This office building, which is nearing completion, is part of David Chipperfield Architects’ masterplan for a new urban quarter comprising three blocks. Eleven buildings are arranged to frame communal gardens intended to nurture connection between neighbours. The relationship between architecture and landscape is reinforced in the office building by an open central staircase expressed in the west façade.
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Xujiahui Library
Construction work on the Xujiahui Library has reached a key milestone with the completion of the exteriors and landscaping. The building will house both a public library and book shops. It is located on an urban square in the south-west of Shanghai and is adjacent to the well-preserved St. Ignatius Cathedral, a fine example of the architecture built by Jesuit missionaries in Xujiahui in the early 1900s.
The façade of the bookstore is made of slender fins that run vertically from the ground to top floor. The fins envelope the whole building giving a sense of abstraction and unity to the massing. Comprehensive research on traditional local building materials led the design team to opt for a façade made from concrete reconstituted with stone elements. The neutral, off-white colour of the façade accentuates the red bricks of St. Ignatious Cathedral. An external colonnade on the ground floor and loggias on the second and third floor provide views to the square and cathedral.
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Palazzo Ancilotto
Situated on the Borgo Cavour in the city of Treviso, this sixteenth-century building has undergone several changes and accumulated superimpositions, such as the diverse flooring layers, over the course of its history.
On the invitation of Alessandro Benetton, Founder and Chairman of 21 Invest, David Chipperfield Architects Milan is assisting in the careful renovation of the Palazzo, which will serve as the main headquarters for the company. The historic interventions vary at each level and date from different periods, increasing in degree from the bottom upwards.
The renovation is due to complete in early 2022 and is part of a series of projects that David Chipperfield Architects Milan is undertaking on historic edifices in major cities of the Veneto region, such as Padua, Treviso and Venice.
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