Dover Street Market has commissioned Zaha Hadid to design this site-specific installation to showcase in their London store during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The concept behind “Aqua” references the formal language of Hadid’s London Aquatics Centre.
Zaha Hadid: “Designing for Dover Street Market is an exciting opportunity to install a piece inspired by the fluid geometries of the London Aquatics Centre: a wave of liquid, frozen in time, right in the heart of London.”
The 2012 edition of Parckdesign, a biennial event dedicated to green space planning initiated by Brussels Environment and the Brussels Ministry for Environment, Energy and Urban Renovation, aims to reinterpret industrial wastelands, leftover spaces and interstices in Brussels. With this challenge, Raumlabor chose to open the gates to the spacious and pleasant courtyard of Curo Hall and to extend the public space by planning a whole series of concerted developments to comply with the uses of the local associations (whose activity is usually little known to the inhabitants of the neighborhood). More images and architects’ description after the break.
In our second segment of Thinking Past Day 17 – our series examining the larger implications of hosting the Olympic Games – we explore social issues London must address while creating the necessary infrastructure for the Summer Games.
The forty-five minute proposal London presented to the International Olympic Committee in Sinagpore was filled with amazing flyovers of natural terrain depicting the most challenging obstacles, walk-throughs of state-of-the-art athletic facilities, and planning overviews of accommodations for athletes amidst a city speckled with old and new cultural offerings. When the final votes were counted and London won the bid, it was time to turn those glossy virtual images into reality.
Of course, we are accustomed to the blankness of a site transforming into the awesomeness of a dynamic rendering, but an entire city? Where is all the available space coming from as London is the most populated municipality in the European Union with 8.17 million residents? And, more importantly, what was on the land before the Olympic transformation?
Designed by kit Architects, in collaboration with schibliholenstein architekten, the winning proposal for a 33 apartment housing development in Nuerensdorf, Zurich, Switerland consists of six buildings, which occupy the land equally. The loose alternating arrangement allows multiple connections to the open countryside in the north and to the garden framed single and multi-family dwellings in the immediate neighborhood. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Created by Paul Scales and Atelier Kit for the 7th annual ‘Le Festival des Architectures Vives ’ in Montpellier, France, Reframe explores the theme of ‘surprise’ through the creation of an object that reframes the relation of the visitor to the space, the historic architecture and the other visitors. The festival is comprised of an architectural walking tour through the historic city center where heritage sites are opened up to modern architecture. Visitors experience a shift from the position of observer to observed, from control to controlled and willingly or not, become engaged in a game of surprise and be surprised. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Located in front of the Kamiari-mon gate in Asakusa, Kengo Kuma’s Culture Tourist Information Center serves as a beacon to the local area as well as housing programs to serve both tourists and the local community. This video via ja+u takes you through the 7 stacked volumes that make up the 8 internal floors that house a wide variety of programming ranging from meeting rooms to tourist information kiosks. The construction uniquely integrates HVAC equipment in the gaps between the stacked volumes. The interior structure of heavy timber members are left exposed which complement the dynamism of the vertical volumes, while the language of wood is continued onto the exterior by means of laminated timber louvers.
This week we want to introduce a film by one of the filmmakers that cannot be out of this list. We’re talking about Jacques Tati, the French director, writer, and actor that made his first color movie in 1958, ”Mon Oncle”.
Tati shows how the modern age affects and dramatically changes the way that people live. All the new technologies at that moment are incorporated in the scenes, were the interaction between this new concept of “modern spaces” and people is an element present in most of the movie.
What do you think about this approach of how modernity influenced (or still influencing) the way of living of our societies?
American retailer Coach has commissioned OMA to develop a new merchandising system that accommodates Coach’s wide diversity of products while returning to the clarity of Coach’s heritage stores. Since establishing its first workshop 1941, Coach has expanded from a specialist leather atelier to a global distributor of “democratized luxury goods”. This expansion has clouded the clarity of the brand’s original library-like stores, which used a rigorous organizational system that categorically sort projects inside minimal wooden shelving at assisted counters. OMA intends to create a flexible, modular system that embodies the clarity of the original stores and responds to the individual needs of locale.
Migrating Landscapes presents a distinctively Canadian architectural vision that is sympathetic with a worldwide trend towards increased mobility – not only of people, but also of cultures and, most importantly, pluralistic aspirations. As more and more people move around the globe, the issue of immigration poses challenges at all levels – challenges that this exhibition frames around the themes of ‘settling’ and ‘unsettling’. Migrating Landscapes seeks to explore these themes in a manner that highlights Canada’s commitment to openness, diversity and democratic pluralism.
