March 8 marked the beginning of voting for the best student architectural project that will revive the Fužine neighborhood in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana. Until March 23, visitors to the competition website can vote for the 30 short-listed projects, selected from among all 363 submitted projects by the international ten-member expert jury. The winning solution will be released on location this summer and announced on March 28. More images and competition description after the break.
International architecture, urbanism and design practice Broadway Malyan has completed the design of its first theatre in China, the Kanas Lake Performance Theatre.The new theatre, set in an area of outstanding natural beauty in the Xinjiang province of North West China, is a multi-purpose theatre for the Provincial government. It will house a 1,200 seat auditorium for performance arts including theatre, opera, musicals and dance. The design draws on powerful yet simple forms, with the theatre auditorium enclosed within two protective wings wrapping the shell as if protected within clasped hands. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Producing an image between the real and the virtual, the Emile Rassam Building, by architect Paul Kaloustian, becomes a statement of identity in Dekwaneh, Beirut, Lebanon. Through its materiality, a sense of disappearance is generated by the envelope which becomes an active instrument that reflects the changes in weather and light conditions. More images and architect’s description after the break.
The Saucier + Perrotte Architectes and Hughes Condon Marler Architects with SNC Lavalin team won the architecture competition for the future sports complex in Saint-Laurent, a former city on the island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. The winning team’s proposal distinguished itself from the others by the quality of its architectural gesture, the simplicity of the concept, the creation of a distinctively urban branding image and wayfinding strategy, its adherence to the surface areas of the facilities, the effectiveness of its sustainable development strategies and its potential for change. More images and project description after the break.
Station 5, by architect Ariel Noyman (AnArchiX), is the finalist submission to the competition ‘Water Tower- new perspectives’ that was organized by the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Berkeley University and the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites (SPIHS) in 2010.
The design will be hosted in the city’s first water tower (1920′s) situated in the town square, next to municipality buildings and primary urban institutions. It will be a key point in the tour and will offer a variety of educational and cultural activities, while functioning as a lookout and leisure attraction in the central city location of Israel. More images and architect’s description after the break.
eVolo Magazine is pleased to announce the winners of the 2011 Skyscraper Competition. Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community. The award seeks to discover young talent, whose ideas will change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.
The first place was awarded to Atelier CMJN (Julien Combes, Gaël Brulé) from France for their ‘LO2P Recycling Skyscraper’ in New Delhi, India. The project is designed as a large-scale wind turbine that filters polluted air with a series of particle collector membranes, elevated greenhouses, and mineralization baths. More images and descriptions of winning entries after the break
Hosted at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston, Vlad Tenu’s winning entry to REPEAT: digital fabrication competition, Minimal Complexity, was the highlight of the lively TEX-FAB 2.0 and REPEAT exhibition. The event included a distinguished group of speakers from the academic, professional and fabrication communities that took place from February 10th to the 13th. More images and exhibition highlights after the break.
As a finalist for the Torres De Cotillas Competition, STL Architects shared with us their proposal for the new Auditorium and Arts Center within the future office park. The design is projected to become the key element of connection between the new urban space and the consolidated old town grid. The new building will become a symbolic reference of public activity that will be established around the future office park of Torres de Cotillas, Spain. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Situated in Vienna, Austria, PPAG Architects shared with us their winning competition entry for the campus project consisting of a kindergarten, primary and junior high school. Their design is based on the new and ambitious education guidelines of the city of Vienna. The project promotes a typological paradigm shift regarding the spatial articulation of classroom and interior-exterior activities across the entire campus. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Situated in a rural location in a greenbelt area in the UK, Hinton Cook Architects’ main goal for the design of a permanent continuous structure to house a biomass power generation plant was to minimize the visual impact upon its surroundings. They successfully do this by employing a complex façade system, deliberately designed to break up the visual mass of the power plant, which primarily takes inspiration from the surrounding woodland. More images and architects’ description after the break.
This community prototype, designed by HTDSTUDIO, calls for a targeted approach to true sustainability and a cost effective model as key residential, commercial, cultural and institutional components reside on the same one block site. It is a de-facto return to the true, urban planning model (at least from a practical standpoint) that came to prominence in the 19th and 20th Centuries. This model proved most sensible where most goods and services were locally provided to the neighborhood. The advantage is that residents would have essential elements of their neighborhood within walking distance of less than one city block; in this case the study is in the Gowanus – Red Hook section of Brooklyn, New York. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Architect Nicolas Laisné shared with us his proposal for the Spiretec competition in New Delhi, India, which received an honorable mention. The main idea of this project was to create a modern building with natural cooling systems inspired by traditional Indian architecture and was to be composed by an IT complex with offices, a hotel, conference halls and shops.More images and architect’s description after the break.
Nieves Valle & Joao Pereira de Sousa shared with us their proposal for the renovation of a nursing home courtyard, with the implementation of a new accessibility plan in Lisbon, Portugal. Their aim was to bring life back to the courtyard, which was not being used. Therefore, they envisioned the space as a garden, where flowers bloom and fill with colors on both the exterior and interior spaces of the building.
The result is a transformation of the existing levels into a continuous surface, linking the different levels. They picked up from the mobility concept and applied it more widely and efficiently through the use of elements that will strengthen the social ties between the inhabitants of the nursing home. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Liberty Architecture (Lib.A) shared with us their competition entry for a pilgrimage center in La Vang, Vietnam, which is a small area located in the central province of Quang Tri. The client wanted to develop the area within two decades and asked for a layout that would allow an easy development taking place in the future. Lib.A’s main concept is to re-create the original woods where the Holy Mary appeared. The Cathedral is also conceived as an artificial wood. This original concept of the wood aims to create an uninterrupted and undirected space that allows people to draw their own paths within the Only Path of the Faith. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Olivier Brouillard, from Complex City, shared the design of Dress Code, an elementary school designed for the community of Fréchy, Switzerland, an area surrounded by farming and nearby hills. Under the idea that once the program and the function are defined, the architect’s job consists in dressing up architecture; Dress Code was conceived. It gives a major importance to the facades and to the way the building is seen externally. Visual communication is a key point, especially considering that school is the first source of knowledge for youngsters.More images and project description after the break.
Leading international “green” architect Chad Oppenheim of Oppenheim Architecture + Design was selected by top Philippine developer, The Net Group, to design the nation’s first certified green project in Taguig City, Philippines. The Net Metropolis is the flagship pilot development of the recently created Philippine Green Building Council (PHILGBC) to answer to the local environment’s specific needs.
Oppenheim, who has a growing reputation for his green design work, participated with the PHILGBC in the actual creation of the nation’s new rating system BERDE (Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence) to apply to the design of the first tower in the project, The Net Lima. You can check more projects by Oppenheim here, and don’t miss our interview with him! More images and project description after the break.
In the Spring of 2010 a team of Landscape and Architecture graduate students from the University of California, Berkeley led a design build seminar to rethink a little known courtyard on the northeast corner of Wurster Hall. Originally used as an outdoor classroom, plant demonstration area, work space, and location for the CED happy hour, the objective of the project was to make a “bench” to accommodate and enhance these diverse activities. More images and team’s description after the break.
As time defines history and events turn into memories, time itself again stands in the way to recall both as the constantly changing subjectiveness of presence determines the perspective of view onto the past. This is the main concept of Cheungvogl’s Seven Chambers Exhibition in Dalian, China, which is designed to cut the visitor through the exhibited art of the private collection and the occasional cultural and communal events out of the context of the presence to create a moment of individual reception, reflection and interaction with the long lasting history of China without any influence of singular materiality of temporary circumstances. More images and architect’s description after the break.