To commemorate the first edition of “Silent Day,” a fabricated holiday by Sony Argentina that celebrated the release of new Sony headphones, the Planetario Galileo Galilei was given headphones in an effort to change the cold and solid appearance of the buildng into a fun, cartoonish personage. Designed by architect Enrique Jan in 1967, some would argue that one should not use these highlights of modernism for lousy advertising. Although, we all know that brands like to use the urban space as a canvas for their messages, so why not do it in a funny way? More images and information after the break.
Inspired by the Ferris wheel, ‘Wheels of Chicago’ consists of seven revolving wheels proposed for Olive Park and its vicinity. Designed by Hapsitus Architects, five of them will be placed above the circular fountains, with the circumference of each wheel mirroring that of its fountain. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The deadline is rapidly approaching for all lighting designers, architects, urban planners, interior designers, engineers, landscapers or students to participate in the 2013 Lamp Lighting Solutions Awards competition. With light being a fundamental element of life and a key aspect of any architectural project, prizes will be awarded to projects that have successfully met the architectural lighting needs of an indoor or outdoor space, having created a positive synergy between architecture, interior design, landscaping and lighting. The deadline for submissions is January 31. For more information, please visit here.
GRAPHISOFT has developed another tool for your BIM toolbox. This tool – the EcoDesigner Star – creates a streamlined energy analysis workflow. Essentially – architects can use their ArchiCAD BIM as a Building Energy Model (BEM).
What does this mean for designers and energy consultants? Implementing BIM in your everyday design practice already requires less timeto complete and deliver an architectural project. Now, with EcoDesigner Star coordination and collaboration are further enhanced as those processes are shortened and more productive. Additionally, EcoDesigner Star offers standard-compliant energy analyses on the BEM and produces a detailed building performance report, all within the familiar ArchiCAD design environment. EcoDesigner supports authoring tools in ArchiCAD by fully inegrating energy evaluation and reporting, according to international energy standards into the BIM.
Through United Design Group’s investigation of their context and analysis of the program, they identified, organized and prioritized the four functions inside the school with this “sequence”: public area, education area, living area, and sport facilities, in order to optimize the circulation and the time of students, teachers and guests. The main goal was the integration of the system with the landscape. To do so, they took into account as a valuable reference the Suzhou Gardens Style, in which the water plays a significant role, trying to interpret it in a modern way. More images and architects’ description after the break.
An impressive team has been pieced together by Canary Wharf Group to design portions of the first phase for the Wood Wharf development in London’s major business district of Tower Hamlets. Already home to some of the UK’s tallest buildings, Canary Wharf has announced its plan to add a Herzog & deMeuron-designed residential high-rise to its glowing skyline on a redeveloped eight-hectare site.
AscanMergenthaler, senior partner at Herzog & deMeuron stated, “The new high-rise building will mediate between the city and the individual, the public and private, and will inject a new component of daily residential life into the evolving mixed-use Canary Wharf district. It will be both a symbol and the heart of the new Wood Wharf urban quarter, an extension of a dynamic global community and the start of a new vibrant neighborhood.”
See who else has been commissioned to partake in the first phase of the Canary Wharf development after the break.
Think Big Factory, together with the Basque Culinary Center and Fagor Electrodomésticos, shared with us their development of the Smart Tasting prototype. The prototype integrates the Internet of Things concept into the tasting experience, mixing food with technology. Generating a real-time connection between chefs and customers, connections will be created that explain the most interesting parts of the process to people who are tasting the dishes and vice versa. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Aiming to create a riverfront like none other in the world, landscape architect Matthew Edward Getch and architect Maciej Woroniecki shared with us their proposal in the Detroit by Design 2012 competition where they received the 2nd overall prize and the first prize for the People’s Choice Award. The goals of their proposal were born from Detroit’s apparent weakness. They established linear interventions which recognized the severed parks and green networks and utilized them to reconnect the citizens of Detroit back to the riverfront through pedestrian friendly portals. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Based on the idea of resuse, the competition winning proposal for the Econtainer Bridge by Yoav Messer Architects will be the gateway to Arial Sharon park and will connect Lod road (route 461 which leads from east Tel Aviv to Bnei Atarot village) straight to Hiriya mountain in the center of the park. The 160-meter long bridge will be used by pedestrians, bicycle riders, and special vehicles that will function as shuttles to transport the public from the parking areas into the park itself. More images and architects’ description after the break.
From the recent information overload concerning Zaha Hadid’s Wangjing Soho being pirated in China, one might think that copying was a new phenomenon in architecture. Is this really that shocking or even worth mentioning?
It must be because, for the next few hundred words or so, I’m going to be mentioning it quite a bit. Copying can be a complicated issue. In Western culture, in particular, the status of the copy is fraught with contradictions. It is a problem that has existed since long before Walter Benjamin wrote about it in “The Work of Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction”.
Over a month has passed since the Sandy Hook tragedy. Its surviving students have gone back to school, albeit at another facility (decorated with old posters to make it feel familiar), and are working on putting this tragic event behind them. The nation is similarly moving on - but this time, with an eye to action.
The goal is obvious: to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again. The means, less so. While President Obama’s recent gun control policy offers some solutions, it’s by no means the only way. Indeed, opinions vary - from clamping down on gun control, to better addressing the root cause of mental illness, to even arming teachers in the classroom.
