Founder & Editor in Chief of this wonderful platform called ArchDaily :) Graduate Architect. Jury, speaker, curator, and anything that is required to spread our mission across the world. You can follow me on Instagram @dbasulto.
The new King Abdullah II House of Culture & Art in Jordan designed by Zaha Hadid Architects has been announced this week.
The project comes after a competition awarded in June 2008, which included Snøhetta (Norway), Atelier Christian de Portzamparc (France), Delugan Meissl (Austria), Henning Larsens Tegnestue (Denmark) and Kerry Hill Architects (Singapore).
The project consists in a performing arts and cultural centre that includes a 1600-seat concert theatre, 400-seat theatre, educational centre, rehearsal rooms, and galleries.
As you can see on the renderings, the building is mainly a carved volume, with voids crossing it creating several visual relations.
On the outside, the volume looks very simple, contrasting with the carved spaces that express themselves on the facade.
KieranTimberlake has been announced as the winner of the design competition for the new US Embassy in London.
According to a statement by the US Embassador in the UK, KieranTimberlake´s design “meets the goal of creating a modern, welcoming, timeless, safe and energy efficient embassy for the 21st century.”
Regarding the “safety” issues, KT’s design shows an interesting solution away from embassies from the early 90s surrounded by large walls with no urban considerations, using a park with a pond instead. The Embassy is no only an icon, but an urban piece “honoring the English tradition of urban parks and gardens as the context for many civic buildings”, connecting the Thames embankment to the new pedestrian way to the south.
“Viewed from the north at the proposed plaza, the embassy grounds will provide the prospect of an open park, a landscape of grasses rising gracefully to the new embassy colonnade, with the required secure boundaries incised into the hillside and out of view. Instead of a perimeter-walled precinct, the site to the north and south is a welcoming urban amenity, a park for the city that fuses the new embassy to the city of London. Alternatives to perimeter walls and fences are achieved through landscape design.”
The pure geometry of the cube is fragmented by a highly specialized ETFE (ethylene-tetrafluroethylene, used in several recent buildings) facade optimized to shade interiors from east, west and south sun while admitting daylight and framing large open view portals to the outside. If you take a closer look to the renderings from the inside you will notice that the ETFE foils include thin photovoltaic film that intercepts unwanted solar gain in certain angles. The scrim also renders the largely transparent façades visible to migratory birds to discourage bird-strikes.
The Barcelona Institute of Architecture (BIArch) is an international institution set up to further interaction between academic research, specialized practice and the dissemination of contemporary architecture. The academic core of the Barcelona Institute of Architecture as a postgraduate institute is its MBIArch Post-Professional Master’s Degree program, currently open for applications for the 2010-2011 term.
The Open Lectures series is part of their public program, which included Yoshiharu Tsukamoto from the Japanese firm Atelier Bow-Wow. Atelier Bow-Wow has conducted an extensive research on japanese micro architecture, presented on their books Pet Architecture and Made in Tokyo
When I visited Eric Owen Moss’ office to interview him, I saw a big book on a desk titled “Eric Owen Moss Construction Manual”. Given the complex type of works he does, I first thought it was a guide for new architects that joined the office, regarding file naming, color codes, etc.
But after talking with Eric, he told us about his new monograph published by AADCU. The book (3″ thick) presents 40 works (built and unbuilt) by EOM designed between 1988 and 2008, including recent buildings such as the Multimedia Tower and 3555 Hayden Studios, and projects such as the Warner Parking and Retail, Republic Square and Glass Tower.
The works are very well documented as you can see on the below photos, including several physical models and detailed drawings used to study the complex forms developed by EOM.
The building, designed by the acclaimed Japanese firm SANAA, features one of the most impressive concrete surfaces I have ever seen, creating a fluid space for students to enjoy. Interesting comments by Ryue Nishizawa on the relation between organic forms in architecture and human life. While the building is a perfect rectangle when seen in a plan view, the curves and slopes which define the interior space give the building a totally organic look.
While in Croatia, I took the time for a short trip to Slovenia to meet SADAR + VUGA, one of the practices from eastern Europe that have been on my mind since I saw a low rise residential building (Condominium Trnvoski Pristan) published back in 2004.
Entitled “State Fair Guggenheim”, the proposal by Chinese firm MAD uses a floating habitable balloon, located at the top of the void, to mediate between interior/exterior:
“As the core of the museum, the spiraling rotunda inherits the classic relationship between human and the divine. The delicately glazed domed roof transforms the natural light into distilled radiance, allowing the visitors to feel the distance from the mystical, and reverence to the sublime. Wright designed the continuous ramp encouraging visitors to ascend, becoming closer to the light with each step; however, one would find himself bounded by the glass ceiling at the top of the ramp. The anti-climactic ending to this experience seems to hint at advancement to the future of this rotunda. ”
During 2009 the Guggenheim Museum celebrated its 50th anniversary. And now, the museum commissioned nearly 200 artists, architects and designers to imagine their dream interventions on the most significative space of Frank Lloyd Wright’s building, the central void. “Contemplating the void” will be on exhibit at the Museum from Feb 12th until Apr 28th.
