Happy Birthday Oscar Niemeyer!

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turned 102 today… and as you can see he is still rocking.

You can see the second part of this interview on our previous article.

Digital Media City / SOM

© Giroud Pichot
© Giroud Pichot

SOM recently unveiled the design for the Digital Media City Landmark Tower in , Korea. The 2,100 foot (640m) tall tower will be the tallest tower in East Asia when completed in 2014.

The iconic building is located in the north of the Han River, which crosses the city, and will dominate the skyline becoming a important icon for Seoul… which is what you will expect if you commission a tower this tall.

Levitt Goodman Architects selected to design new “Learning Commons”

Collaboritorium Leigh.tifYork University has selected Levitt Goodman Architects to develop detailed designs for its competition-winning design for a 26,390 ft2  renovation of ’s main library on its Keele campus. The “Learning Commons” will provide users with a mix of group study areas that will shift ’s 40-year old Scott Library into a progressive learning environment.

The $2M renovation will be the first initiative on the campus specifically designed to reflect York’s pedagogical shift from a teacher-centered approach to active and collaborative learning. More images and description after the break.

Green Lighthouse, Carbon Neutral Faculty building / Christensen & Co Arkitekter

© Adam Mørk
© Adam Mørk

Architect: Christensen & Co Arkitekter
Client: Danish University and Property Agency
Users: Faculty of Science (30 staff / 50 daily users)
Area: 950 m² (site 3000m²)
Project: May 2008
Construction: October 2008
Completion: November 2009
Collaborators:
Hellerup Byg (contractors)
Cowi (engineering)
CCO staff MC, MC, TN, MS, TB, AM

Misc Partners behind project: Danish University and Property Agency, University, Municipality of , Velux, Velfac

© Adam Mørk © Adam Mørk © Adam Mørk © Adam Mørk

La Mola Conference Centre / b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos

@ Duccio Malagamba
@

Architects: b720 Arquitectos
Location: Barcelona,
Architect in Charge: Fermin Vazquez
Project Chiefs: Peco Mulet, Fernando Luna, Andreas Moser
Project Team: Pablo González, Laura Marticorena, Carles Martínez-Almoyna, Eduard Miralles, Manuel Rivas, Giussy Ottonelli
On Site Team: Andreas Moser, Eduard Miralles
Client: Layetana Inmobiliaria
Developer: Layetana Inmobiliaria
General Contractor: Costruccions Baldó, S.A.
Structural Engineer: Guillem González (Base 2)
Project Area: 17,400 sqm
Construction Year: 2004-2008
Photographs: Duccio Malagamba

Landlines / Urban Art Projects

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Aperture Photography

The international studio Urban Art Projects (UAP) transformed a standard parking garage into a large scale “art-come-architecture project” on Albert Street in .  The art project entitled ’Landlines’ is a contour map of the area that wraps itself around three faces of the 9 floor parking garage.

More about Landlines and more images after the break.

Multi-Level Parking voestalpine / x Architekten

© David Schreyer
© David Schreyer

Architects: x Architekten (Linz and Vienna)
Location: Linz,
Architects in Charge: David Birgmann, Bettina Brunner, Rainer Kasik, Max Nirnberger, Lorenz Prommegger
Client: voestalpine Stahl GmbH
Constructed Area: 20,700 sqm
Project Year: 2007-2008
Photographs: David Schreyer

© David Schreyer © David Schreyer © David Schreyer © David Schreyer

AIA Facebook Young Designers Challenge

AIALogoThe AIA is hosting its first ever design competition on —the AIA Facebook Young Designers Challenge. The competition is targeting emerging professionals, and is open to all AIAS members, all Assoc. members, and all young architect members. (The defines young architects as being licensed 10 years or less.)

The AIA is asking designers to submit new, unbuilt building projects that address America’s most pressing design needs for the 21st century. This can include, but is not limited to: sustainability, public infrastructure, affordable housing, retrofitting suburbs and other resource-intensive built environments, urban farming, and rehabilitating dilapidated urban cores. This requirement is intentionally flexible. The most important factor is that each design offers an innovative solution to a concrete and unsolved problem. The winning designer will be announced in AIArchitect with a feature article on their design in January.

