The Hungarian Pavilion for the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale presents a “forest” of white architectural models as a tribute to the common process and existence of this important subject within the profession. With an understanding that the model is where an architectural concept is first realized, the exhibition creates “sacred atmosphere” by placing 500, student fabricated models on top a pedestal.
Architects: Cook + Fox Architects Location: Brooklyn, NY Project Name: The Hegeman Client: Common Ground Comunities Completion: 2012 Size: 64,469 SF
Ever wonder how you could have the ability to replicate the historic ‘Italianate’ buildings without having to be artistically skilled? Well, all you need is a set of Paper Neighborhood Stamps. Twenty-one pieces make up the collection of wood and rubber branding objects that can be used after their simple depression against an ink pad. Steam Whistle Brand delivers this Cincinnati Society of Rubber Architects kit, comprising individual components of civic and residential structures—more specifically, ‘Italianate Trappings.’ Cornices, friezes, dentils, columns, round-headed and bracketed hood windows, decorative capitals, doors, arches and ornaments enable you to build your own classically inspired edifice in your notebook. Text courtesy of Amelia Roblin on trendhunter.com.
To celebrate the 150 year anniversary of the Utility and Amenities Company of the city of Zweibrücken, Germany, the company decided to donate a roundabout to the city which was to deal with the present and the future of Zweibrücken and the company itself. Located at the point dominated by advertising, commercial buildings and an enormous amount of tall lighting masts, Molter-Linnemann Architekten was asked to design the third, last roundabout, aka “the roundabout at the movies”. Just as at the time of the movies creation, when traffic began to dominate the environment, today again we are facing chances that will shape our world anew. To make this new condition visible, the architects wanted the design to be larger-than-life, similar to the portrayal of Tatis “modern world”. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Inspired by a reaction to the tsunami, the proposal for the Istanbul Disaster Prevention and Education Center is symbolically and practically rising above the streams. Designed by CRAB, the studio of Sir Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham, the building sits with its blades resting into the ground, ready to divide the streams of water if and when they come. Organized as a series of five clusters, it meanders along the site as a chain of events and somewhat in the manner of a chain of flowers. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Luis Carli and Rafael Passarelli developed an interdisciplinary work between wooden architecture and information design through their research on wood dimensional changes. Known by many, especially in the field of architecture, construction, and design, most of the challenges of utilizing wood involve an understanding of wood-moisture relationships and its influence in wood properties. With this in mind, their work intends to provide a more comprehensive form for visualizing how different climate conditions influence different wood species regarding their dimensional stability. This also aims to provide a design tool for most wood-workers (from architects to cabinet-makers) that could quickly estimate the behavior of some wood species in a specific location along the year and, then, implement necessary design modifications in order to accommodate dimensional changes. More images and their description after the break.
Architects: Molter-Linnemann Architects Location: Kaiserslautern, Germany Photographs: Courtesy of Molter-Linnemann Architekten, Michael Heinrich, Christian Koehler
The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) will host the exhibition Louis Kahn, The Power of Architecture from September 8 to January 6, 2012. Louis Kahn is known to be one of the most influential architects of the 20th century and has inspired generations with his masterful use of space, light and material.
Designers around the world are carving out opportunities for new kinds of engagement, new kinds of collaboration, new kinds of design outcomes, and new kinds of practice; overturning the inherited assumptions of the design professions. Seventeen conversations with practitioners from the fields of architecture, policy, activism, design, education, research, history, community engagement and more, each representing an emergent role for designers to occupy. Whether the “civic entrepreneur,” the “double agent,” or the “strategic designer,” this book offers a diverse spectrum of approaches to design, each offering a potential future for architectural practice.
Architects: Guido Costantino Location: Oakville, Canada Designer: Guido Costantino Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Domenica Rodà
The student led humanitarian initiative ‘Build Our Nation’ has begun a two-week workshop as part of the Biennale Sessions 13th International Architecture Exhibition. Through workshops and events students are collaborating to explore and experiment with ideas, discuss and connect internationally, and build an empathy and awareness for altruistic design issues. Sixty students from four Universities – Robert Gordon University (Scotland), Milano Politecnico (Italy), Universitat Roviravigili Reus (Spain) and ETSAB (Spain) – have made their way to Venice to take part in the 4th Stage of the project. Situated in the Arsenale, between the Italian pavilion and the Chinese Pavilion, the workshop will invite the public to walk through and interact with the students as they work towards the culmination of one and a half years collaboration. Focusing on the research areas of non-verbal communication, social characteristics of a participatory project and the technical aspects of a self-build project for women.
Architect: Dok Architecten: Liesbeth van der Pol, Jan Jaap Roeten, Sonja Müller, Ellen Wolse, Christina Patz, Mirthe Kooy, Ieke Koning Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Programme: Museum, Library, Restaurant and Retail Facilities Client: Rijksgebouwendienst, Haarlem Construction Costs: €28.000.000 miljoen Dome Design and Construction: Ney & Partners, Brussels (BE): Laurent Ney, Eric Bodarwé, Kenny Verbeeck and others Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Arjen Schmitz photographer
In an article published by the New York Times, Philip Nobel laments the time taken to construct architecture. As architects, we have the passion to shape space and craft environments. For most, that translates into physically constructing such visions, but the path from drawing board (or computer screen) to realization is often times a long and arduous path.
