Ecca collection

AV College

Look at one side of the AV College Helsinki and you appear to be studying a pixellated image of ... well, you can’t tell what, and that is a deliberate strategy on the part of the architects. Ark-House Architects, also based in Helsinki, used six different off-the-shelf colours of prepainted metal to create an almost entirely windowless facade that makes reference to the digital techniques that are happening inside this college, dedicated to audiovisual education. The practice’s Pentti Kareoja says that they considered putting in a definite image, such as a face, but decided to leave it abstract – a wise decision. ‘Now people can find their own images,’ said Kareoja.

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Bilbao Arena

Architectural practice ACXT admits that local geology and vegetation were both influential in the design of the striking Bilbao Arena and Sports Centre, which occupies a steeply inclined site, within a park, in the city’s central Miribilla district.

Images courtesy of Jorge Allende and Aitor Ortiz

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ZuidWestHoek College

An outer shell of small, brightly coloured and vertically elongated rectangular steel panels lends a playful and appealing appearance to ZuidWestHoek College, a secondary school and sports college at Ossendrecht, a small town in the southern Netherlands, located only a few kilometres north of the Belgian border.

Products: Colorcoat HPS200 Ultra, various colours and Colorcoat Prisma in metallic colour Sirius

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