Based on the idea of resuse, the competition winning proposal for the Econtainer Bridge by Yoav Messer Architects will be the gateway to Arial Sharon park and will connect Lod road (route 461 which leads from east Tel Aviv to Bnei Atarot village) straight to Hiriya mountain in the center of the park. The 160-meter long bridge will be used by pedestrians, bicycle riders, and special vehicles that will function as shuttles to transport the public from the parking areas into the park itself. More images and architects’ description after the break.
From the recent information overload concerning Zaha Hadid’s Wangjing Soho being pirated in China, one might think that copying was a new phenomenon in architecture. Is this really that shocking or even worth mentioning?
It must be because, for the next few hundred words or so, I’m going to be mentioning it quite a bit. Copying can be a complicated issue. In Western culture, in particular, the status of the copy is fraught with contradictions. It is a problem that has existed since long before Walter Benjamin wrote about it in “The Work of Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction”.
Over a month has passed since the Sandy Hook tragedy. Its surviving students have gone back to school, albeit at another facility (decorated with old posters to make it feel familiar), and are working on putting this tragic event behind them. The nation is similarly moving on - but this time, with an eye to action.
The goal is obvious: to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again. The means, less so. While President Obama’s recent gun control policy offers some solutions, it’s by no means the only way. Indeed, opinions vary - from clamping down on gun control, to better addressing the root cause of mental illness, to even arming teachers in the classroom.
The design world has similarly contributed to the debate. A recent article in ArchRecord questioned how, in the wake of Sandy Hook, we should design our schools: “While fortress-like buildings with thick concrete walls, windows with bars, and special security vestibules may be more defensible than what is currently in vogue, they are hardly the kind of places that are optimal for learning.”Indeed, turning a school into a prison would be the design equivalent of giving a teacher a rifle. You would, of course, have a more “secure” environment - but at what cost?
As America and the world considers how we can move on after these traumas, I’d like to take a moment to consider what role design could play. If the answer is not to turn our schools into prisons, then what is? Can design help address the root causes of violence and make our schools less vulnerable to tragedy? If so, how?
Cook County, Illinois, recently brought the elimination of construction waste to a new level by creating the first demolition debris ordinance in the Midwest. This groundbreaking ordinance requires most of the debris created from demolition to be recycled and reused instead of being sent to the landfill. The ordinance helps contribute to Cook County’s zero waste goal, part of the Solid Waste Plan Update.
The new law states that at least 7 percent of suburban construction and demolition debris must be recycled, and an additional 5 percent must be reused on residential properties. This new legislation will have a great impact as it affects about 2.5 million suburban Cook County residents.
All professionally active individuals or legal persons such builders, architectural bureaus, local government, construction firms, or other companies are invited to submitted projects for the Architecture of Necessity 2013 Competition dated between 2010 and 2013, whether they have been built or not. The submitted material must include a short text describing the project in relation to the Architecture of Necessity, which espouses the values of being responsible, diligent, sustainable, just, and open. Entries should be submitted to Virserum Art Museum no later than February 15. For more information, please visit here.
Designed by United Design Group (UDG China), their proposal for the Contemporary Art Museum faces the main artery crossing the city of Jinan east to west. With the ambition to become the landmark of this urban sector, the first step of the process was to establish a relationship with the existing buildings; the main idea was to complete the sequence of boxes, maintaining the symmetry of the system. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Designed by NAAU for the Australian ‘Transiting Cities’ competition, their Cultured Landscape proposal examines generative strategies for re-purposing the region, which is currently a center of brown coal fired power production, into a center of clean energy research and development, sustainable agriculture and eco-tourism. Drawing on an analysis of the existing agglomeration of towns, roads, infrastructure, and social and cultural sites, the project is configured around a generative network that will act as a growth structure for the future development of the region. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The design proposal for NAAS Springs, a well-known wellness center and place of relaxation in Beirut, is formed by a series of walls projecting into nature. They alternate between large living spaces with roofs for residences and uncovered elongated spaces for the passages, which form an extension of nature. Designed by Hapsitus Architects, the architectural landscape is created in the spirit of water following down a sloped terrain. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Inspired by the school’s strong community spirit, C.F. Møller Architects’ first prize winning design for University of Southern Denmark’s student housing project includes 250 student residences that are located in three interconnected 14-storey buildings. This means that the residence has no front or back, but appears attractive from a 360-degree perspective. The building’s distinctive shape will make it easily recognizable on the campus, and clearly advertises its distinct residential content. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Inspired by the desert landscape, the design of Rock Stadium by MZ Architects celebrates the game it hosts as much as it celebrates the site in which it lays. Sunken 200,000sqm into the cooler depth of the desert sand, the Rock Stadium, like a hidden treasure, presents itself to the visitor as a series of sharply inclined planes emerging from the ground. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Entering their fifth cycle of the WDC (World Design Capital) initiative, Icsid (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) is currently calling for submissions of applications for the biennial designation, where a combination of many factors contributes to the final selection. Although applicants are encouraged to prepare a creative proposal for review, it is essential, that applications clearly define the aims and objectives of the city to hold the designation, as well as provide a detailed account of the city’s contribution to design from a social, economical and cultural point of view. More information after the break.
