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 influential figure of Eric Owen Moss doesn´t require introduction… what an interesting conversation we had, Bob Dylan included. A bit long, but worth it.
On a side note, when I came by his office I saw a gigantic book called “Eric Owen Moss Construction Manual”… which I thought was like an internal book for new employees, but is actually a monograph covering design, engineering, fabrication, and construction of 40 projects over the past 20 years. Impressive. See a video after the break.
BIG, in collaboration with AKT, Tyréns and Transsolar, just won the competition for the World Village of Women Sports in Malmo, Sweden, a 100.000sqm complex for research, education and training of women’s sports.
Rather than a program organized around a sports arena disconnected from the city, the project becomes a town inside a town, offering rich public spaces as you can see on the renderings.
The central space of the village offers a large area for public gathering, which can host professional football matches, concerts, conferences, exhibitions and flea markets. Around this space we find a series of sloped buildings, which reduce the visual impact of the complex to the adjacent neighborhood.
Between these buildings we find a pedestrian network around the main sports hall which plugs into the surrounding street networks as well as the interior galleries of Kronprinsen, turning it into a complete ecosystem of urban life.
More images and drawings after the break.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, an active college in the City University of New York, currently occupies a former Public School building, Haaren Hall, on 10th Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets. With ownership of the entire Manhattan block, the college has ambitions to grow over two phases into the full Zoning capacity of the block. The charge of this project is to occupy the entire site with an integrated campus while providing a base for future growth.
The Chicago and Shanghai offices of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) won the international design competition to expand the Beijing Central Business District (CBD). This project was also awarded an AIA Honor Award.
Basically, their plan proposes the creation of 3 new districts anchored by parks and green boulevards as you can see on the renderings. But the an important aspects of this project is on the small scale, a network of walkable blocks to offer pedestrian (and bike) friendly scale for development. Because sustainable doesn´t have to mean just “green”, but also to offer an environment on which people can actually establish social relations on a neighborhood scale.
The plan also proposes an express commuter rail service between the Beijing Capital International Airport, the CBD, and high speed rail service at Beijing South Station. A new streetcar system is proposed to conveniently link all areas of the CBD.
Sometimes, a good transportation system and focusing on the pedestrian scale sound obvious, but they are the foundations to establish neighborhoods that can bring life to parts of the city 24/7, instead of business districts that die at night with dormitory cities with a lack of services.
More images after the break.
A few months ago I had the chance to interview Ila Berman, director of the Architecture program at the California College of the Arts. She holds a doctorate in architectural history, theory, and criticism from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
A month ago we presented you the finalist entries for Stadskantoor, a new mixed used building at Rotterdam’s City Hall. After a process of public feedback and a presentation to the professional jury, OMA‘s entry was awarded with the 1st prize.
The strategy of the project is very simple: a modular flexible structure spans between existing buildings, supporting the mixed use program, while freeing the space below for public use. The axonometric shown below shows this rich public realm that the offers back to the city.
With this modular structure, units can be added or even dismounted from the structure as demands on the building change over time, and can adapt to either office space or residential parameters as desired. Green terraces on higher levels provide the possibility of an apartment with a garden in the heart of urban Rotterdam.
The RIBA Stirling prize is given each year to one selected building. And this year’s prize went to the Maggie Center by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.
This small buildings has a great inside/outside integration, given by the combination of several transparent planes and the independent roof, as you can see on the photos.
After the break, more photos by architectural photographer José Miguel Hernández Hernández, and a short video by AJ.
Photographer Paul Clemence shared with us some photos of 100 11th Ave, a residential tower in Chelsea by Jean Nouvel.
This building is almost complete, and it has a strong presence from across the river, or when seen from the High Line. I remember that a month ago, I was looking at it from the High Line and a lady next to me said “how old is that building?”. Despite the fact of its high tech curtain wall, using 1647 different window panels, the building looks ancient, almost like a left over from the old waterfront.
The variation of the windows is not only on their size, but also the inclination and the glass tint, giving this building a unique facade.
More photos after the break:
After 9 days and 10 contests, Team Germany from the Technische Universität Darmstadt won the 2009 Solar Decathlon with their surPLUShome project.
The Solar Decathlon 2009 competition ends tomorrow, and 7 out of 10 contests have been already completed, with Team California on the lead with the Refract House.
The results so far are:
The Solar Decathlon is open to the public starting today, until Oct 18th.
After the break, videos with the houses by Virginia Tech, Team Alberta, Team Germany and Team Puerto Rico.
The recent release of Google Sketchup 7.1 gave us powerful tools to easily create accurate models of urban contexts, with the integration of Street View for textures and better geo location of models.
Dupont sent us an iPod Touch to try their mySurface app (available as a free download at the iTunes Store). Basically, the application is a catalog of the colors and finishes available for Corian and Zodiaq, two of their products for surfaces.
