Italian based Stefano Boeri Architetti shared with us their latest project: The requalification and recovery of the ex Military Arsenal on the island of La Maddalena, Italy. This project includes a hotel, a congress centre, a conference building, two large exhibition and commercial spaces and a quay for 700 boats.

It was conceived as the central point of the G8 summit at Maddalena, event that was recently moved to the earthquaked zone of L’Aquila, and it was developed in only 18 months, thanks to the work of 1600 construction workers, a dozen developers and a large group of professionals and technicians, fulfilling a vision that confirms “the level of distinction of contemporary Italian Architecture”.

The end result is impressive: over 155.000 m2, providing a series of port, receptive, formative and convention infrastructure that will transform the ex Arsenale at Maddalena into one of the principle nautical poles of the eastern Mediterranean. The mixed use project incorporates advanced systems to use solar power and seawater for heating and cooling, reflecting the strong relation of the project with the sea.

Architects description and more images after the break.
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Architects: SO Architecture
Location: Ramat Ishay, Israel
Project Team: Shachar Lulav, Oded Rozenkier, Alejandro Fejnerman, Ofrit Eshel
Graphic Design: FIRMA
Project Year: 2009
Project Area: 135 sqm
Photographs: Asaf Oren

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Second part of the interview with japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, by 0300. Part 1 was featured yesterday.

Passive House Consultants’ Training Program will take place at Parsons The New School for Design from July 6 till July 17. The program is designed as a series of three, three-day sessions. These sessions are meant for those architects and building system designers who want to learn how to successfully implement Passive House design principles in residential, commercial, and retrofit scenarios.

The Program is an overview of:
•Principles of Passive House Design - Heat Transfer, Airtightness, Super-insulation, Ventilation and Moisture Control
•Instruction in the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP), our powerful and precise energy modeling software
•Mechanical Systems
•Construction Examples
•Materials Selection
•Quality Assurance

You can register for phases I, II and/or III here.
The Roundtable Discussion: Passive House in the US will take place at Kellen Auditorium, 66 Fifth Av., New York, NY, this July 14 from 6:30pm-8:30pm. It’s open to public, but please RSVP to sce@newschool.edu.

After two years of construction, the Musée Hergé designed by Christian de Portzamparc is complete.  Situated in a forest and connected by a footbridge to Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, the museum is dedicated to Belgian artist and Tintin author Hergé.  The museum highlights Hergé’s life and works through cultural facilities, permanent and temporary exhibition areas, and a video projection room.

Images and more about the museum after the break. read more »

Architects: MAD
Location: Beijing, China
Structural Engineers: Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (BIAD)
Mechanical Engineers: Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (BIAD)
Façade/cladding consultants: King General Engineering, SuP Ingenieure GmbH
Interior Designers: Lim.Teo + Wilkes Design Works Pte Ltd
Landscape Designer: Earthasia Design Group
Site Area: 7,779 sqm
Constructed Area: 56,994 sqm
Building height: 106 meters
Images: MAD

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The initial[1] idea was thought provoking: construct a covering using 400 red umbrellas (outside of their intended purpose) suspended over the new pedestrian mall in the city of Talca to create a visual impression of the inhabitants of a city in which it is uncommon to see daring displays in public spaces.

This lack of innovation seems to come in part, from others creating similar urban displays based only on previously proved ideas as well as the minute demand for this type of “product” by the local population. This could explain why businesses are reluctant to fund innovative displays or events. Or perhaps, it’s the stunted competitive environment that hinders creativity.

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Designed by ThreefoldArchitects, the Ladderstile House, an eco-friendly large residence in Richmond Park, London, is arranged around an internally landscape courtyard.  The home’s volumes open to external areas creating a unified residence with the exterior and interior complimenting each other.

More images and more about the residence after the break. read more »

In my opinion, the iPhone has opened a complete new world of interaction in our hands and for me has been a very valuable tool in terms of productivity. Thanks to its mobile broadband capabilities, it allows you to be connected almost everywhere and download content very fast. But one of the most amazing features is the built-in GPS, that allows you to get content related to your immediate surroundings.

But it´s not just maps or directions. For example, 29GPS Architecture (developed by 29GPS) makes a very good use of this feature, featuring a daily selection of contemporary architecture and telling you exactly how far you are from it.

For example, works like the Hollywood House by XTEN or the recently opened Standard hotel in NY are presented with a set of photos (and even a video), with a radar (green,yellow or red, depending how far you are from the building) and a view that allows you to see the building pin pointed over Google Maps.

A very good app if you are traveling around and want to discover new architecture around. And the best of all, is that you can download this app for free (it contain some ads, see screenshoots ). There are two different versions of the app depending which measure system do you use, with the distance in either kilometers (download with iTunes, free) or miles (download with iTunes, free).

Screenshots and more info after the break.
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Different kinds of health architecture in different parts of the world. From Portugal, Netherlands, Japan, Sudan and Burkina Faso, we bring you our Round Up of previously featured health architecture projects on ArchDaily.