Austrian architectural office AllesWirdGut were recently commissioned to build the corporate headquarters of the international WAZ Media Group at their corporate home base in Essen, Germany. With a gross floor area of 36,000 sqm, the architects create a landmark and sustainable business model as shown in their future-oriented concept. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Phil Bernstein is a Vice President at Autodesk and teaches at Yale (see our interview with him here). This post, originally published in 2011 on his blog as "Winter Commencement," offers timeless advice for architecture students about to enter the job market.
As December now rolls around it's the eve of my last lecture in my professional practice class at Yale. Although I've been teaching for almost twenty-five years, I still can't believe how quickly the semester accelerates into Thanksgiving, and suddenly it's all over but the shouting (or, in our case, final projects and juries). About the same time as the term slammed to a closed I received a note from a student at Prarie View A&M, asking many of the existential questions that must be facing architecture students nearing their degrees. Seemed like a good time to speculate a bit about that future, and what this year's graduates might be facing as they confront the job market in the spring, with enough time between now and then to contemplate their options and plot their strategies, so here goes:
Read on to find out Phil Bernstein's 5 tips for future grads, after the break...
modeLab‘s upcoming webinar, Dynamic Behaviors in Processing, focuses on developing rich and responsive behaviors from scratch – think of bouncing balls, particle systems, or flocking boids – can be tricky without an object-oriented approach to our program design. Through a series of short presentations and “live” exercises, which takes place January 25 from 2:00pm-4:30pm EST, you will learn how to successfully structure and implement classes in Processing to create fun and dynamic object behaviors. To register, and for more information, please visit here.
Open now until February 21, the Atlas of an Irish City exhibition, hosted by the Irish Architecture Foundation at the Oonagh Young Gallery in Dublin, features an architectural survey of Galway and design projects that explore new ways to think about the future of the city by students of Studio Tom Emerson at the ETH Zurich. The exhibition is free and open to the public Wednesday-Friday 12pm-6pm. For more information, please visit here.
By Design is a two-day inaugural event taking place January 25-26 that aims to build a platform of innovation by engaging key stakeholders through the creative process. The event includes a speaker series and a design challenge at the newly constructed Harvard Innovation Lab, Harvard Business School, and the Graduate School of Design. With a focus to reframe the future of education, the model and structure of the conference allows participants to unpack tacit, hidden, and evident knowledge from each corner of the university, through simple yet uncommon dialogue between each school. More information after the break.
As part of Ajman University of Science & Technology‘s series of architecture workshops by architects and designers, Emilio Ambasz will be presenting the ‘Towards Green Buildings/Architecture for UAE?’ workshop. The event will take place at the Ajman University February 4-10. To register and for more information, please feel free to contact the workshop coordinator: Dr. Jihad Awad: Dr_jihadaa@yahoo.com, j.awad@ajman.ac.ae.
Opportunity. Challenge. Innovation. These words form the backbone of RMIT University (Melbourne Institute of Technology University) in Australia. Too often, architecture schools become enamored of the aesthetics in the field to the detriment of all else. Not so at RMIT. Here, the approach is an ideal combination of meaningful research with design solutions. The architecture program achieves this by teaching design skills based in their practical application and framed by social idealism and cross-disciplinary training.
Taking place January 23rd from 2:00pm-7:oopm EST, the Reyner Banham Symposium, ‘On Error’, focuses on how error can be many things. In its most common display, however, it is something we are taught to avoid. It is often characterized by mannerisms that were once trends but are now condemned or qualified by a lack of command over formal logic, material tolerances, construction techniques, and space planning, to name but a few. The accepted belief is that by avoiding error we promote progress. It seems only fitting to surrender to this logic as it is much easier to agree on what constitutes a mistake than it is to admit to a measure of success. The event is organized by the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning and will be held at the Darwin Martin House’s Greatbatch Pavilion. For more information, please visit here.
Wilmotte & Associés recently won the competition to design the 2018 FIFA World Cup Stadium in Kaliningra, Russia. Their design features an urban facade that wraps the stadium, consisting of a series of orthogonal screens that respond to the surrounding urban context. The project will be constructed from a primary steel structure, but the upper tier of the stadium will be temporary. The stadium has been designed so that after the tournament completes in 2018, the stands can be dismantled and the upper canopy can be removed. Construction of the 45,000 seat football stadium will begin in 2014. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Seen as geologic formations rising from the land, the design for the KAFD Men’s and Women’s Portal Spas by WORKSBUREAU form great shade porticos beneath long cantilevered masses. Located in two of the civic Attractor beacons of the dense urban King Abdullah Financial District of Riyadh, the project also forms the gateway to the masterplan, framing the main park as it flows into the Wadi pedestrian artery. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Recently destroyed by the 2010 Earthquake, Port-au-Prince’s new design for the National Cathedral is presented as an absolute plain wall of concrete which expresses the true character of the construction. Designed by NC-Office, the concrete material is not only structurally appropriate, but it also produces a somber cool space that absorbs light – forming an architecture of shadows. More images and architects’ description after the break.
We live in the world of a sad separation that began some five hundred years ago when art and science split apart. Scientists and technicians live in their own world, focusing mostly on the “how” of things. Others live in the world of appearances, using these things but not really understanding how they function. Just before this split occurred, it was the ideal of the Renaissance to combine these two forms of knowledge. This is why the work of Leonardo da Vinci continues to fascinate us, and why the Renaissance remains an ideal.
So why did Santiago Calatrava, now one of the world’s elite architects, decide to return to school in 1975 for a civil engineering degree after asserting himself as a promising young architect?
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