Architecture Break

The Pasona Group offices in Tokyo:

Photo Credit: Kono Designs

From an aesthetic perspective, Kono Designs has successfully implemented the "vertical farm" idea, playfully evoking the image of a standard office cube being inexorably consumed from within by wild nature. This contrasts with the tightly designed interior spaces, which seem to employ fully-functional agriculture plots as space dividers, artistic room accents, and stylish furniture substitutes. No word yet on the energy costs or food production efficiency levels, but its cultural fit and aggressive rejection of factory-chic make this building spectacular.

For more check out this short video by Monocle magazine.

Architecture Break

The Oslo Opera House:

Photo Credit: The New York Review of Books

Designed by the architectural firm Snøhetta and completed in 2008, this building is clearly modeled on an iceberg bobbing just above the water. While I'm generally bearish about the aesthetic resilience of most glass-and-concrete geometric scrambles, the tight thematic focus and open public spaces lift it above its peers. 

More pictures here.

Architecture Break

From Daily Dose of Architecture, the Inntel Hotel. It has a strange fractal quality that makes its size really interesting: