New terminal for Stockholm / C. F. Møller Architects
C. F. Møller Architects has just won the competition for a new terminal for Stockholm’s permanent ferry connections to Finland and the Baltics. The terminal will be a landmark for the new urban development Norra Djurgårdsstaden at the Stockholm waterfront. See more images and architect’s description after the break.
Update: Battle of Midtown’s Skyline
Yesterday, we shared news about the raging debate over Manhattan’s skyline. The City Council meeting on Wednesday was the deciding factor in whether the Pelli Clarke Pelli tower would move forward. According to yesterday’s meeting, as Charles V. Bagli reported for the New York Times, the City Council has approved the plans 47-1 and so, the new tower will rise to within 34 feet in height of its iconic neighbor.
Ponzano Primary School / C+S Associati
Architects: C+S Associati / Carlo Cappai, Maria Alessandra Segantini
Location: Ponzano Veneto, Italy
Project Team: F&M Ingegneria spa (structures, MEP, survey, work supervision, building security), Lorenzo Vittori (sustainabilty)
Project Area: 4,100 sqm
Project Year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Alessandra Bello, Pietro Savorelli & C+S Associati
Happy Magic Water Park / Forrec
Back in 2008, we marveled at Australian architecture firm PTW’s Water Cube. With its iridescent cellular façade, the swimming facility played host to top notch swimming competitions within an energy efficient and dynamic piece of architecture. But, move over Michael Phelps – there are new swimmers in town! After a ten-month renovation, the facility will now house a 140,000-square-foot water park (Asia’s largest) designed by Toronto-based planning and design firm Forrec.
More images and more about the water park after the break.
GAPs / NRM-Architects Office
Architects: NRM-Architects Office / Shunichiro Ninomiya + Tomoko Morodome
Location: Aichi, Japan
Site area: 190.03 sqm
Building area: 89.43 sqm
Total floor area: 205.56 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Kenichi Suzuki
Shade Club / SquareONE
City Park / Foster + Partners
Continuing with our coverage of the West Kowloon Arts District, here’s Foster+Partners’ proposal entitled City Park. The proposal is based around a 23-hectare Great Park which will hold a sampling of cultural buildings of varying scales. From the large Arena, Opera House and Exhibition Center to the smaller teahouses and small temples scattered throughout the landscape, the park will be a welcoming entity programmed to provide for the public. Lord Foster, Founder and Chairman, said, “Hong Kong is a great city and this project captures what is important about its DNA: the civic spaces, the squares, the parks, the greenery, the avenues and the small side streets. At ‘City Park’ we have created a world class setting for a new cultural city for everyone.”
More images and more about the master plan after the break.
Vertical City / Desitecture
Desitecture, a British Architecture Collective, have recently been shortlisted by the World Architecture Festival in the future project-experimental category for their Vertical City in Venezuela. More images and architect’s description after the break.
Russian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale
Photographer Patricia Parinejad shared with us this photographs of the Russian Pavilion designed by nps tchoban voss for the Venice Biennale. Check them all after the break.
Concrete Water Tower / Giuseppe Occhipinti
Giuseppe Occhipinti, an Italian structural engineer and the co-founder of Engineering Seismic Consulting (ESC), has shared his seismic water tower design with us. While ESC amends structural problems for projects on a variety of scales, the firm also develops conceptual projects. Their latest conceptual project is a reuse for a typical tall water tank to aid urban needs. The seismic addition not only adds a functional entity but also adds an aesthetic touch to the tower.
More images and more about the tower after the break.
Residence in Sussex / Conran & Partners
Architects: Conran & Partners
Location: East Sussex, United Kingdom
Project Area: 425 sqm
Budget: £1.8million
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Jim Stephenson
Ferrovie dello Stato Pavilion
Uros Novakovic and Renato Pucci, students of the Università di Firenze in Florence, Italy shared with us their temporary pavilion for the Italian national rail-transport company. You can see more images and architect’s description after the break.
West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Unveils 3 Plans
On Monday, we shared OMA’s master plan proposal (a series of 3 villages that re-think traditional arts components) for the West Kowloon new arts district. As we mentioned, OMA’s plan is competing with two other master plans – Foster + Partners and Rocco Design Architects Limited. We’re excited to share these two master plans with you this week and get your feedback for the plan that you feel is most successful.
The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority is beginning the Stage 2 Public Engagement exercise which will last for three months in order to provide the public with the opportunity to review all three plans. The plans will be judged upon their creativity, accessibility, connectivity, integration, vibrancy, uniqueness and sustainability.
A questionnaire will be distributed to each person viewing the plans asking for his/her opinion. The Panel is very interested to hear the public’s opinion and the views from the exercise will have significant bearings on the Conceptual Plan Option eventually selected by the Authority. It makes perfect sense for the public to have a strong voice in this new arts district, and we’re looking forward to hearing yours as we share the plans with you.
via Bustler
Croatian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
Based on the idea of Mirage, described at the wikipedia as a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky, the team that designed the Croatian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale decided to create a floating pavilion to present arts and architecture of Croatia at the Venice Biennale.
