As a follow up to our recent post on the recent win by Boltshauser Architekten for their Basel Aquarium design in Switzerland, we wanted to share with you the other entries by Zaha Hadid Architects, David Chipperfield Architects and Caruso St John Architects. Zaha Hadid’s ‘Blue Cave,’ while praised for its excellent quality, was criticised for its thin visitor aisles; the jury felt the “dynamic” styling of the building’s interior would have been in competition with the aquariums, and so the project came in third out of the 15 shortlisted entries. More information and images on the other entries, after the break.
The Gold Coast, Australia’s sixth largest city, recently announced their global design competition to develop it’s ‘cultural heart and soul’in the 17-hectare Evandale site. Designers are being invited to form multi-disciplinary teams ready for the two-stage competition, to be launched in March 2013 by Gold Coast City Council. The will be to create compelling design concepts that reflect the Gold Coast’s quintessential character while demonstrating worlds best practice in landscape, urban and architectural design. Registration begins in March. For more information, please visit here.
Awarded by the Brick Development Association (BDA), BOLLES+WILSON recently received the ‘Brick Award 2012′ for their Raakspoort – City Hall and Bioscoop project in Haarlem, Netherlands. The jury headed by BDA-Chairman Bob Allies commended a wealth of innovation in brickwork details throughout the building’s intelligent design and its character, which is clearly responding to its contextual surroundings. Out of about 300 projects from across the globe, with 84 shortlisted, this project won the international category ‘Worldwide Brick’. More information after the break.
On the occasion of Wolf D. Prix’ 70th birthday, the Architekturforum Aedes in Berlin is devoting an exhibition to Coop Himmelb(l)au entitled “Wolf D. Prix & Partner: 7+ Projects, Models, Plans, Sketches, Statements”. The event began on December 12 and ends January 24. The event highlights 70 years, 7 projects, the 7 lives of an architect as the magical number 7 has been integrated into the exhibition concept in a variety of ways. This show, which opened just one day before the 70th birthday of Coop Himmelb(l)au founder Wolf D. Prix, begins with a backward glance at the founding year of 1968 and the theoretical roots of this architectural partnership. For more information, please visit here.
As Europe recovered from the death and destruction of World War II, countries got back to the business of rebuilding their communities and, of course, their churches. The need to make sense of the madness of the War was palpable - as was the need to express this modern-day spirituality in a form that broke from the past and embraced this new world.
The result was a bevy of European churches that - although often misunderstood by practitioners - represent some of our best-preserved examples of Modernist architecture. Photographer Fabrice Fouillet made it his mission to photograph these beauties in a series he calls "Corpus Christi." You can see the images - as well as Fouillet's description of the work - after the break...
The New York Public Library has a plan to save millions of dollars, improve efficiency, and reverse the cutbacks that have been plaguing it. How? By sending little-used resources off-site (after all, most people use the library for its online resources these days), the Library will consolidate three libraries into one Mid-Manhattan branch, renovating the building with a streamlined, efficient design - courtesy of Foster + Partners - to create "the largest combined research and circulating library in the country."
It sounds like a wonderful, modern solution. Ms. Alda Louis Huxtable would beg to differ.
The former New York Times architecture critic and current critic for the Wall Street Journalhas come out swinging against the plan. First, she builds on the critique that others have made, that by moving volumes off-site (to New Jersey, or "Siberia, as she puts it) to make room for more modern amenities, the library will devalue its primary purpose (making resources readily accessible). To put it another way, as Scott Sherman did in his article for The Nation, it would turn the library into “a glorified internet café.” Then, Huxtable makes her own argument: that removing the current, intricate system of stacks would be an enormously complex, expensive, and hopelessly misguided structural challenge.
But, ultimately Ms. Huxtable’s argument comes down to the intrinsic architectural and cultural value of this Beaux Arts Masterpiece: “You don't "update" a masterpiece.”
More on the Ms. Huxtable incendiary critique of The New York Public Library’s Central Plan, after the break...
Designed for a marine based company, the design by ACID (Advanced Construction Information Development Co., Ltd) + AaL (Advance Architecture Lab) + Studio méta- creates an iconic architectural representation of their day to day business. The architects were interested in a frozen expression of twisting water and the idea of this movement with relation to the core business of their client. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Gwangju Swarms installation by NADAAA was designed as part of the Urban Folly Exhibit, 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale. The installation site is characterized by a road crossing with a diverse set of scales and building types that anchor each corner, a site in transition. Inhabiting this corner, the installation is chameleonic; encrytped within the logic of the branches, a seemingly animated structure floats overhead, peeking around the corners giving body to the space that was once occupied by the city wall. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The hotel concept for the five-star hotel in Tianjin, China incorporates the traditional hotel amenities such as conference rooms, restaurants, and fitness areas with a vibrant gallery for art and changing exhibitions showcasing local and international artists. Designed by HAO/Holm Architecture Office, the building orients the building mass to create better views towards downtown Tianjin while curving back part of the volume to create a covered area for the hotel entrance and drop-off. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Spread across 1156 acres, the proposal for the Trans Ganga Masterplan by Studio Symbiosis is envisioned as an iconic city on the banks of Ganga, aimed at being a self sufficient sustainable city. Developed as a mixed use project, this will provide the most influential and dominant context for the master plan. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Both Robert Greenstreet, Intl. Assoc. AIA, and John D. Anderson, FAIA, have won prestigious AIA award. The Board of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) named Robert Greenstreet as 2013 recipient of the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. In addition, the AIA Board of Directors elected John D. Anderson as the 2013 recipient of the Edward C. Kemper Award in recognition of his many leadership roles within the AIA at the state and national levels. More information on their awards after the break.