Kinderstad / Sponge Architects & Rupali Gupta + IOU Architecture
The goal of “Kinderstad” is to extract the sick child, its family and friends from the unpleasant surrounding of a hospital and to enable an encounter in a much better atmosphere. This new specialised type of health care for sick children gives the visitors the chance to forget for a moment that the child is sick and to facilitate the normal development of the young patients (read more…)

Vila de Conde Hospital Pediatric Wing / 100 Planos Arquitectura
We were asked to build a pediatric wing on a very damaged XIX century hospital. The idea was to create a building that didn’t look like a hospital, where children and adults feld as if they were at home. An emotional, simple and non clinic, yet efficient space, were blue a white domain, under the doctors colorful closes. The interior space is organized by two parallel corridors (read more…)

Children’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation / Sou Fujimoto
This is the treatment center for mentally disturbed children where they live together to get regaining their mental health. It may be thought that it is a very special building when I write so, but it is truly rich life space that requested in origin like a large house and also like a small city, the intimacy of a house and also the variety of the city. This is a proposal of a loose method (read more…)

Women’s Health Centre / FARE
The social/health-services program developed by AIDOS, together with its local partners was focused on providing the educational services, information and awareness about women’s sexual and reproductive rights in Sector 27 of Ouagadougou, a peripheral urban area settled by the rural population. The social program called for the realization of a building complex (read more…)

Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery / Studio Tam associati
The hospital has been developed around an empty space, physically and ideally occupied by two enormous mango trees, located at the centre of the site (a plot of land on the banks of the Nile about 20 km from Khartoum). This is a symbolic space from which all the trajectories along which the building grew, were born. In line with traditional housing structures, the hospital is configured around a hollow space (read more…)

Architect: Workshop 1 Dunn + Hillam Architects
Location: Botany, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Project Team: Ashley Dunn, Lee Hillam, Linden Thorley
Structural Engineer: John Carrick
Builder: Workshop 1 Dunn + Hillam Architects and Brett Wiley Constructions
Constructed Area (Studio): 140 sqm
Constructed Area (House): 50 sqm
Project Year: 2008
Photographer: Kilian O’Sullivan

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Typical cases of structure damage show portions of or whole buildings collapsing, but this is the first time that I see a building perfectly toppled.

The 13-story building is part of the Lotus Riverside complex in suburban Shanghai.  The cause of this epic structural fail is under investigation, but first sources claim that an error on construction and unstable soil conditions are the probable causes.

More images after the break.

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Sou Fujimoto is a Japan architect that has been pushing what we traditionally call a house, but way beyond that just formal aspects. New typologies are explored, introducing new ideas on “living”.

For example: the layered living on House N, the empty/void relations in the Final Wooden House (result of Kumamoto Artopolis 2005), the blending of exterior/interior on his ORDOS 100 vila, or the circulations on the House Before House for the Tokyo Gas Project. This is also seen on his book Primitive Architecture.

Our friends from 0300 had the chance to sit down and talk with Sou Fujimoto, resulting on a 2 part video interview reproduced here.

I recommend checking this one out, as Sou has very interesting points of view on architecture.

The Tulane City Center houses the Tulane University School of Architecture’s urban research and outreach programs. So far this year, the students at the Tulane School of Architecture have built three projects, a Green Pavillion (a sustainable exhibition on rainwater re-use, a Farmer’s Market in Hollygrove, and a LEED certified (soon to be) house in Central City. All of these projects are located in New Orleans.

You can find more on the Tulane City Center here. Images and description of the three projects, after the break. read more »

The Netherlands-based Cepezed Architects were recently appointed by the offices of the Hague Capital of Culture to design a temporary theater.   The city strives to be named the European Capital of Culture in 2018, so the architects have created a contemporary version of the Roman Colosseum to become an important icon for the area.  

More about the Colosseum after the break. read more »

Architects: Vaillo + Irigaray / Antonio Vaillo + Juan Luis Irigaray
Location: Tajonar, Navarra, Spain
Project manager: David Eguinoa, architect
Riggers: José Ignacio Sola, Julián Damboriena y Marcos Corral
Structure: Tadeo Errea - DASEIN
Facilities: Andrés Bustince - INARQ.ingenieros
Façade: Marcial Lázaro - ALTRES
Contractor: ACR +NORLAND + DASEIN
Project year: 2002
Finished year: 2005
Photographs: José Manuel Cutillas & Pedro Pegenaute

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Architects: Atelier Phileas (member of PLAN01)
Location: Paris, France
Client : Euros RSCG
Budget : $480,000 Euro
Project Area : 800 sqm
Project year : 2008
Photographs: Stephan Lucas

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1:1 Architects shared their design idea for retro fitting high-rise buildings in Melbourne with a modular system of independent green roof structures. The new roof is designed to be installed, modified or even dismantled quite easily.  “Our green roof concept is a flexible modular system, designed to adapt to varying scale rooftops and respond to differing site conditions and functional requirements,” explained the architects.  The roof provides a new atmosphere for the existing buildings where a variety of activities, such as an informal meeting or a simple lunch break, can be held.

More about the roof after the break. read more »

Architects: David Maštálka / A1 Architects
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
Client: David Maštálka and Lenka Kremenová
Project year: 2008 (35 days)
Contractor: Vojtěch Bilišic , scupltor and carpenter (Slovak Republic)
Collaborators: Lenka Kremenová, Marta Maštálková, Rudolf Maštálka
Dome construction: Jan Bašta
Opponency of Diploma Project: Terunobu Fujimori , University of Tokyo
Interpreting: Petr Holý, Director of Czech Center in Tokyo
Surface Area: 3,75 sqm
Construction Area: 7 sqm
Photographs: Ester Havlová

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How and what can architects and urbanistst contribute to the way we live in cities? What is the Open City? How do people work, think, dream and act there? And why is it urgent to re-imagine the Open City?

These are just some of the questions that will confront the visitor to Open City: Designing Coexistence.

The 4th edition of the IABR will take place from 24 September 2009 until 10 January 2010 in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. You can find the program on the official site, including debates, lectures, and theater performances .