Mexican architect Fernando Romero will be speaking tomorrow evening, January 16, at NewSchool of Architecture and Design in San Diego on the topic of “You are the Context” as part of the school’s lecture series. Free and open to the public, the event focuses on how we must reconsider the definition of context as it pertains to architecture as the global reach of projects increases through digital communication. Named to Fast Company’s Co.Design “Designers Shaping the Future” 2012, his recent Soumaya Museum in Mexico City is described by CNN’s Great Buildings series as “jaw-dropping.” For more information, please visit here.
Finalists of AECOM’s fourth annual Urban SOS student competition have been announced! Understanding that this rapidly globalizing world is currently undergoing mass migrations, geo-political shifts and new patterns of commerce, which enhance the role of cities as the stage sets for these massive changes, Urban SOS challenges design, architecture, landscape, planning, engineering and environmental studies students to address a specific brief around urban sites in distress with an implementable architectural intervention that is grounded in a truly cross-disciplinary response.
This year, the competition identified ‘Frontiers’ as the driving theme of the Urban SOS competition. The challenge attracted hundreds of student teams representing universities in more than 60 countries. Three finalist teams have been selected after a series of internal judging sessions involving AECOM designers, planners and engineers around the world. Now, these finalists will present their ideas tomorrow, January 16, at a free event in New York’s Center for Architecture (RSVP here!). Continue reading for more details.
Two key events are coming up at SCI-Arc this month starting with the ‘Dwayne Oyler & Jenny Wu: Lineworks’ lecture which takes place tomorrow, January 16, at the W.M. Keck Lecture Hall at 7pm PST. Established in Los Angeles in 2004, Oyler Wu Collaborative, ‘has utilized the last five years to establish a way of working that is committed to experimentation through a relentless hands-on approach to our work’. Also, starting January 18 until March 3, the ‘Marcelyn Gow + Ulrika Karlsson: AQUEOTROPE’ exhibition focuses on materializing the mathematical, the exact translation of virtual instructions in the form of drawings or codes to their material actualization, is a fundamental procedure in the production of architecture. For more information on the events, please visit here.
Brad Feinknopf, a nationally recognized architectural photographer, kindly shared with us his recent photographic work on Zaha Hadid‘s Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Known for his traditional, yet cutting edge approach to photography, his quality work here emphasizes the unique exterior and interior spaces of the building created by Hadid’s investigation into the lines of circulation and visual connections. Photographed during the day and night, he also captures its interface between city and campus. Additional images by Feinknopf can be viewed after the break.
Located in the heart of Jerusalem, next to Israel’s government assembly building, the second prize winning proposal in the Jerusalem Museum of Nature & Science competition creates a vibrant flexible building that integrates seamlessly into the landscape and urban setting. Designed by MYS Architects, their design approach was sustainability driven from the get go. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected the 2013 recipients of the Institute Honor Awards, the profession’s highest recognition of works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interior architecture and urban design. Selected from over 700 total submissions, 28 recipients located throughout the world will be honored at the AIA 2013 National Convention and Design Exposition in Denver.
Top honors in architecture were awarded to the following:
Rising from the reclaimed salt pan and polluted tide flats of Bohai Bay, China, a new city designed for 350,000 inhabitants is being constructed from scratch. The ambitious project is being realized as a collaboration between the governments of Singapore and China with an overarching goal of becoming a poster-city for state-of-the-art sustainable aspects.
With nearly a third of this new “Eco-City” of Tianjin built and substantial completion projected for 2020, the internationally renowned practice Steven Holl Architects has been commissioned to design the first two buildings in the city’s cultural district: the Tianjin Ecocity Ecology and Planning Museums. Like the Chinese “Bau Gua” or “Yin Yang,” these forms are in reverse relations, as the Ecology Museum is the “additive” complement to the “subtractive” space of the Planning Museum.
Located in the center of the business zone in the Jangbeizui District of Chongquig, China, the office building proposal by United Design Group will service the business zone, promote the business condition, enrich the functions of the center, and become the fresh blood of the district. The considerations about the surroundings have been mostly centered on the orientation of the other projects (already under construction) and by the presence of a linear park that will connect the site with the water front where the Chongqing Grand Theatre is located. More images and architects’ description after the break.
modeLab‘s videos from both Introduction to Processing and Algorithmic Design in Grasshopper webinars are now posted online. The Introduction to Processing webinar covered the basics of writing programs in Processing’s Java-based syntax as well as developing user influenced behaviors. The Algorithmic Design in Grasshopper webinar focused on creating algorithms using lists and transformations in Grasshopper. To view these videos, and all 10 courses they launched last year, which is comprised of 125 videos, please visit here.
Located in Latrobe Valley in South East Australia, the ‘Fields on Synergy’ proposal is an integral brown field strategy which aims at providing a unique opportunity to create outstanding future by combining, re-cycling, and cascading transiting territories. Designed by PUPA (Public Urbanism Personal Architecture), their concept received honorable mention in the Transiting Cities international design ideas competition in Australia. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The 2013 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship has recently been launched and is inviting applications from schools of architecture around the world. Proposals for research might include: learning from the past to inform the future; the future of society; the density of settlements; sustainability; the use of resources; the quality of urban life; and transport. A £6,000 grant will be awarded to one student by a panel of judges which includes Lord Foster and the President of the RIBA. The deadline for submissions is Friday, April 26. For more information, please visit here.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) today announced a five-point legislative agenda for the 113th Congress, targeting job creation for small businesses as a top priority. The agenda is the product of months of collaboration and dialogue with AIA members and leaders. More than 3,400 AIA members offered their views about what policies the AIA should advance through the annual Call for Issues last fall.
