Ecca collection

Residential Project Praam

While its clean, rectilinear profile and abundant glazing, the Praam residential building is very much what one might expect of IJburg, an artificial archipelago on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Designed by Eindhoven-based architects Marx & Steketee, the Praam is part of a rather old-fashioned and surprisingly intimate style of urban development.

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Copenhagen aquarium "The Blue Planet"

Inspired “by the shape of water in endless motion”, Denmark’s new national aquarium, the Blue Planet, is northern Europe’s largest and most modern.

The whirlpool concept on which this unusual edifice originates is, according to Copenhagen-based architectural practice 3XN: “in a narrative about water, and as an image, is at once both abstract and figurative”. The practice also cites shoals of fish and swirling starlings for influencing the vortex-like form of the building.

Images courtesy of Adam Mõrk

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HiLASE

The futuristic HiLASE Centre in the Czech village of Dolní Brežany, to the west of Prague, has been built to house the DiPOLE, a diode-pumped solid state laser (DPSSL) developed to help scientists expand the use of laser technology, and which its Anglo-Czech owners hope will justify a €33m (£24m) investment from the European Commission.

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