Beijing Central Business District / Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
The Chicago and Shanghai offices of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) won the international design competition to expand the Beijing Central Business District (CBD). This project was also awarded an AIA Honor Award.
Basically, their plan proposes the creation of 3 new districts anchored by parks and green boulevards as you can see on the renderings. But the an important aspects of this project is on the small scale, a network of walkable blocks to offer pedestrian (and bike) friendly scale for development. Because sustainable doesn´t have to mean just “green”, but also to offer an environment on which people can actually establish social relations on a neighborhood scale.
The plan also proposes an express commuter rail service between the Beijing Capital International Airport, the CBD, and high speed rail service at Beijing South Station. A new streetcar system is proposed to conveniently link all areas of the CBD.
Sometimes, a good transportation system and focusing on the pedestrian scale sound obvious, but they are the foundations to establish neighborhoods that can bring life to parts of the city 24/7, instead of business districts that die at night with dormitory cities with a lack of services.
More images after the break.
AD Interviews: Ila Berman
A few months ago I had the chance to interview Ila Berman, director of the Architecture program at the California College of the Arts. She holds a doctorate in architectural history, theory, and criticism from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Dr Berman created New Orleans: Urban Mappings for a Future City, an exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2006 International Architectural Biennale in Venice.
I visited the school by the end of the semester, and had the chance to see the final projects by the students and an exhibition on building technologies that was currently being assembled on the main hall. I really liked the atmosphere of the school, the students were very into it. I also meet a group of young teachers who are doing interesting work professionally, such as Douglas Burnham (envelope A+D), Mona El Khafif ( CCA URBANlab, IG Architecture), Craig Scott (Iwamoto Scott) and David Gissen.
My architect friends from San Francisco are always mentioning the lectures at CCA, as they have done a very good work inviting some of the best architects around the world to their lecture series: Alejandro Zaera Polo (FOA), Paul Lewis (LTL Architects), Bernard Tschumi, Winy Maas, Toyo Ito, etc (you can download some at iTunes U).
A school to keep an eye on…
ORDOS 100 #47: JSª
This villa is located in plot #86 of the ORDOS project.
Architects: JSª / Javier Sánchez
Project team: Aisha Ballesteros, Juan I. Reyes, Gerardo Fonseca, Juan Manuel Soler, Juan Pablo Victal, Laura Ivanschitz, Jair Navarrete
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
Siauliai Arena / E. Miliuno studija, Dvieju Grupe
Architects: E.Miliuno studija / Dvieju Grupe
Location: Siauliai, Lithuania
Chief architect: Eugenijus Miliunas
Project Architects: Gintaras Balcytis, Algimantas Bublys, Eugenijus Miliunas, Linas Tuleikis
Project Team: Julius Baronas, Vytautas Calka, , Aurimas Ramanauskas, Kestutis Scevinskas, Kestutis Vaiksnoras
Urban Architect: Algimantas Cerniauskas
Structural Engineer: Audrius Razaitis
Client: Municipality of Siauliai
Contractor: AB Panevezio statybos trestas
Constructed Area: 19,600 sqm
Budget: € 21,500,000
Project year: 2005-2006
Construction year: 2006-2007
Photographs: Gintaras Cesonis
Lavender Lake Competition winners announced
Winners have been recently announced for the Lavender Lake art factory competition sponsored by suckerPUNCH. This competition proposed a new artists factory for the “public space” site of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, New York.
The proposals were designed to both foster creative production and attract visitors to the factory and neighborhood. The factory will contain private/shared art studios, a storefront gallery/bar, analog/digital shops, and live/work spaces for rotating artists in residence.
Pablo Esteban Zamorano and Marcos Cárdenas from Santiago, Chile won the competition with their proposal “Water Fields”. See the winners and honorable mentions after the break.
V23K16 / Pasel.Kuenzel
Architects: Pasel.Kuenzel Architects
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands
Project Area: 170 sqm
Project year: 2004-2009
Photographer: Marcel van der Burg
Manchester Civil Justice Centre / Denton Corker Marshall
Architect: Denton Corker Marshall
Location: Manchester, England
Project Instigator: Her Majesty’s Court Service
Tenant: Ministry of Justice (North West)
Developer: Allied London Properties
Contractor: Bovis Lend Lease
Engineers: Mott MacDonald
Project area: 34,000 sqm
Project year: 2008
Photographs: Tim Griffith
Lotte Super Tower / KPF
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, the international architecture firm headquartered in New York, announced it has completed the conceptual design for Lotte Super Tower 123 in Seoul, South Korea. The 555-meter (1,821 feet), 123-story tower, when completed in 2014, will be the tallest building in Asia and the world’s second tallest after the Burj Dubai.
Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) was selected earlier this year after an international design competition by owner/developer Lotte Group, one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates. This long anticipated project has now earned all major zoning approvals, and excavation is nearly complete. The building will serve as Lotte’s new corporate headquarters and will be built by Lotte Construction, a subsidiary of the group. Architect’s description after the break.
Pile ou Face Houses / TANK Architectes
Architects: TANK Architectes / Olivier Camus & Lydéric Veauvy
Location: Villeneuve D’ascq, 59, France
Architect in Charge: Mathieu Berteloot
Site area:365 sqm
Constructed area:146 sqm
Budget:$225,000 Euro
Project year:2008
Photographs: Pierre Manuel Rouxel
Nepal Pavillion for Shanghai World Expo 2010
The foundation of the Nepal Pavilion was completed this week. With the theme “Tales of Kathmandu City,” the pavilion will capture important historic moments of the city. The pavilion will put on display the luster of Katmandu, the capital city of Nepal and an architectural, artistic and cultural center that has developed over 2,000 years.
The theme touches upon the soul of a city by exploring its past and future. Another highlight of the pavilion will be Nepal’s efforts in environmental protection and developing renewable energies. The pavilion is in the form of an ancient Buddhist temple in Kathmandu, surrounded by traditional Nepalese houses.
A car or motorcycle rally will run from Lumbini to the Expo site. The rally will bring the “eternal flame of peace” to Shanghai from Nepal. More images after the break.
AMD’s Lone Star Campus / TBG Partners
Technology company Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD) new “Lone Star” campus – located at 7171 Southwest Parkway in Austin – has been awarded LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, making it the largest LEED-certified corporate campus in Texas. The $190 million, 870,000-square-foot campus opened in January 2008 on a 59-acre tract in south Austin. Project elements include four four-story office buildings, three recessed parking garages and the Lone Star building, which features an employee fitness center, cafeteria, gourmet coffee bar, casual meeting space, outdoor decks and a gaming center with table tennis, billiards tables and video game consoles.
Austin-based Graeber, Simmons & Cowan served as the lead architect; Texas-based TBG Partners provided programming, site planning and landscape architecture services; Austin-based Paul Koehler Brown and Austin-based Jaster-Quintanilla served as the structural engineers; Austin-based Michael E. James &Associates served as the civil engineer; and Dallas-based Austin Commercial served as the general contractor.
Omena House / Danny Forster
Architects: Danny Forster
Location: Lake Omena, Michigan, USA
Project year: 2009
Project area: 250 sqm
Photographs: Danny Forster
Energy, Climate and Construction Strategies Consultant: Kiel Moe
AD Round Up: Retail Part II
Big, challenging, creative. Designing a retail store may very well define it’s success in the future. Check our first part of previously featured retail stores in ArchDaily. And to finish our week, we bring you our second part of retail. Enjoy!
Sarugaku / Akihisa Hirata
This is a set of commercial tenant building in Daikanyama, Tokyo. From legal condition it was demanded to build several small volumes in narrow site, and we decided to make several volumes that seemed to be mountains. Thereby valley-shaped space between mountains is formed, where people and displayed things will overflow (read more…)
Dot envelope _ low cost shopping / OFIS arhitekti
The existing site is listed as industrial historical area with buildings of an old butchery complex, which included the water-tower and old butcher hall. Demand of National heritage was to rebuild the tower as it was in original and to integrate the main façade portal of old hall in front of the planned new shopping mall (read more…)
Showroom H / Akihisa Hirata
This is the building for a showroom exhibiting small agricultural equipments. I tried to create a place similar to natural environment in an artificial way. People are invited to go deep into the continuity without whole view, where they can find different spread of things in every minute. This architecture is made by a very simple operation (read more…)
K:fem department store / Wingardh
Fifty years after the opening of Vällingby, Sweden’s world famous New Town from 1954, works began with its resurrection. After the glorious days when children and their mothers filled the community in the outskirts of Stockholm with life, other developments gradually drained the neighbourhood unit (read more…)
PUMA City, Shipping Container Store / LOT-EK
Our green friends over Inhabitat just tipped us on a new project by NYC/Napoli based office LOT-EK, a practice that has been doing an interesting job by reusing containers. 24 containers are put together to create a 3 storey store with over 11,000 sqf, including a bar/lounge area and 2 decks. The store is currently at (read more…)
Alila Cha am / Duangrit Bunnag Architects
Architects: Duangrit Bunnag Architect Limited – DBALP
Location: Cha Am, Petchaburi, Thailand
Principal in Charge: Duangrit Bunnag
Collaborator Architects: Saranya Srisakulchairak / Architect Group Head, Kahitha Boonyatasaneekul / Architect, Rawin Sangsittayakorn / Architect, Prinpond Boonkham / Interior, Thiti Tritrakarn / Landscape Archiect
Contractor: Square Tech Co.,Ltd.
