Our friends from RSVP Architects just shared with us their proposal for the ThyssenKrupp Elevator competition in Za’abeel Park, Dubai. The tower seems to morph out of the water and into the air, creating a structure that acts as a monument during the day, and an icon during the night.
More images and further project description after the break. read more »
In ArchDaily we try to bring you a broad view of what is being done around the world. But during this last year, I have noticed a vast amount of great works coming from Portugal. Traditionally, Portugal has been home of renowned architects coming from the “Escola do Porto” (School of Porto) such as Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura.
But now, we have seen works by a new breed of portuguese architects: Aires Mateus, ARX, Correia Ragazzi, Bak Gordon, Inês Lobo, atelierdata, Pedro Pacheco, Ezzo, among others.
But also, an important role on this new vision of portuguese architecture has been played by photographers Fernando Guerra, Joao Morgado and Leonardo Finotti, documenting the portuguese production. This 3 photographers have done a tremendous contribution to ArchDaily by sharing their photos with our readers.
A brief part of the recent portuguese architectural production is now being exhibited at “Overlappings: Six Portuguese Architecture Studios” at the RIBA Gallery, with works from Aires Mateus, Bak Gordon, Inês Lobo, João Favila, Paulo David Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena.
More info about the exhibition and an amazing set of photos sent by Leonardo Finotti after the break.
1st place, Taller 301
The winning concepts for the Bering Strait Project International Ideas Competition were recently announced in both the professional and student categories. The objective of the competition was to construct a bridge or tunnel to span between Russia and the United States. The project would create a world highway linking Asia, Africa and Europe with North America and South America.
The competition seeks to not only achieve an architectural connection but also a connection among all races in an attempt to form a future society to prepare the world for unity rather than disjunction. The project, due to its massive scale, would require mutual efforts on both sides to complete, thus all must cooperate and communicate to reach success. ”Eventually, it aims to remove the barrier of human race, culture, religion, and nations by letting this obstructed way flow and to being peace to the world…the Bering Strait project can be rephrased as an elimination of all the barriers like spatial disconnection of national borders and chronological disconnection of today and tomorrow, and thus, stepping forward to peace and prosperity for all earth and mankind,” explained the jury.
A great video clip of the project and the full list of jury winners after the break. read more »
Architect: Schleifer & Milczanowski Architekci s.c.
Location: Gdansk, ul. Moniuszki, Poland
Design Team: Tomasz Milczanowski, Stefan Schleifer, Agnieszka Schleifer, Agnieszka Majkowska, Anna Niedzielska, Hanna Zamorska, Roksana Czartopolska, Agata Burian
Structure Engineer: Kompago s.c.
Client: Pomerania S.A.
Area: 3,922 sqm
Project Year: 2006-2007
Construction Year: 2008
Photographs: Schleifer & Milczanowski Architekci
Architects: 3LHD
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Project team: Sasa Begovic, Marko Dabrovic, Tatjana Grozdanic Begovic, Silvije Novak, Tin Kavuric, Josko Kotula, Krunoslav Szörsen
Collaborators: Freya (3D), Tehnicke konstrukcije doo, Nikola Miletic, Gadaf Zulbeari
Project year: 2009
Site area: 4,037 sqm
Gross floor area: 37,040 sqm (23,940 + 13,100 underground)
Footprint: 2,084 sqm
Images: 3LHD
Architect: OFIS arhitekti
Location: Krasnja, Slovenia
Competition Year: 2005
Construction Year: 2008-2009
Design Team: Rok Oman, Spela Videcnik, Andrej Gregoric, Janez martincic, Magdalena Lacka, Katja Aljaz, Martina Lipicer
Constructed Area: 135 sqm (70 sqm of inner space & 65 sqm of external space)
Photographs: Tomaz Gregoric
“Learn by doing” sounds like something very obvious when it comes to education in most fields, and specially in architecture schools.
I have taught at schools that embrace it in different ways, either by doing a collective small project during the semester, or building a complete project over the development of the final graduate project. This last method was inspired by the work of the good ol’ Rural Studio.
For those of you that don´t know what Rural Studio is, Wikipedia describes it as:
The Rural Studio is a design-build architecture studio run by Auburn University which aims to teach students about the social responsibilities of the profession of architecture while also providing safe, well-constructed and inspirational homes and buildings for poor communities in rural west Alabama, part of the so-called “Black Belt“.
