The ambitious and successful award-winning architect, MAA Christian Bay-Jorgensen, from the architectural firm, Bay Arch, shared with us this unique and sustainable building at the harbour in Boston, Massachusetts. With affiliates in Ringkobing and Copenhagen and with creativity and energy in the blood, Boston Fusion will contain apartments and offices to create a new, green design in every sense with the help of eco-friendly materials from Icopal. This project also forms part of the plans for a new, green quarter called South Boston. More images and architect’s description after the break. read more »
Lapo Ruffi, Vanessa Giandonati, Antonio Monaci, Lorenzo Santini have shared with us their winning project for EUROPAN 10 where they aimed to create an attractive density and an urban centrality while integrating with the surrounding landscape in the city of Montreux, Switzerland. They successfully generated an uninterrupted urban pattern with multi-functional environments as they break away from the twentieth century design principles of urban planning.
Europan is a biennial competition for young emerging architects who are looking for innovative housing solutions across Europe. By incorporating social and economic variables for their designated city, their projects become a more holistic architectural experience.
More images and architect’s description after the break. read more »
Greek architect Aristide Antonas shared his latest project,a bridge that responds to the urban level and the expansions of the city center toward Drava. Intending to produce a new urban situation, the project is seen as an expanding element of the city. The proposed bridge sits closely to an existing one – a move Antonas that explains adds another possibility to the developing riversides. ”We have to imagine a possible constitution of the two sides in order to propose a possible link…We are supposed to think through the perspective of the coming years: how could we create the conditions for an animated area in the place where now lay two more or less neglected riversides?”
More about the project, including more images, after the break.
The trio of KNIPPERS HELBIG Advanced Engineering, POHL Architekten Stadtplaner andSTEINMETZDEMEYER Architects have been awarded 1st Prize for their proposal for the international architectural competition for the new building of the Trade Fair Park Luxembourg and train station Luxembourg-Kirchberg. Additional images, a brief description of the competition and the architects description after the break.
Yaohua Wang shared with us his thesis work, “Latent City”, which received Sci-Arc’s Best Thesis Award and was also selected for the Venice Biennale. One of the many highlights of this projects is that there is no “dead end” as Wang demonstrates with his circulation loop throughout the city.
The core of the design is held within the top and bottom infrastructure layers, which are the most important layers of his design where he creates a series of solid and void spaces. Wang is able to create not only a city with endless opportunities, but a city that takes advantage of its environment by maximizing daylighting strategies and natural ventilation. Wang then goes beyond architecture and takes into account the socio-political impacts his Latent City would have over China’s current conditions. These highlights, and more, have earned him this honorable recognition. More images and architect’s description after the break. read more »
In response to the challenges faced by the University of Montpelier South of France, the teamwork of architects N+B, C+D and Hitoshi Abe worked to develop a distributed network based upon environmental, mental and social ecologies for A Campus Lived for a Sensory City. Their project demonstrates a dynamic articulation with the city while presenting their ideas for a contemporary urban design. More images and architect’s description after the break. read more »
This past July Philip Enquist of SOM spoke to the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota as a part of TEDxTalks Mill City series. His focus was to raise awareness and also challenge the Great Lake and St. Lawrence watershed residents to “imagine there are no borders”. This video hits close to home, as I grew up in the Great Lakes watershed region. His lecture is informative and revealing of the responsibility there is to utilize and protect this great resource of the United States.
At the end of the video you find yourself wondering why haven’t we already created a plan for the Great Lakes region. Possibly the size of this region or the international boarder running through it has failed to put it on many people’s radar screens. Either way Enquist lays out an achievable ten point plan (overview after the break) to focus on where this 100 year vision could be a global example of human balance with nature, beyond two nations.
Creating an anchor to the urban development of Edmonton, Canada, the collaboration of architects Group2 Architecture Engineering Ltd. and Shore Tilbe Perkins + Will created a harmonious synthesis with the site, its natural landscape and the needs of the community with their Meadows Community Recreation Centre & Edmonton Public Library. Their project is to begin construction in January of 2011. More images and architect’s description after the break.
With the intention of framing a new cultural center within the iconic identity of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, STL has designed a complex program that will revive the cultural atmosphere of the city for the Kaohsiung Competition which is to be submitted by January 10, 2011. More images and architect’s description after the break.
Carlos Ferrater and Xavier Martí Galí of OAB designed a promenade as a transit area that would separate the user from the various problems currently arising at its seafront and provide more accessibility to the beaches, creating a place with its own lifestyle. By recreating the shape of cliffs and waves, the project organically developed unusual convex and concave spaces. These honeycombed surfaces generate areas of light and shadow and become a series of platforms and levels for play, leisure, and meditation. The promenade was constructed with only white concrete, incorporating the benches and street furniture in varied shapes, finishes, textures, and colors.
