Construction has begun on the Liuzhou Forest City in the mountainous region of Guangxi, China. Designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti, the new ground-up city will accommodate up to 30,000 people in a master plan of environmentally efficient structures covered top-to-bottom in plants and trees.
Liuzhou Forest City will contain all of the essential typologies of the modern city – offices, houses, hotels, hospitals and schools – housed within a 175 hectare site near the Liujiang River. Employing the firm’s signature vertical forest system, The facades of each building will be covered in plant life, with a total 40,000 trees and nearly 1 million plants from over 100 species specified.
Vincent Callebaut Architectures have developed a design plan reimagining the riverbank of Yeouhido Park, Seoul. The park is envisioned as an experimental urban space dedicated to sustainable development through a series of interventions - including a floating ferry terminal. Named the “Manta Ray,” the ambition of the proposal is to transform the park into an ecological forest of trees, enhancing its natural irrigation and strengthening the banks from floods. The “permeable landscaping” seeks to reduce floods and rehabilitate urban ecosystems that have become fragmented through Seoul’s rapid built expansion. The vegetation-dominated strategy also seeks to reduce the urban “heat island” effect Seoul has been experiencing due to climate change over the past decades.
A competition for the innovative design of public housing in Malaga has been won by Spanish firms PRÁCTICA and Daroca Arquitectos, whose proposal offers a new housing typology based on energy efficiency, sustainability, and urbanization from a human and ecological perspective. Titled Al Sur, the 15,196 square meters development transforms Malaga’s “Green Block” urban plan, combining social housing, free market units, and commercial areas.
https://www.archdaily.com/873666/practica-and-daroca-arquitectos-mixed-housing-complex-to-develop-malagas-green-blockArchDaily Team
MVRDV and local architects Flint have revealed designs for a new riverfront mixed-use housing complex in Bordeaux, Ilot Queyries, as the project breaks ground. Located on the east bank of Garonne River, the site will house over 300 apartments, retail spaces, a rooftop restaurant, and a communal park in a densely mixed environment. The complex will integrate into the neighboring ZAC Bastide-Niel masterplan by MVRDV to create a lively urban neighborhood aimed at “combining the virtues of the historic city–intimacy, surprise and liveliness– with the density, ecology, light and comfort of the modern city.”
The United States’ first mass-timber highrise (defined by Emporis Building Standards as a building with an architectural height of 115-328 feet, or between 12 and 40 floors) has been granted planning permission, allowing construction on the landmark project to begin. Located in downtown Portland, Oregon, the building known as Framework will cap out at 12 floors and approximately 128 feet, ushering in a new era of tall building construction in the US.
The team consisting of ALA Architects, HKP Architects and Ramboll Finland has won an invited competition for the renovation and expansion of Helsinki Airport’s Terminal 2 with their entry titled “City Hall.” Organized by Finnish airport operator Finavia, the competition asked four international firms to create a new airport plan centered around a reenvisioned terminal that will allow the airport to efficiently serve up to 20 million passengers per year.
Steven Holl Architects has broken ground on the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building for Modern and Contemporary Art at The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. Selected through an international competition in 2012 among finalists Snøhetta and Morphosis Architects, the winning proposal is a 164,000-square-foot museum building that will be one of the campus’s two newest additions. To expand and unite its campus as an integral experience, the Museum is also realizing a new Glassell School of Art also designed by Steven Holl Architects, totaling a 14-acre redesign led by the office.
For over ten thousand years, cities have maintained an industrial infrastructure to transform local materials into basic necessities, such as clothing, food, and shelter. Even in the present day, with advances in science, construction, and commercial technology, a need still exists for structures dedicated to industrial-scale production, storage and distribution. However, in this more advanced, environmentally-conscious age, a challenge has emerged to create industrial complexes which are ecologically sensitive, responsible and sustainable.
Against this environmental backdrop, Istanbul-based GAD Architecture have unveiled Media City, a multimedia-based industrial complex to serve Istanbul’s future airport, projected to be the world’s largest upon completion. Recognized with a Future Project Award by the Architectural Review, Media City will incorporate industrial buildings in an urban setting inspired by QR codes, where artistic and cultural values co-exist with a celebration of environmental and technological progress.
International Architecture office 10 Design has released their first images of their Jefaira Seafront Development along Egypt’s North Coast. Spanning 550 hectares, the site stretches 3km along the Mediterranean coastline. The project is in collaboration with INERTIA, one of Egypt’s prominent real-estate developers leading various luxury residential and commercial developments across the country.
Danish-based landscape architects SLA have won a competition to develop The New Hedeland Nature Park – a 1,500-hectare cultural landscape near the historical city of Roskilde, Denmark. The winning proposal challenges the common idea of the conventional “culture house” as it is moved out in the open without walls and roofs, making participating accessible for everyone. The winning design also seeks to complement the area's unique nature and 10,000 years of cultural history into one coherent concept, creating new space for co-creation, interaction, and awareness.
Exterior Night View. Image Courtesy of VTN Architects
VTN Architects (Vo Trong Nghia Architects) has revealed plans for the Nanoco Head Office, a stacked glass box structure that will house the headquarters and flagship showroom for electrical corporation Fortune Electric. Known for their implementation of greenery into their elevations and roofscapes, VTN’s scheme introduces a new element into their typical palette, a glass block facade that will allow the building to turn into a neighborhood beacon in the evenings.
