Sabrina joined the Archdaily team as a News Intern on May 2017. A Part 1 graduate from the University of Edinburgh School of Architecture, Sabrina has experience as a speaker for TEDxEdinburgh and at Zaha Hadid Architects in London. She currently runs a student drawing platform VOLUME64 on her year out before returning to Edinburgh for her M.Arch in September.
Are the concrete buildings we build actually a sign of architectural progress? Defunct housing projects abandoned shopping malls, and short-sighted urban projects are more often than not doomed to a lifetime of emptiness after they have served their purpose. Their concrete remains and transforms into a lingering reminder of what was once a symbol of modern ambition. Stadiums and their legacies, in particular, come under high scrutiny of how their giant structures get used after the games are over, with few Olympic stadiums making successful transitions into everyday life. With a new approach to sustainability, the Shell Mycelium pavilion is part of a manifesto towards a more critical take on building. Say the designers on their position: “We criticize these unconscious political choices, with living buildings, that arise from nature and return to nature, as though they never existed.”
The Shell Mycelium Pavillion is a collaboration between BEETLES 3.3 and Yassin Areddia Designs and offers an alternative to conscious design through temporary structures. Located at the MAP Project space at the Dutch Warehouse, the pavillion formed part of the Kochi Muziris Biennale 2016 Collateral in India.
The Boston Society of Architects (BSA) has announced its finalists for the 2017 Harleston Parker Medal. Established in 1921, the medal is awarded to “the single most beautiful building or other structure” that is built in the city of Boston in the past 10 years. Established as a chapter of the AIA, the Boston Society of Architects, together with its sister organization the BSA Foundation, is committed to advocating great design and “sharing an appreciation for the built environment with the public at large.” This year’s jury led by Yugon Kim (IKD, TKSP Architects Boston) formed a panel of ten acclaimed Boston professionals representing a wide range of disciplines, from architecture to urban planning to media.
The National Infrastructure Commission and Malcolm Reading Consultants have announced the shortlist for The Cambridge to Oxford Connection: Ideas Competition. The free-to-enter competition focuses on integrating placemaking with infrastructure in one of the UK’s leading growth regions: 130-mile Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford corridor. The region is home to 3.3 million people and hosts some of the country’s most successful cities, as well as the world-leading Oxbridge universities. Launched in June 2017, the first stage encouraged entries from teams with a range of backgrounds - made up of urban designers; architects; landscape designers, planners and community specialists (to name a few).
From the first moment you enter architectural education, tutors tell you repeatedly and often passionately that the learning never stops; this is how it is going to be from now on. Student platforms are an example of our efforts to share our discoveries, many emerging out of the tension between academia and independent learning. From the post-digital advocate KoozA/rch to university publications like The Bartlett's Lobby, AA files, or Yale School of Architecture’s Perspecta, research and media platforms represent the creative consciousness of our generation today. Volume64 is a recent newcomer born out of this tension, and behind it is a team myself and my colleagues have founded and run. Through ArchDaily, we’re sharing a little bit of our story so far.
London’s first Antepavillion officially opened to the public last weekend, kicking off an annual series of experimental structures set to explore alternative ways of living in the city. Designed and built by emerging studio PUP Architects, the proposal beat out 128 other entries as the winner of a competition held by the Architecture Foundation. Calling for proposals that engaged with issues of sustainability and recycling, PUP's design, dubbed H-VAC is built using prefab elements made in-house by a team of volunteers. The pavilion's tongue-in-cheek appearance resembling an air duct is a playful subversion of planning legislation, exploiting loopholes for mechanical rooftop equipment to be built without planning permission.
Architect and theorist Yona Friedman has brought his playful “People’s Architecture” installations to Rome’s MAXXI Museum, Paris’s Les Halles and Denmark where they were recently assembled in a workshop at the Danish Association for Architects. Built using plastic hula hoops, each installation is assembled spontaneously, creating new variations of space with each turn. Says Friedman: “Architecture for people proposes a variant of the original “Ville Spatial.” It is based on a structure easy to modify, a structure not necessarily raised over ground level, keeping that option open if wanted.”
Architecture platform Rethinking the Future (RTF) has announced the winners for their annual “Rethinking the Future Awards,” collecting over 500 entries from 30 countries. Established in 2012 in New Delhi, India, RTF aims to create a “new window on international trends in architecture and design” by considering “radical solutions for the present day problems facing the domain.”
“Each of these projects represents the best of architecture and design across the globe, where innovation and creativity are intersecting,” says RTF on the 18 winning entries covering projects ranging from residential to cultural architecture. The competition was open to both students and professionals and drew a diverse collection of built and unbuilt works.
Put away the Neufert manual and pixelated Internet searches, because scaling people just got a whole lot easier. The Chicago-based design consultancy IA Collaborative has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the reissue of Humanscale – a set of ergonomic design templates that contain over 60,000 measurements adjusted to humans of all ages, sizes and, yes, even situations.
