Monday, November 25, 2019

Day 2677: What a deal.





"deal": junk mail collage & acrylics.










Want music?

 




Click here for Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, What A Fool Believes.
then click back on this blog tab or here to listen as you browse, or not?







2GN2S:

The Completed Headquarters for Swatch and Omega

 by Shigeru Ban

credit: Philip Zinniker
credit: Philip Zinniker
credit: Philip Zinniker
Architect Shigeru Ban (previously) won a competition to design a campus of timber buildings to house the headquarters of watch brands Swatch and Omega in Biel, Switzerland. Now, after almost 5 years of construction, the campus was completed with an inaugural ceremony taking place last week.




The shimmering, curved silhouette of the new Swatch building breaks with the conventions of classic office building architecture and blends harmoniously into the urban environment. A timber grid shell forms the basic structure, a material chosen for it's ecological and sustainable properties, but also because  the area is known for its timber engineering school.


Dotted around the facade are around 2,800 honeycomb elements in 3 varieties: the opaque, the translucent and the transparent element.




124 wooden Swiss crosses on the ceiling improve the acoustics in the offices' thanks to their fine perforations


A total of nine balconies provide views over several floors.


The lobby’s glazed entrance area features generous dimensions as well as a sense of transparency, openness and lightness.


Two glass elevators take employees and visitors to the upper 
floors and to the glass pedestrian bridge on the 3rd floor, 
which connects the Swatch building to the Cité du Temps


Floor space is spread over five floors for all departments of Swatch International and Swatch Switzerland. The surface area of the four upper floors decreases successively from floor to floor

2nd-floor offices




In addition to the regular workplaces, various common areas are distributed throughout the building

Located at the very rear of the second floor is the so-called “Reading Stairs” whose steps and views encourage 
brainstorming among colleagues during creative breaks.

the lab


the glass pedestrian bridge on the 3rd floor, which connects the Swatch building to the Cité du Temps, an independent architectural unit also designed by Shigeru Ban that hosts both the Omega Museum as well as PLANET SWATCH



 Several black olive trees extend up to two stories in height. The evergreen Bucida Bucerias feels very comfortable at room temperature and keeps its fine leaves all year round.


 * My master's degree and post-grad credits are in design. So I have a
keen interest in all facets of design. I'm hoping you might enjoy it too? 






Just because ...











A smile for Monday ...





1 comment:

john said...

The ephemera with words both help with movement within the piece but also anchor the composition. :-)