The Lamp Lighting Solutions Awards competition is calling participants who value the creativity, innovation and sustainability of lighting projects, regardless of the manufacturer or the brand of lights used in the project. Light is a fundamental element of life and a key aspect of any architectural project. Prizes will be awarded to projects that have successfully met the architectural lighting needs of an interior or exterior space, having created a positive synergy between architecture, interior design, landscaping and lighting. Submissions are due January 31, 2013. To register and for more information, please visit here.
Designed by ferrarifrongia Architects, the main aim of the proposal for the DOSA archaeological museum is to protect the landscape through the aesthetic and functional enhancement of the existing heritage. The project is conceived as a sign in the landscape which, as a result of an extracting and modeling action of the ground, remarks the connection between the natural and the built. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Hideo Sasaki Foundation, in collaboration with the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP), recently announced the inaugural Perry Chapman Prize. The prize honors the intellectual contributions of M. Perry Chapman by awarding an individual $10,000 to pursue a particular research project in planning and design. The research topic of the 2012 prize is work designed to establish a baseline of knowledge and resources on collaboration and integration in the planning and design disciplines—particularly related to how campus environments support institutional missions. An individual, a team of researchers or academics, or a firm may make submissions. Submissions are due no later that August 31. More information on the competition after the break.
The high-speed rail terminus station will connect Hong Kong to various major cities in the Mainland with the largest rail network in our history. Located centrally in Hong Kong within the city’s urban realm and equipped with fifteen tracks, the facility will probably be the largest below ground terminus station in the world.
Designed by Andrew Bromberg of Aedas, in collaboration with Aecom, the West Kowloon Terminus will function more like an international airport than a rail station; this means that the facility needs to have both custom and immigration controls for departing and arriving passengers.. More images and architects’ description after the break.
This year the Cleveland Design Competition is calling for a re-imagining of the Detroit Superior Bridge – a 19th century bridge rich with history and value to Cleveland’s downtown area and industrial zones. Professional, students, firms and designers are all invited to propose a dynamic public space, performance venue and pedestrian experience along the abandoned lower streetcar level of the bridge. Registration for this competition closes on September 24th. The competition deadline is October 5th. This is an awarded competition for first, second and third prize winners. A free public reception and exhibition will takes place on October 26th to announce the winners. To register, visit the official competition website.
For a brief on the competition, join us after the break.
The [AC-CA]’s recent call for proposals for a new Contemporary Art Museum in the heart of Buenos Aires has been seductively synthesized by Houston architect Michael Arellanes II, principal and founder of M A 2 Architectural Design. The nature of the competition called for a building that reflects contemporary design tendencies, whilst simultaneously attending to the specific functions that are required of art museums and considering the impact upon the local milieu. Located within the Puerto Madero district, the museum will occupy a substantial plot of land along the riverbank of the Río de la Plata. While there are no plans for the Contemporary Art Museum to be built, the goal to generate progressive modern design ideas and dialogue surely succeeds with submissions of MA2’s caliber. More details and Arellanes’s description after the break.
Loring Park, Minneapolis. Image via Flickr User Waiting Line; Licensed via Creative Commons
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) released a new report, “American Fitness Index" (AFI), ranking 50 of the largest US metropolitan areas by fitness and health. ACSM gathered information that identified population, health and the built environment and found what most of us can assume: that the physical built and planned environment of our cities has a profound impact on our physical health. "Cities near the top of the index," the executive summary reads, '" have more strengths that support healthy living and fewer challenges that hinder it... the opposite is true for cities near the bottom." Most of the metropolitan areas identified in the top ten are cities in the north, including areas of Washington, Minnesotta, Colorado, and cities within New England. California ranked the most metropolitan areas in the top ten. Cities near the bottom of the list were concentrated in the south, many of which are located in Texas. The report is the first step of the AFI to work towards its goal of promoting active lifestyles by identifying and supporting programming of sustainable, healthy community culture.
More details from the report and what tells us about our built environment.