FXFOWLE Architects shared with us their custom-design for the inaugural Miami Project art fair. Their installation, known as the ‘FXFOWLE Lounge’, features a free-standing architectural pavilion housed within a well-appointed lounge and bar area. The pavilion – which pairs technologically-sophisticated scripting software with simple museum board – comprises 180 varying segments that, together, take the form of complex structural geometries. More images and architects’ description after the break.
All are invited to participate in the challenge to create proposals for the public use of an overhead transmission line corridor (a.k.a. hydro corridor) in midtown Toronto. This design competition aims to demonstrate the potential of the particular hydro corridor site and also to foster a discussion on public use of other similar spaces in North American cities. The ideas will not be built, but they are meant to get the communities who live, study and work near the site to start thinking about its future. Submissions are due no later than February 4. Among the competition’s many organizers and sponsors are Workshop Architecture Inc., Davenport Neighborhood Association, Canada Council for the Arts, and Ontario Association of Architects. For more information about the competition, please visit their official website here.
With more than 25 years of AIA participation and holding many leadership roles, Mickey Jacob, FAIA, managing principal at Urban Studio Architects in Tampa, Florida since 1989, was inaugurated as the 89th president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The announcement was made during ceremonies held on December 7th at the Ronald Regan Building and International Trade Center. He succeeds Jeff Potter, FAIA, in representing over 80,000 AIA members. A native of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Jacob graduated from the University of Detroit in 1981 and began practicing in Tampa, Florida where he was licensed in 1986. More information after the break.
Team Shishka shared with us their 1st prize winning proposal in the International Art Residence Design Concept Competition in Nikola Lenivets, Russia. As stars in the cosmos, buildings and residences are spread on the site while connected with basic infrastructure. This system takes maximal advantage of the landscape, yet has minimal impact on nature. Within the flexible framework of plan, Nikola Lenivets can be experienced during every moment of the day, the whole year long. More images and the team’s description after the break.
Delicately crafted models by twelve students at Eindhoven University of Technologywill be the feature of an exhibit on Rudolf Olgiati called Die Sprache der Architektur (The Language of Architect). Oligiati was a Swiss Architect of the mid-20th century whose work has been attributed to the New Objectivist Movement. His work, which largely featured single family homes, brought a modernist aesthetic to the tradition of the mountainous Grisons of eastern Switzerland.
Designed by Torsten Ottesjö, with Christian Strömqvist and David Relan, Kloster is a strip of land on the west coast of Sweden where they have conceptualized an idea of luxury. Two houses are situated above a slope leading down to a dock and private beach, and are aligned to incorporate the ideal light conditions for the morning and Scandinavian evenings respectively. Aiming to provide a means of inspiration, the structure of the complex is the curling of a leaf – a single surface extended above itself. More images and architects’ description after the break.
For architects, Oslo has become a safe haven from Europe’s economic turmoil. According to an article byJ.S. Marcus for The Wall Street Journal, dozens of new architectural projects currently under construction are not only changing the city’s humble skyline, putting the city on the cutting-edge of architectural design, but are also pulling in a base of buyers that are eager to call the city’s waterfront home (no wonder Norway was voted our work). And nowhere can Oslos’s transformation be better seen than in the new quarter of Operakvarteret, where a 20,000 square-meter, mixed use development project has brought various, innovative architects together to design a new face for Oslo.
Storefront for Art and Architecture, jointly with the New Museum and Architizer, recently launched the StreetFest Competition – IDEAS CITY 2013. As the world’s resources continue to be endangered, depleted, and destroyed, we all need to imagine new solutions and develop innovative approaches and practices. Created to explore the future city and to effect change, the biennial festival will take place in downtown New York from May 1-4, 2013 with the theme, ‘Untapped Capital’. On May 4, one winning entry will occupy a designated outdoor space along the Bowery near the New Museum. The deadline for submissions is February 9. To register and for more information, please visit here.
Taking place June 20-22, 2013 in Denver, General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.), former Secretary of State (2001 – 2005), joins Cameron Sinclair, co-founder and chief eternal optimist of Architects For Humanity, and Blake Mycoskie, founder and chief shoe giver of TOMS, as keynote speakers for the 2013 AIA National Convention,. The 2013 “Building Leaders” theme will give architects and design professionals opportunities to learn, share, and demonstrate the essential qualities that define leadership today. Registration opens in January. For more information, please visit here. More information on the keynote speakers after the break.
Helsinki, a city committed to finding the evolving nature of culture in an ever changing society, is the inspiration behind STL Architects’ proposal for the new Library. If a library is a container of culture with the mission of making knowledge available to the people, then Helsinki is one of the greatest libraries in the world. The new Helsinki Central Library is conceived as a reflection of its city, acting as a filter of cultural activity, and honoring the lifeblood of the Heart of Helsinki: its people. More images and architects’ description after the break.
International architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) recently announced that their design for the 120 million square foot master plan for Meixi Lake in Changsha, China is being realized. A new city in the West Changsha Pioneer Zone in Hunan Province, Meixi Lake is centered around a 3.85 kilometer‐long lake. Upon completion, the city will be home to 180,000 inhabitants, and will provide residents, workers and visitors sustainable neighborhoods for living, working, recreation, culture and entertainment. More images and architects’ press release after the break.
