The Singapore "Changi Airport", which was named the world's best airport in 2014, started construction of new terminal. Known as "Project Jewel", the new terminal is going to recreate nature. Airport, relax and comfort are three words destined never to sit next to each other in the same sentence, but looking forward at the plans for this new terminal that could soon change. According to project authors in 2018 visitors can enjoy new little "paradise" in airport. The massive donut-like structure, constructed from steel-and-grass will be 10 stories, five above ground and five underground. Jewel Chandi's centerpiece will be Forest Valley, a five story garden with thousand of trees, ferns and shrubs. In the middle of the forest, will be the 40-meter-high Rain Vortex. On completion, it'll be the world's tallest indoor waterfall, according to the airport. At the night, the Rain Vortex will transform into a light and sound show. In the US$ 1.1 billion terminal will be 130-room-hotel, for visitors and passengers, retail areas, game-zone, restaurants and so on.

After thirteen years as the world's premier Internet Search Engine, Google has finally decided to get its own address. The company has hired a German architecture firm to undertake construction of its own office. With plans to add over 6,000 new employees just in 2011 alone, Google is in massive need of some new space. For over a decade, Google has leased its offices in Northern California, spread out between 65 different buildings in the Mountain View area. That number is more than double what it was in 2005, and the company expects to grow even more in the coming years as it makes dramatic staff increases. According to Mercury News, Google announced this week it plans to build its brand new headquarters on a property in Mountain View, California south of Palo Alto near the Moffett Federal Airfield. The Mountain View City Council approved the deal in late March, and Google is expected to make the $30 million upfront payment in June for a lease that will run for 53 years on half of the 18.6-acre city-owned site. Mountain View and Google had reached an agreement in 2007 to lease the other 9.2 acres, with Google paying an initial rent of $1.1 million a year. The two deals collectively allow Google to develop up to 595,000 square feet of office and research and development space. German firm Ingenhoven Architects, renowned for their large-scale environmentally-friendly projects and unique aesthetics, will reportedly design Google's new structure. Ingenhoven has designed buildings in Europe, Asia and Australia, including a tubular glass and steel structure for the new European Investment Bank headquarters in Luxembourg and a new zero-emission railway station in Stuttgart, Germany, that will require no heating, cooling or mechanical ventilation. "We've asked them to build the most green, sustainable building possible," a spokesman for Google told Mercury News. Google is not sharing any details, but city officials said preliminary plans could be filed later this month, with construction starting as early as 2012.

Architect: PAUL KALOUSTIAN ARCHITECT Client: COAF (Children of Armenia Fund) Location: Armenia – Lori Province Built-up Area: 5000 m2 Date of completion: 2018 Team Leader: Shoghag Ohannessian Structure: Tigran Khachiyan Electro-Mechanical:Roupen & Seta Mangassarian Local Team:Urban Unit Glass:Schuco Lighting:Trilux The SMART campus is a vessel for empowerment to anchor our youth in their ancestral lands where they can live prosperous lives. At the same time, it is a portal that connects them out so they keep pace with the advancements around the globe. The building as a whole had to embody these various aspects. This contemporary structure is a step towards proving that we can improve living conditions and uplift our communities. The architecture is a hymn to the landscape, the land of Armenia. The Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) plans to expand their community works with the SMART initiative. The aim is to deliver superior and regionally-relevant educational, social, economical and community programs in rural areas with an emphasis on technology, sustainability, arts, music, modern healthcare and lifestyle, linguistics and languages, business and civic engagement. SMART is to operate on enhanced programs developed by COAF based on models which have charted success in 22 different villages in Armavir and Aragatsotn regions of Armenia over the past decade. Targeting the rural regions, these campuses will respect the integrity of rural aesthetics in sync with contemporary architectural design, maintaining the authenticity of the region, while encouraging progressive ideology. Each campus will utilize sustainable and green design, off the grid components and renewable energy. They will have classrooms, health posts, studios, computer lounges, meeting points, an auditorium for performances and presentations, libraries, restaurants and various spaces for diverse indoor and outdoor activities varying from sports to entertainments and arts to agriculture and diverse other workshops to train and enable developing children, youths and adults alike. The campuses would also accommodate program participants and visiting collaborators in its guest quarters. The first Smart Center campus is located in the northern Armenian province of Lori. Lori province, Armenia. The landscape dominates the senses of all who pass through the corridors of the highlands. Stands of trees punctuate the hillsides and somehow turn into the landmarks of the countryside. It was inevitable to follow the language that already existed: mark the valley with a smooth organic presence adapted to the landscape mimicking the act of the tree groups. At the same time, this presence had to have its own identity to differentiate it from the rest and to make it a legitimate landmark in its own right within the stands of trees. However, instead of choosing to emphasize the architecture as the landmark, the landscape was to be the landmark. To achieve this, the structure of the architecture embraces the landscape by creating a sinuous ribbon-like walkway around an immense courtyard. The single storey building spreads horizontally following the shape of the land. In so doing, the architecture of the campus establishes a new reading of nature and structure creating an ambiguity between itself and its surroundings. It generates an environment, as opposed to generating a building, where the embraced landscape becomes a celebration of the rural environment. The visitor arrives to the main building, an inviting sheltered concave space. They enter into an enclosure that opens out to a new space bathing in light. The immense courtyard beyond the clear glass seems an extension of the interior. The volume slowly thins out and disintegrates into an open-air walkway around the courtyard. While from the enclosure the landscape seems to be part of the interior, from the courtyard, the immense size of the landscape dwarfs the structure. Beyond the main structure of the campus a sheer wall nestled in the descending landscape marks the entrance to a guests' house. The sheer wall takes volume when the visitor enters through the gate. In turn, the volume shatters itself into an extension towards the landscape that unravels beyond its long-glazed facade. In this same way, amenities punctuate the landscape of the campus as small, seamless cylindrical enclosures that hide within them extensions to immense outdoor spaces. This contradictive play of scale between landscape and building, blurs all the visual boundaries. The blend becomes an essential architectural language meant to erase the traces of architecture from the landscape and in return the landscape adopts the architecture as an extension of itself. About COAF: Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) is a non-profit, non-governmental 501(c) (3) organization. COAF uses community-led approaches to reduce rural poverty, with a particular focus on youth. Since the inception of its programs in 2004, COAF has funded and implemented educational, healthcare, community and economic development programs serving more than 28.000 people in rural villages of Armenia. In 2015, COAF debuted SMART, an unprecedented model for delivering superior and regionally relevant holistic educational programs in rural areas with an emphasis on technology, sustainability, the arts, health, linguistics, business and civic engagement. Learn more at www.coafkids.org About PAUL KALOUSTIAN: Paul Kaloustian Studio is a Beirut based Architecture practice working on different scaled projects ranging from buildings to interiors. He received his Masters at Harvard Graduate School of Design (1999) and worked at Herzog and de Meuron in Basel (2000). Paul has taught at the Boston Architecture Center (2000) and at the American University of Beirut (2009-10). He received the Moukbel Award and the Order of Engineers and Architects Award. His project “House in a Forest” was exhibited at the13th Venice Biennale and at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and in London in the exhibition “Atlas of the Unbuilt World”. His project, “Smart Center”, currently under construction has been exhibited in the 15th Venice Biennale. Recently, he has been awarded the 3rd Prize for the international competition, the New Cyprus Museum in Nicosia. His work has been extensively published in the international press.