For more information, go to the competition’s website in Facebook.

Apartment Fandl / Schlosser + Partner

© Croce&Wir
© Croce&Wir

Architects: Schlosser + Partner
Location: Graz,
Client: Mag. Elisabeth Fandl
Project Area: 109 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Croce&Wir

3.1 Phillip Lim / Leong Leong Architecture

showcase_31_phillip_lim_store_04
Iwan Baan

Leong Leong Architecture designed a 550 square meter store for in Cheongdam-Dong, Seoul’s premiere fashion district. The store is characterized by the simultaneous need for sameness and difference. “Typically, the consistent repetition of brand traits is necessary to reinforce an identity, while novelty can refresh the aura and desire for the brand,” explained the architects.

More photos by architectural photographer Iwan Baan, and more about the store after the break.

The Docks Dombasles / Hamonic + Masson architects

© Jean-Christophe Masson
© Jean-Christophe Masson

Architects: Hamonic + Masson architects
Location: Le Havre,
Project Team: Gaëlle Hamonic, Jean-Christophe Masson, Marie-Agnès de Bailliencourt, Cédric Brégeot
Client: Investir Immobilier
Hydraulic Engineer: EGCL
Structural Engineer: Peyronnel
Quantity Surveyor: Kabock
Project Area: 3,024 sqm
Budget: 3,20 M€
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Hervé Abbadie & Jean-Christophe Masson

© Hervé Abbadie © Hervé Abbadie © Hervé Abbadie © Hervé Abbadie

Competition for the Sustainable Development of Gadeokdo

CompetitionThe purpose of the competition is establish a schematic design for developing the Gadeokdo region in Busan Metropolitan city, Republic of Korea, as an international compound zone by obtaining the broad ideas of experts at home and abroad.

Landscape architects, architects, and urban planners and designers are invited to suggest feasible ideas and designs to develop the Gadeokdo sustainable environment.

Registration deadline is December 31. Submission deadline is February 18, 2010. Seen at deathbyarchitecture. More information on the competition’s official website.

The Wright / Andre Kikoski

Wright at Guggenheim 01
Philip Greenberg

Andre Kikoski has designed a new restaurant, The Wright, for Museum in that transforms Wright’s familiar geometries into a new dining experience.     “It was both an incredible honor and an exhilarating challenge to work within Wright’s iconic building,” says Kikoski. “Every time we visit, we see a new subtlety in it that deepens our appreciation of its sophistication. We sought to create a work that is both contemporary and complementary.”

More about the restaurant after the break.

St. Albans School / Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

StAlbansSchool#18 b
© Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

In 2006, with its centennial approaching, St. Albans School, a private boys’ school founded in 1909, decided to embark upon its first new construction project in nearly 30 years. The institution hired Skidmore, Owings & Merrill () to complete a 25,000-square-foot expansion and 30,00-square-foot of renovations to provide a student center, new classrooms, faculty offices, library and auditorium. The school, which had developed slowly over the years and did not follow a rational plan, also hoped that the architects could create a cohesive linkage between four of its existing buildings.

StAlbansSchool#3 b StAlbansSchool#28 b StAlbansSchool#64 b StAlbansSchool#68 b

Treehouse / RPA

Staud_090925_0328
© Eric Staudenmaier

Architects: RPA

Location: Nichols Canyon, , CA,

Project Area: 16 sqm

Project Year: 2009

Photographs: Eric Staudenmaier

Staud_090925_126 Staud_090925_162 Staud_090925_232 Staud_090925_336 no channel

AD Round Up: Patio Houses Part II

Of the hundreds of houses we’ve been featuring, there’s some really nice houses. So enjoy our second part (see the first part here), of our previously published patio houses.

