AQSO arquitectos office

Cannon Design organized last Sunday a round table at the 751 lecture hall coinciding with the exhibition ‘Unmade in China’ presented at the 2012 Beijing Design Week.   The event started with a short introduction of made and unmade projects done by several offices featured in the exhibition to continue with a discussion about the [...]

What is the influence on urbanism when a planned economy shifts to a new model of development? How to promote an urban evolution based on soft elements? Can social interactions catalyze strategies of urban regeneration?   During 6 days, students from different backgrounds have worked in multidisciplinary teams researching particular aspects able to generated identity [...]

Organized by ‘Beijing Design Week’, Dashila(b) and Capital M, the event included speakers such Kenya Hara, designer from Nippon Design Center and director of design for MUJI, Fang Zhenning, curator of the Chinese pavilion of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, Liang Jingyu, architect from Approach Architecture, Giannantonio Bongiorno, curator of Hutopolis and Luis Aguirre from [...]

The exhibition ‘(un)made in China’, organized by Cannon Design opened last Thursday at the ‘Ide@s gallery’ in Shanghai. The retrospective features a selection of twelve projects developed by international offices and aims to show not only the value of the architecture itself, moreover the process and the experience of these architects when facing the challenge [...]

The construction works for this multifunctional building designed by AQSO have recently started with the assemblage of modular concrete elements to be part of the structure and façade.

It is not easy to see the sky in Beijing. Sometimes because of the storms, sometimes because of the fog and most of the times because of the tangibly pollution surrounding the city the atmosphere becomes a ghostly mass in which the buildings are merely glimpsed. At night the stars cannot be seen, only flashing [...]

Last February 7th AQSO participated in the ‘Iterate’ workshop in Beijing with a lecture about the changing conditions of the Chinese cities and the progress of the ongoing research program ‘Hutopolis’. The ‘Iterate’ workshop is organized by the ‘Institute for Provocation’, counts with the support of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and aims to [...]

The ‘Xubeihong foundation’ project proposed by AQSO has been selected for the exhibition ‘(un)made in China, architecture undone in the P.R.C’. The retrospective aims to celebrate the best missing Chinese projects from the last decade:   “30 years of unprecedented growth have transformed China’s built environment and given China a reputation as a land of [...]

Giannantonio Bongiorno, curator of the exhibition ‘Next stop: Hutopolis’, presented together with Luis Aguirre Manso the contents of the research that will start next fall about the Chinese urban conditions.   The lecture started from the facts that convert China in a massive change scenario and pointed out the new potentials of the metropolis. The [...]

Beijing Design Week is schedule to be an annual event  composed of several sections: a design forum, design exhibitions, a guest city program, design hops and an annual design award.   ‘Next stop: Hutopolis’ is a retrospective on the urban condition of Beijing and specifically its Hutongs. The exhibition opened doors last Saturday 24th during [...]

“Hutopolis” is a research program that aims to investigate new boundaries for the urban development in China. The study intends to re-use and enhance the existing urban framework and networks as a key idea to generate a new evolution of the city. AQSO organizes an exhibition curated by Giannantonio Bongiorno, with the support of a [...]

The proposal for a strategic masterplan in Gorizia presented by AQSO and G. Damiani under the title ‘S.A.R.A, una tierra de cultivo’ will be exhibited along with the rest of participants of the international contest ‘spazio giovani alla frontiera’ (Youth Space at the border) in the event entitled ’30×1, Trenta progetti per una mostra’. The [...]

The proposal for the new Industrial museum in Liuzhou presented by CCA and AQSO has been awarded a 3rd prize in the restricted competition organized by the local government. The museum is intended to use a 62000 sqm old factory near the Liu river in the second largest city of the Guangxi province (China). A contemporary roof [...]

The project for the interior design of a dental surgery in Madrid designed by AQSO has been recently completed. The space is characterized by a white and clean atmosphere given by the used materials, lacquered wood, and a combination of translucent and opaque glass. Read more about the project here.

