Photographer Cristobal Palma shared with us the extended version of his video of the Xi’an Expo, a project by Plasma Studio + GroundLab that we saw during several stages, from the award winning entry in 2009, to conceptual design and opening, when it was visited by more than 200,000 people on the first weekend.
The Expo embodies the idea of transformation as the site was formerly a sandpit where the water was severely degraded during the 1980s. Efforts over the past two decades have restored the ecosystem and now the Expo is able to demonstrate what can be accomplished through the use of the most advanced technology, ideas, and materials, as seen on the video. As we reported earlier, the 37 ha complex includes three buildings that are interconnected with a dynamic landscape of unfolding paths and networks of water, circulation and foliage.
Landscape architect, James Corner, has a way of not only designing captivating landscapes, but making places where people want to be. While thousands have experienced his transformation of New York’s industrial rail line, Corner’s impact is also evident in major metropolises on an international level as his competition entries and built work inspire a sense of urban renewal and restore confidence in their settings. In fact, Fast Company has recently named James Corner Field Operations as one of 50 most innovative companies of the world for “creating intimate green spaces out of industrial urban blight.”
The Department of Landscape Architecture at Penn State is announcing a call for the inaugural A.E. Bye / Landscape Architecture Archives Research Fellow for the calendar year 2012. The Fellowship provides a $2,500 stipend for a minimum of one week of archival research in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State’s University Park campus in State College, Pennsylvania. The records (drawings, papers, photographs, and videos) of the celebrated twentieth-century American landscape architect A. E. Bye ( as well as those of landscape architects John Bracken and Stuart Mertz) are held at Penn State and the deadline is March 7th, 2012. More information after the break.
The concept for the Father and Son skyscraper, designed by IAMZ Studio, is divided into three main elements including the shape, style and urban design along with green areas implemented into the design. The main reason for the skyscraper typology is to decrease the crowding in the capital Cairo. More images and architects’ description after the break.
A temporary pavilion in the public space for the Grenswerk Festival in Enschede, Netherlands, ‘Abondantus Gigantus’ was to be a meeting point and a stage for performances and exhibitions. Designed by LOOS.FM in 2011, is made up of so-called Legoblocks: concrete blocks that are very similar to the famous Lego bricks. The blocks are nondescript, yet they possess an industrial beauty. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Since 2007, controversy has been stirring due to the rising costs and delayed schedule of Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, Germany. Recent reports state the court has approved the city of Hamburg’s €40 million lawsuit against the primary contractor HochTief, who has stopped working in four areas of the €600 million project this past November. HochTief blames the architect due to differences in its plans.
The year 2011 was a great one for ArchDaily, and all thanks to you. In terms of web traffic, in our network we grew to more than 200,000 daily readers who viewed 350 million pages during 2011. Our social media reach has grown to nearly 500,000 Facebook fans, more than 60,000 followers on Twitter and an ever growing presence on Flickr, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, all connecting with architects around our passion: Architecture.
ArchDaily is more than big numbers. It is recognized as the ultimate source of inspiration for thousands of architects around the world, who are covering new ground in architectural discussion, and generating new opportunities by being part of the world’s largest architecture network. During 2011, we participated in important events, such as the Pritzker Prize ceremony in DC, the AIA National Convention in New Orleans, among others, and visiting architects all across the US, in the UK, Switzerland, Israel, Brazil, Chile and Argentina. We’ve had the chance to interview renowned architects such as Steven Holl, Renzo Piano, Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, and a long list of people who are advancing this profession. We spoke at the AIA Arkansas Convention, Harvard GSD, along with other events and schools. We launched our first local version, ArchDaily Brasil (more to come during this year!) and introduced our first tool to help architects collect and order information: My ArchDaily. We will continue to work very hard during 2012, with all our passion, to keep you connected to everything that is happening in the architecture world and help you with tools, as you will be the responsible of the noble task to shape our built environment.
Since 2009 we have held the Building of the Year Awards, an instance in which all of you make your voice heard by nominating and voting for the best projects featured on ArchDaily during the year. This is a peer based award that recognizes firms of all sizes, trajectories and locations. You can check the results of the previous editions here: 2009 and 2010.
Once again we have partnered with HP to present the 2011 Building of the Year Awards, starting today Feb 7th, 2012 at the following link:
The nomination stage will run for 2 weeks until Feb 21st, 2011. All buildings featured under the available categories during 2011 are elegible for this round. You can nominate one building (in one category) per day.
Like last year, we will authenticate the votes with the My ArchDaily platform, so we can assure that the nominating and voting processes are conducted by the community. You can nominate once per day, so you can propose your favorite projects from Feb 7th to Feb 21st, after which 5 buildings per category will continue to the voting round, between Feb 22nd and Mar 6th. The winners will be announced on Mar 7th, 2012.
Given that you are in charge of the selection process, we have decided to give away 2 custom engraved iPads 2 during the nominating/voting stages (more details on the rules below). Also, the most voted firm will receive an HP Designjet T2300 eMFP printer (MSRP US$8,000).
Once again I’d like to thank all our readers for your support in 2011, and rest assure that we are working on new ways to improve ArchDaily in 2012. Our inbox is always open, so feel free to leave your feedback, recommendations and support on the contact page.
