As one of the country’s most sought after architectural accolades, the Houses Awards celebrate Australia’s best residential projects in seven categories, which will culminate in the announcement of the 2011 Australian House of the Year. The Australian House of the Year Award winner stands to win a $5,000 cash prize, while winners of individual categories will each receive $1,000. Winners will be announced on July 15th. More images and information after the break.
Israel’s government, with the agreement of the Russian government has proposed erecting a monument to mark the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany. Taking on the design challenge, TheHeder Partnership draws your eyes to the horizon as you are overcome with openness and freedom and the spirit of the moment of victory. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Live life for every moment, outreach sensations, inhale fully, and go forward with speed. There can only be one place where people can be aware of this transience, and New York is just that! Life, it lives the speed of light and brilliance, always new and undiscovered, requires constant innovation. This complex project, by Ivan Filipovic, is just this: Forms that heighten one’s sensations, where lights and functionality can only be understood by someone who lives a prestigious blend of pragmatism and lasting gratification. The combination of profitable operation and enjoyment of consumption is clearly targeted and a focused effort that leaves no doubts as to the meaning of zeal and pleasure. More images and architect’s description after the break.
Commissioned by former Yugoslavian president, Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place, these now forgotten structures stand empty and without the significance it once had decades ago. Designed by different sculptors and architects, the strong and powerful blending of art and architecture come together in these monuments to convey the sense of confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic. However, after the Republic gradually died down in 1992, they lost their sense of wonder and no longer attracted the millions of visitors a year. More images after the break.
As the first prize winner for an invited design competition, Yamasaki Ku Hong Associates Design Lab actively adopted the terrace concept throughout the site to design the Marine Terrace Resort in Yongho-dong, Nam-gu, Busan, Korea. The objective of the competition was to create a next generation resort-style luxury condominium and a boutique hotel complex which capitalizes the on the amazing view experience and provides maximum privacy. By locating terraced residences on a cliff edge, the residents are able to experience an ‘undisturbed’ view of the sea as well as an open residential park in between the villa towers and terrace housing. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The now empty and abandoned water towers presented here are part of a selection of photographs gathered by James Young, a final year architecture student, as part of a research project. With the help of the MacCarthy Memorial Scholarship from the School of Architecture at UCD, he has compiled a list of about 200 towers, with nearly thirty visited and photographed. Like other architectural building types that have been abandoned, what can architects do with water towers such as these? If no longer in use, what can be done to take advantage of these stand along structures? Let us know what you think. More images after the break.
Seoul Manifesto, a group of young architects in Seoul, South Korea, are known for designing projects with the objective of making structures with better social responsibility. In their project, Hello Mongol / HM VER 1.0 / ABSORBING GER, their goal is to make a mobile structure which can achieve two different goals, making an alternative residence for desertification of Mongol and stirring up the public’s attention for the problem. More images and architects’ description after the break.
This new zoo, which will become the icon of a new cultural and scientific life in Saint Petersburg, will evoke immemorial time, an era of monumental architecture when much land remained untouched by human development. Designed by architects, Françoise N’Thépé and Aldric Beckmann with landscape designers Bruno Tanant and Jean Christophe Nani, this fabricated urban development will evoke Pangea, the supercontinent described by German meteorologist and astronomer Alfred Wegener. The site appears ordinary as the land conceals some of the mysteries of our origins. It will be home to animal and scientific research where our most recent knowledge, our most advanced techniques create an enveloping environment for visitors to explore. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The central Veneto area, lying approximately between Padua, Treviso, Castelfranco and Mestre, has one of the most unusual settlement systems of northern Italy. This project, by LOKOMOTIV.archs office starts from the view that the phenomena of urban sprawl should be stemmed, as the sprawl gives rise to a great number of problems, among which we might mention the excessive proliferation of infrastructures, with costs for the government that are unsustainable in the long run and break the delicate environmental balance of the system created by roman agriculture colonization. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Documented here are abandoned theatres found throughout the United States. From small towns to large cities, these buildings were once places that housed a source of entertainment for their community. Why then would such places be abandoned and not even considered for renovation? Before the iPod, the television or even the Internet were around, theatres were major social gathering spots, so how could places such as these become so empty and lack any vitality? More images after the break.
