The Indicator: Fearful Symmetry
What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
William Blake, The Tyger
Ehrlich Architects recently beat out Zaha, Foster, and Massimiliano Fuksas to win a competition for the UAE Federal National Councils Parliament Complex (UAEFNC).
Their winning design has received mixed reviews from the online audience. Many are laden with bile and downright hostile. I imagine these online critics spitting with dismissive contempt as they violently bang away at their keyboards. I usually stay clear of architectural scuffles, but in this case I’m making an exception.
Keep reading after the break.
Hennepin County Library Maple Grove / Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle
Responding to the community’s desire for a gathering space, and seizing the potential of the site, the new Maple Grove Library is designed as a pavilion in a park, connecting residents to information, the outdoors, and the larger community. A seamless building and landscape design fully integrates the library and park, while a lake provides renewable, hydrothermal energy for the building.
Architects: Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd., Architect & Interior Designer
Location: Maple Grove, Minnesota, USA
Mechanical/Electrical Engineers: Karges-Faulconbridge, Inc.
Structural/Civil Engineers: BKBM Engineers
Landscape Architect: Damon Farber Associates
General Contractor: Adolfson & Peterson Construction
Project Area: 40,000 sqf
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: Lara Swimmer Photography
The Playful Bench / MAPT and Sune Petersen
Copenhagen-based architectural office MAPT is behind the concept and development of the first interactive bench; one that invites you to play, move and experience the urban space in a dynamic way. The bench that changes color and pattern as people pass by has sprung up in Copenhagen’s “Islands Brygge.” The design became possible with the collaboration with designer Sune Petersen.
Read on for more about The Playful Bench after the break.
Elektra Bakery / Studioprototype Architects
Architects: Studioprototype Architects
Location: Edessa, Greece
Project area: 35 sqm
Project year: 2009
Photographs: Spyros Paloukis
Brufe Social Center / Imago
Architects: Imago / André de Moura Leitão Cerejeira Fontes & António Jorge de Moura Leitão Cerejeira Fontes
Location: Brufe, Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal
Co Author: Nuno Cruz, António Dias and Bruno Marques
Collaborators: Architect José Forte, Architect Sónia Gonçalves, Architect José Pedro Fernandes, Architect José Miguel Bahia, Architect Pedro Negrões Soares, Engineer Eugénia Fontes, Dr. Tiago Fontes
Construction: Telhabel Construções, S.A.
Project Area: 1,876.95 sqm
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: José Campos – arqf
Network Reset: Rethinking the Chicago Emerald Necklace Competition
MAS Studio and the Chicago Architectural Club are sponsoring a competition to redesign the Chicago Boulevard System in a more effective and livable manner.
The international competition, NETWORK RESET, seeks to reactivate the entire boulevard system. The competition will focus on the urban scale and a larger framework for the system as well as smaller scale user impacts. NETWORK RESET aims to reactivate the entire Boulevard System of Chicago and to develop a quality transportation corridor.
For complete information go to the competition’s official website.
Onion Pinch & Napping Pod Projects at Cite’ de l’architecture et du Patrimoine
Cite’ de l’architecture et du Patrimoine: Architecture for Children in Paris, France, in collaboration with Eduardo Benamor Duarte, is hosting an event showing two projects: Onion Pinch and Napping Pod which started December 8th, 2010 and runs until February 27th.
Onion Pinch is a cork installation originally conceived in occasion of the Digital Primitive Event proposed as a parallel event of the Lisbon Biennial Experimental Design.
The design is a Babies and Adult Rest Station designed for the Cais du Sodre Lisbon Subway Station.
Napping pod is a proposal for boarding schools and collective napping spaces. Imagine a branching tree, a babies tree, babies growing in the space like flowers and fruits. More images and project descriptions after the break.
Single House In Almería / vora arquitectura
Architects: vora arquitectura (Pere Buil Castells)
Location: Alquián, Almería, Spain
Cost: 120,000 euros
Project area: 150 sqm
Project year: 2003 – 2006
Photographs: Adrià Goula Sardà
Rice University Spring 2011 Lecture Series
Rice University’s School of Architecture has shared with us their Spring 2011 Lecture Series which will feature several international architects and professors. All lectures begin at 5:30pm and are free and open to the public and take place in the RSA’s Farish Gallery, Anderson Hall, unless otherwise noted. Below are the dates of the lectures:
February 3
Miquel Adria
Editor, Arquine
February 10
Antoine Picon
Co-Director, Doctoral Programs, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
February 23
Juergen Mayer H.
Principal, J. Mayer H., Berlin
March 10
Catherine Ingraham
Professor of Architecture, Pratt Institute, New York
March 17
Inaki Abalos
Principal, Abalos + Sentkiewicz Arquitectos, Madrid
April 13
Brown Auditorium 7:00pm
Petra Blaisse
Landscape/Interior Designer, Amsterdam, Inside-Outside
Art Center In Beijing / Atelier 11
Architects: Atelier 11
Location: Beijing, China
Client: Beijing Jia De Investment Co., Ltd.
