Architecture News: The Latest Architecture and News

Back in late 2009 Arch Group shared with us their proposal for an urban relaxation pod – SLEEPBOX. Their concept has been realized, with production of the modular 2.5×1.6m x 2.5-3m high unit high moving ahead.

Beginning this October, get ready to experience museums … lots of them! Whether you’re located in Los Angeles, London, Montreal, Arkansas or New York, check out some exciting exhibits taking place this Fall. “It is a group of seasonal offerings that reflect the state of the profession, to be sure. Credit remains tight for commercial and civic projects, for the most part, which means that there is plenty of time for retrospective analysis — and that completed buildings continue to get outsize attention,” explained Christopher Hawthorne for the LA Times.

Check out the list of museums after the break.

The 2011 MIPIM Asia Awards recently announced that Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) garnered five awards out of the 29 awarded, the largest number of awards won by a single architectural firm. Recognized for the Inernational Commerce Centre in HongKong, Wheelock Square in Shanghai, the Abu Dhabi International Midfield Complex, the Xintiandi Hotels, and Singapore’s Marina Bay Financial Centre, KPF will receive their prizes at the prestigious Awards Gala Dinner on November 16.

KPF was one of the first US architecture firms to start working in China, and has had a strong presence there for over 20 years, including growing offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong. These five awards serve as an affirmation of KPF’s unmatched experience and leadership in the region.

ArchDaily sat down with Eugen Kohn and Bill Pedersen back in February. The AD interview with KPF can be viewed here.

Jeanne Gang, principal and founder of Studio Gang Architects, has been named as one of this years prestigious MacArthur Fellows. The second female recipient in architecture selected for the grant (Elizabeth Diller from Diller Scofidio + Renfro was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1999), Gang is among a total of 22 recipients who will receive $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years. The recipients fields are quite broad ranging anywhere from biologist to radio producer, but regardless of their chosen profession all were selected for their ‘creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future’.

“This has been a year of great change and extraordinary challenge, and we are once again reminded of the potential individuals have to make a difference in the world and shape our future,” said Robert Gallucci, President of the MacArthur Foundation. “The MacArthur Fellows exemplify how individual creativity and talent can spark new insights and ideas in every imaginable field of human endeavor.”

When we first saw MAD’s Erdos Museum for Inner Mongolia, the renderings teased us with a futuristic blob-like form that was planned for Ordos’ designed, but yet not constructed, urban masterplan. Now, a few years later, the firm is celebrating the museum’s completion and the finished effect of both the form and its materiality can be fully appreciated. MAD shared a video on the finished project with us and we hope you enjoy it!

More info about the project after the break.

A Kickstarter campaign started by Birch Books Conservation owner Birch Cooper will see the library collection of Philip Johnson’s Glass House collated in a new book – The Library of Philip Johnson: Selections from the Glass House. Conceived as a resource for architects, architecture aficionados, and the general public, the book will illuminate many of the philosophies and ideologies that Johnson contributed to American modernism. Featured under the cover will be 100 selections that have been photographed and researched with a brief synopsis by the authors, in addition to the inventory list of all the books contained within the Library Studio of Philip Johnson. With an anticipated publishing date later this fall, it will be Birch Books Conservation’s first publication. Containing over 350 photographic illustrations, the 250 page volume is sure to be an excellent addition to any architecture collection.

The Sliced Porosity Block—the Raffles City development designed by Steven Holl Architects in Chengdu—celebrates its topping out at 123 meters. Located just south of the intersection of the First Ring Road and Ren Min Nan Road, the 3 million square feet mixed-use complex consists of five towers with offices, apartments, retail, a hotel, cafes, and restaurants. More images and complete press release after the break.

