The 198-metre Jade Signature tower by Herzog & de Meuron on an estate in Miami's Sunny Isles district will accommodate 192 residences, ranging from one-bedroom apartments to a 975-square-metre penthouse.

The building's parallelogram-shaped plan will help to angle the apartments towards the southern sun and floor-to-ceiling windows will provide views of the ocean. Hourglass-shaped columns will feature at the extremities of the balconies encircling the tower.

Interiors will be designed by Pierre Yves Rochon's Parisian firm PYR and Miami landscape architect Raymond Jungles will create a tropical garden surrounding the building.

Herzog & de Meuron's first building in Miami was an angular concrete and glass car park with a retail area at its base.

The firm recently completed an extension to an exhibition centre in Basel and has been granted planning permission for a new building at Oxford University.

Zaha Hadid Architects is also working on a residential skyscraper in Miami, while a competition to redevelop the site of the Miami Beach Convention Center has received entries from Rem Koolhaas's OMA and Danish firm BIG – see all projects in Miami.

The post Herzog & de Meuron to design
residential tower in Miami appeared first on Dezeen.

Herzog & de Meuron replaced two of the older halls at the Messe Basel, which hosts Art Basel each June, with an extension that stacks three new ten-metre-high halls on top of one another to create volumes that appear displaced.

Brushed aluminium clads the exterior of the building and has a textured surface to create the impression of a basket weave.

Part of the extension bridges across the neighbouring Messeplatz public square to creates a sheltered area with a huge circular skylight.

Glazing surrounds the space and leads into a ground-floor lobby filled with shops, bars and restaurants.

The building was completed in February, but only opened to the public in April. Read more about the Messe Basel New Hall in our previous story.

Since completing the building, Herzog & de Meuron has also started construction of a football stadium in France and an outdoor bathing lake in Riehen.

The pair were also controversially chosen to design the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. See more architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.

See more photography by Hufton + Crow on Dezeen, or on the photographers' website.

The post Messe Basel New Hall by Herzog & de Meuron
photographed by Hufton + Crow appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron has been granted planning permission for a school of government and public policy at the University of Oxford, UK.

The £30 million Blavatnik School of Government will be built within the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, masterplanned by architect Rafael Viñoly.

Herzog & de Meuron's building will appear as stack of discs decreasing in size, unevenly aligned to create overhangs and terraces.

Inside, the building will be arranged like "an auditorium or a concert hall", say the architects, with interconnected terraces stepping up from the ground floor to the upper levels.

Lower levels will house teaching and public spaces, while the quieter upper levels will be occupied by academics and research programmes. The top level will contain a library overlooking an outdoor terrace.

The building is expected to be completed in 2015.

The school was launched in 2010 with a £75 million donation by American philanthropist Leonard Blavatnik, and offers a one-year master's degree in Public Policy with a curriculum drawn from across the university.

Herzog & de Meuron was recently chosen to design the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem and shortlisted for a new headquarters for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden – see all architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.

Other projects at the University of Oxford include Zaha Hadid's under-construction centre for Middle Eastern culture and Rick Mather's extension to the Ashmolean Museum, completed in 2009.

Image is copyright Herzog & de Meuron Basel.

Here's some more information from Herzog & de Meuron:

Blavatnik School of Goverment, Oxford, UK

Project 2011 - planned completion 2015

"The Blavatnik School of Government will become a global centre of excellence for the study of government and public policy. The School's aim is to teach the practice of government and leadership in ways which will strengthen communities, create opportunities and foster cooperation across the world. The School offers Oxford University a new way to contribute to the world." - Blavatnik School of Government Brochure

Such a vision requires a specific response and building. Our starting point is from the inside, from the heart of the building, the Forum. This space cuts through the school as a vertical public space connecting all the levels and programs together into one whole. Central to a school of government is the idea of openness, communication and transparency, the central forum takes this principle literally by stitching all levels together. In the first instance the Forum provides access between spaces, but more importantly it provides congregation, meeting and social spaces. In our proposal its arrangement is in many ways like that of an auditorium or a concert hall with a series of interconnected terraces that step up from the ground floor all the way to the upper levels of the School. Each terrace could operate as a separate space, for example as a study area or as part of one connected whole volume for a larger presentation. The Forum will be a space that allows and positively encourages communication and discussion, formal and informal, planned and accidental.