LEDarchitecturestudio + HIDDENOFFICE’s Efficient Living Machine project transforms a building into an infrastructure able to improve and expand the lifestyle of the metropolis. The firms propose that the skyscraper become a system of overlapping grids upon the existing environment as a way to read the city differently. These grids contain different layers of programmed activities, ranging from recreational areas to farms, and from public parks to areas of commerce.
More details about the project, by architects Alessandro Liberati, Roberto Straccali in partnership with Roberto Salvatelli, Simone Pirro, Luca Tappatà, and Roberto Turtù, after the break:
Yaohua Wang shared with us his project An Open Appeal for China, designed along with Scott Chung, Jiaohao Lu, Xiaoxuan Lu, and Lennard Ong. They recently received 2nd Prize in the AIM International Architecture Competition. More images and architect’s description after the break. read more »
Studio Shift’s Stadt Krone proposal is one of twelve that offers a conceptual solution for the densification of Milano. The proposals were required to inject 25,000 inhabitants into the existing urban fabric of Milano, and Studio Shift’s proposal addresses the strain that this increase will have on the existing infrastructure and the social and economic well-being of the population. Their comprehensive strategy creates “a self-sustaining community and one that seeks to integrate programmatically and physically with the existing city.”
More images and more about the project after the break. read more »
We just found exciting news from Bustler that the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta recently won the Times Square Reconstruction Project in New York City. Times Square is the epitome of a chaotic New York block, with signs, noise and tons of people and taxis. The area currently has a public space which was deemed traffic free, yet now the city is looking to make the space more permanent and Snohetta will be heading the project.
More about the project after the break. read more »
A few days ago, we shared a sampling of projects from the Imagine the Mississippi initiative, where a group of undergraduate students from the University of Minnesota have tackled the challenge of re-inventing the character of the waterfront. While the proposals we previously featured include a new pool/aquarium combination and a spot to experience the waterfall up close and personal, today’s featured proposals offer four new visions for the Mississippi.
Check out five more proposals after the break. read more »
Historically, the Mississippi River was held in high esteem due to its influence on the economic and industrial fields, as well as its soothing spiritual qualities. As the water grew to become more polluted, residents lost their strong connection to the water and had little desire to occupy the waterfront. Upon recognizing the potential the land still has to offer, a group of undergraduate students from the University of Minnesota have designed 30 different ideas that will revitalize the waterfront and infuse it, once again, with life and energy.
Originally compiled in a book, the Imagine the Mississippi proposals are also on public display at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis and aim to “to spur social discourse surrounding what could be one of the most compelling and vibrant riverfronts in the world.”
More information about specific proposals and more images after the break. read more »
It is easy to take for granted the things you grow accustomed to, but ever since the initial idea of revitalizing the High Line began sprouting up, New Yorkers have been taking full advantage of the project and loving every second spent strolling, relaxing and gazing at the West Side’s newest addition. The project has truly piqued locals and tourists’ interests as the elevated promenade is enjoyed as much today as it was on opening day over a year ago.
We admit it…we get caught up in the “green” sensation that is taking over our era. While we love new green products/technologies and different green alternative systems for buildings, we become inspired when designers tackle tough issues about transforming an urban metropolis into a greener environment. This green transformation can occur with the creation of new parks or public spaces, or even creating a new concept for urban transportation to reduce congestion and pollution.
We all know how harmful vehicle emissions are to the environment and in the past, we’ve featured different ideas for eliminating our dependence on the car (such as Martin Angelov’s Kolelinia), but sometimes, their ideas are just that… ideas. It becomes hard to see how ideas about a city using bicycles as a main form of circulation could actually become a reality. Then, along comes Copenhagen. Check out this video we found on StreetFilms about the city’s crazy biking system and it is perfect proof that we can change our ways and be on the road to becoming a little greener in no time. While the kind of city life portrayed in the video may seem foreign to us, it is not far-fetched. If we use Copenhagen as a model, new urban design efforts can focus on incorporating more bike friendly systems that can completely change our perception of “the street.” If our visions illustrate the importance of a well-designed and developed cycling component, city planners will quickly follow suit and more cities all over the world will opt for greener transportation methods.
This informative 11″ by 11″ hardcover book presents a curated collection of award-winning residential and master planning work from leading American designers. Meticulously detailed and site-specific, the featured projects focus on sustainability, technology, and the human spirit. They reflect ideologies…
A short while ago we received Pamphlet Architecture 11-20, …the second volume that accumulates the continually growing series. Steven Holl and William Stout started the Pamphlet series back in 1978. They wanted to create a venue “for publishing the works,
2/3 of the world population have no link to professional architecture, it means 4.400.000.000 of people has not relation with academic knowledge of architecture. This book tries to explain how this knowledge can come to everywhere of our planet and…