Emerging international architecture office KOSMOS has unveiled 6 projects exploring potential collective spaces in the city of Basel, Switzerland. Unveiled during Art Basel, the speculative projects were featured in the Forum Basel exhibition curated alongside Museum Director Andreas Ruby and Stéphanie Savio, and emerging Chilean practice Plan Común. Held at the Swiss Architecture Museum (S AM), the architecture exhibition was held “in reaction to the increasing commodification of urban space today” and dedicated itself to investigating new possibilities for public space in Basel. Check out the projects, with descriptions from KOSMOS, below.
“This place is really Instagrammable, you’ll see what I mean.”
Walking into a tiled entryway and catching a glimpse of the cocoon-shaped swings, I saw fast. Planta, located on a busy street in Downtown Toronto is an Instagram magnet. And they know it. Opened last fall, Planta’s geotagged posts grow daily, with several of the restaurants’ key spaces photographed again and again. With jungle-inspired wallpaper, graphic tiling and a solid 14k following on their own account, the plant-based eatery means business.
Instagram’s parent-company Facebook announced it made $9.1 billion in earnings this quarter on advertising, retaining its longstanding rule over digital advertising alongside with Google’s Alphabet ($26 billion). With Instagram absorbing competitor Snapchat’s story features and increasing the number of sponsored posts it shows this year (yeah, we noticed), it’s not a stretch to say that the social media giant sits at the center of food and beverage trends. But what happens to interior spaces when restaurants set out to be “Instagrammable”?
Architecture Exhibition5x5 Participatory Provocations opened its doors at the New York Center for Architecture on July 11, featuring 25 models by 25 young American architecture firms. The exhibition engages its participants to take clear stances on a series of provocative issues facing architecture today, with their models “producing a physical expression or provocation that is then made available to the public.” Curated by Kevin Erickson, Julia van den Hout, and Kyle May, the exhibition argues for “participatory criticism” covering growing income gaps, immigration, globalization, technology’s impact on our lives, surveillance, and power.
Manhattan-based architecture practice Edg has created an ambitious proposal that replaces major highways into driverless ones, as well as adding green corridors spanning the length of the island. Named “Loop NYC,” the scheme aims to improve Manhattanites' quality of life and reduce the city’s urban pollution. Edg has released a video outlining the proposal and its uses (see above)—read on for the project breakdown.
The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) has reviewed the revised concept for the National Washington WWI Memorial as part of several major commemoration and transport projects taking place in the capital city. Designed by architect Joseph Weishaar and sculptor Sabin Howard, the proposal won the memorial’s competition last year, beating out 4 other finalists with its multilevel design and use of relief sculpture.
Japanese designer Michiru Tanaka has released a new product partnering with lighting manufacturer Kaneka to create a stainless steel tile that doubles as both an OLED and a mirror. A graduate of Tokyo’s Musashino Art University, Tanaka pursued a career in architectural lighting and her projects range from commercial installations, lighting at museums as well as product design. Coined “Kumiko,” the tiles come from a fusion of inspirations, ranging from traditional Japanese architecture and woodworking techniques to Manhattan’s gridded cityscape.
Visiting architectural masterpieces by the greats can often feel like a pilgrimage of sorts, especially when they are far away and hard to find. Not everyone takes the time to visit these buildings when traveling, which makes getting there all the more special. With weird opening hours, hard-to-reach locations and elusive tours we thought we’d show a selection from our archives of masterpieces (modernist to contemporary) and what it takes to make it through their doors. Don’t forget your camera!
Polish architect, designer, and sculptor Oskar Zieta has unveiled his latest project: the arched NAWA pavilion on an island in Wroclaw, Poland. The pavilion forms part of the European Capital of Culture celebrations following the theme of “Metamorphoses of Culture” and was unveiled in June. The lightweight steel elements that make up the parametrically designed sculpture are made in a unique method called FiDU, a metal-inflating process created by Zieta during his PhD studies in ETH Zurich. Though Zieta has used FiDU successfully for various products (many exhibited in the Salone del Mobile in Milan), the NAWA Pavillion is the first project of this size to use the technology entirely, and is thus coined as “a manifesto of FiDU."
Street Artist Misha Most have finished a gargantuan project – a 10,800 square meter mural set to be the world's largest in Vyska, Russia. The giant mural, titled “Evolution-2” covers the facade of the "Stan-5000" industrial complex from the oldest Russian manufacturer, Vyksa Steel Works. The mural project was chosen in the course of the "Vyksa 10000" open competition and is part of the ArtOvrag urban art festival curated by Sabina Changina and Russian creative studio Artmossphere. Artmossphere is known for curating various art projects, exhibitions, and festivals connected with street art with both established and upcoming street artists.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has released an official statement on design for fire safety following the tragic Grenfell Tower fire on June 14. The causes and aftermath of the catastrophic fire, which ravaged 27 storeys of the council estate in the London borough of North Kensington are currently under investigation, with a team of 250+ working on operations including recovering and identifying victims (the death toll has risen to 80+) according to recent reports from the BBC and the Met Police. The aluminium-composite cladding Reynobond PE - identified as one of the main reasons for the fire’s spread up the building’s façade has sparked outrage over failed safety regulations and debate over the lack of responsibility behind the building’s (and many others) construction overall. Further fire safety tests revealed the cladding to be present in up to 60 similar council estates with more being urged to submit samples for testing.
For a quick summary, we’ve covered some key points from each of the 3 sections addressed RIBA's statement below:
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