ArchDaily

© OMA

A month ago we presented you the finalist entries for Stadskantoor, a new mixed used building at Rotterdam’s City Hall. After a process of public feedback and a presentation to the professional jury, OMA’s entry was awarded with the 1st prize.

The strategy of the project is very simple: a modular flexible structure spans between existing buildings, supporting the mixed use program, while freeing the space below for public use. The axonometric shown below shows this rich public realm that the offers back to the city.

With this modular structure, units can be added or even dismounted from the structure as demands on the building change over time, and can adapt to either office space or residential parameters as desired. Green terraces on higher levels provide the possibility of an apartment with a garden in the heart of urban Rotterdam.

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URBANUS was awarded with the 1st prize on the competition for the new integrated teaching building at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.  Entitled “Windows on Community,” the building strives the link the two parts of the campus together, while also providing a visual connection with those who approach.  Through the implementation of a Moebius Strip, the design mixes the inner circulation of the building with the exterior circulation of the streets.  “This loop of circulation and urban internal street for us is not only a vertical linkage but more the heart of the college-a lively community space at the center of it all,” explained the architects.

More about the University after the break.

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Architects: J. MAYER H. Architects
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Architect on Site: Imhotep, Donachie und Blomeyer
Sturctural Engineers: Lydia Thiesemann, CBP
Building Services: Energiehaus, Sineplan
Light Engineers: Andres – Lichtplanung
Landscape Architects: Breimann & Bruun
Project Year: 2007
Constructed Area: 5,436 sqm
Photographs: fotografieSCHAULIN, Hiepler Brunier, Dirk Fellenberg & Schraubverschluss

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Architects: OBRA Architects
Location: Southampton, New York, USA
Principals in Charge:Pablo Castro, Jennifer Lee
Project team:Selin Semaan, Akira Gunji, Luis Costa, Shin Kook Kang, Satoshi Kiyono, Kaon Ko, Bronwyn Kotzen, Fabiana Meacham, Elizabeth Snow, Elina Almuhametova, Chiara Filios, Doreen Lam
Structural Engineering:Robert Silman Associates
Lighting consultant:Peiheng Tsai Lighting Design
Project Area: 1,231 sqm
Project year: 2008
Photographs: OBRA Architects

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A pool can certainly add some ‘coolness’ to a great house. If you don’t believe me, check our first part of pool houses Round Up, and then have a look at our second part of previously featured pool houses in ArchDaily.

Ballandean House / Arkhefield
The form of the house was driven by respecting the aspect, framing the view, and the making of place by casting a strong shadow under the continuous overhang. By folding the roof down at both ends the ‘shed’ is referenced and the notion of shelter is celebrated. The strength and solidity of the helmet roof is a response (read more…)

House 3 / at103
The Project consists on a restoration and addition of an existing house in the old part of the city of Acapulco, México. Acapulco in the 50’s and 60’s was a Hollywood Town, full of glamour and money, where all the rich and famous used to hang out from John Wayne to John F Kennedy, where good taste and modern architecture (read more…)

TDA House / Cadaval & Solà-Morales
A Fresh house for extreme weather that surpasses the standard limits of comfort of the city-dweller; a low-cost house requiring minimum maintenance; a house for any number of habitants, flexible in its uses and configuration; a house that can open up completely to the exterior or close in on itself; a beach house that can be built (read more…)

Dupli Casa / J. Mayer H. Architects
The geometry of the building is based on the footprint of the house that previously was located on the site. Originally built in 1984 and with many extensions and modifications since then, the new building echoes the “family archaeology” by duplication and rotation. Lifted up, it creates a semi-public space on ground level (read more…)

Brione House / Wespi de Meuron
The new building is located in a privileged but sprawled urban area above Locarno, with an overwhelming view on the city, the surrounding mountains and the lake. The project is a discrete reaction to a daily subject: to build into a crowded and chaotic urbanized area. Therefore all attributes of a classical house were totally omitted (read more…)

Architects: Suppose Design Office
Location: Hiroshima city, Hiroshima, Japan
Program: Wedding Hall
Site area: 1,816.46 sqm
Building area: 779 sqm
Total floor area: 1,241.86 sqm
Photographs: Toshiyuki Yano from Nacasa&Partners Inc.

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Over the last few months architectural firm Powerhouse Company have been working on the project Rien ne va Plus. This project consists of a research on the economic crisis and its intricate relation with architecture. This research resulted in an exhibition, that takes place at the architectural instute NAiM/Bureau Europa in Maastricht (The Netherlands), a reader that was published in collaboration with the magazine A10 and a series of debates.

You can also find the architect’s description after the break, along with photos of the exhibition taken by Johannes Schwartz and Christiaan van der Kooy, and a video created by Powerhouse Company. read more »

CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES; Ningbo, People’s Republic of China; Architects: MCA Mario Cucinella Architects srl; Associate Architects: Ningbo Architectural Design and Research Institute

Ninety seven projects and urban schemes have been recognized as part of this year’s International Architecture Awards program.   For the 2009 Awards, the jury received a record number of entries, from firms in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas.  The International Architecture Awards has “become a global event of an unprecedented scale—an important barometer for the future direction of new architectural design and thinking today—celebrating, recognizing, and highlighting the world’s foremost architectural solutions for the designs of new skyscrapers, corporate buildings, institutions, arts facilities, airports, private homes, industrial structures, and urban planning projects from London to Singapore.”

