DESIGNBOOM MEETS MAD'S MA YANSONG IN ROTTERDAM
The Fenix museum, the first art museum focused on global migration, opened in Rotterdam last week, marking the latest addition to the Dutch city's innovative architectural landscape. Designed by MAD, the museum is set within a 1923 port warehouse in the historic Katendrecht district and topped by the Tornado, a dramatic double-helix staircase that pierces through the existing building and flows upward, culminating in a rooftop viewing platform. 'It becomes an experience,' Ma Yansong, founder of MAD, tells designboom as we walk through the stainless steel-clad Tornado. ‘You almost see your reflection as yourself traveling through time.' Alongside the Fenix opening, Rotterdam's Nieuwe Instituut is presenting Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion, a new exhibition assembling MAD’s early speculations and recent large-scale works into a spatial and emotional journey.
BRUTALIST TERRARIUMS BALANCE BETWEEN CONCRETE AND NATURE
Italian designer Alessio Fava sculpts brutalist structures that explore what happens when nature is not an afterthought in architecture, but a protagonist reclaiming its space. The miniature constructions turn sealed glass terrariums into poetic battlegrounds between concrete and life, where living mosses and tiny plants slowly colonize the rigid surfaces, climbing through crevices and spilling over sharp lines. See more submissions by our readers here, and find out how to upload your own project here.
The weekly is an inside review curated by Sofia Lekka Angelopoulou.