Following the same principles of a Fata Morgana, which is an unusual and very complex form of Mirage that can be seen in a narrow band right above the horizon, the Floating Pavilion is constructed on an existing barge with dimensions of 10m x 20m x 3m. It is designed by a group of 14 leading Croatian architects, who have made the recent Croatian architecture visible on the global scene. Instead of working in the usual formats of their practices and presenting speculative projects, they decided to work together on a single proposal and to have it constructed and towed toward its final destination in Venice right away. The pavilion structure is the barge’ cargo, welded from 30 tons of Q385 wire mesh in more than 40 layers of varying contours. The cargo presented here maps the process of intense interaction between architects working on the common project, their collaboration with the Croatian maritime industry, and the extraordinary act of architecture it produced. Please follow the pavilion’s maiden voyage across the Adriatic over here
Battle over Midtown’s Skyline
New York City’s Empire State Building has dominated its portion of Manhattan’s skyline ever since it was constructed back in 1931. Now, as Charles V. Bagli reported for the New York Times, a proposed tower just two avenues west on 34th Street across from Pennsylvania Station will be infringing on the Empire State Building as it is slated to rise 1,216 ft – almost reaching the Empire State Building’s 1,250 ft (with its antenna, the ESB measures 1,453 ft). So, it has become the battle of the skyscrapers as the new building claims it will benefit Manhattan by providing jobs and improve the quality of life for New Yorkers and the Empire State Building is worried about losing its iconic presence in the skyline.
Guangzhou Opera House / Zaha Hadid
Our chinese reader Sharwe shared with us some actual photographs of the construction process of this 70,000 sqm Opera House designed by Zaha Hadid in Guangzhou, China. With this building, which includes 1,800 seats in the Grand theatre, entrance lobby & lounge, Multifunction hall, other auxiliary facilities & support premises, Zaha is trying to confirm this city as one of Asia’s cultural centres.
More images after the break.
Lisbon Cruise Terminal / Carrilho da Graça Architects
Competing against Aires Mateus and Gonçalo Byrne, William Consuegra, ARX and Zaha Hadid, Carrilho da Graça Architects were awarded first prize for their proposal for the Lisbon Cruise Terminal. The creation of the terminal provides the opportunity to address the interstitial space between the city and river. Designed as a simple volume that responds to the “desire of liberating the surrounding area”, the terminal will create a new public realm providing green spaces that can support varying activities for the city and adjacent neighborhoods.
More images and more about the winning design after the break.
The HuB Design Competition
Architecture for Humanity Charleston invites you to participate in Charleston’s continuing legacy of preservation and sustainability. As a basis for exploration, the HuB Design Competition proposes that a new light rail system has been established that will provide a connection between Charleston’s downtown peninsula and its surrounding communities. Entrants to the competition are challenged to design the two major components of the new transit system:
The Downtown Transit Hub: The new downtown transit hub is a mixed-use building that will be located within the heart of the Charleston peninsula. The building will provide services for light rail, bus riders, cyclists, pedestrians and will also address the growing need for community meeting space, affordable retail and office space. We have chosen an underused site in a prominent location adjacent to the Charleston City Visitor Center on Meeting Street.
The Node Transit Station: The node transit station is a prototypical design that will be located at various locations throughout the Charleston Lowcountry. It is a modestly scaled structure that will serve the new light rail system and the existing bus system. The two designs should collaborate to create a system of cohesive recognizable nodes for tourists and residents. For more information, go to the competition’s official website. Seen at Death by Architecture.
AD Round Up: Beach Houses Part III
Sadly, summer is getting to an end. But that doesn’t mean we can’t remember some of the fantastic beach houses we’ve been featuring in the past. Check our third selection after the break.
Johanna House / Nicholas Burns
Secluded 100 acres of pristine bush containing environmentally significant and endangered ecological classes adjoining the National Park. A discrete addition to the landscape, a journey of gradual and layered concealment, opening landscape and ocean. Contrast; contraction/expansion, heavy/light, opaque/transparent….inside-outside-inside (read more…)
PARA-SITE Call for Entries
In the constraints of today ’s urbanity,architects have striven to construct new spaces upon existing ones.Such parasitic architecture has paved new trends in developing and reshaping the way we play,live and work;transforming communities within urban habitats.
By generating symbiotic relationships between host buildings and its parasite attachments,an interdependence emerges through overlapping resources and space with both parties feeding off each other ’s attributes.
In an upcoming publication,international art and design book publisher Page One intends to showcase the most mind-blowingly innovative, even bewildering,built and conceptual parasitic architecture.Send us your projects and challenge perspectives of architecture for sustainable and urban living. For more information, download the Call For Entries PDF.
Unit 4906 / Studio IDE
What do you think of this interior renovation by Studio IDE? The 550 sq ft studio is designed as an overlapping of space, incorporating the client’s Pop Art lithographs as well as more private living areas. The swinging frames add a nice touch to the art display, and their arrangement makes one feel he is walking into “a gallery space wired for living rather an apartment space equipped to display art.” As the apartment opens toward Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan, Studio IDE wanted the space to conceptually become an “interweaving of form and space…of the incidental voids amidst the City’s oscillating texture below.” In this way, the art becomes a “spectacle of tranquility, a moment of pause similar to the calm found in looking onto the lake.” The video is arranged in an interesting style, as the independent sounds follow the shots of each space. The crisp detailing and materiality create a sophisticated space, both in terms of a gallery and living area.
Seen at Studio IDE’s Vimeo Studio IDE.