The studio was founded in 1993 by architects Samuel Mockbee and D. K. Ruth. Each year the program builds five or so projects - a house by the second-year students, three thesis projects by groups of 3-5 fifth year students and one or more outreach studio projects. The Rural Studio has built more than 80 houses and civic projects in Hale, Perry and Marengo counties.
And so, it´s not only building for educational purposes, but also to engage future architects with their community, establishing a true link between the needs of the society and the profession. The importance of Rural Studio has been recognized at Into the Open: Positioning Practice, the official US exhibition at the past Venice Biennale.
Future architect Joey Fante shared with us his project for 20K (team: Ryan Stephenson, Joey Fante, Kait Caldwell, Aimee O’Carroll), the Loft House, part of the 2007/2008 thesis class at Rural Studio. The idea is to design a build a house for $10,000 in materials and $10,000 in proposed labor cost.
Project description after the break:
Shenzhen Crystal Island @ OMA / Ole Scheeren
Shenzhen is one of the most active cities in China, and was recently appointed “City of Design” by the UNESCO (2008). A recent competition for Crystal Island, located in the center of the city, envisions the envisions the Shenzhen Creative Center, an iconic project in front of the city hall.
The project, won by OMA in collaboration with chinese firm Urbanus, includes a major new cultural center, transport hub, and public landmark. The Shenzhen Creative Center takes advantage of such a central location, and disaggregate the program over a 20-hectare landscape of parks and gardens, on which clusters of pavilions and small buildings form “Design Villages” creating a micro urban system which includes buildings for Design Administration, Tourism Center, buildings for design retail and expo and a design campus. It also includes a big open space, the Ceremonial Plaza.
All these buildings and open spaces are connected by an elevated pedestrian system, the “Ring Connector”, which also connects to existing and future train and subway stations.
At the center of this circular project, a spherical void becomes a landmark for the city: the Shenzhen Eye.
The disaggregation of the program on such an active area has the potential to mix the creative industry with the rest of the city’s activities, potentiating multiplicity, permeability, and openness towards creative activity.
The project collaboration between OMA and Urbanus includes the young Ole Scheeren and Rem Koolhaas, and Urbanus partner Meng Yan, with a team lead by OMA Associates Dongmei Yao and Anu Leinonen.
After the break, a schematic model of the program relations and another rendering.
The ninth edition of BEYOND MEDIA, international festival for architecture and media, will open at the Stazione Leopolda in Florence, Italy. A rich program of videos, exhibitions, and a symposium -in which the protagonist of the international debate will participate- will offer to the public, until July 17, a plurality of overviews on architecture and on its ever more intense relations with the media.
More images after the break.
Although the 2010 World Cup in South Africa is a little bit less than a year away, in Brazil they already started to prepare for the 2014 World Cup. Brazil has won more World Cups than any other country in the world, so they want to make sure their stadiums are as spectacular as their soccer team.
The 12 cities that will host the World Cup are Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Brasília, Cuiabá, Manaus, Fortaleza, Salvador, Recife and Natal. You can see 6 great stadiums after the break.
Thanks to our reader Luis for sending us this info! read more »
The Dutch firm Monolab has designed a tower to rise 450 meters out of Rotterdam’s Maas Harbour. Noting the city’s existing buildings as being “primitive and of mediocre quality,” the firm seeks to introduce “an ambitious and pragmatic” structure to the city.
More about the project after the break. read more »
Architect: José Marini Bragança
Location: Leiria, Portugal
Client: Câmara Municipal de Leiria
Collaborator: Inês Vicente
Structures: Rui Matos
Water and sewage system: Rui Matos
Electricity, telephone and network system: Álvaro Lopes
Gas: Álvaro Lopes
Central heating: João Aguilar Ramos
Fire safety hazaards: Paulo Vasconcelos
Landscaping: Paula Simões e Catarina Patrão
Project year: 2001-2008
Photographs: Catarina Costa Cabral
Architect: Kjellgren Kaminsky Architecture AB
Location: Falsterbo, Sweden
Project team: Joakim Kaminsky,Fredrik Kjellgren, Oscar Arnklitt and Jonas Tjäder
Competition year: 2006
Design year: 2006-2008
Construction year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Kalle Sanner
Studio Shift received an honorable mention for their design of the Taiwan Center for Disease Control. The complex, which fuses public landscape with scientific research, is poised to be one of Taiwan’s most important scientific centers. ”The complex will set a new standard in laboratory and research facilities design, paralleling the work that will inevitably take place behind its walls,” stated the architects.