I already knew Corian, as it is one of the best surface solutions for countertops and furniture. Zodiaq is a product with more resistance, as it incorporates pure quartz crystal, making it more durable and scratch resistant.
What I like about this is that you no longer have to carry the big physical samples, and it becomes very useful when you are on site with the client discussing the finishes.
As you can see on the screenshots below, you can easily navigate through the color/finishes palette, and save your favorites for easy access. For a more accurate comparison, you can see the texture at full screen and place the iPhone/iPod over the desired surface. It also includes some sample images of projects using these products.
What do you think?
More screenshots and my vision on how this app could be improved after the break:
Renowned mexican architect Enrique Norten (TEN Arquitectos) has been working in NY since a few years ago, with One York already built at SOHO & Tribeca. And with CASSA, his new 43-stories tall residential tower, he joins the city’s skyline.
The project includes 57 luxury residences and 166 hotel rooms, with interiors by Cetra/Ruddy, along with a 5 star restaurant, a spa, a private terrace and lounge, and other additional services.
The tower doesn´t look to find its place at the NY skyline with any “fireworks”, just a rigorous orthogonal volume with a character given by the punctured rhythm of its windows.
More images after the break.
I just saw that the house designed by Team California, a multidisciplinary team from CCA + SCU, that we featured a few months won the Architecture Contest (1 out of 10 contests) at the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2009.
In my opinion, the best sustainable projects have been in small scales. Urban scale projects have been more difficult to get going, due to the their inherent complexity. But I am confident that recent initiatives are about to make the step forward, specially the ones that are being produced on countries that have the have their governments focused on this.
On of this examples is the recently awarded Low2No design competition, organized by Sitra (Finnish Innovation Fund) and the City of Helsinki, to find a on design a large building complex on a reclaimed harbour at the western edge of Helsinki’s central business district.
Given that the repertoire of sustainable urban development models is still in its infancy, the question of “who & how” is our question of first order. WHO: We believe that identifying the best team and approach is the key factor impacting the robustness of the final solution. HOW: Our competition is designed to seek approaches for four central objectives applied at the scale of a city block:
The finalists included top practices and consultants such as ARUP, Sauerbrunch Hutton, Space Syntax, Transsolar, ARO, REX, Front, BIG, among others. The award went to C_Life by ARUP, Sauerbruch Hutton, Experientia and Galley Eco Capital.
Videos and boards for the winning and finalists entries after the break.
Rio de Janeiro just won the bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. If we add this to fact that Brazil is hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup, expect a major dose of architectural projects for these events. This will be another opportunity for the architectural brazilian scene to show the world the high level of their works (see all the brazilian works in AD).
For this games, Rio will use a total of 33 venues, from which 8 correspond to facilities already built for the Pan-American games that will be renovated, such as the National Shooting Center by BCMF. There will be 11 new buildings (judo, wrestling, fencing, basketball, taekwondo, tennis, handball, modern pentathlon, swimming and synchronized swimming, canoe and kayak slaloms, and BMX cycling) and 11 temporal structures. A good opportunity for the local (or international?) architects.
The masterplan shown on the video shows that 4 clusters will concentrate this venues inside the city, connected by new transport systems.
Another aspect that is relevant for architecture, is that the city needs to build accommodations for 25,000 beds for the event. The government said that they can offer 8,500 beds in cruise ships.
The new facilities being built for London 2012 and the projects we saw in Beijing 2008 are good examples of architecture for this events.
As for the FIFA World Cup, I think that more then new stadiums we will see improvements on existant ones (such as the Maracana)… but maybe I´m wrong.
After the jump, the videos with the installations proposed in the Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo bids.
During these days I´m in Zagreb, Croatia, participating at CIP Talks 2009, an architecture conference organized by CIP Magazine. The list of lecturers at the conference include renowned architects, such as Mauricio Pezo & Sofía von Ellrichshausen (PvE), Jan Neutelings (Neutelings & Riedjik), Mark Lee (Johnston & MarkLee, interview here), Shohei Shigematsu (OMA, interview here), Carme Pinós, Arnaud Billard (Transsolar), Mikkel Frost (CEBRA), STUDIO UP (winners of the Emerging Architect MvE Award with their Gymnasium), Joseph Grima (Director of the Storefront Gallery, interview here), among other european and US architects.
Also, during these days we find the Croatian Architectural Triennale, the launch of Pogledaj.to a new local website for architecture, a new book on Croatian architecture, the opening of a new pavilion on the center of the city… an intense dose of architecture that we will be reporting during the following days.
I will be visiting and interviewing local practices such as 3LHD, Randic Turato, Studio UP, Njiric + Njiric, and more, to bring you more and more projects.
Yesterday I went to the coastal city of Rijeka, and visited three interesting projects by 3LHD and Randic Turato. See the photographs after the break, and expect the usual complete posting with all the info on these projects sometime during this week.
During the AIA Convention 2009 we had the opportunity to interview the AIA President (2008-2009), Marvin Malecha.