When architectural journalist Robert Sharoff and photographer William Zbaren created the series American City, the intention was to celebrate some of the States’ most architecturally impressive cities. For their St. Louis publication, the team has produced a beautiful large format book highlighting 50 projects scattered across the city. Organized with incredible photographs and insightful text, the book is the first of its kind, since the 1920s, to document the architecture of St. Louis.
For their latest PRAXIS, Eleven Architects/Twelve Conversations, the editors moved away from organizing the issue around a single theme to, instead, focusing on a variety of architectural aspects. The result is a rather cohesive reading, as the different ideas are fused into a continuous conversation. The issue still highlights great projects from the featured architects, yet the projects take more of a supporting role, as the real focus is the conversation that jumps from sustainability to design influences and materials to even the broader implications of design on the built environment.
Last week, as the NY Times reported, the interior of 510 Fifth Avenue received landmark protection by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill back in the 1950s, served as a branch of the former Manufacturers Trust Bank (later the Chase Bank Building) and is situated on a dense Manhattan block near the New York Public Library, Cook+Fox’s recent One Bryant Park, and the park itself.
More about the landmarked interior after the break.
For their latest master plan in Xinyang, WORD with SWA Group Los Angeles have developed a framework that responds to the town’s predicted swift population growth. As Chinese communities, such as Xinyang, begin to expand at rapid paces, the existing infrastructures must be re-thought and re-organized, as the demand for new development adds stress to the current systems. Working with a site measuring over 36 kilometers in length with varying topography – a mountainous region in the south to plains and plateaus to the north – the firms resorted to a solution “requiring calculated sensitivity and ingenuity” based on the region’s natural systems.
A great set of diagrams, and more information about the project after the break.
Emmett McNamara,a student of the Edinburgh College Of Art, has shared his House of Tapes with us. The project is an exercise in re-use as emphasis was placed on developing a new function for an abundant waste material. McNamara gathered over 7,000 tapes from charity shops, friends, and tape dealers in the local vicinity to construct the structure.
Dating back to the early 1900s, Carl Möller designed a masonry building to house the local and regional government records of designated Swedish provinces, which was then expended in 1971 by Bernt Nyberg’s extension. Situated in Lund, this branch of the Regional Archives is categorized as a prime example of Sweden’s modernist brick architecture – a tradition that began with architect Sigurd Lewerentz and his collaboration with Erik Gunnar Asplund for the Chapel of the Resurrection at Woodland. The building has become an icon of Swedish architecture with its historic Helsingborg brick, limited fenestration and a sprawling Virginia Creeper climbing its walls.
Thanks to our friends from studiometrico, we’ve learned that this historic building may be facing an unfortunate future as it was sold to become student housing. Such a drastic programmatic shift would create a completely new aesthetic for the building, as large windows, which would be necessary for the residences, would punch through the brick wall.
In the past few years, Bjarke Ingels’ architecture has slowly, but steadily, been gaining international attention. From housing projects to commercial entities to design ideas, Northern European countries have found themselves host to an abundance of angular geometries, bold forms, and straightforward approaches characteristic of Ingels. As we reported early last week, BIG will now take its signature style to Manhattan with a not-so-typical response for the design of a New York apartment building for client Durst Fetner Residential (be sure to read our coverage here).
After the excitement of seeing BIG’s fresh architectural idea respond to the character and context of New York, now, the harsh reality of board meetings and zoning regulations are the project’s next obstacle to overcome in the quest for final approval.
More about W57th’s approval process after the break.
For Jenn Kennedy’srecent publication, Success by Design, the author/photographer has chosen to explore how architectural firms survive the trials and tribulations of the fluctuating market. It is a focused work outlining the history of 25 architectural firms scattered across California. The book offers great insight for starting a firm, provides inspiration to persevere during difficult times, and truly allows the personalities of the architects to shine through.
Check out Visiondivision’s latest work – a residential extension to an old Swedish house. Expanding upon the clients’ taste in the traditional Swedish houses with mullion windows, or ‘spröjs’ in Swedish, the team set out to exploit the building component by introducing ”a huge mullion window as its main feature.” The mullion window becomes the focal point of the house as it covers the front facade and opens toward the garden that slopes toward the nearby lake.
More images and more about the residence after the break.
If you’re in the Manhattan area, be sure to check out SHoP’s lecture this Wednesday evening at 7:00. The lecture, which will held at Cooper Union in the Great Hall, will include information about the firm’s work over the past few years, so be sure to check out SHoP’s work previously featured on AD to see projects that may be discussed. Gregg Pasquarelli, founding partner with Christopher Sharples, Coren Sharples, Kimberly Holden, and William Sharples will present the office’s current projects with a focus on how the firm seeks to reinvent the business model of architectural practice.