More images, diagrams and information about the break. read more »
I’ve always like brick houses. There are just so many ways to use brick and make it look amazing on your place. So to show you some really good examples, we bring you our first selection of previously featured brick houses on AD.
Richmond Place House / Boyd Cody Architects
The house is located in a conservation area close to Dublin’s city centre, on a small but prominent infill corner site at the junction between Mountpleasant Avenue and Richmond Place. A modest dwelling built to replace the existing cottage located on the site. The accommodation consists of 2no. bedrooms, 2no. bathrooms, kitchen, utility and living / dining area set over three separate levels (read more…)
House Baetens / JagerJanssen architecten
The intersection of a planned green strip and an existing avenue provide an architectural opportunity for this a two-storey dwelling. The first floor appears to be cumbersome and heavy materialised: dark bricks with continuous seams result in an abstract rugged character. The second floor will be a wooden shaft: lighter in colour, weight and design. The cooking ilse is lit by a translucent plane (read more…)
Mona Vale House / Choi Ropiha
The client for the project has a long standing interest in building sustainability developed through working at the Sustainable Energy Development Authority, a government agency in sustainability. With this interest in mind, the client approached Choi Ropiha to design a house that would demonstrate and test a number of active and passive sustainable initiatives whilst accommodating a contemporary coastal lifestyle (read more…)
The house of Clay and Oak / Dow Jones Architects
Poplar Cottage is a small house on The Green in Walberswick built in the early 1920s. Over the past eighty years a number of piecemeal extensions had resulted in a peculiar internal organisation that cut the house off from its garden. Our brief was to demolish it and to make a new house, but initial conversation with both the planners and Parish Council suggested that there would be much opposition to this (read more…)
Franzen house / SchappacherWhite
This house was built on a historic rock outcropping adjacent to an eighteenth century landmark lighthouse facing the sea. This modern classic, almost a fallen victim to total demolition, has undergone a complete renovation and expansion by SchappacherWhite Ltd. and Brennan Beer Gorman/Architects (BBG), that honors Franzen’s original design intent while satisfying the needs of a 21st century family (read more…)
Architects: Hoogte Twee Architecten - Arnhem
Location: Nijmegen Area, The Netherlands
Client: HDT family
Project team: Peter Groot, Martin-Paul Neys, Erwin Schot, Cor Tiemens, Marten Kuijpers (bouwburo Start)
Contractor: Kuijpers Bouw Heteren bv.
Structural Engineer: Thomassen Bouwtechnisch Adviesbureau
Design year: 2005
Construction year: 2007-2008
Photographs: Thea van den Heuvel / DAPh
Daniel Libeskind’s recent project, a series of signature prefabricated homes, is a drastic change from his usual commissions. Although a smaller project (5,500 square foot), the residence strongly speaks his language of design with drastic angles, strong geometries and seamless transitions between spaces. In this ever-growing age of prefab dominance, Libeskind’s villas will be able to be shipped to almost any location in the world within months, and will be assembled on site by a team of experts within weeks.
More about the project after the break.
Many of us, long before we even knew about architecture dreamed about a fantastic world in a galaxy far far away. Nowadays, Star Wars continue to surprise people all around the world, and we can now see the movie with a different eye. Perhaps, the architect’s eye.
At The Architect’s Journal, they selected the best Star Wars buildings. The top ten, after the break. read more »
Architects: Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects
Location: Mazama, Washington, USA
Lead Architect: Tom Kundig, FAIA
Date of Completion: 2008
Size: 440 sf/per hut (200 sf interior space, 240 sf exterior deck)
Photographs: Chad Kirkpatrick & /Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects
Once more, Iwan Baan shared with the Za Koenji Public Theatre by Toyo Ito in Tokyo, Japan. An impressive black volume in the middle of the city of Suginami in Tokyo and managed by Creative Theatre Network (CTN), a non-profit organization led by president Ren Saito.
You can see the complete photoset on Iwan’s website.
