Vivace Music, an elegant, high-end recording studio, has debuted in the heart of Montevideo, the ¨Switzerland¨ of Latin America. Acoustically superb, and aesthetically unique, studio details are highlighted by rare wood elements such as doors, window trim, flooring and custom furniture built with recycled wood acquired from ancient wooden casks originally used for the leather tanning industry, (one the multiple activities of studio co-owner Luis Cesio). Designed by Walters-Storyk Design Group to accommodate the full spectrum of Latin, jazz, pop, rock and world music production, Vivace establishes a new standard of high-quality audio production for South America. More images and their description after the break.
Written for students and practitioners in the fields of architecture and interior design, our new Architecture Brief Sustainable Design provides a concise overview of all the techniques available for reducing the energy footprint of structures and spaces. With clear, simple language and a practical “can-do” approach, author David Bergman covers everything from the profession’s ethical responsibility, to design structures and spaces that sustain our natural resources, to specific considerations such as rainwater harvesting, graywater recycling, passive heating techniques, solar orientation, green roofs, wind energy, daylighting, indoor air quality, material evaluation and specification, and how to work with green building certification programs.
A report released by the Center for an Urban Future has positioned New York City as the fastest growing tech sector in the country, outpacing Boston to become the U.S.’s Tech Hub (only behind Silicon Valley).
Its rapid growth – a 28.7% increase of tech-related jobs in five years and a 32% increase in venture capital deals (compare that to the national average of -11%) – has been attributed to the diversification of its startup tech companies, focused not on creating new technologies, but on providing technological solutions to existing industries.
However (as we noted earlier this week in “The Next Silicon Valley(s)“) there is another “key” factor to the city’s burgeoning innovation and entrepreneur scene – the city itself.
Read More on how New York City’s Urban lay-out is encouraging its technological boom, after the break.
Two weeks ago, we reported that Zaha Hadid Architects famed Maxxi Museum may face closure, as the high-profile museum was placed under special administration after the government uncovered a €800,000 hole in Maxxi’s 2011 accounts. With major budget cuts in cultural funding slashing the museum’s €11 million budget to less than €2 million for 2012, the future of the Maxxi remains unknown. However, as reported on BD Online, Maxxi president Pio Baldi has resigned and Italian architect Antonia Pasqua Recchia has been appointed to take his place.
Recchia has announced that she will to do everything possible to keep the Maxxi afloat and preserve the museum’s prestigious reputation on the international stage. She plans seek corporate sponsorship and private funding to make up lost funds and save the museum from closure.
As we announced earlier, the Trust for the National Mall has selected the New York-based Rogers Marvel Architects and California based-PWP Landscape Architecture to re-envision Constitution Gardens in Washington DC. This team was one of three winning teams selected to redesign three neglected sites on the National Mall. The winning design for the Constitution Gardens proposes to bring renewed identity to this often overlooked part of the National Mall by building on the legacy of the original 1970s plan and creating a lush landscape of rolling hills, gardens and forests with a pavilion overlooking the lake.
Continue reading for more images, video and the architects’ press release.
The Innovation By Design Awards, put on by Fast Company, offers entrants an unmatched opportunity to reach entrepreneurs and executives looking to find fresh talent. Finalists and winners will appear in print and on the web at Fast Company’s Co.Design. Winners will be announced at a gala in New York City on Tuesday, October 16. Entries will be judged on their business impact, beauty, originality, functionality, social impact, and depth of user insight–six necessary ingredients for any great innovation. Submissions are due June 1. For more information, please visit here.
Earlier this week, Pratt Instituteextended an invitation to the ArchDaily team to attend their 123rd commencement, celebrating the achievements of 1300 bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates at Radio City Music Hall. The event also marked a special day of recognition for four honorary degree recipients: artist/curator/critic Ai Weiwei, architect, engineer and artist Santiago Calatrava, patron on the arts and education Kathryn Chenault, and the Metropoitan Museum of Art’s longest-serving director Philippe de Montebello.