With the challenge to design multi-family housing units in a traditional structure of a single family house, 1X2STUDIO chose to plant houses on the lot to preserve relations and the character of the chopped structure of Lazarevac. The whole intention is for an exclusive integration and neighborhood relations, necessary for residents of Lazarevac, in a natural milieu as is present. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Dongjiang Master Plan proposal by HAO (Holm Architecture Office) + Archiland Beijing includes 280,000 square meters of residential development, with 40,000 square meters of mixed-use office, retail, and public space. The design evolves around the prime beach location with a central pedestrian boardwalk that services both the low and midrise residential housing blocks. The central boardwalk runs parallel to the beach, creating views of the water while taking the visitor through areas of gardens and retail within the new development. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Ziya Imren, Barış Ekmekçi, and Münire Sagat shared with us their second prize winning proposal for the Gallipoli Agadere Memorial & Hospital Museum. One of the main ideas of the project is the purpose of bringing a modern approach to the concept of preservation. The result is a solution that is respectful to the martyrs and the land, but at the same time one in which the historical memory is protected via exposing the historic and cultural potential. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Doug Patt, an architect and the author of the book, ‘How to Architect’, teaches about architecture through the use of videos, drawings, books, stories etc. He shared with us his book and a video about being and becoming an architect, which was just released by MIT Press earlier this year. Available globally, this is great for students considering the field or studying architecture. This is also beneficial for architects who want to remember why they became one.
In the book, Patt creatively transforms the word ‘architect’ from a noun to a verb. He presents to readers the basics of architecture with chapters A-Z and takes you on a journey into how architects think from design and construction jargon to characteristics, such as ‘quirky’ and ‘zeal’. A video and a brief review of the book after the break.
Guilt has been effectively used to control and manipulate the masses. But it can also be the start of a change for the better: awareness, concern, action. Engagement and guilt are never far apart. Engagement is sublimated guilt. We can build on guilt, but can we build with guilt? Is guilt a material to design with?
Guilty Landscapes is the theme for the latest issue of Volume Magazine, a joint effort between AMO, C-LAB and Archis.
Provided by the creative minds of Tramnesia, this short film takes us inside a remote hotel in Northern Chile known as the Residencia. Located in a desolate area of the Atacama desert, this subterranean building is straight out of a James Bond movie, literally. You may recognized it as the bad guy lair in Quantum of Solace.
Designed by the German architects of Auer + Weber, this hotel serves as a sanctuary for the astronomers and visitors of the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory. Hardly visible from the entrance road, the submerged the L-shaped structure is marked by a long brick entrance and skylight dome. Once inside, “cavernous public spaces echo the openness of the desert” and are “enclosed by dark earth tones that produce a cozy and secure effect.”
The international jury will nominate the President of the Jury at the first meeting. Together, they will select the winners of the Golden Lion for best national participation, the Golden Lion for best project in the international exhibition and the Silver Lion for a promising young architect in the international exhibition.
Continue after the break to review more information on each jury member.
For the redevelopment strategy for South Kilburn, Alison Brooks Architects have collaborated with Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands to design better homes, in a more sustainable environment, for the existing and future residents. About a year ago, we shared the firms’ vision for Ely Court, a collection of three varied typologies that line a ‘spine’ of shared surfaces – play areas, gardens and public and private spaces – along Cambridge Avenue. Now, the duo has been granted approval for a new residential quarter of Mansion blocks which frame private communal gardens in the spirit of neighboring Maida Vale. ”We are really pleased that we are continuing to help Brent transform South Kilburn from an isolated Estate into a familiar and desirable residential neighbourhood. Our team’s scheme is as much about re-creating great streets as providing great family homes,” explained Brooks.
Above is a short film created by Ludvig Holtenäs, an architecture student, as part of a school project at Lund University’s School of Architecture. The video captures “how light can describe and connect different rooms with the same moving atmosphere, with a perspective of old and new”.
It happens just four times a year (two full suns, and two half-suns) but you can bet New Yorkers make the most of it…Manhattanhenge, that is. Coined by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the merge of Manhattan and Stone Henge is used described the phenomen when the sun perfectly aligns with the east-west streets of Manhattan. “Manhattanhenge comes about because the Sun’s arc has not yet reached these limits (of the solstice), and is on route to them, as we catch a brief glimpse of the setting Sun along the canyons of our narrow streets,” explained Tyson.