1OUTrial House / KWK PROMES
A green clearing surrounded by forest was the only context for the proposed small house. Hence the idea to “carve out” a piece of the grass-covered site, move it up and treat it as the roofing to arrange all the required functions underneath. When the whole was ready, the client came up with another request (read more…)

2Bianna House / Hidalgo Hartmann
The house is composed by two concrete volumes that are inserted in the territory getting fused to it. Both volumes of diferent sizes are set firmly to the ground by the enlargement of the containing walls that define them. These walls modify the topografy of the territory to get the volumes more integrated in it (read more…)

3Casa Wakasa / wHY Architecture
Casa Wakasa, home to a young family of four is located in the suburbs of Osaka, Japan. The house attempts to be both a reflection into contemporary Japan’s family life (sense of family vs. privacy) as well as a solution to balance individual freedom and space with collective activities and time. The basic unit of the house is an amalgam (read more…)

4Chilean House / Smiljan Radic
These two houses -actually there´s only one built- recall the houses of tenant farmers in the Chilean countryside: the existing walnut trees haven´t been touched, the outside has been denied thanks to a whitewashed perimetral wall. An inner courtyard with the possibility of being covered with an agricultural tarpaulin (read more…)

5Parr House / Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects
This is both a huge and a small house. It doesn’t have extended rooms but instead a series of rooms that repeat themselves and some functions that are doubled according to the traditional Chilean country life. The house is located in a small farm where, until not long ago, stood the owner’s old house where his childhood was spent (read more…)

RCA Sackler Building / Haworth Tompkins

@ Helene Binet
@ Helene Binet

Architects: Haworth Tompkins Limited
Location: ,
Project Team: Graham Haworth, Chris Fellner, Roger Watts and David Lyndon
Client: The Royal College of Art
Main Contractor: LIFE Build Solutions Limited
Structural Engineer: Price and Myers LLP
Quantity Surveyor: Gardiner & Theobald
M&E Consultant & Lighting: Max Fordham Consulting Engineers
Project Area: 1,280 sqm
Budget: £2,963,138
Project Year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Philip Vile, Helene Binet, Katsuhisa Kida Foteca

@ Helene Binet @ Philip Vile @ Philip Vile @ Philip Vile

Zagreb Pavilion by njiric + arhitekti for sale on eBay

1258991683-151009070379a-528x385Designed for the “44th Zagreb Salon”, an architecture show in , the pavilion designed by njiric + arhitekti (featured on ArchDaily) is currently on sale on eBay.

The Pavilion is approximately 24ft across and 38ft high, and is built using framing, with acrylic sidings and interior and aluminum siding. Inside is the dome is placeholder for video projection equipment so this can be used for multimedia exhibitions. The starting bid is US$ 100.000 and there’s a little less than a month to bid.

To bid or find more information, click here.

Bosque Esmeralda / ROW Studio

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© ROW

With a shopping center already under construction, ROW Studiowas asked to design the for the center in Zona Esmeralda, in . The clients asked for an interesting, and almost contradictory mix of requirements: the façade must be both dynamic and eye-catching, while still blending into the surrounding forest line.

More images and more about the facade after the break.

Atoms are the new bits, and its relation with architecture

Ponoko, Production chain 2.0
Ponoko, Production chain 2.0

Last weekend I had the chance to spend the afternoon with a group of entrepreneurs and , editor for Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail and Free, two books that define the new economies of the Internet (highly recommended if you haven´t read them yet, specially Free)

Chris did a little speech on his new research, which immediately made sense to me from an architect’s point of view. At this point, it is more than clear that the bit revolution turned our world in 360º, and thanks to the connected world it seems that the technology development curve is more steep than ever. And now, many rules of the online world are being adopted by the physical world, and according to Anderson “atoms are the new bits”.

First, it was the media revolution. Information became democratic, collaborative, the tools became free, and everyone is part of it. But how do we take this to the World (World 2.0?)? Actually… it´s happening and very close to our profession:

AD Interviews: Paint and Architectural History, Natasha Loeblich

Sample BRS14, visible light, 100x magnification
Sample BRS14, visible light, 100x magnification

Architectural paint analyst traces the histories of structures from such as the Revolutionary War-era buildings at Colonial Williamsburg, by studying what’s on their walls. I spoke to her about her work and the field.