When we interviewed SHoP, the partners explained how their office balances the creative and idealistic side of architecture, with the realistic to reach a middle point. SHoP explained, “We look at an entire project and consider the site, the cultural and economic environment, a client’s physical needs and budget constraints, as well as construction techniques, branding, marketing, and post-occupancy issues…Great architecture demands that design, finance, and technology work together – we’re combining these forces in innovative ways to create a new model for the profession.”
We’re excited to see what SHoP has been working on these past few years and we hope you find the time to attend!
Recently, we visited Thomas Phifer’s office in New York – a working floor that embodies the same spirit as his architecture with its pristine furnishings and axial organization. Phifer (who is also an avid Arch Daily reader) began his firm back in the 1990s and, as his office has grown and developed, his projects have been honored with several AIA Honor Awards and American Architecture Awards.
Last week, we were happy to share DS+R‘s much anticipated design for the Broad Museum. In addition to winning the 120,000 sqf California project, it has also announced that Columbia University selected DS+R to design the Business School’s new two-building home for Manhattanville in West Harlem. The new state-of-the-art teaching and learning facility will add to the firm’s notable New York presence, along with the renovation and expansion of New York’s Lincoln Center (including their Hypar Pavilion, also designed with FXFowle) and the High Line park with Field Operations in lower Manhattan. “We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to make a new home for the Business School,” said Elizabeth Diller, principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro. “Our challenge is to support Columbia’s progressive new approach to business education with architecture that participates in pedagogy and that animates a public center within the new campus and its richly layered social and industrial context.”
For Weiss/Manfredi’sInternational Retreat – a conference center for international organizations to discuss issues and politics – the project exemplifies the firm’s emphasis of the integration of architecture and landscape. A series of existing early 20th-century buildings sit on the 400 acre site, and the project uses a network of gardens to create a framework for these renovated and programmatically transformed structures.
More images and more about the project after the break.
There are some buildings that have the power to make one step back and simply enjoy being part of our profession. For us, Steven Holl’sHorizontal Skyscraper does just that. As we’ve been sharing with you, it is a project that gracefully hovers above the Shenzhen landscape, allowing both the ground and the elevated ground plane to be occupied. The project balances the built with the natural as reflecting pools and lush greenery are interspersed with small restaurants and cafes, and as the “sunken cubes” of the main wings of the center – glass volumes offering 360 degree views – strengthen the connection with the landscape.
The building has recently been awarded a 2011 AIA Institute Honor Award for its architectural creativity and contextual thoughtfulness. The jury commented, “This project skips along from mound to mound and manipulates the landscape – it builds it up and shapes it into a powerful form above the land with inventive manipulation. The building is shading the landscape and letting it breath – integrated sustainability. A reinvented building type with the building floating over the landscape – dancing on the landscape.”
More information, with more photographs from Iwan Baan, after the break.
We spotted this new super green city development model over on Inhabitat that will support 350,000 residents in Tianjin. The model places a strong emphasis on landscaping as residential towers rise amidst the parks, promenades and valleys that create the plan’s primary network. Designed by Surbana Urban Planning Group, the scheme divides the city into seven sectors which vary in terms of landscape and programmatic offerings.
More images and more about the plan after the break.
Since the 1950s, Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House has rested peacefully in a cornfield in Plano, Illinois. Now, the house will be getting a new neighbor – VirginiaTech’s winning Solar Decathlon residence, Lumenhaus (be sure to check out our previous coverage of the house here). As the name suggests, the residence focuses on maximizing the exposure to natural light (Lumen meaning power of light), and in terms of aesthetics, the house also pays homage to the BauHaus movement.
Beijing-basedMAD Architects have just shared their design for a Wood Sculpture Museum in Harbin, China with us. Harbin is currently experiencing a period of rapid expansion and the new museum will allow the growing city to define itself as a regional hub for the arts. Inspired by the unique local winter landscapes, the museum is a contrast between the elegance of nature and the speed of daily life. Its 200 meter long body is shaped as a frozen fluid that reflects and explores the relation between the building and the environment.
More about the museum, including more images after the break.
Back in 1993, professors Dennis K. Ruth and the late Samuel Mockbee created Auburn University’s design-build program with the intention of bringing architecture to some of Alabama’s poorest areas. Rural Studio quickly gained international attention as the students responded to the needs of the less fortunate with innovative and thoughtful designs. The students participating in the studio not only benefit from the hands-on experiences of physically constructing their ideas, but also from fulfilling our profession’s social responsibility by providing a person’s most basic need, shelter.
With the passing of Mockbee, Andrew Freear became director of the studio and began to shift the program from the design and construction of small homes to larger community projects. Currently, the studio is in their fourth year of an ongoing project which, when finished, will be the largest public park in Hale County. The project, which began with building baseball fields, basketball courts, etc., quickly showed the potential for becoming a fully realized master plan. And now, the Lions Club, the City of Greensboro, Hale County, and the Greensboro Baseball Association formed a joint committee to manage and care for the future of Lions Park.
