The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University published Flatness 2.0 by max-a in their new Abstract 0910

China’s default solution for housing its millions of new urban inhabitants – plus those relocated from less-dense neighborhoods slated for redevelopment – is superblock development, a carry-over from the Soviet-era Danwei-type urban development planning and the Modernist’s utilitarian social housing block. Superblock housing developments – with populations of 30,000 to 100,000 – are constructed at such a rapid rate that over ten are completed every day. These large-scale (up to 20 hectares in size) isolated residential islands within the city are taking over the fabric of Chinese cities.

HOW TO RE-CONCEPTUALIZE THE MEGABLOCK?

How can the Chinese Megablock be redefined to distribute positive, large-scale transformations within China’s urban context while exporting a sustainable and livable model of urbanism to the rest of the world? Effectively accommodating the gross numbers of new urban inhabitants is a global challenge. Many regions of the world are, or will, experience rapid influxes of urban growth in the near future.

IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS ARCHITECTS TO PROPOSE INNOVATIVE, YET RESPONSIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR THIS CHALLENGE.

Project Alto El Golf Office Tower to start construction August 01

Santiago, Chile 2011

Zinfandel Lane

Napa Valley, CA 2011

Handel Architects LLP, San Francisco

Collaborators:

Glenn Rescalvo, Maximiliano Noguera [max-a], Vivian Lee [Edmonds + Lee] & Derick Chan
The Zinfandel Lane House is located in Napa Valley, California-USA, and was finished on March 2011. More information coming soon.

Casa 2 Quebradas N°2 / max-a

Architects: Maximiliano Noguera – Alejandra Marambio [max-a]

Architect in record: Pilar Amenabar

Zapallar, Chile

Structural Engineer: Enzo Valladares
 [VPa]

Contractor: Constructora Abril

Site Area: 2048 sqm

Constructed Area: 230 sqm

Project Year: 2007
 – 2008

Construction Year: 2009

Materials: Concrete, Steel, Wood

Photographs: max-a

The Casa 2 Quebradas II is a summer house located on a site with slopes of more than 32 ° and at 96 mts. above sea level, in the coastal town of Zapallar – Chile.

The house, a rectangular volume of 22 x 7mts, is for the clients’ children and their growing families. The volume is divided in 2, separating the public from the private program, and positioning them within the topography to obtain distinct views.

The program is organized in a simple manner, with a large furnished corridor that connects the public area – a combined living and dining room, and kitchen – to the private volume, where the bedrooms are situated. The bedrooms have terraces facing the ocean, and the intersection between the two volumes generates a courtyard oriented towards the street, allowing for sheltered exterior area.

The three volumes are defined by the site topography and views.

Other Design: Graphic Diagrams

In the language of semiotics, diagrams and maps may both be considered on one level to be iconic. The icon, according to Charles Sanders Pierce, is the order of sign that functions through direct resemblance. The typical map has an obvious relationship to the topography it represents. The diagram’s relationship to its subject may seem more abstract, not because of the formal language it employs but rather because the subject itself may be an abstraction. The diagram is a picture of an idea. Most diagrams, however, works through a complex of semiotic equation that includes features of both the icon and the symbol.

As complex forms of drawing, both the map and the diagram have an important function in the process of designing. Because they are reductions, both forms may reveal an essential truth not visible in the realm of the real. The diagram is the reduction of an idea to its most brutal contradictions: The diagram depicts relationships, the map reveals adjacencies. But beyond their declarative and clarifying functions, maps and diagrams are visual objects in their own right and therefore worthy of a closer look.

Michael Rock /  2 x 4

Rosewood Hotel, Abu Dhabi

Architects: Studio HA, San Francisco [Handel Architects LLP]

Location: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Structural Engineer: MKA – RFR

Year: 2009 – 2011

The Rosewood Hotel will be a landmark five-star high-rise hotel and residences featuring approximately 190 spacious guest rooms and suites, approximately 140 serviced residences, an array of signature restaurants, a Rosewood Spa, retail an stunning views of the surrounding water and city.

Located next to the Stock Exchange development in the new Sowwah Island of Abu Dhabi, the Rosewood Hotel is schedule to be completed in November 2011

max-a architects unveils it’s design for Valle Marta Lodge 2.0

The fly fishing lodge is placed in two new locations. The first is at Valle Marta hot springs in the Magdalena Channel and the second is at the mouth of Marta River.

max-a _ Maximiliano Noguera + Alejandra Marambio

Client _ Valle Marta Lodge

Area _ 120 m2