Taking place at RIBA in London November 23rd, the What’s Next in Workspaces? Designing with Change event includes a round table discussion by leading voices in the field of workspace design who will present and discuss their ideas on the future of work environments. Without a doubt, now is a time when organizations, companies and firms from all over the globe are radically reconsidering the way they will work in the future, trying to adapt to the new situations and challenges that they are facing and will face in the new millennium. The event takes place from 3pm-6pm and is being put on by the IE School of Architecture and Design. More information after the break.
AIA Cincinnati, in partnership with the Over-the-Rhine Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation, recently launched the LIVE MAKE Industrial Arts Center Cincinnati competition. They are calling for architectural proposals for a membership based facility that will feature private residences, maker-in-residence studios, light industrial studios and an open workshop that will help shape a new economic opportunity for the neighborhood. Proposals should realize the history of innovation and civic engagement of the surrounding community as inspiration for the next generation to develop innovative ways of making that can impact the neighborhood’s future. Submissions are due December 21 and all participants must register by December 6. To register and for more information, please visit here.
Sketchbook No. 76 is the reproduction of a sketchbook of the renowned Portuguese architect and last year’s Pritzker Prize laureate, Eduardo Souto de Moura. The sketchbook was in use between September 2011 and January 2012 and records first ideas, fleeting sketches, studies, and spontaneous jottings that offer a starting point for every project but also function as a working resource. One can quite litterally experience the architectural design process and how developing existing ideas are further developed in different variants. Sketchbook No. 76 is a homage to the medium of drawing and manifests that this working method remains an essential element of the creative process.
One of the final events at the Biennale Architettura is the Meetings on Architecture that will take place on November 24 at Teatro alle Tese, Arsenale. In the context of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition Common Ground, the aim is to explore together with the curator David Chipperfield, architects, scholars and critics the themes of the exhibition Common Ground and are addressed to the public of the Biennale Architettura made up, as well as professionals, by passionates, students and visitors of all ages, backgrounds and origins. Organized by la Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta, the ‘Grande meeting di chiusura’ event on this day will be an afternoon of round table discussions reviewing the intentions of the Exhibition and the reactions to Common Ground. For more information, please visit here.
The west side of midtown Manhattan is probably one of the more unexplored areas of New York City by residents and tourists alike. Aside from the Jacob Javits Center, and the different programs off of the Hudson River Parkway that runs parallel to the waterfront, there is very little reason to walk through this industry – and infrastructure – dominated expanse of land full of manufacturers, body shops, parking facilities and vacant lots. The NYC government and various agencies, aware of the lost potential of this area, began hatching plans in 2001 to develop this 48-block, 26-acre section, bound by 43rd Street to the North, 8th Ave to the East, 30th Street to the South and the West Side Highway to the West.
The new Hudson Yards, NYC’s largest development, will be a feat of collaboration between many agencies and designers. The result will be 26 million square feet of new office development, 20,000 units of housing, 2 million square feet of retail, and 3 million square feet of hotel space, mixed use development featuring cultural and parking uses, 12 acres of public open space, a new public school and an extension of a subway line the 7 that currently terminates at Times Square-42nd Street, reintroducing the otherwise infrastructurally isolated portion of the city back into the life of midtown Manhattan. All this for $800 million with up to $3 billion in public money.
Who will run the world for the next 100 years? Envision Solar President and CEO Desmond Wheatley argues that it will be whoever has abundant sources of power. That is constructive power, rather than destructive power, which is essential to run the information and technology industries that our world is entirely dependent on. Additionally, Wheatley states that energy equals water. And, with less than 1% of the world’s fresh water available for use, desalination is becoming an increasingly plausible solution. The only problem now is that energy is expensive. But, once cities have the will to switch over to renewables, that will no longer be an issue. Could you imagine San Diego as an net exporter of water? Desmond Wheatley can.
The Bisazza Foundation is currently exhibiting the site-specific architectural installation by Arik Levy, which will be on display until December 21 in Vicenza. Dedicated to the Israeli designer Arik Levy, with the title Experimental Growth, the exhibition comprises a structural modification to the architecture of the Foundation, a macroinstallation called Rock Chamber and a video created especially for the event, titled Virtual Truth. More images and information on the exhibition after the break.
