Irina Vinnitskaya
Venice Biennale 2012: Taiwan Pavilion
For Taiwan’s seventh year at the Venice Biennale, the Taiwanese team will present Architect/Geographer – Le Foyer de Taiwan. The exhibition will embody the main theme of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale which is “Common Ground”. The aspects of Taiwanese culture and architecture will be presented through the perspective of a geographer as mapping that can uncover a new understanding of Taiwan through international eyes. The team is supervised by the Ministry of Culture, organized by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and curated by Ke-Fung Liou. The exhibit will be displayed at Palazzo delle Prigioni.
Follow us after the break for more on the exhibit.
Proposed Demolition of Josep Lluis Sert’s King School Cambridge
At a time when sustainability is high on the agenda and construction costs continue to soar, many Cambridge residents are questioning a proposal to demolish a sound and respected school building to replace it with a new school one that will strive to be a “green facility”. The Martin Luther King Elementary School (1968-1971) was designed by Catalan architect Josep Lluis Sert (Sert, Jackson and Associate). As it stands today, the school compliments the many other buildings in Cambridge that Sert worked on while also teaching at Harvard University, including the Peabody Terrace Graduate Housing complex just across the street.
Read on to find out what the community is doing to save the building from demolition and why it can prove to be a more sustainable option for the city.
EPA’s Battle of the Buildings Competition
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program has launched the 2012 National Building Competition: Battle of the Buildings. This year, 3,200 buildings across the country will be competing to improve energy efficiency, lower utility costs and protect health and the environment. With that kind of challenge, every participant wins. Last year, 245 participants saved a combined $5.2 million on their utility bills and prevented nearly 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The competition is open to commercial buildings, which are responsible for approximately 20% of the nation’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions at a cost of more than $100 billion annually in energy bills.
A winner will be announced in April 2013. In the meantime, follow us after the break for more on the potential behind this competition.
‘Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000′ at MoMA
Now through November 5th, the Museum of Modern Art will be running Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-2000, a new exhibit that surveys modern design and innovation through the exploration of childhood development and well-being. Prior to the 20th century, childhood was not considered a time of development for the human brain. As Ken Johnson points out in his reviewof the exhibit, “children were considered small adults to be put to work as soon as possible”. The 20th century changed all that and modern psychology bore a great deal of influence on investigations into childhood and development. Modernist design followed, creating a whole new set of tools that children could interact with, learn from, and be entertained by. The exhibit has an assortment of furniture, toys, books, games and posters all designed for the child.Read on for more after the break.
The Limits of Density
Let’s look at these examples after the break.
Architecture ZA 2012 Biennial Festival: Re-scripting Architecture
The AZA 2012 Biennial Festival in Cape Town, South Africa will feature six international architects to join South African architects in a conversation about architectural practice and its role in the context of the city. The participating speakers include David Adjaye, founder of Adjaye Associates, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kajima of Atelier Bow-Wow, Tatiana Bilbao, Teddy Cruz of Estudio Teddy Cruz, Rahul Mehrotra, founder of RMA Architects and Kibwe Tavares co-founder of Factory Fifteen, in addition to others. This is the second Architecture ZA event, a premier urban culture festival that brings together cutting-edge thinkers and multi-disciplinary practitioners from around the world. It will be held on September 13-16, 2012 and will include various events, talks, film screenings, conferences and tours.
Read on for more about the speakers invited to AZA 2012.
Winners of Habitat for Humanity’s Sustainable Home Design Competition
This year’s winners for the Sustainable Home: Habitat for Humanity Student Design Competition have been announced. The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture chose five winners, one from each region and an additional prize for the best use of vinyl building materials. The competition asked young professionals to consider building strategies that would advance solutions to poverty with affordable housing that is simple, decent and healthy.
Follow us after the break to view the winning projects.
