Complementing the many websites that already provide people for renders, PimpMyDrawing is a growing online database of vector drawings of people. The site was started by three recent graduates of architecture school. After realizing the amount of vector drawings that they had produced during their academic career, they decided to share them for free.
Twenty postcards depicting Detroit have been selected for “My Detroit,” part of The Architectural Imagination,” the exhibition for the US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Selected from among 463 entries by curator Cynthia Davidson and sociologist Camilo José Vergara, the 20 winning postcards --- taken by 18 different individuals -- were selected as a group, for helping to tell the story of Detroit today. Ten of the 18 winners are Detroit-area residents.
Framed by Florida's picturesque Biscayne Bay, 3900 Alton Road will be architect Ricardo Bofill’s first condominium project in the United States. With 78 residences in a variety of sizes, and amenities including pools, electric vehicle charging stations and artwork by Fernando Mastrangelo and Loris Cecchini, the elegant new tower will be an “urban oasis” in Miami Beach.
Buda... Pest... two characters separated by the Danube.
Day... night... two atmospheres separated by an invisible thread.
Budapest, "pearl of Danube", knows how to seduce at any hour, so why choose, when one can enjoy all its charms at the same time?
Exploring the role of lighting in architectural photography, French photographer Greg Florent created “Budapest Daynight” during a two-month stint in Hungary. Taking thousands of photographs, Florent created magical composite photos capturing architectural landmarks in-between the two opposing times of day. Accompanying his gallery of resulting work, he has also produced time-lapses of each of his subjects, illustrating the way that lighting affects the character of a building.
HOK’s latest project, “Hertsmere House” on West India Quay in London’s Canary Wharf has been approved for development by members of Tower Hamlets’ Strategic Development Committee. At 67-stories and 789 feet tall, Hertsmere House will be Western Europe’s tallest residential tower. The design, inspired by flower petals, aims to create a unique addition to the London skyline. Read more about the project after the break.
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U.D. Urban Design AB and Selgascano have won an international, invited competition to design the new Planning and Administrative Offices for the city of Stockholm, Sweden. Their project, "Drivhus” (Danish for "Greenhouse”) will be located south of the Stockholm city center in Söderstaden, an area set for redevelopment.
A new video by PONGOFILMS titled, “Archaeology of the Sea” captures footage of Italy's Riviera Romagnola during the winter. Using drones, the footage is captured from above, displaying closed aquatic recreation centres in "a place where it's difficult to understand what is waiting for the summer and what will remain lost." Boat rentals, cabanas and nightclubs laze into the frame, bereft of the buzz and activity that usually occupies them. See the full video, with accompanying soundtrack by Tame Impala, below.
Fifty-two years after its completion, the Marina City Complex in Chicago has been named an official architectural landmark. Following a 48-0 vote by the City Council, the buildings by Bertrand Goldberg will be given their official designation on March 16, reports The Architect Magazine.
One of many companies currently supporting the growing demand for Virtual Reality (VR), Sketchfab, known for being a “Youtube for 3D Models”, has added features to their website, allowing users to exhibit their work in VR. In this recent post, company CEO and co-founder Alban discusses the likelihood of a Virtual Reality renaissance in 2016. Comparing the platform to its predecessors in digital media, audio and video, he notes that the final steps for any new form of media are: easy to use, working technology; affordable interfaces; and user generated content, prefacing that 2016 may be the year that VR reaches this final step.
Concrete is one of the most widely innovated and improved upon building technologies in the world. With applications in both pre-fabrication and continuous pouring, the material has become a hot-bed for applications in fabrication techniques, from incredible, monolithic forms, to 3D-printing.
But behind all of the successes, there have been countless failures, including a well-intended innovation by famous American inventor Thomas Edison. Filed on August 13, 1908, Edison’s ill-fated patent was a home that could be built with a single pour of concrete, reports Slate. Although Thomas Edison had previous ventures in concrete, including a cement plant in Stewartsville, New Jersey, as well as several patented improvements in the cement-making process, his venture into concrete construction may have just been too ambitious.
Winner of the AWR International Ideas Competition to design a new nursery school, “Nursery Fields Forever” reimagines what nursery schools could be like. Designed by a team from Italy, composed of Gabriele Capobianco, Edoardo Capuzzo Dolcetta, Jonathan Lazar, and Davide Troiani, the entry refutes the modern notion of shaping a child’s perception of the world based solely on urban environments, accepting children as being inherently curious naturalists. This trait is stimulated and guided to create a unique educational approach, holistically combining nature and food cultivation into its curriculum.
A set of reports by the AIA show an expected increase in spending on non-residential design for 2016 and 2017, as well as an emergence of more sustainable building technologies.
“Emerging technologies are becoming the dominant force in how buildings are being designed,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD. “Buildings in their own right are becoming far more energy efficient, and certain technologies are increasing both the efficiency of the people using the buildings and the project delivery methods in which buildings are being designed and constructed.”
One of 23 teams selected in the Reinventer.paris competition, Jacques Ferrier Architecture, Chartier Dalix Architectes and SLA Architects have unveiled their winning proposal for the Ternes-Villers site, titled “Multi-Layered City.” Located at Boulevard Périphérique (Ring Road), the competition entry has a unique opportunity to transform Paris at a highly strategic spot.
The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) has announced the launch of SCI-Arc Mexico, to begin in mid-March 2016. Located in the Barragán Foundation in Mexico City, SCI-Arc Mexico will feature international studios, exhibitions, conferences and symposia, furthering SCI-Arc’s global presence by complementing SCI-Arc Shanghai as well as bolstering further development into South America and Europe.
Text description provided by the architects. Held over seven days and visited by over 350,000 people, Fleadh Cheoil na h Éireann is the world’s largest traditional Irish music festival, and was hosted in Sligo, Ireland during the 2015 version. NósWorkshop was invited to build a temporary stage for the festival, sheltering performances and providing a giant notice board to promote the festival events.
The Curonian Spit in Lithuania contains six main villages: Smiltynė, Alksnynė, Juodkrantė, Pervalka, Preila and Nida, all connected by a single narrow road surrounded by water on both sides. As such, buses are the only public transportation that can connect all six villages. As part of an annual seminar to elevate the architecture of the Curonian Spit, a series of 5 bus stops, within the Neringa region of the spit, have been planned for construction. Specifically chosen to improve the cultural and social function of a typical piece of infrastructure, each bus stop uniquely elevates the qualities of the village it will be built for. See the five planned stops after the break.
In this video by the AIA, Marlon Blackwell, one of Arkansas’ foremost architects, speaks on the importance of small projects in an architect's career. “I only really worked on small projects at the beginning…that was doing everything…The scale of the site, the scale of the model, the scale of the hand…the beauty of the small project is that you can work at all of those many scales," says Blackwell. “The smaller projects are the beginning of the development of a language in architecture. I see it not as a benign or banal thing but as the beginning of taking yourself from where you are to where you want to be.”
After an international design competition, sports venue specialists HOK and Barcelona-based TAC Arquitectes have been selected to design the new 10,000 seat arena for FC Barcelona, the New Palau Blaugrana. Replacing the old arena which was built in 1971, the building is estimated to open for the 2019-2020 FC Barcelona Lassa basketball season. The redevelopment of the Palau Blaugrana is part of a larger scheme by the football team to refresh their entire campus - including the famous Camp Nou stadium for which a shortlist including BIG, Populous and HKS was announced in September, with a winner expected to be announced in March. Read on for the architects' description of their Palau Blaugrana design.