On the occasion of the the 70th Anniversary of John Lennon’s Birth, Beijing-based Today art museum organized last October 16th an outdoor event including multimedia video projections, poetry readings, music performances and discussions under the name “old is new“.     AQSO designed and built a temporary scene on the square of the museum to break [...]

The interior of a hair salon in Beijing designed by AQSO has been recently completed. The project comprises of different spaces: two areas for the public, designed with a minimal style where the lighting gains prominence, and a third private room for guests where the used materials, dark wood and linen, offer a more intimate [...]

AQSO was invited to participate at the Global Pioneer Design forum organized by the Galaxy arts center and 5cats editors in Shenzhen, China, last May 26.   During the forum, Luis presented AQSO’s latest projects and he participated in the debate chaired by Ms. Ran Ran, chief editor of 5Cats, and Hongkongese interior designer Mr. Huang Zhida.

AQSO’s proposal for the Boilerhouse studios in Dublin, a cultural and residential complex located on Ballymun, has been shortlisted for the 10th edition of Europan. -

A 1993 study by the American social psychologists Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal considered in what way less information would affect the accuracy of predicting teacher evaluation by college students. The study shows that the information conveyed in a glimpse can be just as important as the information gathered over a much longer period. This [...]

The old ambition of producing a really moving architecture succeeds when it responds to the site and brief requirements.     The proposal for the thematic pavilion of the 2012 Yeosu international exhibition has a focus for the people to experience and understand this liquid element through the specific place in which it is located: the [...]

AQSO has been awarded an honorable mention for the restoration of Santa Maria de Atienza in Huete, Spain. A simple folded steel piece covers the remains of the church and creates a space from which to contemplate the landscape. The new building is intended to accommodate an open concert hall in the space occupied by [...]

From the time London opened the first subway system in the mid-eighteenth century, the subterranean has become the place to locate the infrastructures that the traditional city wasn’t able to accommodate on the surface. The increasing density above ground results in a system of voids underneath that includes sewage and water supply sys-tems, electric wiring, subways [...]

The proposal for the house of arts, a large cultural building to be built in Lebanon, will be exhibited along with the rest of participants of the international competition between 23 March & 14 April 2009 at the Forum de Beyrouth.

Although architecture encompasses many different sizes, scales and proportions always conform to a size that is invariably that of the people. The size of a project determines the approach and the abstraction capacity necessary to resolve it. Therefore an increase in scale means a discipline change, as with architecture and town planning. If the human [...]

Architecture is nearly always the solution of a complex problem, an equation with many variables and which can be resolved in more than one way. It needs to address the programme, the site conditions, be formally expressed and have technical solutions that allow building it, but it must also have an intention or contain an [...]

The project for a music centre in Soria has been selected for inclusion in the ‘Arquitecturas posibles’ exhibition organized by agoras.arq. The exhibition will be held in the MUVa Museum, Santa Cruz Palace, Valladolid, Spain, from October 3rd.-   This proposal is for an auditorium and music school to be located on a sloping site [...]

Lynn McMahon participated in the European Forum in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, which discussed the findings of Europan 9. The prize-winning project ‘Interactive Flexibility’ was exhibited at the Forum. This proposal for the development of Slatina Square in Opatija, Croatia, was included in the ‘Public and Private Spaces’ discussion.     The concept of ‘Interactive [...]

Soria is a small city in north-central Spain. The city was founded on the 4th century BC in the banks of the Duero River. At that time the location along the watercourse was strategic for defense, however now the valley is not a priority in the city’s development. Several historical buildings are located along the river, [...]

The self-sufficient house ‘Harvest Home’ has been given an award in the ‘2nd Advanced Architecture Contest’, an international competition organized by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.   The house has been designed for use in the Cauca valley, Colombia, which lies between the Occidental and Central mountain chains. The main construction material is [...]

Possibly the first idea of limit in the historic city was defined by its own walls, which were systematically exceeded and rebuilt to maintain a defensive system. When traditional space evolves and becomes overgrown, urbanism emerges as a discipline, the city is transformed and its limit transforms with it. The increase in population and industry [...]