We were privileged to have an opportunity to congratulate Mr. Calatrava on his doctor of architecture degree, and pose ArchDaily’s traditional interview questions. Mr. Calatrava’s contributions to the professions of architecture and engineering can be found scattered across the world, and bring a sense of dynamism that result from the merge between art and technology, expression and functionality.
Calatrava’s charm and good humor made for a friendly conversation that we hope you enjoy.
Taking place June 21-25 at Ajman University of Science & Technology, is a 5-day architectural workshop by the internationally renowned architect Tom Wiscombe. The title of the workshop is: “Nested Figures and Loose Outer Shells.” For more information and registration please contact workshop coordinator Dr. Jihad Awad: dr_jihadaa@yahoo.com, j.awad@ajman.ac.ae
Designed by Gartnerfuglen Arkitekter, the small shelter for ice fishing, titled ‘Noun.1 Unavailability’, is built with and by nature. The timber frame is foldable for easy relocation and storage, and is effortlessly put up anywhere by one (or two small) persons in 30 seconds. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Organized by RCR Arquitectes and the Bunka Foundation, this year’s course, which takes place August 4-31, offers the architectural point of view of RCR Arquitectes, with the architects’ monitoring of the projects produced in the workshop and guided tours throughout their built work. This course will be complemented with conferences given by prestigious guests combining architecture, landscape and other related issues (Josep Maria Montaner, Hisao Suzuki, Carme Pigem, amongst others). Participants will live an intense experience during one month in which creativity and humanism will trace the main axes of the course, in order to achieve a complete and high standard result and understanding of an architectural Project. More information after the break.
Designed by the Austrian architecture office soma for EXPO 2012, the Thematic Pavilion dubbed One Ocean will celebrate it’s grand opening tomorrow (May 11) in Yeosu, South-Korea. Since winning first prize in an open international competition in 2009, One Ocean has captured the attention of the international community with its gill-like kinetic façade and sustainable climate design.
Continue reading after the break for more images and information.
One week from today, ArchDaily will be joining you at the AIA 2012 National Convention! Knowledge, inspiration and connection are the three primary reasons architects are attending this year’s convention. In just three days (May 17-19), you can fulfill your annual Learning Units with nearly 200 education sessions, gain insight on the latest products and technologies at the Design Expo, and expand your professional network with the opportunity of meeting thousands of architects from around the country. Also, with AIA DC as your host, you will have the opportunity to explore the highlights of our nation’s capitol with a number of exclusive tours.
Architects: Dominique Perrault Architecture Location: Parque de la Arganzuela, Madrid, Spain Engineering: MC2 – Julio Martínez Calzón (stucture) / TYPSA (mechanical engineering) Built area: Footbridge 150 m (section 1) 128 m (section 2) length, 5 to 12 m width Completion: 2010 Photographs: Georges Fessy, Ayuntamiento de Madrid
Although competitions are fraught with their own issues, our profession is indelibly linked to them. Competitions have been pushing the profession forward for centuries, encouraging innovation, creativity and inspiring many. They have given emerging professionals their “big break” (think Maya Lin) and have showered the world with many important, game-changing masterpieces (Rolex Learning Center, Pompidou Center, Brunelleschi’s dome, the Acropolis…). As expected, the end result of a competition typically dominates the conversation; however, it is interesting to discuss process of competition making.
SOLID architecture is a firm that relies heavily on competitions, as they have received most of their commissions by winning a competition. They have shared with us their top ten ideas and observations on the process of competition making in hopes that it will spark a dialogue on the topic. As you can see above, the first on their list is “change the medium”. Continue reading after the break to review the complete list and join the conversation.
After showing two groups of schoolteachers a videotape of an eight-year-old boy, psychologists John Santrock and Russel Tracy found that the teachers’ judgment of the child ultimately depended on whether they had been told the child came from a divorced home or an intact home. The child was rated as less well-adjusted if the teachers thought he came from a home where the parents were divorced. This finding might seem inconsequential to the field of architecture, but for a profession that often relies on observational studies to evaluate a design’s effect on its users I argue that Santrock and Tracy’s study is one among many architects need to pay attention to.