Google has updated its maps with hi res images of the Olympic Park and Village in Stratford (London, UK). The images were taken this past May, and let us see the whole picture of the master plan for London 2012. A big target of the investment for the games is to reconvert this former industrial zone in East London.
Special thanks to Emmet Truxes, from Harvard GSD, for sharing this animated video of Kenzo Tange’s Yoyogi Olympic Arena with us. Check out the amazing visualizations set to music by Gray Reinhard (we particularly love the build-up of the magnificently suspended roof around minute 5, which is then further detailed a few minutes later) which was created by a team of six students - Emmet Truxes, Nathan Shobe, Julian Bushman-Copp, Mijung Kim, Jeffrey Laboskey, Misato Odanaka - to understand the construction of the building’s innovate tensile structure.
The exhibition is opened from last Wednesday July 25th and will run until August 15th. Curated by Urban Zen & Nomad Two Worlds, ‘Discover Haiti’ features art, accessories, clothing and home furnishings designed and produced in Haiti.
The collection comprises the work of craftsmen in small objects, pictures, and also the projects of refurbishment and reconstruction of buildings destroyed by the last 2010 earthquake.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the eleven recipients of the 2012 Small Project Awards. Now in its ninth year, the AIA Small Project Awards Program emphasizes the excellence of small-project design and strives to raise public awareness of the value and design excellence that architects bring to projects, no matter the limits of size and scope.
The award recipients are categorized into three groups; category 1) a small project construction, object, work of environmental art or architectural design element up to $150,000 2) a small project construction, up to $1,500,000 and 3) a small project construction up to $1,500,000 which does not rely on external infrastructure as its primary power source.
Urban Movement Design, winner of the 2012 Young Architects Program (YAP) MAXXI in Rome, has reinvented the MAXXI experience by engaging the mind and body with their interactive, summer installation. UNIRE/UNITE responds to the current public health crisis by offering an alternative solution to traditional urban furniture that choreographs exercise and play back into our daily lives. As our world struggles in crisis, Urban Movement Design believes it is imperative that we rethink the way we live and change the disabling, sedentary lifestyles that are currently promoted by our built environment.
The New York and Rome-based practice has merged the two disciplines of architecture and movement therapies in an effort to integrate health back into design and promote a greater sense of community. This project is a reflection of their philosophy. Continue after the break to learn more.
Urban Movement Design: “All of nature acts according to the law of interconnectedness, but humankind has moved away from this natural law and into an unnatural state of self-interest and isolation.”
The regeneration of Peabody’s St John’s Hill Estate in South London, designed by Hawkins\Brown, was recently granted planning permission. The masterplan reintegrates the site to its immediate surroundings. A new pedestrian avenue connecting the station to the common includes two public squares: one at the center of the scheme, the other opposite the station. The central square provides a large public space activated by a community hub. The application, which was submitted to the London Borough of Wandsworth, has involved close consultation with residents, a number of other local groups, and the local authority. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced four international projects shortlisted for this year’s RIBA Lubetkin Prize – an award presented to the “best new international building outside the EU”. Three of the projects are located in South East Asia and one is in the USA. This news follows the announcement of the shortlisted projects competing for the UK’s prestigious Stirling Prize. The winners of both awards will be announced at a special event in Manchester on Saturday, October 13th.
Angela Brady, RIBA President, stated: “On the 2012 RIBA Lubetkin Prize shortlist we have four highly experienced architecture practices offering sophisticated yet fun responses to complex sites. These cutting-edge buildings show the leading role that architects play in creating low-energy living and working spaces, even in extreme environmental conditions.”
The four projects shortlisted for the 2012 RIBA Lubetkin Prize are:
Over 60 prominent architects, including Frank Gehry and Jeanne Gang, signed a letter asking Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to grant Bertrand Goldberg‘s Prentice Women’s Hospital landmark status and make it a permanent part of Chicago’s built environment. ”A building this significant”, the letter read, it “should be preserved and reused.” Goldberg’s architectural work has been iconic to Chicago’s city-scape. Building such as Marina City, River City, Wright College and Astor Tower have all made a tremendous impact on the personality of the city.
More on the state of the building after the break.
Anupama Kundoo‘s Wall House, originally built in Auroville, India in 2000, will be partially reconstructed at a 1:1 scale at the Venice Biennale this year for the theme of “Common Ground” by director David Chipperfield. This portion of the exhibition is supported by the University of Queensland, whose students and staff will assist with the construction of the replica alongside Indian craftspeople and Italian builders. The house has been described as a testing ground for spatial and technological innovation. In its debut at the Venice Biennale, it will afford Kundoo the opportunity to further explore these experiments.
Follow us after the break to see the innovations behind this widely acknowledged piece of architecture.