The ‘Your Text Here’ participatory, site-specific light installation challenges the condition of the city constantly telling us what to do, what to think, and how to act. Using explicit visual language, a multiplicity of billboards, signs, images and symbols invade our public spaces in order to tell us something. The project by Marcos Zotes/UNSTABLE aims at empowering local communities by providing a tool that transforms people voices into citizen proclamations the size of buildings. You just submit an anonymous text message in a website through your mobile phone, and in turn it is automatically projected at large scale onto the façade of a building. More images and architect’s description after the break.
The proposal for the ‘Cinepalego’ Futuristic Cinema is an urban intervention, utilizing the vacant rooftop spaces in Kabukicho in order to create a network of mini-theaters that will spontaneously emerge and provide a variety of social spaces for people. Designed by Chansoo Byeon + Daichi Yamashita, the act of cinema going will be completely redefined, becoming seamlessly integrated into day-to-day life. Occupying the vacant space on the rooftop, the cinemas will also be closely integrated with the businesses underneath. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Taking place November 24-25, the Open House Thessaloniki 2012 event marks the first Open House event in Greece as a selection of architectural sites will be open to the public during that weekend. Celebrating the city’s architecture and design, the event aspires to expose the architectural treasures of this dynamic city, and make architecture accessible to all. Its aim is to contribute to the deeper understanding of urban design and public space, and enable all citizens and visitors to explore and understand the value of a well-designed built environment. Open House is a simple but powerful concept: showcasing outstanding architecture for all to experience, completely for free. For more information, please visit here.
It’s been nearly twelve years since visitors first experienced the emotionally charged design of Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin. Since then, the museum has become an world-renowned icon whose public and education programs have more than doubled in size. With an ever-expanding archive and library, it was decided the museum should be supplemented by an additional facility.
Today, alongside museum officials, Daniel Libeskind celebrates the opening of the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin. The facility was created from a former Berlin Flower Market (Blumengrossmarkt), whose shell undergirds the new structure. It’s 25,000 square foot, one story space now houses a library, archives and education center, along with additional office, storage and support space.
A sneak peak and the architects’ description after the break…
Located in one of the most distinguished locations in Copenhagen, the second prize winning proposal for the Sølund Retirement Community by Henning Larsen Architects is designed as one large, continuous building block. Their design engages in close dialogue with the surrounding buildings and creates simple, easily accessible spatialities – both on the inside and on the outside. Also including a new daycare center, the project incorporates the qualities of the residents’ previous homes in a new retirement community based on worthiness and well-being, safety and social relations. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Currently lacking an architectural identity capable of signaling the actual moment of the country, the second prize winning proposal for the reconstruction of the Conference Center provides a new image in Libreville, Gabon. The design by PPMS Arquitetos Associados involves the existing building with a circular translucent skin, made of ultra resistance concrete slabs, a material capable of thermally protecting the construction from the heat prevailing in the region. More images and architects’ description after the break.
MAD Architects just unveiled plans for a high-density village near the Huangshan Mountains (Yellow Mountain) in Anhui Province, central China. The low-rise residences echo the contours of the surrounding topography and offer unequalled access to one of China’s most famous landscapes. Their design affirms the inherent significance of this landscape. Composed in deference to the local topography, the village provides housing, a hotel and communal amenities organized in a linked configuration across the southern slope of Taiping Lake. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Located in a forested area of Brasschaat, Belgium, the competition winning proposal for the Officierenwijk Residential Zone consists of 23 single-family houses, of which 17 can be classified as social housing and 6 as affordable housing. Designed by META Architectuurbureau, the different dwellings form, both on a functional as well as aesthetic level, a coherent whole with the façade playing an integral role to achieve this. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In honor of Rem Koolhaas' birthday today, we are printing a fascinating piece on his life and work written by Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic for The New York Times from 2004-2011.
Rem Koolhaas has been causing trouble in the world of architecture since his student days in London in the early 1970s. Architects want to build, and as they age most are willing to tone down their work if it will land them a juicy commission. But Koolhaas, 67, has remained a first-rate provocateur who, even in our conservative times, just can’t seem to behave. His China Central Television headquarters building, completed this past May, was described by some critics as a cynical work of propaganda and by others (including this one) as a masterpiece. Earlier projects have alternately awed and infuriated those who have followed his career, including a proposal to transform part of the Museum of Modern Art into a kind of ministry of self-promotion called MoMA Inc. (rejected) and an addition to the Whitney Museum of American Art that would loom over the existing landmark building like a cat pawing a ball of yarn (dropped).