O-S Architects shared with us the Cultural Center of Saint-Germain-lès-Arpagon in Essonne, France, a project they won in January 2011 that will be in completed in 2013. Surrounded by a school and a cemetery, the project takes advantage of the sloping site to fit discreetly, while affirming its status of signal. The program is split into two levels, a high-level square and a low level square connected by a passage crossing the building. The urban composition and tight line in the landscape position the project as a pole of attraction in the neighborhood. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In 2010, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) held a design competition for a flexible solution to replace portable buildings across the district, and HMC Architects accepted the challenge. The district asked them to ignore their standards and put an emphasis on an ideas-based approach. They wanted creative, progressive responses to their problem, not dressed-up modular buildings. They challenged the traditional box shape of the classroom by looking at how the room is used and how it is currently under utilized. Although their design solution, which they named Flex, did not win the competition, their end product is a portable classroom solution that can be used at any school, with hope that their design can inspire other school districts to think differently when it comes to portable classrooms. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In June 2010, PTW Architects won a limited competition among five Australian practices for a complex mixed-used project in the heart of Sydney’s central business and retail district. On a complex consolidated site within the CBD of Sydney, the project is positioned between two heritage buildings on George Street and occupying the depth of a city block, the project also includes the restoration of two heritage listed buildings on the site, facing York Street. A development application was lodged in December 2010 and has just been approved by Sydney City Council.More images and architects’ description after the break.
Currently under development, OKRA’s Xiang’he Garden City, consisting of a masterplan for the Park of the Floating Gardens, defines challenging ambitions, turning the former clay pits into a water park. A new garden city of approximately 700 hectares will arise close to the future 7th ring of Beijing, China. The ambitions for the park are high and should create the perfect setting for the first housing development. The park should be a place for recreation, for running, for barbequing, for celebrations and more. It should also contribute to a sustainable environment, combining green design and water. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN) announced the beginning of construction of the CityCenterDC development by Hines|Archstone in downtown Washington, DC. A new mixed-use development located on the 10-acre site of the former convention center, CityCenterDC is one of the largest downtown development projects currently underway in any U.S. city. Gustafson Guthrie Nichol participated in developing the master plan for the site with lead architect Foster + Partners, and acted as lead landscape architect, working with DC-based Lee and Associates. Additional members of the design team include DC-based Shalom Baranes Associates, serving as associate master plan architect, project Architect of Record, and lead designer of the residential rental buildings.
Construction commenced on March 23, 2011, and is expected to reach completion by the fourth quarter of 2013. The project includes the development of Northwest Park, a lively addition to downtown DC, the creation of a Central Plaza, as well as dramatic terraces with green roofs and gardens incorporated into all the buildings. More images and description after the break.
As this Church befits its central role in the community, this project also acts as a landmark and point of congregation for all in the area of Piacenza, Italy. The aim of Kuadra Studio is to keep the religious function of the building to the forefront while incorporating the necessary space and facilities for other, everyday activities. The concept for the design came from the idea of leaves: emphasizing the natural attachment to the earth and at the same time the spiritual detachment from it, creating a dynamic floating form to inspire worshipers with a material recreation of an ideal of the Church connecting earth and heaven. More images and architects’ description after the break.
To mark the bicentenary of the death of Giuseppe Piermarini, (Foligno, 18th July 1734 – 18 February 1808), Kuadra Studio has organized a workshop to honor the work of the architect and was assigned area 8 with one of Piermarini’s follies, a design for a stylized coffee house; a circular building of which only a few plans still exist. A long standing exhibition in the Centro Arte Contemporanea in Foligno and a catalogue are the results of the workshop. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Paul Laurendeau Architects shared with us their winning competition entry for the Trois-Rivières Amphitheatre in Quebec, Canada. The centerpiece of the proposed Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence is to build an outdoor amphitheater with a capacity of 10,000 seats. For the realization of the amphitheater, the municipality has chosen to proceed with this design for a building of international significance. More images and architects’ description after the break.