Out of the 97 projects awarded, the United States received the highest number of thirteen awards, followed by China with eight, Japan and Great Britain with each seven and Germany having six awards. The Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, Canada won four awards each.  The winning projects all an innovative approach to design while providing buildings that attempt to respond to the problems of environment, social context, improving quality of life, and sustainability.

More images of the winning projects after the break. read more »

Architects: SUB. Studio for visionary design
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
Project Directors: Wiyoga Nurdiansyah
Design team: Muhammad Sagitha, Dickie Padmawijaya, Sudibyo
Constructed Area: 70 sqm
Construction year: 2008
Photographs: Muhammad Sagitha

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Architects: Stanley Saitowitz | Natoma Architects
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
General Contractor: Clandmark Building Engineering Construction Inc
Project/Construction Manager: Clive McCarthy
Structural Engineer: GFDS Engineers
Project year: 2007
Photographs: Rien van Rijthoven

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This villa is located in plot #97 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: Taller Territorial de Mexico
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009-2010
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox

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Friends of 339 invites architects, designers, artists, engineers and multi-disciplinary teams worldwide to participate in a competition to re-imagine and rebuild the Peace Pentagon, located at 339 Lafayette Street in New York City. This is an opportunity to give a physical form to a name in-use since this building became the center of peace-promoting activism in the 1960’s.

They are seeking proposals that will support and expand the work of peace activists on several scales: as a financially and ecologically sustainable building, as a means of engaging with a neighborhood that has a rich history of activism and art, and as part of an influential city that can impact thinking in far away places.

Submission deadline es December 9. For more details on the requirements, go to the competition’s official website.

© José Miguel Hernández Hernández

The RIBA Stirling prize is given each year to one selected building. And this year’s prize went to the Maggie Center by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

http://www.vimeo.com/7120744
Richard Rogers on the Maggie’s Center building, by The Architects’ Journal

This small buildings has a great inside/outside integration, given by the combination of several transparent planes and the independent roof, as you can see on the photos.

After the break, more photos by architectural photographer José Miguel Hernández Hernández, and a short video by AJ.
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© Miguel de Guzman

Architect: Andrés Jaque Arquitectos
Location: San Jose, Ibiza, Spain
Project team: Jorge Ruano, Alessandro Armelini, Guido Brandi, Teresa del Pino, Borja Gómez, Alejandro Martín Maté, Leandro Morillas, Pedro Pinto-Correia, Karin Rangel, Alberto Rey, Adeline Ruiz, David Segura, Natalia Solano
Construction Management: Andrés Jaque, Jorge Ruano, Juan Boo
Psicological Consultant: Pablo Hurlé
Services: Nieves Plaza
Structure: io7
Budget & Mesurement Consultant: Calle 51
Furniture: Luis García Fraile
Design year: 2007
Construction year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Miguel de Guzmán

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Architect: Bates Masi Architects
Location: East Hampton, NY, USA
Client: Private
Structural Engineer: Steven L. Maresca
Contractor: Paul Cassidy
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Christopher Wesnofske

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The Jerde Partnership’s Namba Parks, in Osaka, Japan, was just named one of the winners of the Urban Land Institute’s 2009 Awards of Excellence: Asia Pacific competition.  When asked to create a gateway to redefine Osaka’s identity, the architects responded with this project that would become a natural intervention in Osaka’s dense and harsh urban condition.  The rooftop park offers a sloping park plane that is “bifurcated by a sinuous, open-air ‘canyon’ path that reinforces the connection with nature while forming the primary circulation pattern.”

More about the park after the break. read more »

Architect: HyoMan Kim – IROJE KHM Architects
Location: GuMiDong, BunDang, SungNam, Korea
Project Manager: SuMi Jeong
Site area: 608 sqm
Bldg. area: 273 sqm
Gross floor area: 330 sqm
Photographer: JongOh Kim

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Construction has already began on the Venezuela Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo site. The 3,000-square-meter Venezuela Pavilion will look like a figure 8 – a symbolic number in both China and Venezuela – and depict many traditional aspects of the country’s history and culture with the theme “A Better Life, Better City.”

The Yanomami tribe that has thrived in the rainforests of South America for thousands of years will perform in the pavilion. Another highlight of the pavilion will be a Venezuelan children’s orchestra, which will perform in a 286-seat theater on July 5, Venezuela’s National Day, said Temir Ponceleon, the country’s commissioner general of the Expo.

The pavilion will be in the geometric shape of a “Mobius strip,” or an inverted cylinder. The exhibition area will feature two-way audiovisual transmissions via satellite between Shanghai and Venezuela. More images and a video after the break. read more »

Architects: AG Planum
Location: Varazdin, Croatia
Architects in Charge: Marko Cvjetko & Robert Jonathan Loher
Project team: Miron Hrzina, Ana Mrda, Bruno Lovrencic
Architectural design: AG Planum d.o.o.
Design of construction and installations: Coning Inženjering d.d.
Design of thermal and acoustic properties: Adapteh d.o.o.
Design of fire prevention: Inženjering Kosović d.o.o.
Design of elevators: OTIS dizala d.o.o.
Design of sprinkler installations: Pastor Inzenjering d.d.
Project area: 19,500 sqm
Design year: 2006-2007
Construction year: 2007-2008
Photographs: André Thissen, Miljenko Bernfest & Robert Les

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© Marcel van der Burg

Architects: Pasel.Kuenzel Architects
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands
Project Area: 130 sqm building + 60 sqm garden
Project year: 2005-2009
Photographer: Marcel van der Burg

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