In the past few years, such difficult financial times have challenged architects to fight for their buildings; namely, asking the designer to find ways to make the buildings work – whether with a changed material palette, smaller footprint, or shortened height. Yet, apart from finances, we’ve also reported dozens of projects which narrowly clear other obstacles, such as attaining community consent. And, of course, we have seen scores of great awarded competition proposals that do not incur the same luck, and slowly dwindle to non-existence.
One of our favorite parts of ArchDaily is our InProgress section, where we keep track of the progression of the original architectural vision through actuality. After the break, we share a few projects that haven’t had the most direct route through completion. Let us know in the comments below your thoughts on which project you’ve been waiting to see complete.
It’s official. The iPhone 5 will be unveiled on September 12th. While we all anxiously await to find out what it will be like (rumors include a longer screen, two tone color, and redesigned earbuds) - we at ArchDaily are wondering what it will mean for Architects around the world.
Text and photographs: Jaakko van ‘t Spijker
As opposed to what certain critics and commentators have suggested about the opening week, they actually were there, the exhibitors with sociopolitical engagement asking relevant questions, at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale opening. What was lacking, however, were outspoken conclusions; the risky and exciting part of taking position after having made interesting observations. Where were the architectural mavericks, the polemical daredevils and provocateurs, to stir up and the debate and bring it further? It was in the Japanese pavilion that questions were asked as well as answered.
Designed by AVP Arhitekti + Sangrad, the intention for the World Football Museum ‘Crystal Ball’ is to reaffirm Qatar’s worldwide position through a landmark to become a symbol of future architectural design. As a standard within the sustainability and energy renewable field, they take advantage of the natural resources and latest technology in structural design, façade materials and functionality of the whole development. This results in low energy consumption and aims for a zero-carbon emission solution. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Curated by Vladimir Belogolovsky, the ‘Harry Seidler: Architecture, Art and Collaborative Design’ travelling exhibition will be starting its world tour October 4 in Tallinn, Estonia and will then travel to 6 more places in Europe, North America, and Australia until mid-January 2015. Celebrating the ninetieth anniversary of the birth of Harry Seidler, the first leading Australian architect to fully express Bauhaus principles of the twentieth century, the exhibition identifies his distinctive place and hand within and beyond modernist design methodology. The fifteen featured projects—five houses and five towers in Sydney, and five major commissions beyond Sydney—focus on Seidler’s lifelong creative collaborations, a pursuit he directly inherited from Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, with progressive artistic visionaries. For more information, including all dates and venues, please visit here.
The design for the Axiom Town Headquarter Complex by MBAD Arquitectos + X Architects aims to have good urban quality, a young and smart-casual feel, an outstanding look, and an innovative solution to all functional and operational objectives. In order to achieve these desired workspace qualities, the concept includes integrating the landscape with the building and blurring the edge between the interior and the exterior. The architectural edge becomes an active edge not only between the immediate interior and exterior of the building, but also between the interior and the created exterior space within the building while also forming the program spaces. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The sophisticated designs by Terunobu Fujimori (1946) are fascinating: archaic, eccentric, poetic, and ecological, almost all of them are made of simple, traditional materials such as earth, stone, wood, coal, bark, and mortar. His architecture appeals to primordial instincts, promising warmth and protection. His structures serve as role models for a generation of young international architects who value a mode of building that is ecological, historically aware, and sustainable.
As a contribution to the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, Noero Architects showcase two powerful works of art in their exhibition Common Ground / Different Worlds to reveal that architects, and artists alike, work to reinterpret, reinvent and transform preexisting ideas and forms. However, Jo Noero, Principle of Noero Architects, believes that the “difference between good and bad work lies in an understanding of that which is shared and common and the ability to transform these ideas into forms and spaces which are both useful and satisfying within the community in which the work is located.”
Noero spent six months hand drawing a 1:100 plan of the historic shack settlement in Port Elizabeth, known as the Red Location District, as a protest against contemporary architecture’s abandonment of the plan, which Noero describes as the common ground for all architects. Featured alongside the 9m-long drawing is the artwork Keiskamma Guernica, a tapestry made by fifty women from the Hamburg Women’s Co-operative from the Eastern Cape that reinterprets Picasso’s Guernica to illustrate their anger towards AIDS/HIV’s impact on South Africa. The featured film above, titled “Red Location Precinct”, supplements the exhibition by revealing the surrounding context of the district and taking viewers inside the Museum of Struggle, the digital library, an archive and an art gallery that are all part of a complex, designed by Noero Architects, that honors the settlement’s turbulent past and provides surrounding community with opportunities for education, employment, and artistic expression. Continue after the break to learn more.
Architects: Estudio Lavín S.L. Location: Isora, Spain Design Team: Alejandro Lavín Della Ventura, Francisco Miguel Lavín Della Ventura Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Courtesy of Estudio Lavín S.L.
Architects: SHINE Architecture + TAarquitectura Location: León, México Design Team: Salvador Ferreiro, Minche Mena, Michael Smith, Rubén Vázquez, José Zermeño Photographs: Courtesy of SHINE Architecture
