MuuM's Erciyes Congress and Cultural Center has been shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival Awards in the Culture category for Future Projects. Located in the city of Kayseri, near Turkey's Erciyes Mountain, the Center is part of Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality’s Master Plan, which aims to improve the area for better year round (rather than just seasonal) use.
KUAN Architects (UCD) have unveiled their design for The Antique Fish, a shopping center, and the first large-scale commercial construction in Qinshui, a developing city in the Shanxi Province in China.
Located at the crossing of two rivers and surrounded by mountains, the project is designed to mimic its surroundings, as well as traditional Chinese art, taking on a long, fish-like shape and using traditional materials such as blue stones, green tiles, white jade, and wood.
On Saturday, July 4, designer Prada and AMO—a research studio subset of OMA architecture—hosted The Miu Miu Club, a pop-up event, featuring dinner, a fashion show, and several musical performances in Paris, France.
Inside of the 1937 art deco Palais d-Iena, Paris’ current CESE government offices, the one-night event was held in the Hypostyle, using a scaffolding ring to create a “room within a room.” Strip lighting, metal grids, PVC sheets, and arrangements of luxurious furniture were also used to enhance the space.
Eighteen years after its original publication, Paul Oliver’s Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World will be updated, revised, and expanded to include over 30% of new material. With around 3,000 entries, the new version of the encyclopedia is set to be published in 2018, and will reflect the considerable growth and changes in the architectural field.
The Enric Miralles Foundation, in collaboration with the Polytechnic University in Catalunya (UPC), will offer a postgraduate program called Social Urban Regeneration, starting October 8. Students will create a social urban project over the course of 10 weeks specializing in integrated, contemporary, and sustainable urban planning. The project, entitled "2017 Grand Paris Clichy-Montferneil Suburbs of Paris," will look into the question of how new cities should be planned, and how older cities can be renewed and renovated.
A team of students from Austrian-based Studio Hani Rashid at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna have unveiled their conceptual design for a Cirque du Soleil Performance Center in Brooklyn, New York.
With its interior and exterior blended together, the entire building becomes a stage. Featuring large windows that allow the public to watch performances and training activities inside, people on each side are both viewers and viewed.
'I just blew off the architecture profession, really. I mean, I have blown it off in my mind as a profession because it’s not addressing the issues that we face. So I coined a new word called ‘biotechure,’ and I use that. I would say I’m a ‘biotect.'
Dürig AG has won a competition to design a new Student Housing building for the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Dubbed Vortex, the residential building will house 1,350 students and is also a candidate for the Athletes Village for the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games. For this reason, the design of the building includes a common path that spirals from the ground floor to the rooftop, creating a distinct social atmosphere that caters to students and athletes.
“If you look at just carbon emissions, what we do for a living—building buildings, running buildings, all that— is 50 percent of all the carbon emissions in the United States. […] Well that’s both sort of dreadful and wonderful at the same time. […] The opportunity is, because it’s so concentrated, a relatively smaller group of people can do something about it. ”
As a part of its Archiculture series, Arbuckle Industries has interviewed HOK president Bill Hellmuth on his experiences in architecture school and working in a large practice. In the interview, Hellmuth discusses his path in architecture school, how large firms allow for the creation of teams, and issues involving sustainability and livable cities.
When thinking of metro stations, the word quiet generally doesn’t come to mind—with all of the train and pedestrian traffic, not only is noise produced in high quantities, but it is also echoed. With this issue in mind, London-based Variant Studio created their proposal for the competition to design the new Novoperedelkino station in Moscow, Russia. Although not selected as the winning design, Variant was one of five shortlisted teams. Learn more about their silent proposal after the break.
As a part of its #ILookUp campaign, the American Institute of Architects has announced its Look Up Film Challenge, a competition that invites filmmakers and architects to collaborate on a short film that illuminates how architecture enriches our lives and our communities.
Moving specialists iMove have created 115 Years of American Homes, a Scrolling Parallax Infographic in which viewers can “drive” through a neighborhood of single-family homes that reflect the style of their respective decades. For each home, graphics detail “tell-tale architectural features, design trends, average home price, and the historical and cultural context” of each decade from the 1900s through the present. Test out the interactive timeline here, and let us know: which decade of residential architecture is your favorite?
The Los Angeles Business Council (LABC) has announced the winners of its 45th Annual Los Angeles Architectural Awards, putting an emphasis on drought-conscious designs in light of California’s ongoing drought. The competition sought to find projects that “successfully married environmental sustainability with aesthetic sensibility while contributing to the fabric of their communities.”
Over three dozen designs were awarded, with the Grand Prize given to the City of Los Angeles’ Bureau of Engineering for their restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1919 Hollyhock House. Learn more about the rest of the winners, after the break.
New York-based studio Dror has unveiled design concepts for three new residential buildings in New York City. The imagined buildings, spread throughout lower Manhattan, are based on the studio’s idea to “disrupt conventional building design by rethinking structure, where beauty and efficiency result from an imaginative, clever framework.”
Learn more about each of the plans, after the break.
The Getty Foundation has selected 14 modernist buildings from across the globe to receive grants under its Keeping It Modern initiative, which seeks to help conserve 20th century architecture by putting a focus on conservation planning and research.
“The use of concrete, while visually striking and radical for its time, has created a unique set of challenges for conserving some of the world’s most important modernist structures. Our new grants offer an excellent opportunity to advance research and conservation practices for this material. The accumulated knowledge that will result from the projects will be of tremendous benefit to the field," states the Getty Foundation.
View all 14 projects, after the break.
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The winning projects of the Boston Living with Water competition have been announced. The competition “sought design solutions envisioning a beautiful, vibrant, and resilient Boston that is prepared for end-of-the-century climate conditions and rising sea levels.” Out of 50 teams, three were selected, each for separate sites—one for a building, one for a neighborhood, and one for a significant piece of city infrastructure—in addition to one honorable mention. Each of the winners will receive a $13,000 prize funded by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management and the Barr Foundation.
The Boston Living with Water competition was organized by the City of Boston, The Boston Harbor Association, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and the Boston Society of Architects. As Mayor Martin J. Walsh honored the winners, he noted that “competition ideas and strategies are already informing Boston’s future, including revisions to building plans and zoning codes, and influencing ‘Imagine Boston 2030.’” Winning projects will be on display at BSA Space through June 2015. Learn more about the winners, after the break.
The Bruges City Council has selected West 8 + Snoeck & Partners, in partnership with Atelier Roland-Jéol, as the winners of a competition to design the ‘t Zand, also known as Het Zand Square, in Bruges, Belgium.
The 8,500-square-meter historic square has remained unchanged for the past 30 years, and the Council felt that an update was duly needed. In January, five out of 20 designs were shortlisted, and on June 16, the winner was chosen at a presentation before a jury of City Council representatives and external experts.
Hawkins\Brown has been chosen to design the new School of Architecture for the University of Reading in Reading, Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. The new School “will be housed in a retrofitted 1970’s concrete brutalist building originally designed by Howell, Killick, Partridge & Amis,” which is currently the University’s School of Construction Management and Engineering. Brutalist buildings, like the Prentice Women’s Hospital and the Preston Bus Station are continuously at risk of being demolished, which makes this retrofit all the more valuable. While the University seeks to modernize the building and improve efficiency, they also plan to respect the original design. Construction is set to begin in January 2017 and wrap up by December 2018. Learn more about the project here.
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