Videos

Reiser + Umemoto, RUR Architecture PC's Taipei Pop Music Center breaks ground today at the center’s site on the edge of Taipei, Taiwan. Challenging the limitations of traditional performances spaces, the center consists of several mixed-use spaces woven together into a dynamic, multi-purpose venue that reflects and supports the evolving culture of pop music. Three monumental elements—the Main Hall, Hall of Fame, and Industry Shell—symbolize the principal uses and attractions of the complex, making it a powerful representation of Taiwan’s pop music industry worldwide.

More on the new Taipei Pop Music Center after the break…

Over the last few months, OMA and BIG have been vying for the opportunity to redevelop the 52-acre site home to the convention center in the heart of Miami Beach. With two award-winning, international firms at the center of the showdown, the media frenzy has been intense and the public’s imagination activated. It only remains to be seen if the results, which promise to be visionary, surpass expectation. With so much on the line, we decided to sit down with both OMA and BIG and discuss how their proposals differ.

Sou Fujimoto's 2013 Serpentine Pavilion, now complete and standing on the front lawn of London’s Serpentine Gallery, has opened to the press and we are now able to see Iwan Baan's photographs of the temporary pavilion. Fujimoto will be lecturing to a sold out crowd this coming Saturday (June 8th) when the pavilion opens to the general public. The semi-transparent, multi-purpose social space will be on view until October 20th.

Fujimoto (age 41) is the youngest architect to accept the Serpentine Gallery’s invitation, joining the ranks of Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei (2012), Peter Zumthor (2011), Jean Nouvel (2010), SANAA (2009), and more. He described his Serpentine project as "...an architectural landscape: a transparent terrain that encourages people to interact with and explore the site in diverse ways. Within the pastoral context of Kensington Gardens, I envisage the vivid greenery of the surrounding plant life woven together with a constructed geometry. A new form of environment will be created, where the natural and the man-made merge; not solely architectural nor solely natural, but a unique meeting of the two."

The Guardian has posted both print and video reviews by Oliver Wainwright.

More images by Iwan Baan after the break. See also In Progress: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion / Sou Fujimoto.

OMA announced today that they have been appointed as the masterplanners and lead architects of a mixed-use development in London. Morden Wharf, a 19 acre regeneration site on Greenwich Peninsula, will become a 2 million square foot “premier entertainment zone.”

Reinier de Graaf, the partner who will be leading the project with Ellen van Loon, said, "Our Vision for Morden Wharf adds value to an already impressive site through regeneration of existing buildings and infrastructure which will attract visitors and residents to the sites cultural, residential, leisure, and commercial offerings. We look forward to the development of an innovative proposal which will enhance Morden Wharf's exceptional character."

Check out OMA's press release after the break...