MVRDV and developer Provast has revealed plans for a two new mixed-use residential towers in The Hague that will add over 500 new apartments to the city’s Central Business District. Located on Grotiusplaats adjacent to the National Library and near the city’s Central Station, the “Grotius Towers” will offer 61,800 square meters of residential and commercial space to service the needs of The Hague’s growing downtown core.

The towers’ design reacts to the typical tower typology found in the Hague by focusing on high-quality details, a subtle facade, a ‘soft’ landing on the street and a ‘crown’ of large outdoor spaces. Inside, a mix of social housing and private accommodations will ensure the buildings are inhabited by a diverse community, while their ground-floor commercial plinths will make the complex a destination for shopping, dining and socializing.

BIG and Silvio D'ascia Architecture have released new images of their competition-winning design for the new Pont de Bondy metro station in Paris. One of a total of 68 new stations commissioned as part of Société du Grand París’ Grand Paris Express project, the Pont de Bondy station will “[continue] the Parisian tradition of utilizing bridges as social spaces and cultural landmarks.”

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Videos

Studio Libeskind has won competitions for two new mixed-use projects in France, the firm announced at the MIPIM world property market conference this past week in Cannes. The first project comprises a retail, conference and transportation center for the city of Nice, while the second will see the firm complete a 150-meter-tall skyscraper in Toulouse.

“With these important projects in two of the main French cities, we unveil our new development strategy to create urban mixed-use buildings. Once completed, both will become new landmarks for Nice and Toulouse. With Studio Libeskind, we are up to great things!” says Philippe Journo, CEO of Compagnie de Phalsbourg, the developer behind both projects.

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Videos

Architecture and music are two very different art forms – one is visual, tactile and logical; the other audial and emotional. So what happens when you bring these two artistic media together?

This is the idea explored by Chilean web series Insigne Sesiones, which aims to “[expose] he ideal mix between contemporary architecture and music, generating the first audiovisual project worldwide that officially joins these two disciplines.” For their first season, Insigne Sesiones invited six world-renowned musicians to perform their music in the intimate settings of some of the most celebrated works of Chilean architects across the country.

Check out the full first season below.

A 1,400-foot-tall mixed-use skyscraper by Zaha Hadid Architects may be the next supertall structure to hit midtown Manhattan. Located at 666 Fifth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Street, the project is the brainchild of Kushner Properties, who currently co-own the existing 483-foot-tall building with Vornado Realty Trust.

Estimated to cost up to $12 billion, the company is currently negotiating a multi-billion dollar deal with Chinese holding company Anbang Insurance Group to finance the project. If plans to buy out the building go through, Kushner would be in the clear to begin construction on the ZHA-designed tower, which would rebrand the property as 660 Fifth Avenue and offer 464,000-square-feet of residential space, an 11-story hotel, and a 9-story retail podium.

As an architect, Frank Lloyd Wright was known for many things, but perhaps his most famed characteristic was his exceptional attention to detail – in many of his projects, each furniture piece was designed specifically for its intended location. This trait carried over into the design of the windows in his houses. Borrowing from organic motifs, Wright created a series of compositions suited for each house, from the tall, triangular stained glass windows of the Hollyhock House to the mahogany Samara clerestory panels of the Bachman-Wilson House.

Homerton College, Cambridge and competition-organizers Malcolm Reading Consultants have announced that emerging practice Feilden Fowles has been selected as the winners of the competition to design a new £7 million showpiece dining hall for Homerton College, the newest constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Unanimously selected by the competition jury, Feilden Fowles’ scheme was chosen over a shortlist of entries from 2016 Stirling Prize winner Caruso St John, dRMM, Hall McKnight and Walters & Cohen Architects.

“Feilden Fowles’ concept design for the dining hall subtly relates to the existing ensemble of buildings and the garden setting, and yet has the poise to convince as a showpiece,” said Professor Geoffrey Ward, Principal of Homerton College, Cambridge.

 “What appealed so strongly about the team’s particular approach was their openness to creating many opportunities for dialogue. We are looking forward to working with them as they develop the detailed design.”

In 2014, midtown Manhattan received its first supertall (taller than 1,000 feet) residential building, Christian de Portzamparc’s One57. The following year, Rafael Viñoly Architects’ 432 Park Avenue surpassed the mark, confirming the trend of sky-shattering, pencil-thin skyscrapers rising along Central Park’s southern edge. In all, at least 10 supertall projects have been planned for the neighborhood, earning it the nickname of Billionaire’s Row.

