassis acts as a raft, allowing the house to rise vertically on guide posts, securely floating up to twelve feet as water levels rise. While not designed for occupants to remain in the home during a hurricane, this innovative structure aims to minimize catastrophic damage and preserve the homeowner’s investment in their property. This approach also allows for the early return of occupants in the aftermath of a hurricane or flood.

Last October, was the public unveiling of the the first floating house for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans. The project was designed and developed by Morphosis Architects, under the direction of renowned architect and UCLA Professor Thom Mayne.

The FLOAT House is a new model for flood-safe, affordable and sustainable housing that is designed to float securely with rising water levels. The architects have sent us a generous amount of information that we are sharing within this article with our readers.

Mayne led a team from Morphosis Architects and graduate students from UCLA Architecture and Urban Design in this innovative housing project to help with the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward post-Hurricane Katrina. The concept emerged from a study of the flooding record, social and cultural history of the city, and the ecology of the Mississippi Delta. Morphosis and UCLA’s collaboration on the research, development, design, and construction of the FLOAT House is exemplary of their shared goals to engage students in real-world design for social impact.

Designed by LAN Architecture, based in Paris, the ‘mirror-tower’ is a 142m. High-rise located in Beirut, poetically described by the architects as 'The city that wouldn’t disappear'

Every city is singular. Yet clearly some are more so than others. Beirut is a unique urban phenomenon, literally inhabited by its history, and with each successive war or occupation finding the strength to combat its disappearance.

The 486 MINA EL HOSN, the ‘mirror-tower’ designed by LAN, is to be built in the port area, opposite the Murr Tower, the shell-riddled building that has come to symbolise the civil war. The tower is absolutely novel in concept: the building’s skin will reflect the city surrounding it. One will be able to see it from everywhere, and everywhere one’s view will bounce off its mobile surface into the surrounding city, showing Beirut in all its myriad facets. And of course behind this innovative technology lies a guiding idea: the impressive outline of 486 MINA EL HOSN, soaring above the skyline, will enable a kind of moving and poetic visual reconstitution of the city – a way of making Beirut itself, its light, diversity, districts and cultures, the tower’s very substance.

Boosting a green lifestyle of art & culture, Aedas’ project the Raisina Residency is intended as an oasis of self-sustained living in Gurgaon of India. The project also focuses on the incorporation of art into the landscape and architecture. Apart from major sculptures and murals acting as focal points in the landscape, an art gallery is incorporated into the clubhouse.

Responding to the necessity of providing sustainable utility services and an increasing interest among buyers for a greener lifestyle in India, the Raisina Residency has an emphasis on green solutions. The designers integrated features such as extensive green roofs, dynamic overhanging shade structure and unique articulated façade screens.