According to Mickey Jacob, FAIA, 2013 AIA President, the AIA’s agenda “reflects the interests of our members, which not so coincidentally reflects the priorities of the American people. These five priorities for the next two years have the creation of jobs as their centerpiece while also seeking to shore up our aging infrastructure, make our communities more resilient and assure we invest in the next generation of architects.”
The formal strategy in the design for the Innovative Bioclimatic European School by Atelier3AM, which won the third prize in the international competition, is based on the strong contrast of materials, and propelled by the duality of opaque/transparent. Inspired by the courtyard typology, their design creates a cluster of three separate courtyard buildings defining each educational unit, and connected by a central square. This objective was confronted by the physical site constraints, as well as by opportunities presented by sensible solar orientation and the channeling of the predominant winds. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Monash University Department of Architecture, in collaboration with architecture and engineering practices, Rintala Eggertsson, Grimshaw, and Felicetti, shared with us their Sealight Pavilion project which can be found at the Melbourne Docklands in Australia. The aim of the project is to amplify the natural phenomena of sea and sky, while offering a place to meet, to escape the elements, or simply to witness the passage of time, which it has been doing for about a year now. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Designed by Dissing & Weitling, WE Architectureand TOPOS landscape architects, the starting point of their design process was the contrast between the buildings along the avenue and the outlying ones. The new 20,000 m2 housing typologies range from the linear residential development on the Ratzeburg Avenue through town house villas with communities to row houses. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Unique among architecture prizes with its focus on early-career architects, the Wheelwright Prize, recently launched by Harvard Graduate School of Design, is a $100,000 traveling fellowship awarded annually for exceptional itineraries in research and discovery. Recognizing the importance of field research to professional development, the prize reinforces the school’s dedication to fostering investigative approaches to contemporary design. Applications are currently being accepted until February 28. For more information, please visit here.
Jonas Eliasson, Director of the Centre for Transport Studies at Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), takes a stab at one of the largest problems in big cities: traffic congestion. In this TEDx, Eliasson discusses techniques that urban planners and policy makers can use to help mediate the problems caused by rush hour commutes by car. Contrary to most other suggestions we see, Eliasson’s solution does not involve any plans to widen sidewalks, encourage public transportation and create bike lanes; rather, this suggestion is more policy oriented.
With plans to become the world’s tallest building at about 3645 feet, the Azerbaijan Tower is being built on a series of artificial islands, the Khazar Islands, in the Caspian Sea 16 miles south of Baku, Azerbaijan. Avesta Group, the company behind the project, is expecting to have the skyscraper completed by 2019 at an estimated cost of $2 billion. With 189 floors, it is expected to surpass the the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai and Saudi Arabia’s proposed 3280 foot Kingdom Tower. More images can be viewed after the break.
Located on the former site on an old outdoor amphitheatre in Bratislava, Slovakia, the proposal for the housing and mixed use development, which won the first prize in the Parkhill competition, offers spectacular views and close proximity to one of the city’s oldest parks. Designed by Nice Architects, their challenge on the 52,000 m2 site was to create intensive residential development with public services located in the lower part of the site. The final composition of the buildings becomes a small reminiscence of the former amphitheatre. More images and architects’ description after the break.
CEBRA has gained the support of The Danish Foundation for Culture and Sport Facilities (LOA) for the realization of a new home for Denmark’s Sport Fishing Association in Vingsted, Denmark. The 5,489 sq.ft. project will accommodate the association’s administration as well as an activity center for sports fishermen and other visitors to the beautiful surroundings in the Vejle brook valley. More images and architects’ description after the break.
With the city of Zhangjiagang, China lacking their own identity, Gras Arquitectos aims to create a presence and scale with their Tangram Theatre, which won the second prize in the international competition. This mutual need can enable the creation of a new urban icon, an item that addresses a new identity to the city. Historically, the icon of Chinese cities is the pagoda: from the forbidden city to the unknown monument in rural China. The architects intend to create a theatre that becomes a sort of pagoda, icon for the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Situ Studio has been selected from eight competitors as winner of the fifth annual Times Square Valentine Heart Design, cosponsored by Times Square Arts, the public art program of the Times Square Alliance, along with Design Trust for Public Space. The young, Brooklyn-based practice won the jury over with their Heartwalk proposal made of New York and New Jersey boardwalk boards that were salvaged from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
The installation will be unveiled on Tuesday, February 12, 2013, and remain on view until March 8, 2013.
Learn more about Situ Studio’s winning proposal after the break.
After a intensive, 14-year preservation battle, the fate of Richard Neutra‘s mid-century Cyclorama Center in Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg National Military Park has been sealed. Yesterday, the National Park Service confirmed their plans to demolish the modernist structure and restore the site to its original 1863 appearance just in time for the 150th anniversary commemoration of the battle. It is a victory for Civil War purists and a loss for 20th century architecture advocates.
As we announced last September, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia directed the park service to conduct an environmental analysis on the demolition and to consider “non-demolition alternatives” such as moving the structure or leaving part of it intact. Following the release of a 200-page analysis, the park confirmed that the service had “no need for the continued use of the building” and that it “conflicted with the overall goals of the park.”
