Some of the most integral parts of a building are related to light and air. Windows, for example, can help transform a project into a more liveable or better space, providing natural light or connecting the building’s users with their surroundings.
From windows inserted into historic structures, to windows meant to give the building a distinct, landmark look, these nine projects utilize windows as a primary feature. View the nine creative uses of windows after the break.
The Pavilion of Morocco at the 14th Venice Biennale, Fundamentals, focused on territorial speculations in the Sahara: Inhabiting the Uninhabitable. For the exhibition, which was the country's first representation at the Biennale, Paris-based practice OUALALOU+CHOI proposed an urban structure for this desert territory – "a means of putting down roots, implanting urbanity and civilization. The Sahara, with its extreme geography and climatic conditions, remains unexplored territory for architectural speculation."
UNStudio has won a competition to transform the former Deutsche Bank site in Frankfurt's financial district into a lively mixed-use site comprised of offices, apartments, hotels, retail, gastro and open public spaces. With four high-rise towers reaching up to 228-meters-tall, the proposal plans to feature the city's highest residential and office buildings.
“Bringing a mixed-use project into this financial district will not only enliven the area during daytime, but it will also introduce evening programs and create an essential form of social sustainability to this part of the city," says Ben van Berkel of UNStudio. "The introduction of the residential and the leisure components are key to this strategy. This sculptural family of towers will also create the suggestion of a cohesive neighborhood within the skyline and emphasize the importance of this part of the city within the whole."
Architecture's ability to bring people together is perhaps one of its greatest, awe-inspiring traits. And while the "bringing people together" part is usually meant figuratively, there is no building type quite as marvelous as the stadium, a place that literally gathers tens of thousands of individuals in one place, at the same time. Though the legacy of the stadium as a building type is already rich and storied, a new chapter in the history of American sports architecture will surely begin with the imminent opening of the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
At last year’s inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial, one of the celebrated exhibits was Architecture is Everywhere by Sou Fujimoto Architects, in which the firm used everyday items like staples, boxes, potato chips, rocks, and ping pong balls, coupled with scaled human figures to posit new architectural forms. Operating with the philosophy that “architecture is first found and then made,” the project expresses the firm’s belief that we need not look to typical sources for bold thinking on the formal possibilities of architecture.
Building on this philosophy and using only the white-brick Legos from the company’s Studio Architecture kit, Berlin-based artist Arndt Schlaudraff has created a series of constructions that emulate real-world precedents, but lack their materiality and color. The results are sterilized, scaleless forms restricted by the orthogonality of the interlocking brick forms. These stripped Brutalist and Modernist buildings morph into white-washed facsimiles which allow us to see many recognizable projects with a set of fresh eyes. Posting the completed projects on Instagram, Schlaudraff has reimagined icons like the Tate Modern, Alejandro Aravena’s Innovation Center UC, and the Barcelona Pavilion of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, interspersing them with his own creations and adding another layer of reality distortion to that which is already enabled by the Legos.
London's Central Hill housing estate, located in Brockwell Park (South London) and designed by Edward ('Ted') Hollamby is, like many 1960s schemes of its ilk, under threat of demolition. In this short film by British filmmaker Joe Gilbert, the estate is viewed through the narration of a long-term resident, Clifford Grant, who discusses its history and argues for its future security.
It’s a shame that the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial has already come and gone, and that the Windy City will have to wait until next fall for another dose of architectural euphoria. But it’s worth revisiting one of the event’s standout exhibits, an installation equally exemplary for its display as for its expiry. “Rock Print,” created by Gramazio Kohler Research of ETH Zurich and Skylar Tibbits of MIT's Self-Assembly Lab, was a four-legged, neo-primitive tower of stones and string that was erected without mortar or other reinforcement, meaning its disassembly would be the exact inverse action of its construction. The string, laid down by an algorithm, was the binder for stones laid by hand in thin stacks – the team called them “slices” – in what amounted to a type of analog version of 3D printing. The material process has been given the name “reversible concrete” and could be a paradigm shift in construction for its portability and versatility.
