Industry veterans selected the Global Best Projects winners as outstanding examples of the challenges, risks and rewards of designing and building internationally.
Inspired by the waterfalls and rocky landscape of Hong Kong, the designers of this residential building sought to reflect the island's rough beauty while honoring the owners' interest in modern art and design.
Related Links: Museum Plans Major Hans Hollein Retrospective in June Extended Architectural Record Obituary: Frederic Schwartz, 1951-2014 Hans Hollein, a maverick Austrian architect, teacher and designer, died April 24 following a long illness. He was 80.Hollein's irreverent, art-minded designs for schools, shops and museums earned him the 1985 Pritzker Architecture Prize, widely regarded as the profession’s Nobel. His work established a framework for post-modern architecture, focused on wit, eclecticism and irony with historical references.Hollein studied with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Richard Neutra, earning a master's degree in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, in
Repurposing the 100-year-old U.S. Embassy in Helsinki for current and future diplomatic and community use challenged the project team to blend historic components with new technology and heightened security mandates.
Keeping contamination at bay was nearly as crucial during the construction of this Saudi Arabian superabsorbent-polymers (SAP) plant as it is now during production of the plant's end product: material used to make diapers and disposable hygiene products.
Related Links: 2014 Global Best Projects Winners When It Comes to Safety Leadership, Watch Your Language Construction safety lapses have killed many construction workers in Vietnam during its recent economic expansion, with 5,952 accidents in 2007 alone. That year, the Can Tho Bridge, 170 kilometers south of Ho Chi Minh City in South Vietnam, collapsed during construction, killing 53 people.Those statistics loomed large in the minds of the design and contracting team for the Dragon Bridge in Da Nang, one of this year's Best Project winners.The designer and contractor took pains to produce design and erection methods that would enhance
Constructing a $4.2-billion aluminum smelter, said to be the world's largest greenfield project of its kind, required intense planning and coordination to bring in the large amounts of labor, equipment and materials to a remote site in Saudi Arabia.
Completion in 2013 of the 1,250-MW Al Khairat powerplant, the largest to be built in Iraq, not only will boost electricity output in the war-ravaged nation by 20%, but marks a key social milestone for 5 million citizens who had only intermittent power access.
Related Links: 2014 Global Best Projects In addition to delivering more than 1,000 modern residential units to citizens of Panama City who were living under precarious housing conditions, the Curundu urban renovation project initiated a transformation of a community beset by gang activity, social exclusion and high unemployment.The challenges for contractor Construtora Norberto Odebrecht began before the start of the $108.8-million project, which included the erection of 63 four-story apartment buildings, improvements to the nearby river channel and the construction of roads, bridges, walkways and water- and sewer-system infrastructure. First, to relocate some of the roughly 5,000 displaced citizens, contractors
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