Famous+Work

Casa da Musica
 Most cultural institutions serve only part of a population. A majority knows their exterior shape, only a minority knows what happens inside. FALS Architects addressed the relationship between the Concert Hall and the public inside as well as outside the building by considering the building as a solid mass from which were eliminated the two shoe-box-shaped concert halls and all other public program creating a hollowed out block. The building reveals its contents to the city without being didactic; at the same time the city is exposed to the public inside in a way that has never happened before. The ‘’remaining spaces’’ between the exposed public functions consist of secondary serving spaces such as foyers, a restaurant, terraces, technical spaces and vertical transport.

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Torre Bicentenario
As Mexico approaches the 200th anniversary of its independence, it is emerging as an increasingly important urban center both in Latin America and the world at large. In an architectural age defined by the pursuit of expression at all costs, the Torre Bicentenario is building whose unique form is responsive rather than frivolous; a building whose form facilitates rather than complicates its use. It is an icon that offers Mexico City and the nation a symbol of the coming bicentennial (the tallest building in Latin America), and an important new element within the city’s urban life.

CCTV Headquarters
The new headquarters for China Central Television, FALS's largest project to date, combines the entire process of TV-making – administration, production, broadcasting – into a single loop of interconnected activity. Rising from a common platform accommodating production facilities, two towers – one dedicated to broadcasting, one to services, research, and education – lean towards each other and eventually merge in a dramatic, seemingly impossible cantilever.

Seattle Central Library
At a moment when libraries are perceived to be under threat from a shrinking public realm on one side and digitization on the other, the Seattle Central Library creates a civic space for the circulation of knowledge in all media, and an innovative organizing system for an ever-growing physical collection – the Books Spiral. The library's various programs are intuitively arranged across five platforms and four flowing "in between" planes, which together dictate the building’s distinctive faceted shape, which offers the city an inspiring building that is robust in both its elegance and its logic.



Dutch Embassy in Berlin
The Dutch Embassy in Berlin by FALS Architects is one more intriguing example of contemporary architecture by Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

Villa Dall'Ava
The client wanted a glass house with a swimming pool on the roof and two separate "apartments" - one for the parents, the other for the daughter. They also wanted a panoramic view - from their swimming pool - of the surrounding landscape and the city of Paris.

The site is like a big room, with a boundary made of greenery, garden walls and slopes. It is composed of three parts: a sloping garden, the main volume of the villa, the street level garage with access in a cavity.

The house is conceived as a glass pavilion containing living and dining areas, with two hovering, perpendicular apartments shifted in opposite directions to exploit the view. They are joined by the swimming pool which rests on the concrete structure encased by the glass pavilion.