Structural Engineer: EMS Consultant Co.,Ltd.
Client: KS Resort and Spa Co.,Ltd.
Site area: 30,000 sqm
Building area: 18,000 sqm
Project year: 2008 sqm
Photographs: DBALP & KS Resort and Spa
BIArch presents “Energy Seminar”
The Barcelona Institute of Architecture (BIArch) is an international institution set up to further interaction between academic research, specialized practice and the cultural dissemination of contemporary architecture. Occupying a space midway between schools of architecture and professional praxis, BIArch is an open laboratory for professionals and researchers that aims to promote new ways of thinking and acting for a technological, energy and economic reality in permanent flux.
Their next seminar is “Energy”, and it will be held next October 30-31, at BIArch (La Pedrera, Passeig de Gracia 92, Barcelona, Spain). All sessions will be in English. Access is free but limited. Registration is is required for attendance at info@biarch.eu. The seminar is directed by Agustí Obiol.
Geometry in Black / Yiacouvakis Hamelin architectes
Architects: YH2_Yiacouvakis Hamelin architectes
Location: Saint-Hyppolite, Québec, Canada
Design team: Benoit Boivin, Marie-Claude Hamelin, Loukas Yiacouvakis
Client: Jean Mathieu
Builder: Martin Lachance
Project area: 1,850 pi.ca.
Project year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Francis Pelletier & Loukas Yiacouvakis
In Progress: Railway Footbridge at Roche-sur-Yon
The project for a footbridge located in Roche-sur-Yon was commissioned as a collaborative work in between HDA Paris, who has a previous experience with the footbridge they did in Turin for the Olympic Village in 2006 and Bernard Tschumi, who recently finished the Acropolis Museum.
Fosc House / Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects
Architects: Mauricio Pezo, Sofia von Ellrichshausen
Location: Road to El Venado nº 1130, San Pedro, Chile
Models: Oscar Otarola, Helena Lennert
Structure: German Aguilera
Construction: Ricardo Ballesta
Sanitary project: Marcelo Valenzuela
Electrical project: Carlos Martinez
Constructive system: Reinforced concrete
Exterior finishing: Cooper Oxide tinted concrete, aluminium window frames
Interior finishing: Painted concrete and wood, wooden and stone floors
Plot area: 597 sqm
Built area: 160 sqm
Project date: 2007
Construction date: 2008-2009
Model photographs: Ana Crovetto
Photographs: Cristobal Palma
Design It: Shelter Competition Winners announced
Over the course of the summer, Design It: Shelter Competition received submissions from people in 68 countries for a total of nearly 600 entries that met competition requirements. On the occasion of the Guggenheim Museum‘s 50th Anniversary, they are pleased to announce the two winning entries.
David Mares’s CBS – Cork Block Shelter, won the People’s Prize after receiving 64,875 votes out of more than 100,000 votes submitted online by voters around the world; and David Eltang’s SeaShelter, which was selected by a jury of architecture and design experts for the Juried Prize. Prizes include airfare and two nights accommodation for two in New York City, behind-the-scenes tours of the Guggenheim Museum and Google offices, and Google SketchUp Pro licenses.
Images of the two winners and videos from the competition after the break.
Mernda Education Suite / Supple Design
Architect: Supple Design / Eoghan Lewis
Location: Mernda, Victoria, Australia
Client: Stockland Property Trust
Structural consultant: HKMA—Phil Mance
Site area: 850 sqm
Floor area: 130 sqm
Design year: 2006
Construction year: 2007
Photographs: Shannon McGrath, Eoghan Lewis
Evans House / bittonidesignstudio
Architect: bittonidesignstudio
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Project Team: Mark Bittoni, Ross Jeffries, Salomé Reeves
Client: Private
Structural Engineer: C.W. Howe & Associates
Area: 185.8 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Eric Staudenmaier Photography
