Almost demolished after the earthquake in 2011, Christchurch center was required a renovation. The challenge for architects Zotov & Co was to recall a livable city center. After asking the question of what is needed to be happy, the architects chose nature and communication as the foundation of their concept. The center for the quarter an island covered, dense forest which concentrates all social activity. More images and architects’ description after the break.
AART Architects, in collaboration with URBANlab, Bexcom and Keinicke & Overgaard Architects, have won the competition for the expansion of Musholm Bay Holiday Resort. Located at the beautiful Danish coastline, the resort is acknowledged as the world’s most innovative holiday resort for people with disabilities. The expansion of resort is divided into two sections in the form of a multi-purpose sports hall and a number of new holiday flats. More images and architects' description after the break.
With the Southern California Institute of Architecture celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Stormcloud installation was designed and built by the office of Oyler Wu Collaborative, along with students of SCI-Arc, for the after-party of its April 2013 gala. Tasked with the challenge of revamping the existing Netscape pavilion, Oyler Wu Collaborative saw the project as an opportunity to take a completely different approach to the problem. By removing the ten miles of knitted ropes that once hung between the soaring steel trusses, the project was transformed both volumetrically and materially. More images and architects' description after the break.
Floornature recently launched Next Landmark 2013, their second international contest for young architects, which is introducing a new category dedicated to architecture photography and taking the winners to Helsinki Design Week. The competition is organized to spotlight and showcase projects by the new generations of architects, promoting what they are doing or planning for contemporary living. Furthermore, it provides an ethical opportunity with a declared interest in the community, helping up-and-coming architects move forward in their careers. Originality, environmental sustainability and all the ideas that exploit relations between people, architecture and landscape will be the main contents of the winning projects and research essays. The deadline for entries is June 30. For more information, please visit here.
Taking place June 26 - July 5, the AA Mexico City Visiting School will engage with the most crucial and imposing challenges that Mexico City faces and the ways in which architecture and urbanism can shape the metropolis at different scales. In this sense the international program sees the city as a laboratory where the virtual and experimental tradition of the Architectural Association finds a fertile and concrete ground for the application of its methodology in Mexico. With the theme of "Manufactured Landscapes/Manufactured Urbanities”, the program explores the metropolitan condition understood as a manufactured process by and for human beings. More information after the break.
MenoMenoPiu Architects + BE.ST Architect shared with us their proposal for the Italian Pavilion Expo 2015. Titled 'The Slabs', their design consists of a light cage where the technical innovation is embedded within the structure: revolutionary glass columns sustain traditional slabs clad in marble. Simple and elegant in its structural system, marble and glass are intertwined to express the Italian architectural tradition of proportion and elegance. More images and architects' description after the break.
Vitreous is a collaborative academic initiative by the University of Houston's Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and the Judd Foundation that incorporates the vantage points of the natural landscape, and the technological advancement of digital fabrication and media technologies. The faceted panels disguise and blend the unbounded Marfa landscape with reflective images causing a perceptual distortion between the viewer and the surroundings and between the real and the virtual. More images and the team's description after the break.
With the ground breaking ceremony recently held to kick start construction, the Aedas designed Mapletree Minhang Development Project involves two sites – Mapletree Business City and VivoCity. With a site area of approximately 119,000 square meters and a gross floor area of about 297,000 square meters, Vivocity is designed as a double looped mall with high efficiency. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The design of the Bavarian history museum by X+UN Architecture takes into account the impact of the most important landmarks surrounding the site. Located in Regensburg, it is placed on the bank of the Donau River, which acts as a visual promenade that makes the building visible from a long distance and channels an important flow of people into the site. The shape of the museum is generated from a series of stripes parallel to the river. More images and architects' description after the break.
Designed by Envés Arquitectos, their proposal for the New Central Library in Berlin was named as one of the winners of the competition, which is conceived as an open, public, free and comfortable meeting place; summing up, an urban lobby. This flexible place is able to interact with a changing user (from a kid to an ancient), but simultaneously ensures the area’s accessibility and right usage. The library also aims to become an activity catalyst, a landmark to be perceived from far away. More images and architects' description after the break.
BC Architects, in collaboration with ABBA architects and Adey Tadesse, won the competition for the Addis Abeba Chamber of Commerce Headquarters in Ethiopia with their approach towards a "glocaldesign". With the goal of sensibly involving local materials in this mid-high-rise building, this resulted in a local nature stone façade system inspired by a 'Netela' (threaded Ethiopian textile which so nicely shows the threads of cotton and which has a character of both shadow and transparency). More images and architects' description after the break.