An observational study*, like post-occupancy surveys, is a common method architects use to evaluate a design’s effect on its users. If done well observational studies can provide a wealth of valuable and reliable information. They do, however, have their pitfalls, most notably controlling for cognitive and selection biases. At the risk of limiting readership, I will illustrate these challenges by reviewing a specific observational study dealing with autism design. Although specific, the following example wrestles with the same difficulties that other observational studies in architecture wrestle with.
https://www.archdaily.com/233177/pitfalls-of-observational-studiesChristopher N. Henry
Yasuaki Onishi, who is known for his art throughout Japan and internationally, currently has an installation on exhibit in the Rice Gallery in Houston titled, ‘Reverse of Volume RG’. On display until June 24, he uses plastic sheeting and black hot glue to create a monumental, mountainous form that appears to float in space. In using these simple materials, he is able to successfully meditate on the nature of the negative space, or void, left behind. More images and project description after the break.
“Pop-Up,” “DIY,” “Kickstarter” “LQC” (That’s lighter, quicker, cheaper for the unfamiliar). Urbanisms of the People have been getting awfully catch-phrasey these days. What all these types of DIY Urbanisms share is a can-do spirit, a “Hacker” mentality: people are taking back their cities, without any “expert” help.
Unfortunately, of course, this mindset creates an anti-establishment (often, anti-architect) antagonism that would render any wide-spread change nigh impossible. Yes, the DIY movement, facilitated by the use of technology, is excellent for getting people involved, for encouraging important, innovative ideas – in the short-term.
As Alexandra Lange recently pointed out in her post “Against Kickstarter Urbanism,” technology is not a “magic wand,” and crowdsourcing initiatives often fall short in the day-to-day, nitty-gritty work of a large-scale, long-term urban project.
But while technology certainly has its limitations, its potential to facilitate connection and communication is unparalleled. What is vital, however, is that the technology enhance, not replace, our physical relationships. Instead of using online platforms as divisive or purely conceptual forums, they must becomes tools of transparency and trust-building, mediators of a conversation that invests and connects all parties on the ground.
Kokaistudios was recently announced as the winner of the competition for the new Tsinghua University Law Library located in Beijing, China. Proposing a reflection on the role of void in structuring functions and programs within the building, their design also defines, at the same time, its relations within its surroundings. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Hosted by Topos Magazine, the ‘Follow Me: Berlin’s Airport’ Conference will be taking place in the disused buildings of Tempelhof Airport on June 5. A number of prominent European Architects, Urban Designers & Landscape Architects will be giving lectures / presentations on the re-appropriation of redundant airports. What role will this new airport on the fringes of Berlin play in the development of the city into the future? What will become of Tempelhof, Tegel & Gatow? The Topos Landscape Award will also be presented. Tours of Tempelhof will be offered on the following day. For more detailed information on the event, please visit here.
Sunglass, built by two TED fellows, Nitin Rao and Kaustuv DeBiswas, is a collection of three products: the company’s Sunglass Player, which allows artists to incorporate the objects that they’ve created with the software into other web services like Behance. The player is fully interactive, allowing someone to rotate, flip, and scale the model that they’re currently building, through their mouse and, again, without Flash installed. At a time when Autodesk’s AutoCAD suite of software, costs upwards of $5,000 for a single copy and feels clunky on most machines, Sunglass brings some true innovation to the drawing table.
Liz Diller, founding principle of Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, shares the story of creating the pneumatic addition to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Commonly known as the “Bubble”, the inflatable event space is planned for the cylindrical courtyard of the National Mall’s modernist museum that was originally designed by Gordon Bunshaft in 1974. The first inflation of the “Bubble” is expected to take place at the end of 2013.
“To truly make good public space, you have to erase the distinctions between architecture, urbanism, landscape, media design.” – Liz Diller
