Architects: 3.14 GA Location: Rueda, Valladolid, Spain Project Year: 2012 Photographs: Jara Varela

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Building on a previous piece entitled “Suspension Bridge, the passage”, Olivier Grossetête’s ‘Pont de Singe’ in the UK is a model of floating bridge attached to helium balloons, thus taking literally the term “suspension bridge “. The object aims to connect two mobile spaces, questioning its usefulness. This bridge becomes a floating symbol of all relationships, and embodies the space surrounding its slight movements caused by our air movement. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Proposed by Talmon Biran Architecture Studio, the Yad Le’Banim building is located within an existing grove at the local council of Ramat Yishay, Israel, which provides a unique opportunity to integrate landscape with the architectural design. This setting doesn’t only add a visual values for the building, but also adds and symbolic aspect – the trees which are seen from all the building’s façades create an image that expresses the relation between life and death, between growth and loss. This relation is inherent in the definition of the Yad Le’Banim buildings as cultural and educational centers on the one hand, and as a memorials on the other hand. More images and architects’ description after the break.

With locally grown and organic food becoming more popular in the Czech Republic, EDIT! was asked to design a market stall for a new concept of Green Markets. Through a reconfiguration of the typical retailing method, the architects create a unique response to the importance of enabling a personal interaction between the farmers and market visitors. From this, the farmer can relate to the visitors through their produce, and the relationships formed may contribute to the character of the market as a whole. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates were recently selected to design a giant office building the landlord hopes to build next to Grand Central Terminal. Selected by SL Green Realty Corp., the architects’ design would be one of the largest Midtown towers on the East Side in a generation. While building in New York is a challenge, SL Green is moving ahead full steam with planning. The company is in discussions with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to obtain additional development rights by building pedestrian improvements including underground connectors to Grand Central, according to executives informed of the planning. More information after the break.

This week’s film isn’t actually a movie in itself, but rather a lot of little films merged into one: “Paris, I Love You”. Twenty shorts, each representing the 20 arrondissements – districts – of Paris were filmed to show the French capital in its multiple identities (in the end, only eighteen made the cut). The work is an interesting attempt to use film to represent the many facets of a metropolitan urban area; it is also an exploration of the different ways we can see a city, depending on our perceptions and experiences within it.

Have you ever walked through Parisian streets? Does “Paris I Love You” capture your experiences of Paris’ districts? Let us know in the comments below.

Located in Nikola Lenivets Park in Kaluga, Russia, this proposal for the Artist Residence, which was shortlisted in the design competition, suggests the typology of a campus, a condensed layout providing the facilities for all of the artist residence community– living, learning and creating. Designed by Talmon Biran Architecture Studio, in collaboration with architect Ana Leschinsky, the proposed scheme is open ended, allowing flexibility and future growth while integrating the buildings within the landscape. More images and architects’ description after the break.

For the exhibition, “FLUXUS – Art for Everyone!” at Museum Ostwall in the Dortmunder U, modulorbeat was commissioned to develop an exhibition architecture. Their ‘Fluxus Module’ project uses 300 items from the years 1958 to 2007 that critically address the events of their times to offer a new and playful look at the everyday. The exhibition architecture works with a modular plywood element that was especially developed for this Fluxus exhibition. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architects: Altamirano Armanet Arquitectos, Carlos Bisbal Location: Valparaiso, Chile Project Year: 2008 Photographs: Francisca Domínguez

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Recognizing one exceptional artist every two years whose work transverses the boundaries between art and architecture, Andrea Zittel came out as this year’s winner for the prestigious Frederick Kiesler Prize. Accepting the award just this month at the New Museum of New York, one criterion for the award is that the artist be under-recognized. While fun and playful in nature, Zittel’s works are also illuminating studies of how we attribute significance to things, including the structure we live in and what we actually need in order to exist in comfort without being surrounded by accumulated belongings. Her ‘Indy-Island’ and ‘A-Z Wagon Stations’ projects can be seen in the images after the break.

Designed by J. Mayer H. Architects, the new, modern college seminar building for FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management University of Applied Sciences gGmbH will include approximately 1,400 student seats, office units, underground parking and a spacious, green campus. The innovative building also features an extraordinary exterior façade with curved cantilevered balconies. More images and architects’ description after the break.

As an update to the article we posted several months ago regarding the disputed ‘hot spot’ in Dallas between Renzo Piano‘s Nasher Sculpture Center and the adjacent residential tower, the controversy is still a hot issue. The reflection caused by the sculpture center is still something they have not been able to solve. Any solution will be costly and difficult. The Nasher people have recommended louvers covering the tower’s south face. The tower people say that this will require a computer-generated engine for every window, about two years to study, even more time to install. And it may not work. More information after the break.

Designed for the market square cover competition, the ‘flying carpet’ proposal by Michael Labory & Bertrand Schippan is a modular and sustainable cover with the goal for the efficient arrangement of the functional facilities. This is attained by putting them along the site border thus maximizing the space to be used for market. They revive the dull facade of the neighboring building by bringing the volume of the facilities into the shape of its skyline. Among all other things, it contributes to the increase in urban density as windowless facade becomes a part of lively market place. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Located where two rivers come together, the Confederación Hidrográfica Miño and Sil office building will be protected by the official use the building serves. Designed by VAUMM + Taperstudio, their compact and geometrically absolute design aims to turn the new equipment into a reference able to articulate that piece of city. Its pyramidal shape is due to programmatic, functional and corporation itself requirements. More images and architects’ description after the break.

One of the centers of cultural and civic life, the 1111 Lincoln Road project by Herzog & de Meuron is featured in the video above, made by Elizabeth Priore. This project was chosen as it has changed people’s perception about what a utilitarian structure can be; and has ignited conversations worldwide about its design and use. This garage has reshaped the urban fabric of the city and people are going there to get married, relax, and enjoy a cocktail. The video is a Semifinalist in the $200,000 FOCUS FORWARD Filmmaker Competition and is in the running to become the $100,000 Grand Prize Winner. More information after the break.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, aims at creating a welcoming world which associates lights and shadows as well as shimmers and calm places in a serene atmosphere. Its objective is to belong to its country, to its history, to its geography, avoiding being either a dull translation of this reality or a pleonasm meaning boredom and convention. It also aims at emphasizing the fascination generated by rare encounters. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Peter VonDeLinde, Marc Ofsthun, and Christian Korab, an architectural film studio team based out of Minneapolis, recently created an amazing short film on Frank Gehry‘s newly expanded Weisman Art Museum. Gehry’s 11,000 sq.ft. expansion showcases his sculptural talent featuring its stainless steel facade curving out from the entrance. This video was produced in conjunction with the Weisman featured in the January/February 2012 issue of Architecture Minnesota magazine.