Koolhaas’ habit of shaking up established conventions has made him one of the most influential architects of his generation. A disproportionate number of the profession’s rising stars, including Winy Maas of the Dutch firm MVRDV and Bjarke Ingels of the Copenhagen-based BIG, did stints in his office. Architects dig through his books looking for ideas; students all over the world emulate him. The attraction lies, in part, in his ability to keep us off balance. Unlike other architects of his stature, such as Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid, who have continued to refine their singular aesthetic visions over long careers, Koolhaas works like a conceptual artist—able to draw on a seemingly endless reservoir of ideas.
In honor of Rem Koolhaas’ birthday today, we are bringing you all things Koolhaas: 14 Fun Koolhass quotes; a fabulous article by former New York Times critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff; this ArchDaily original editorial; and, later today, a Round-Up of all of OMA's latest works. Stay tuned!
Imagine London, but not the way you know it. Imagine it physically separated, much like Berlin once was, into two zones: one of pleasure and one of practicality. Consider how the city would eventually appear as inhabitants rushed to the pleasure zone; how the zone of practicality would eventually, inevitably become bereft.
This is the London of a young Rem Koolhaas’ imaginings, written for his Thesis at the Architectural Association School in London in the late 60s. Before Delirious New York, before OMA, and much before the CCTV Tower, Koolhaas was inspired by this idea of the divided city - and it’s a fitting image to start thinking about the ever provocative, often controversial Rem: a man who stands with one foot in the world of desire and the other, reluctantly, in that of practicality; a man who would perhaps prefer the title of urban thinker, despite clearly being one of architecture’s great masters.
It’s exactly this in-between-ness, this reluctance to fit into one supposed role, that has been Koolhaas’ greatest asset, that has allowed him to approach the profession from such unlikely angles. Using the city’s freedoms as his inspiration, and rejecting as given the expectations of what architecture is(even questioning its relevance at all), Koolhass, the “reluctant architect,” is also the most radical of our time, and the most vital for our future.
With the challenge of creating a new landmark on a floating platform, the ‘U-Topos’ proposal for the Faliro pier competition proposes a constructed “place”, a new “Land-” and a new “-mark”. Designed by Ksestudio, in an attempt to optimize climatic conditions, views and generate events, while developing an iconic identity, their project bends the given square platform to a “U” shape. The design is essentially a shell, an empty vessel, that frames the view towards the city and the sea, while signifying a gate, as small boats are allowed to park at the perimeter of the platform. More images and architects’ description after the break.
As we announced in early October, British powerhouse Foster + Partners have been declared as winner of the six-month long, all-star competition to design the next “landmark” high rise on the prime site of 425 Park Avenue in New York City. The tapered, steel-frame office tower is planned to rise 687 feet to claim a spot on the New York City skyline by 2017. Upon competition, the world-class high rise is expected to achieve LEED Gold status and serve as an exemplar for sustainable office design.
Foster’s concept succeeded visions from Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers (view all the proposals here). Construction is expected to begin in 2015, shortly after the completion of Foster’s first U.S. residential high rise, which broke ground this week in New York.
Cook County Judge Neil Cohen has granted Bertand Goldberg’s Prentice Woman’s Hospital a temporary reprieve after preservationist filed a lawsuit against the city and the Chicago Commission on Public Landmarks yesterday afternoon. Plaintiffs, Landmarks Illinois and the National Trust for Historic Preservation claim that the commission “acted arbitrarily and exceeded its authority,” after granting and subsequently revoking Prentice landmark status in just a short afternoon on November 1. These proceedings, which typically takes months, followed Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to publicly support Northwestern University’s plan to demolish the vacant icon.
Nabito Architects + ACTAR shared with us their design proposal for the “Les Portes de Collserola” international competition held by the government of Barcelona. As a finalist, the architects were challenged to create an ambitious strategical plan to regenerate the entire Park of Coillserola in the North of the city. The architects were then selected to take part in the 4B door called: ‘LES PLANES IN-PARK UNA PORTA, VÀRIES CLAUS’. The Project is a Master plan for the re-interpretation of one of the doors from Collserola Mountain going into the city of Barcelona. It is a space in between a complex superposition of different elements: urban, natural, rural and infrastructural. The perfect mix to ordinate the territory for a contemporary project. More images and architects’ description after the break.