Historic Front Street / Cook + Fox Architects
Architect: Cook + Fox Architects, LLP
Location: New York, NY
Client: Yarrow LLC
Completion: April 2006
Size: 150,000 SF
Leading architects fight to save Chicago’s historic Prentice Women’s Hospital
Over 60 prominent architects, including Frank Gehry and Jeanne Gang, signed a letter asking Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to grant Bertrand Goldberg‘s Prentice Women’s Hospital landmark status and make it a permanent part of Chicago’s built environment. ”A building this significant”, the letter read, it “should be preserved and reused.” Goldberg’s architectural work has been iconic to Chicago’s city-scape. Building such as Marina City, River City, Wright College and Astor Tower have all made a tremendous impact on the personality of the city.
More on the state of the building after the break.
Venice Biennale 2012: Wall house / Anupama Kundoo, University of Queensland
Anupama Kundoo‘s Wall House, originally built in Auroville, India in 2000, will be partially reconstructed at a 1:1 scale at the Venice Biennale this year for the theme of “Common Ground” by director David Chipperfield. This portion of the exhibition is supported by the University of Queensland, whose students and staff will assist with the construction of the replica alongside Indian craftspeople and Italian builders. The house has been described as a testing ground for spatial and technological innovation. In its debut at the Venice Biennale, it will afford Kundoo the opportunity to further explore these experiments.
Follow us after the break to see the innovations behind this widely acknowledged piece of architecture.
Sonos Studio / RA-DA
Architect: RA-DA - Rania Alomar, AIA, RA, DA
Location: La Brea Art & Design District – Los Angeles, CA
Completed: May 2012
Building area: 4000 sq ft
RA-DA Design Team: Rania Alomar – Design Lead; Jesse Madrid – Job Captain/Designer.
Client: Sonos
Contractor: Lemarc Builders, Ryan Dumoulin
MEP: Maftoon Inc.
Photographer: Ralf Strathmann
Alfonso Architects Awarded Tampa International Airport Expansion
Architect’s Eye Exhibition & Discussion Panel at Roca London Gallery
The London Festival of Architecture hosted its first photographic exhibition called “The Architect’s Eye”, featuring winners and finalists from the Architect’s Eye Photography Competition that we previously mentioned here on ArchDaily. On the exhibition’s opening night, nearly one-hundred people attended a panel discussion that focused on the relationship between architecture and photography within Zaha Hadid’s ROCA London Gallery. The panel, chaired by Amanda Baillieu from Building Magazine, was formed by Moderator Alex Health, Jack Pringle of Pringle Brandon Architects, Simon Allford of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris Architects, Architectural Photographer Nick Guttridge and Architectural Photographer Grant Smith. Roca London Gallery has provided us with the clip above. Check it out and follow us after the break key points from the discussion.
The Hegeman / Cook + Fox
The Hegeman, designed by Cook + Fox Architects, is a residential community in Brownsville, Brooklyn that provides housing for low-income and formerly homeless individuals. Developed by Common Ground Community – an innovative non-profit whose mission is to end homelessness – the Hegeman Residence will also provide a range of on-site social services in a model known as supportive housing. For a little bit of context, Brownsville has the highest concentration of NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) developments in New York City. A wave of arson in the 1970s destroyed most of the residential structures; Brownsville is just one of the many neighborhoods that were affected. The urban renewal that followed rebuilt many homes and designated them as low-income housing. The community has had many problems since associated with poverty, including crime and drug addiction, as well as low test scores and high truancy rates in the education system.
More after the break.
Venice Biennale 2012: Aircraft Carrier / Israeli Pavilion
This year’s Venice Biennale will kick off on August 29th and run through November 25th and will feature a pavilion from Israel called “Aircraft Carrier”. The collected work confronts the dramatic changes in Israeli architecture since 1973, and the American influences that made them possible. The curators of the exhibit, Erez Ella, Milana Gitzin-Adiram and Dan Handel defined four major architectural phenomena that epitomize these changes: Signals, Emporiums, Allies and Flotillas. The curators invited five leading Israeli and international artists and architectural photographers to reflect on these ideas. Participants include Assaf Evron, Fernando Guerra, Florian Holzherr, Nira Pereg, and Jan Tichy and product designer Tal Erez.