The Blavatnik School of Government will house teaching and academic spaces which are supported by meeting, administration, research and service areas which are all connected by the Forum. At its lower levels, the building houses large public and teaching programs. The upper levels around are occupied by academic and research programs that require a more quiet atmosphere to foster focus and concentration. Crowning the School will be the library research tower which overlooks an outdoor terrace, Library Square to the north, and the whole of Oxford beyond. The School offers a wide range of teaching-space types from small flexible seminar rooms to larger flat floor teaching rooms.

Prominently located at the southwest corner of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ) the School will be the first building pedestrians, visitors and students encounter when approaching this quarter from the south. The School has the potential to become a gateway into this new part of the University and a symbol of its development.

The immediate context is a complex situation with the adjacencies of St Paul's Church and Somerville College to both sides and the Oxford University Press across Walton Street. The concept of the Forum in the interior sets the decisive and room-defining impulse for the entire building. This circular hollow also defines the exterior appearance of the school. Its cylindrical shapes show analogies to government buildings and universities in different places all over the world.

Our proposal of a series of shifted discs, pure geometric circles, is developed from the parameters of the site and plot boundaries. The shifting in floors creates overhangs and covered volumes and reflects the principles of the masterplan massing with the mass of the building moved northwest towards the centre of the ROQ site. The main entrance is located, in a classical manner, in the middle of the Walton Street elevation, centred underneath the main teaching floor of Level 1 whose circular geometry at Library Square is transformed into a rectangular form along Walton Street, resulting in a 'Sheldonian' like shape. The introduction of this orthogonal form addresses the historic setting in a classical manner, both continuing the line of the St Paul's Church portico and echoing the symmetrical entrance of the Oxford University.

With this proposal we aim to provide a project that can act as a focal point both for the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter and the academic activity of the study of government and public policy; a landmark building housing a ground breaking School.

The post Herzog & de Meuron wins planning permission
for Oxford university building appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Herzog & de Meuron has been chosen to design the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem after the initial competition winner was dismissed over a copyright dispute.

The Swiss firm won out against international architects Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano along with three Israeli architects – Kolker Kolker Epstein, Kimmel Eshkolot and Dina Amar and Avraham Korial.

Entrants to the relaunched competition were not asked to submit detailed plans for the building but instead underwent an interview with the competition jury. No images of the winning project are available yet.

Herzog & de Meuron's appointment comes just four months after Israeli architect Rafi Segal was ousted from the job when one of his former colleagues at the Harvard School of Design challenged his ownership of the winning design.

Bing Wang said she and her company, HyperBina, had worked on Segal's entry and should have been credited for their role when the announcement of the winner was made in September 2012.

Segal, who has has launched a legal challenge against the project backers' decision in the the hope of being reinstated, said he had intended to name the full design team as soon as he had permission to publicise his win. A Jerusalem court is due to consider Segal's claim on 8 May.

Construction recently started on two Herzog & de Meuron-designed projects in Europe – a football stadium in Bordeaux, France, and an outdoor bathing lake in Riehen, Switzerland. See all architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.

Other libraries we've reported on lately include Snøhetta's completed a library at North Carolina State University featuring a robotic book retrieval system and a 3D printing workshop, while a library dedicated to design has recently opened in Seoul, South Korea. See all libraries.

The post Herzog & de Meuron wins second competition
for National Library of Israel appeared first on Dezeen.

News: work has started on a football stadium in Bordeaux, France, by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

First unveiled in 2011, when it was referred to as the Stade Bordeaux Atlantique, Herzog & de Meuron's Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux will provide seating for up to 42,000 spectators.

A rectangular white roof will cover the stadium, supported by a forest of slim white columns.

The structure is expected to be completed in 2015 ready to host matches during the Euro 2016 football championship.

Last week construction began on an outdoor bathing lake in Riehen, Switzerland, also by Herzog & de Meuron.

The architects previously completed the National Stadium in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games – see all architecture by Herzog & de Meuron or see all stadiums.

Earlier this year French designer Philippe Starck and car company Peugeot unveiled a prototype bicycle for a free cycle scheme in Bordeaux – see all projects in Bordeaux.

The post Construction begins on Bordeaux
stadium by Herzog & de Meuron appeared first on Dezeen.