Standing far to the east side, the ArchDaily team stood shoulder to shoulder with dozens of anxious observers in Tudor City, an elevated niche that offers a clear shot down 42nd Street and is graced with the beautiful profiles of the Chrysler Building and the Bank of America Tower. Although the cloudy skies of Thursday only allowed a few red rays to run across the sides of the buildings, Wednesday’s crystal clear evening showed the red fireball in all its glory sitting between the grided streets.
assemblageSTUDIO recently won the AIA Nevada unbuilt Award for their project, Qlab. A communal atmosphere of open collaboration and interaction has replaced the typical open cubicle office to create a new generation, which has energized downtown Las Vegas. The desire to be all consumed and surrounded by likeminded organizations with a rekindled attitude towards downtown. This spirit is captured in the project by combining a café, lounge, residential and open bay modular office spaces. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Designed by Libor Šenekel, Vaclav Havel´s Monument is a symbol of human determination, legacy, and that even one person can change the course of history. Vaclav Havel became unforgettable for many as a symbol of defiance and human determination, which reminds us that even one person is capable of great deeds. Just as today the monument stands against the enormous power of water, that is trying to devour it, stood Vaclav Havel and many others against the oppressive power of communism. The memorial is supposed to fascinate being watched from the waterfront, to inspire fear as well as courage being entered into the masses of water, to lure to step into the unknown. More images and architects‘ description after the break.
The ‘New Nordic – Architecture & Identity’ exhibition, which opened this past Thursday and is on view until October 21, is the first exhibition in a new series at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The exhibit explores the relationship of architecture to culture and identity. The series deals with architecture as a field where collective memories and narratives are reflected materially and spatially. It attempts to reveal whether certain special ‘Nordic’ features recur in architecture, and whether this involves a fundamental formal idiom that is regularly reinterpreted. Five Nordic architects - Studio Granda, Iceland, Johan Celsing, Sweden, Jarmund/Vigsnæs (JVA), Norway, Lassila Hirvilammi, Finland and Lundgaard & Tranberg, Denmark – have been invited to build a house that serves as an expression of the regional identity and experience from which the individual architect comes.
More images and information on the exhibition after the break.
At least since Leonardo Da Vinci’s first attempts to describe turbulence, architects have been fascinated by the dynamics of flow – perhaps seeking an escape from the solid, stable nature of buildings. Beginning in the 1990′s, architects have used digital software to imbue structures and spaces with some of the same qualities as Da Vinci’s meticulous drawings: fluidity, undulation, instability and temporality. But while software has allowed architects to create novel, dynamic forms digitally, they have struggled to translate these qualities to the physicality of the material world. Slipstream is a physical structure that confronts that leap directly, translating a 2-dimensional digital line drawing into 3-dimensional space.
Alluding to Lebbeus Woods’ 2010 ‘Slipstreaming’ drawings of flow, the installation is a single drawing extruded through the gallery space and cut away to produce a set of interconnected spaces. The linear extrusion acts as both structure and dynamic visual filter, shifting views through the installation and between the spaces it defines. It’s integrity as a structure is masked by both its redundancy and bright coloration. Employing gradients that diffuse and coalesce along its length, color amplifies the undulating lines, establishing cross currents that intensify as visual eddies. Irreducible to form, structure, or graphic, Slipstream is a combined phenomenon of the three.
Don’t miss SLIPSTREAM’s opening tonight, July 12th, from 7-9pm at New York’s Bridge Gallery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Find more details here on the bridgegallery official website. The exhibit will remain on view until August 24th.
First, American art dealer Kenny Schachter commissioned Zaha Hadid to design the futuristic, three wheeled Z-Car in 2005. Now, he has asked the Pritzker Prize winning Dame to create the limited edition Z Boat – an all black, 7.5-meter-long vessel that comfortably seats eight and is powered by an 1×220 HP Mercruiser. Only 12 boats and four prototypes will by built and completed in early 2013 by the French manufacturer Shoreteam.