Design Directors: Xu Lei, Yu Haiwei
Design Team: Li Lei, Meng Haigang
Construction Drawing: Xu Lei, Li Lei, Meng Haigang
Project area: 2,400 sqm
Project year: 2007
Photographs: Zhang Guangyuan
The Gown / Archipelontwerpers
Architects: Archipelontwerpers – Eric Vreedenburgh
Location: The Hague, The Netherlands
Project team: Coen Bouwmeester, Jaap Baselmans, Arjan Mulder, Niels Groeneveld
Project year: 2005 – 2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Archipelontwerpers
AD Classics: Church at Firminy / Le Corbusier
Known for its striking form and beautiful interior experiences, the Church at Firminy by Le Corbusier was another evolution of the core thoughts and practices of the architect throughout his many years of designing. This church also carries special significance, as it was the last major work of Le Corbusier and was left unfinished upon his death in 1965. It was finished forty-one years after his death in 2006, keeping his essence alive.
More on the Church at Firminy by Le Corbusier after the break.
Lurdes Bergada / Dear design
Situated in one of the best shoppingmalls in the city centre, L’Illa Diagonal, the new flagship store from Lurdes Bergada is divided into two clearly defined areas linking technical aspects of a clothing store behind a “wooden skin” and keeping clothes as the main focus.
Architects: Dear design
Location: L’illa Diagonal Shopping Mall, 557, Avenida Diagonal, Barcelona, Spain
Design Team: Ignasi Llauradó, Eric Dufourd, Dorien Peeters
Consultant: Xyloformas
Client: Lurdes Bergada & Syngman Cucala
Project Area: 63 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Pol Cucala
DawnTown 2011 Competition
DawnTown Miami is an annual architecture ideas competition meant to bring creative and inspiring new solutions to Downtown Miami. Now in its fourth year, DawnTown is partnering with a local historic preservation group to help bring prominence to an early piece of Miami’s modern architecture period. This year’s contest topic is to design a complimenting structure to the Miami Marine Stadium in an effort to allow the historic site to become a great event space once again: The new structure will be The Floating Stage.
The competition seeks out fresh and inventive designs that will help promote not only downtown but the City of Miami, and it’s historical connections to modern architecture.
To enter, please visit the official website to download the competition brief. Registration is free and open to all designers, professionals or students.
Arkansas House / Marlon Blackwell Architect
The challenge for the Arkansas House was to reassemble a fire-damaged home and introduce possibilities for re-thinking the house’s spatial character by adding new elements. The design had to be completed in three weeks and the details were resolved after construction began – one fragment at a time. The architects were allowed to work only in the fire-damaged zones of the existing house (exterior and interior), leaving the remainder untouched beyond new windows and a new HVAC system.
Architects: Marlon Blackwell Architect
Location: Northwest Arkansas
Project Team: Marlon Blackwell, Yume Rudzinski, Tony Patterson, Chris Baribeau, Matthew Griffith, Meryati Blackwell
Structural Engineer: Jim Gore
Mechanical Engineers: Tim Geary and Associates
Contractor: JW Enterprises
Interiors: Meredith Boswell, Ante Prima, Oscar Glottman
Photographs: Tim Hursley
Museo Nazionale dell’Ebraismo Italiano e della Shoah / Studio Arco, -Scape, Michael Gruber & Kulapat Yantrasast
The collaboration of Studio Arco -scape architects with Michael Gruber and Kulapat Yantrasast shared with us their project, Museo Nazionale dell’Ebraismo Italiano e della Shoah, for an international competition open to the European community. Upon believing that a museum is an object for the city, the MEIS is a Memorial, as well as a place where one can experience the presence of Jewish culture in Italy. At the same time, it is a symbol: the symbol of the city, of an historically involved territory, but also a testimony of common cultural roots, becoming a monument recognized by any citizen and religious community. More images and architects’ description after the break.
H&E Housing / David Elalouf Architecte
Architects: David Elalouf Architecte with Guillaume Prognon, Fabrice Jactard, Kheang Tan, Damien Caron, Wen Kee H’su
Location: Paris, France
Client: Paris Habitat OPH
Project Area: 7,260 sqm
Budget: € 11,500,000
Project Year: 2005-2008
Photographs: Stephan Lucas, David Elalouf
House EP / Ulisses Morato de Andrade
Architects: Ulisses Morato de Andrade
Location: Nova Lima, MG, Brazil
Project area: 213 sqm
Project year: 2003 – 2004
Photographs: Daniel Mansur
POST200TALKS: West 8 in Lisbon
POST2000TALKS is cycle of conferences architecture related in Lisbon. Its purpose is the display and exchange of different architecture experiences worldwide. The guests represent a generation of young professionals whom started their own office/research practices after the year 2000. The program is defined by a continuous line-up of lectures, presentations and debates. POST2000TALKS is a collaboration between JA-Project and the think-tank NOGO, and hosted by Galeria Luis Serpa Projectos, all based in Lisbon.
The conferences will continue on February 22 with speaker Christian Gausepohl, architect at West 8, the award winning international office for Urban Design and Landscape Architecture based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The conference will take place at the Galeria Luis Serpa Projectos, Lisbon, Portugal from 7:00 to 9:00 pm.
UNO Master Plan / STL
STL Architects shared with us their UNO Master Plan in the Gage Park community on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois. This Master Plan not only offers an opportunity to revitalize the existing neighborhood and make it more vibrant and pedestrian oriented, but it also acts as a catalyst by attracting new business and investments such as educational facilities, a civic center and open green space. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Rural Dining / Javier Rodriguez Acevedo
Architect: Javier Rodriguez Acevedo
Location: Los Niches, Curico, Chile
Project Area: 21 sqm
Budget: US $525
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: Javier Rodriguez Acevedo