The High-tech science and technology cultural center, designed by RTA-Office, is strategically located Jinan, a city supported with a good transportation hub, making it a site with a lot of potential advantages and opportunities for development. They believe that these buildings need to reflect the cultural flavor of Jinan in eastern and local specialties; this is a place of modern technology and the software language used is able to describe the soul of the location. So they made a unique exclusive design, showing all its modern character. The result is a strong contrast between the organic approach in the genesis of the soften edges of the new buildings and hardness of the surrounding buildings. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In material safety article for the New York Times, Fred A. Bernstein conducts an interview with architect Peter Syrett and interior designer Chris Youseff of Perkins + Will that highlights their endeavor to create a database of common building materials and the potential dangers associated with their composition. The database, simply and appropriately referred to as Transparency Lists, is a resource of precautionary measures which breaks down into four categories: Precautionary List, Asthma Triggers + Asthmagens, Flame Retardants, and News, Media + Additional Research.
Architect: JSª Location: Av. Insurgentes 301-303, Mexico City, Mexico Total Area: 132,504 sq ft Date of the project: 2011,In progress Photographer: Romeilia Hernandez
The following text comes from Powerhouse Company‘s book Ouvertures. We found this excerpt to be particularly engaging and they graciously gave us permission to share this short piece with you in its entirety. Enjoy!
Our exhibition Rien ne va plus researched and discussed the impact of the 2008 economic crisis on architecture. The simple question that led to this research was the question why, after bankers, architects were the first to be fired en masse as the crisis hit? How had we architects become so entangled with the money market?
https://www.archdaily.com/200473/typecasting-or-the-void-after-starchitectureAmber P
NRJA shared with us their proposal for the reconstruction of a former police station to an apartment building in Riga, Latvia. Their design concept respects the architectural heritage, partly renovating the existing volume and adding a new modern architecture. Reinhold Schmaeling buildings, especially schools, hospitals and public buildings created in early 20th century are very unique architectural works and important part of the rich and diverse heritage of Riga. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Water Cathedral is a large, horizontal urban nave for public use. The structure is made up of numerous slender, vertical components, which hang or rise like stalactites and stalagmites in a cave, varying in height and concentration. The project incorporates water dripping at different pulses and speeds from these hanging elements, fed by a hydraulic irrigation network. When filled with small amounts of water, the stalactite components act as interfaces out of which water droplets gradually flow and cool visitors below. The stalagmites topography provides elements of shade, along with plants and water that collect under the Water Cathedral’s canopy.
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) will be hosting the lectures of well-renowned architect, Peter Eisenman and architectural theorist, Jeffrey Kipnis at their W.M. Keck Lecture Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Eisenman’s lecture will take place Monday, March 5th at 7pm while Keck’s lecture will be held Tuesday, March 6th at 7pm. Both lectures are free and open to the public. More information after the break.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture + Planning will showcase the architecture of The Freelon Group in an art exhibition opening February 15th at the Wolk Gallery at MIT. The exhibit, which runs through April 13th, includes ten projects designed by the Freelon Group, plus a table from the furniture collection designed by founder Philip Freelon. Featured projects include museums, university buildings, libraries and an airport parking structure (we’ve published a few you can see here. And don’t miss our interview with Philip Freelon). More information on the event after the break.
A collaborative project by KMKG Studio and OchoResotto, Architecture Export is a video project from CIS [Creative Industries of Styria, based in the city of Graz in Austria] aiming at making Styrian architecture better known on the international level. Styrian architecture has already enjoyed considerable success in an international context in the past and Graz, the Styrian capital and second largest city of Austria, has recently been award the tittle of Unesco City of Design.
We are pleased to bring attention to the book Dutch Mountains that focuses on Francine Houben from Mecanoo Architecten and her inspiring work that spans the globe. We have featured Mecanoo Architecten before and you can see them here. Houben came to architecture like many great young architects who are driven by social idealism. “Uplifting the people, contributing to quality of life—that was the great goal.” Among being named Business Woman of the Year in Netherlands in 2008, Houben still works for social idealism. Houben says about her Birmingham library, “I want to create cohesion among the ethnic diversity of the city and the traces of its industrial past.”
https://www.archdaily.com/207183/dutch-mountains-francine-houben-mecanoo-architectenAmber P
Check out this condensed video, provided by the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), featuring Michael Pawlyn. As many architects have been inspired by nature, Pawlyn concentrates on biomimicry’s potential to influence the function rather than the form of a building. He believes a functional revolution needs to occur, stating we need to focus on a radical increase in resource efficiency, a shift to closed-looped systems and the transformation from our current fossil fuel economy to a solar economy. With the natural world as our living proof, Pawlyn believes all three of these challenges are crucial and achievable.
We found this Venn diagram on arthitectural. This illustration was originally created by Colin Harman in regards to graphic design. However, there is no doubt this logic can apply to architecture, or any other design profession.
OOZE architects shared with us their mixed residential and commercial project located in Gundala, 35 km south of the Hyderabad city center in India. Their aim for ‘Forest Life’ was to create an eco-community with different individual villa typologies located within the existing forest next to a much denser mixed use development with residential towers and a commercial podium with proximity shops leisure activities and offices located along the main road leaving Hyderabad towards the south. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Morpholio Project seeks to create a new platform for presentation, critique, and collaboration relevant to all designers, architects, artists, or members of any image driven culture, through a dedicated mobile app for iOS devices. Created by a group of five architects, and academics, the app explores to re-image the portfolio: “Although essential to design culture, the current methods of creating and sharing design portfolios and presentations still ultimately rely on fixed notions of time, media and outdated technologies of sharing.”
https://www.archdaily.com/207765/the-morpholio-project-appAmber P