The design world has similarly contributed to the debate. A recent article in ArchRecord questioned how, in the wake of Sandy Hook, we should design our schools: “While fortress-like buildings with thick concrete walls, windows with bars, and special security vestibules may be more defensible than what is currently in vogue, they are hardly the kind of places that are optimal for learning.”Indeed, turning a school into a prison would be the design equivalent of giving a teacher a rifle. You would, of course, have a more “secure” environment - but at what cost?
As America and the world considers how we can move on after these traumas, I’d like to take a moment to consider what role design could play. If the answer is not to turn our schools into prisons, then what is? Can design help address the root causes of violence and make our schools less vulnerable to tragedy? If so, how?
Cook County, Illinois, recently brought the elimination of construction waste to a new level by creating the first demolition debris ordinance in the Midwest. This groundbreaking ordinance requires most of the debris created from demolition to be recycled and reused instead of being sent to the landfill. The ordinance helps contribute to Cook County’s zero waste goal, part of the Solid Waste Plan Update.
The new law states that at least 7 percent of suburban construction and demolition debris must be recycled, and an additional 5 percent must be reused on residential properties. This new legislation will have a great impact as it affects about 2.5 million suburban Cook County residents.
All professionally active individuals or legal persons such builders, architectural bureaus, local government, construction firms, or other companies are invited to submitted projects for the Architecture of Necessity 2013 Competition dated between 2010 and 2013, whether they have been built or not. The submitted material must include a short text describing the project in relation to the Architecture of Necessity, which espouses the values of being responsible, diligent, sustainable, just, and open. Entries should be submitted to Virserum Art Museum no later than February 15. For more information, please visit here.
Designed by United Design Group (UDG China), their proposal for the Contemporary Art Museum faces the main artery crossing the city of Jinan east to west. With the ambition to become the landmark of this urban sector, the first step of the process was to establish a relationship with the existing buildings; the main idea was to complete the sequence of boxes, maintaining the symmetry of the system. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Designed by NAAU for the Australian ‘Transiting Cities’ competition, their Cultured Landscape proposal examines generative strategies for re-purposing the region, which is currently a center of brown coal fired power production, into a center of clean energy research and development, sustainable agriculture and eco-tourism. Drawing on an analysis of the existing agglomeration of towns, roads, infrastructure, and social and cultural sites, the project is configured around a generative network that will act as a growth structure for the future development of the region. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The design proposal for NAAS Springs, a well-known wellness center and place of relaxation in Beirut, is formed by a series of walls projecting into nature. They alternate between large living spaces with roofs for residences and uncovered elongated spaces for the passages, which form an extension of nature. Designed by Hapsitus Architects, the architectural landscape is created in the spirit of water following down a sloped terrain. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Inspired by the school’s strong community spirit, C.F. Møller Architects’ first prize winning design for University of Southern Denmark’s student housing project includes 250 student residences that are located in three interconnected 14-storey buildings. This means that the residence has no front or back, but appears attractive from a 360-degree perspective. The building’s distinctive shape will make it easily recognizable on the campus, and clearly advertises its distinct residential content. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Inspired by the desert landscape, the design of Rock Stadium by MZ Architects celebrates the game it hosts as much as it celebrates the site in which it lays. Sunken 200,000sqm into the cooler depth of the desert sand, the Rock Stadium, like a hidden treasure, presents itself to the visitor as a series of sharply inclined planes emerging from the ground. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Entering their fifth cycle of the WDC (World Design Capital) initiative, Icsid (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) is currently calling for submissions of applications for the biennial designation, where a combination of many factors contributes to the final selection. Although applicants are encouraged to prepare a creative proposal for review, it is essential, that applications clearly define the aims and objectives of the city to hold the designation, as well as provide a detailed account of the city’s contribution to design from a social, economical and cultural point of view. More information after the break.
Austrian architectural office AllesWirdGut were recently commissioned to build the corporate headquarters of the international WAZ Media Group at their corporate home base in Essen, Germany. With a gross floor area of 36,000 sqm, the architects create a landmark and sustainable business model as shown in their future-oriented concept. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Phil Bernstein is a Vice President at Autodesk and teaches at Yale (see our interview with him here). This post, originally published in 2011 on his blog as "Winter Commencement," offers timeless advice for architecture students about to enter the job market.
As December now rolls around it's the eve of my last lecture in my professional practice class at Yale. Although I've been teaching for almost twenty-five years, I still can't believe how quickly the semester accelerates into Thanksgiving, and suddenly it's all over but the shouting (or, in our case, final projects and juries). About the same time as the term slammed to a closed I received a note from a student at Prarie View A&M, asking many of the existential questions that must be facing architecture students nearing their degrees. Seemed like a good time to speculate a bit about that future, and what this year's graduates might be facing as they confront the job market in the spring, with enough time between now and then to contemplate their options and plot their strategies, so here goes:
Read on to find out Phil Bernstein's 5 tips for future grads, after the break...
modeLab‘s upcoming webinar, Dynamic Behaviors in Processing, focuses on developing rich and responsive behaviors from scratch – think of bouncing balls, particle systems, or flocking boids – can be tricky without an object-oriented approach to our program design. Through a series of short presentations and “live” exercises, which takes place January 25 from 2:00pm-4:30pm EST, you will learn how to successfully structure and implement classes in Processing to create fun and dynamic object behaviors. To register, and for more information, please visit here.
Open now until February 21, the Atlas of an Irish City exhibition, hosted by the Irish Architecture Foundation at the Oonagh Young Gallery in Dublin, features an architectural survey of Galway and design projects that explore new ways to think about the future of the city by students of Studio Tom Emerson at the ETH Zurich. The exhibition is free and open to the public Wednesday-Friday 12pm-6pm. For more information, please visit here.