Stop by after the break to see some of the work to be featured as part of “Aircraft Carrier”.
Shortlist Revealed for New Keelung Harbor Service Building
The international competition for a new service building in Taiwan’s major port city Keelung called for the design of a modern passenger and cargo terminal transfer station and maritime gateway art plaza. The objective is to improve the quality of the services for passengers and cargo, accelerate the development of surrounding areas, and ultimately promote local prosperity of the region. The new service building design is to be a new “Gateway to the Nation” – one that could become a form of Landmark Architecture of Keelung. The site of the new building should be integrated with the other commercial buildings in an effort to develop the entire area. The diverse programs cover an area of 82,615 m2 and include car and coach parking.
The two-stage competition was announced in early May 2012 and recieved thirty one submissions from twelve countries in the first stage. On July 19th the jury unveiled five nominated groups to continue to the second stage whose deadline is in September.
Follow us after the break for details on the five shortlisted firms.
Venice Biennale 2012: Catalan and Balearic Islands Pavilion
This year’s Venice Biennale will kick off on August 29th and run through November 25th and for the first time, the Institut Ramon Llull will be presenting an exhibition dedicated to Catalan and Balearic architecture entitled “Vogadors”, featuring nine projects from nine different architects that epitomize the contemporary and avant-garde works from the regions. The exhibition is inspired by the Mediterranean Sea, which is the main geographical feature of the regions, and by the words of Jorge Oteiza, “He who forges ahead creating something new does so like an oarsman, moving forward but back-paddling, looking behind him, towards the past, towards what exists, so as to be able to reinvent its underpinnings.”
Follow us after the break to see the projects to be featured at the exhibit.
Parlour: Women, Equity, Architecture
Through research, discussions and essays from a variety of resources, Parlour: Women, Equity, Architecture is a platform, a coach, and an inspiration that is available to women worldwide in an effort to bridge the gender gap that exist in the historically male dominant profession of architecture. Launched by a team of scholars led by Dr. Naomi Stead from The University of Queensland and developed and edited by Justine Clark from The University of Melbourne, this website is relevant to all members of the profession, women and men, in all parts of the world. It highlights the reasons why gender gaps are felt as in “implicit bias” whether in pay scale or upward mobility, even though discrimination and prejudices may not be explicit. In this regard, the website and its collection of resources, aims to create a forum for a dialogue about the actual and perceived barriers that empowers women to challenge the social structure that fosters this proven under-representation, whether it is due to professional practices and “gendered behavioral practices” or pressures that women feel to leave the profession at a much higher rate than men.
More after the break.
In Progress Update: Messe Basel / Herzog & de Meuron
Last November, ArchDaily reported on the new additions to Messe Basel – a multifunctional exhibition building that is designed to become a destination for the public. The project is designed by Basel architecture firm, Herzog & de Meuron and will include additions and relocations of the existing halls of the building. The existing hall will be extended via a three-story addition will replace two existing exhibition halls and include various scales of venues to attract different groups and events. New connections between parts of the building will be bridged with overhead walkways and transparencies between spaces. For a look at the early construction phase, click here.
More updates on the project after the break.
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Heike Hanada with Benedict Tonon to Design the New Bauhaus Museum in Weimar
Klassik Stiftung Weimar, host of the competition for the New Bauhaus Museum in Weimer, has announced that Berlin-based architect with Professor Benedict Tonon, has been selected as the winning proposal. Last March, ArchDaily announced the shortlist for the New Bauhaus Museum in Weimer design competition. The jury had provided the four finalists with recommendations to improve their proposals in preparation for the VOF Procedure (Contracting Regulations for the Awarding of Professional Services).
Thuringian Minister of Culture and Foundation Board Chairman Christoph Matschie congratulated the winner: “The Bauhaus is now finally being provided with a fitting location at its Weimar cradle. Once again, the Bauhaus will become a symbol of reawakening in the time to come. The building of the museum is providing animportant impulse for the entire development of the city of Weimar.”
Follow us after the break for more on the winning proposal.
Cleveland Design Competition: Transforming the Bridge