Miralles Tagliabue EMBT has been announced as the winner of a competition for the design of Artenoah, a biodiversity center in Rehau, Germany that will chronicle and serve that species-rich green belt along the border of Germany and the Czech Republic. Built into the forested highlands of the Neuhausen district, the masterplan consists of a series of thematic outdoors spaces and a central pavilion with an undulating form that allows it to blend into the surrounding landscape.
New university buildings form a spatial framing, where the park is the unifying element. The square is enriched with small landscape interventions, and facilitates external business activities. (Illustration by Beauty and the Bit). Image Courtesy of KOHT Arkitekter
KOHT Arkitekter has won an international competition to expand one of Norway’s s largest university campuses. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim launched their masterplan competition in December last year, setting the deadline for the first stage in January 2017. The emerging studio, consisting of Anders Olivarius Bjørneseth (27), Kenneth Larssen Lønning (25), Jonas Velken Kverneland (27) and Christopher Wilkens (32) beat 39 competing proposals before winning in the two-stage competition.
Like many European urban districts, the Swedish city of Gothenburg is in the process of transforming old industrial areas along its waterfront into mixed-use public realms. Against the backdrop of urban regeneration in Gothenburg, Danish firm Henning Larsen has unveiled a masterplan for the Lindholmen urban district, which following its completion in 2025, will offer a diverse environment for engagement between students, entrepreneurs, and public citizens.
A team of local residents and architects in Hamburg’s neighborhood of St. Pauli have been granted planning permission for a proposal to repurpose a war bunker dating back from the 1940s. Coined Hilldegarden, the proposal seeks to create a “green mountain” garden atop the disused roof of the bunker along with a range of mixed-use projects that increase its height by several stories. “We are rebuilding what we inherit.” The project’s initiative states, “Adding something to history while dealing with it and thereby reshaping history itself.”
Construction has begun on the LocHal, a new mixed-use complex in Tillburg, The Netherlands. Designed by CIVIC Architects (a submember of The Cloud Collective) in collobaration with Braaksma & Roos architecten, Arup and Inside Outside, the project will be located in a former Dutch Railways hangar and maintenance facility, serving as a catalyst for the redevelopment of the city’s 75 hectare railway district. Opening up the area to the public, LocHal will offer visitors a large public hall and plaza, work spaces, conference areas, galleries, a library, a music hall and restaurant.
https://www.archdaily.com/871894/construction-begins-on-project-to-transform-railway-hangar-into-a-mixed-use-library-in-the-netherlandsAD Editorial Team
Zaha Hadid Architects have broken ground on the construction of a new 5.5 hectare development in Bratislava, Slovakia. Known as ‘Sky Park,’ the master plan will transform an abandoned site in a formerly industrial area of the city into a 20,000-square-meter park and mixed-use community containing more than 700 apartments and 55,000 square meters of office and retail space.
Zaha Hadid Architects unveiled a new experimental structure as part of Milan’s White In The City Exhibition during the city’s annual Salone del Mobile. Held at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in the heart of Milan’s design district, the exhibition explored the contemporary use of white color in design and architecture across various locations in the city. Named the Thallus – after the Greek word for flora that is not differentiated into stem and leaves, the sculpture is the latest in ZHA’s investigations using 3D printing technology. Thallus continues Zaha Hadid Architects’ Computational Design (ZHA CoDe) group’s research into generating geometries through robotic-assisted design.
Emerging practice NEUBAU has received planning permission to begin construction on Tower Station, a mixed-use residential building located on Fincheley Road in London. Commissioned by County Tower Properties, the ‘pixelated’ building will be located on the site of a former gas station and clock tower, replacing the previous use with a new mechanical clock at the building’s peak, creating a new local landmark that echos the site’s history.
This is the largest commission to date for NEUBAU, founded in 2014 by former OMA architects Brigitta Lenz and Alexander Giarlis.
Zaha Hadid Architects has revealed plans for a new ecologically-considered development located on a lush site along the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. Known as Alai, the complex will offer a nature-focused living experience while preserving a large portion of the forested site for species restoration.
Coldefy & Associés Architectes Urbanistes, in collaboration with ECADI (East China Architectural Design and Research Institute), has been awarded 1st prize in the international competition to design the new Bao’an Public Culture and Arts Center in Shenzhen, China, beating out 69 other entries, including a proposal from Mecanoo.
3XN Architects have released design plans for a new contemporary extension of the Historical Silkeborg Museum in Denmark. The museum houses some of the oldest and well-preserved bog bodies in the world: The Tollund Man and Elling Woman. Through the 1,858 square meter extension that includes a contemporary “roofscape” rising from the marshland, the design seeks to build a stronger identity for the museum through its architecture.
Aedas has been selected as the winners of a competition to design a new luxury resort located on Hengqin Island in Zhuhai, China. Inspired by the lush natural scenery of the island and by the traditional Lingnan architectural style, the resort promises to offer “a haven of comfort and relaxation amidst the bustling city life.”
MYS Architects has been selected to design a new mixed-use high-rise in the northern business district of Tel Aviv, an area home to the city’s urban skyscraper belt. Called the “Egged Tower,” the project consists of a 65-story tower rising from a commercial podium, constituting one of the largest current construction projects in the city.
The tower will be clad in a unique panelized facade system that employs techniques developed in the “Function of Ornament” research course led by Farshid Moussavi at the Harvard GSD.
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