Responding to this phenomenon, architect Ioannis Oikonomou of oiio architecture studio has proposed an alternate solution, called “The Big Bend,” that asks the question: “What if our buildings were long instead of tall?”

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Carmody Groarke’s competition winning design for a new hotel retreat on Burgh Island off the coast of Devon, UK, has received planning approval, clearing the way for the dramatic structure to begin construction. The cliff-top “Pool House” will join the Grade-II listed art deco Burgh Island Hotel in providing accommodation to adventurous visitors, offering panoramic views of the of the Bantham Estuary and the hotel’s Mermaid Pool, an outdoor seawater pool and private beach for hotel guests.

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International student architecture competition 120 Hours has announced the winners of its 2017 competition, “The Way of the Buiy.” For this year’s edition of the challenge, which gives participants just 5 days from the announcement of the brief to its deadline to conceive a project, students were asked to design a 100-square-meter building housing a canteen and library for the LiangMeng school complex, located in the rural area of Puan City, China.

This year’s competition saw 3024 participants from 79 countries across the globe, with winners selected by a jury consisting of Jan Olav Jensen, Chiara Sala, Tran Kinh Manh, Angela Gigliotti, Fabio Gigone and Christian Hermansen Cordua. For the first time ever, the winning project will be constructed, after further development alongside the 120 Hours team. The building is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.

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Videos

MVRDV’s public Art Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen has broken ground on the northern edge of Rotterdam’s Museumpark in the heart of the city’s cultural campus. The 15,000-square-meter reflective vessel will store the esteemed collection of over 70,000 art and design objects, adding a new cultural landmark to join the nearby Kunsthal, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Chabot Museum and Sonneveld House.

Officially breaking ground this past Friday, the BREEAM Excellent-planned “Collection Building” will combine restoration facilities, exhibition spaces, offices, logistics, a bar, restaurant, public roof terrace and private collectors facilities alongside a specially commissioned atrium that will allow visitors to experience 90% of the collection, including artworks in storage.

In any city across the world, there are countless examples of unsung architecture – well-designed if inoffensive buildings that strive to please by not standing out from the crowd. For German photographer Paul Eis, these buildings provide the perfect canvas for his work. Displayed on his Instagram account, the_architecture_photographer, Eis captures these buildings in their best light, and then digitally adds in bright colors, elevating these structures from mundane to magnificent.

After a several year battle, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture has been approved to maintain its accreditation as an institute of higher learning. The school’s status had earlier been threatened due to new laws by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) that require universities, colleges and other institutions to be financially and administratively independent from "larger institutions with multi-faceted missions."

With the decision, the school will be able to continue to offer its 3-year Master of Architecture program, as well as its additional education programs such as its 8-week-long non-degree Immersion Program.

Competing against a shortlist of internationally acclaimed architects, the team led by newly established practice Vargo Nielsen Palle (in collaboration with ADEPT and Rolvung & Brøndsted Arkitekter) has been selected as the winners of the NEW AARCH competition, which sought designs for several new buildings for the Aarhus School of Architecture and the development of the surrounding area in Aarhus known as Godsbanearealerne.

The restricted competition consisted of three invited practices – BIG, SANAA and Lacaton & Vassal – and the three winners of the earlier open qualifying competition, Vargo Nielsen Palle, Erik Giudice Architects, and ALL (Atelier Lorentzen Langkilde). Vargo Nielsen Palle’s proposal was chosen as the unanimous winner.

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Humor is a very rare quality in architecture, most architects are too serious
-Andreas Ruby, director of the Swiss Architecture Museum S AM, Basel

Since its founding in 1996, Slovenia architecture firm Sadar+Vuga has grown to become one of their country’s most influential architectural forces, with a range of projects covering interior design, to stadiums, to city master plans. In a new documentary by director Damjan Kozole, the firm’s history is being archived for the first time.

Videos

Tesla has completed a massive, 55,000-panel solar farm on the Hawaiian island of Kauai that will allow them to experiment with medium-term energy storage at a utility scale. Hooked up to the farm are 272 of the company’s lithium Powerpacks, which are capable of storing of combined 52 megawatt-hours of power.

WE Architecture + Erik Juul have been awarded a commission to transform a vacant lot at Jagtvej 69 in Copenhagen into a urban garden and housing structure that could provided temporary accommodation for homeless people, helping them to turn their lives around.

The architects describe the project as a place “where housing and green gardens [create] a platform for the meeting between locals and homeless, and a path for a new beginning.”

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