In the above video, the deconstruction of “Rock Print” is shown in abridged stages, where the structure’s string is dislodged and returned to a motorized spool on the gallery floor. The small stone fragments spew from the top of the structure like debris from the top of a volcano in the midst of eruption, and all that remains at the end is a small mound of concrete pebbles occupying a large circumference. A structure like “Rock Print” emphasizes that detritus can be avoided by adapting the process of building to vanguard materials that seek to match the brevity of contemporary construction with materials that curtail the waste.
Today marks 130 years since the birth of German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In honor of this tremendously influential figure, we're shining some light into the lesser known facts about Mies' life in order to better understand and contextualize his architecture.
For this, our colleagues at ArchDaily en Español have referred to "Vidas construidas, Biografías de arquitectos" (Constructed Lives, Biographies of Architects), a book by Anatxu Zabalbeascoa and Javier Rodríguez Marcos. This text, released by publisher Gustavo Gili, features the biographies of 20 of the world's most celebrated architects, from the Renaissance to the Modern movement. Each story is a fascinating journey into the lives of each architect, and the details allow us to understand the genesis of many works that are today considered classics.
We've chosen 20 facts that reveal the thoughts, influences and decisions that brought Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's architecture to the forefront of modernism.
Melike Altınışık Architects has won first mention in a competition to design the Kızılırmak Bridge located in Sivas, Turkey. The competition, which was hosted by Sivas Municipality, called for ideas to design a bridge to support pedestrian movement, vehicular transportation, and cycling activities. The proposal aimed to create an “avant-garde looking design approach to obtain coherency between plan and sections, and harmonize the bridge with its topography.”
Scotland, a country within the United Kingdom, will be showcasing a projected entitled Prospect North at the forthcoming Venice Biennale. Curated collaboratively between the Scottish Government, Architecture and Design Scotland, Creative Scotland,and the British Council Scotland, the installation will be designed by Lateral North, Dualchas Architects, and Soluis. As reported by the Architects' Journal, the show is set to examine "Scotland’s relationship with its northern neighbours" by focusing "on people and place, [and] looking at how communities from the Northern Isles of Orkney to the central belt of Scotland are using grassroot action."
English Heritage has announced that a team of Ney & Partners and UK-based William Matthews Associates has won the Tintagel Castle Bridge Design Competition. Chosen from a shortlist of 6 proposals, from among 136 entries, the winning design was selected by the majority of the jury.
The site of Tintagel Castle is one of English Heritage’s most spectacular, attracting over 200,000 visitors annually. It is “inextricably linked to the legend of King Arthur and has been prized throughout history for its elemental qualities and spirit of place within this area of outstanding natural beauty.” The new bridge is commissioned for approximately £4 million and will stand 28m higher than the current crossing.
San Francisco-based architecture firm, EHDD, has just unveiled their design for Pacific Visions, a 29,000 square foot, two-story expansion for one of the nation’s largest aquariums, the Aquarium of the Pacific. Pacific Visions' facilities will integrate the arts and research sciences which will allow visitors to understand the world’s oceans. The expansion is scheduled to open in the fall of 2018.
We provided our readers with a blank canvas, a single white egg. From this common starting point, we asked architects to let their innovation and creativity shine by putting an architectural twist on the average pastel Easter egg. From gifs to famous architects as eggs, we received over 450 submissions to our sites in English, Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese. It was particularly difficult to narrow down our favorites, and our selection really only scratches the surface of the many creative Easter eggs that we received from our incredibly talented readers.
While drawing or even writing about architecture can be a great way to be expressive in the field, today architectural photography is by far the most direct and widely-used methods for communicating the true form of the built environment. Capturing the perfect architectural photograph, however, can be far more difficult than one might anticipate. In light of this, we have compiled a list of ten architectural photography tutorials to help you get the right shot every time.
Read on to see how to take architectural photos at twilight, for Instagram, using long exposure, and more.
295 King Street, a 64-story mixed-use building designed by Plus Architecture and developed by Farinia, has just won approval to be built in Melbourne, Australia. The project, situated in the city’s central business district, is comprised of two sites at the northwest corner of King and Little Lonsdale streets. Its sculptural design will become a notable presence in the Melbourne skyline. Upon completion, the building will include 431 apartments and nine penthouses.