We are going to present you some of the interventions proposed by the architects, starting with “Experience the void” by danish practice JDS.
JDS/Julien De Smedt Architects proposal is architecture turned into enjoyment and participation. Instead of contemplating the void we propose to experience it by letting a trampoline net spiral down the rotunda space. The experience plays with Wright’s original scenography for the Guggenheim: to visit the exhibition downwards.
To close our coverage of this years P.S.1 YAP competition we present you BIG‘s proposal.
BIG’s invitation to the P.S.1 is not only rare for not being based in NY or in the US (they are based in Denmark), as it has been the common denominator over the years, but also because they have built several small-medium-large scale projects.
But personally, this was the proposal I wanted to see the most: BIG’s P.S.1 out of 7295 is a “cloudscape” formed by translucent recycled PVC “bubbles”, with a cradle to cradle life-cycle design on which 7,295 bags will be made out of the ballons after the installation, completing the cycle that started as recycled truck bed covers and bags.
After thousand of nominations in the last 3 weeks, we are proud to announce the finalists for the Building of the Year Awards, a selection made by our readers.
65 projects in 13 categories are now running for the award, with a very good selection of buildings, ranging from large campus buildings to small libraries with no budget, featuring renowned practices such as DS+R, OMA, REX, Tadao Ando, and small young firms from from around the world.
To thank our readers we have decided to give away an iPod Touch, more details at the Awards page.
While doing some research for a real estate project I found the MIPIM awards, a competition established 9 years ago to promote good design, related to MIPIM a market for international property trade that takes place in Cannes every year. As this event is aimed to real estate and property professionals, the award gives visibility to what we usually see on architectural magazines to another -very important- audience. In previous years it has recognized works such as the Meydan Umraniye Mall by F-O-A or the Mountain Dwellings by BIG, two programs in which market dictates, but where good design can give added value.
Today 8 projects have received the 2010 award in different categories: Offices, Regeneration & Masterplanning, Residential, Tall Buildings, Sustainability, Big Urban projects, Mixed Use and Retail & Leisure. Also, 16 projects received a “Highly Recommended” mention on those categories.
And the overall award went to One New Change, a massive mixed use project in the City of London by Jean Nouvel and Sidell Gibson Architects. The project includes over 35,000 sqm commercial and 25,000 sqm retail space, and it was a challenge in terms of design and planning, due to its proximity with St Pauls Cathedral.
The Judges applauded the new landmark for transforming the whole image of this part of the financial centre, providing a new focal point for visitors and city users alike. They also observed that One New Change provides a refreshing contrast to the surrounding retro-architecture, providing a successful combination of ancient and modern, praising both the developer and the planning authority for showing “great independence of mind” against pressure to submit a more historicist approach.
This time we introduce you EASTON+COMBS, a practice ran by partners Rona Easton and Lonn Combs.
The firm has a focus on material innovation, which could be seen at LUX NOVA, their proposal for the P.S.1, which includes “Strong Light”, a 100 percent recyclable and exceptionally strong featherweight building component.
The initial system is developed as a permeable featherlight structural skin that engages an environmental play of translucent and polychromatic effect. The system offers an 80% weight reduction over an equivalent glass system with no compromise in strength and stability at a significantly lower cost.
While in Croatia, I took some time to visit Ljubljana, Slovenia, and interview OFIS Arhitekti. The practice was founded in 1998 by partners Rok Oman and Spela Videcnik, both graduates from the Ljubljana architecture school and the Architectural Association.
With BIM, project collaboration was possible. But online collaboration over CAD drawings hasn’t been easy yet, with some applications that work very slow or in a limited way.
My first encounter with the new breed of Croatian architects was with 3LHD, a young firm ran by Sasa Begovic, Marko Dabrovic, Tanja Grozdanic and Silvije Novak. The partners got together while still students at the Zagreb Architecture School in 1994, and thanks to the croatian competition system they were able to do their first public works, starting with the Memorial Bridge in Rijeka (1997). After that, the firm has been involved in several public works such as a stone Sports Hall in Bale, the Spaladium Center in Lora, and their latest realizations: Zamet Center in Rijeka and the Dance Center in Zagreb. In these projects, 3LHD has been able to develop new shapes that relate to a young nation.
Last week the AIA announced the 28 projects that will receive the Honor Awards this year, an award which recognizes excellence in architecture, interior architecture, and regional and urban design.
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