Blank Space has announced three winners and ten honorable mentions in their third Fairy Tales Competition. This year's contest drew entries from more than 1,500 participants from 67 countries. Everyone from students to academics and notable studios and designers submitted detailed stories and beautiful visuals for their submissions. The winners were chosen by an interdisciplinary jury of distinguished judges including Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of the Serpentine Galleries; Elizabeth Diller, founding partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and ArchDaily’s own Becky Quintal, Executive Editor; and David Basulto, Founder and Editor in Chief.
This edition of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, is dedicated to plants and gardens and specifically their role in architecture, urban life, and the design of the workplace. The episode considers the history of London’s urban greenery and the role of plants in landscape architecture touching upon, in conversation with Sam Jacob, the latest in London's green infrastructure: Heatherwick Studio's proposed Garden Bridge across the River Thames. It also traces the lineage of semi-private squares in Georgian London to Ebenezer Howard's Garden City movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – all approaches discussing how best to unite the built environment with the natural world.
Over time, an endless spectrum of materials has become available for use within the realm of architecture. However, one material that seems underrepresented is plastic, a versatile and malleable compound that can be used for a wide variety of purposes. In light of the many applications of plastics in architecture, we have compiled a list of 12 projects that utilize plastic: from repurposing plastic bottles to the use of translucent plastic siding, these projects represent just a few of the many ways that plastic can be used as a primary material.
Although many have come to question our unwavering devotion to hermetically sealed buildings, most construction budgets are still dominated by costs associated with HVAC and other quality of life standards. With some questioning the efficacy of such practices, and others taking fault with the costs, there is now immense incentive to create new technologies and techniques that could allow us to retain the benefits of such climate control without the environmental and monetary cost they currently carry.
Now a young company known as SkyCool Sytems, founded by Stanford University researcher Aaswath Raman, has developed a cooling method capable of ejecting excess heat out of the atmosphere in the form of infrared rays. Read on to find out how it works.
An interactive info graphic published by Bloomberg last month, which scanned 2014 U.S. Census Bureau information from more than 3.5 million households, shows how married professionals are pairing up. Whether people are marrying others in the same field (like artists tend to do), or outside their profession, (as metal fabricators, secretaries and administrative assistants do), Bloomberg finds that falling in love may have more to do with work proximity than destiny.
C.F. Møller Architects and Tredje Natur have won a competition to design Future Sølund, one of the largest and most forward-thinking residential nursing homes in Danish history. Not only will this center give the elderly the care they need, but it will also give them the opportunity to interact with people of other generations while simultaneously setting higher standards for well-being, security, functionality, and community values.
Capitalizing on the emergence of the touchscreen tablet and stylus as a drafting tool, Morpholio has released the brand new, patent-pending ScalePen, which provides a new way to draw on their popular iPad app, “Trace” (available in the App Store). The ScalePen simultaneously checks the drawing scale and iPad zoom level and offers an array of pens that respond as you move through the drawing. The result “brings precision and clarity to line weight, and gives architects the ability to make beautiful sketches at multiple scales, within a single drawing, set of layers, or layouts.”
The student architecture competition “120 Hours” has released the winners of its 2016 competition—“What Ever Happened to Architectural Space?”—which this year challenged entrants to imagine a space without program or site. In a time when the discourse of architecture is influenced more by program and environment than spatial quality, the brief was uniquely challenging in its simplicity. Entries were received from over 2863 students from 72 countries, with winners selected by a jury headed by Christian Kerez and including Maria Shéhérazade Giudici, Beate Hølmebakk, Neven Mikac Fuchs and Marina Montresor.
Originally devised by students in Oslo, the competition format is intended as a way of encouraging discourse among architecture students across the world, with competition briefs released just 120 hours (5 days) before the submission deadline. These unique restrictions have fostered a reputation for unconventional and challenging proposals and winning entries in the past have included giant scaffolds of hammocks and the use of robots to inhabit an abandoned town. Read on to see the top three award recipients for 2016.
Steven Holl Architects has been selected as the winner of an invited competition to design the Rubenstein Commons at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) located in Princeton, New Jersey. The new Rubenstein Commons will be situated at the center of the campus and serve as a new forum for scholars to interact and share ideas. The IAS, which was home to where Albert Einstein worked for 22 years until his death in 1955, received the project funding from David Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of the Carlyle Group.