This weekend, we had the opportunity to attend the Open Studio event at MoMA’s PS1. As we mentioned earlier, this project posed the daunting question of how to re-think, re-organize and re-energize the concept of an American suburb in the wake of the foreclosure crisis. As MoMA’s Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, Barry Bergdoll explains, “Projects will aim to challenge cultural assumptions concerning home ownership and associated settlement patterns, such as suburban sprawl, and assist the public in contemplating a potentially different future for housing and cities. The workshop and exhibition are premised on reframing the current crisis as an opportunity, an approach that is in keeping with the fundamental American ethos where challenging circumstances engender innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. It is our hope that new paradigms of architecture and regional and transportation planning become the silver lining in the crisis of home ownership.” The five multidisciplinary teams chose five different American suburbs to explore, and this Saturday, we jumped from Oregon to Florida, to Illinois, to California and New Jersey, to observe their five quite different solutions.

Check out our preview of the teams’ work-in-progress projects which will be exhibited at the MoMA this February.

Glazing has always been employed in architecture to convey and complement aesthetics. Its use exemplifies spaces, transitions between indoor and outdoor volumes, and modulates the amount of light penetration. With this in mind, glazing manufacturers are continually innovating new products to resolve the ever increasing demands imposed by designers. Whether it is curvilinear, textured, colored, laminated, etc., the increasing variety available is growing at an increasing rate.

The desire to help underprivileged populations along with the concern of how we should manage the planets resources brought two young architecture offices – blaanc borderless architecture and CaeiroCapurso – together to create a non-profit association that could contribute to these causes.

Adobe for Women Association’s goal is to recover and teach vernacular construction skills and at the same time help women in need, women who are often the real family pillar and who bring up children despite the enormous hardships they face. Their first project is inspired by the work of Mexican architect Juan José Santibañez, who, twenty years ago, helped twenty women in difficult living conditions to build their own homes. Two decades later, Adobe for Women has planned the construction of twenty sustainable houses in the indigenous village of San Juan Mixtepec, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. More images and and brief project description after the break.

Diagonal 00 Telefonica Tower in Barcelona, designed by the architect Enric Massip-Bosch_EMBA and developed by Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona, has been awarded the LEAF PRIZE 2011 for Best Commercial Building of the Year.

live streaming video

During the last week of August, the first installment of Spielberg’s Rising aired on the Discovery Channel. Throughout the three hour segment, the documentary played to viewers’ emotions by sharing family members’ stories of that day and introducing us to a few iron workers who are slowly, but surely, bringing the Freedom Tower to life. The documentary also featured amazing visualizations showing the complex while designers’ discussed the strategies behind the project. Back in 2002, dbox: a branding & creative agency, with studios in New York, London and Taiwan, became involved with the WTC and has been working on one or more of the projects at the site. In collaborated with KPI, executive producer Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks, dbox provided brand identity, graphics, CGI and aerial cinematography for the Rising series which affords us glimpses into the future and reveals to the world the renewed skyline of New York. We love the sunlight catching the edge of the sleek Tower and, for those familiar with the PATH at the WTC, the atmosphere shown in Calatrava’s transit hub leaves us anxiously awaiting its completion. Take a look at the images and let us know which is your favorite.

View more illustrations after the break.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, as well as widely acclaimed Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, Zaha Hadid of the United Kingdom, will join the jury that selects Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureates, it was announced today by Thomas J. Pritzker, Chairman of The Hyatt Foundation which sponsors the prize.

In addition to his distinguished career in the law, Justice Breyer has a long history of interest in art and architecture, having authored the foreword to a book titled, “Celebrating The Courthouse: A Guide For Architects, Their Clients, And The Public” in 2006. Further, in 2009, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies honored him with the first Leonore and Walter H. Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts at a ceremony where the chairman of the foundation, Jo Carole Lauder, said, “His passion for ensuring that federal buildings — where our country’s democratic principles are upheld — represent modern day thinking and culture is truly admirable. Since the birth of our nation, America’s ever changing democracy has been captured through art and architecture and, thanks to Justice Breyer, this legacy will continue.”

Hadid, who received the Pritzker Prize in 2004, has since become one of the world’s busiest architects with projects in numerous countries, including the United States, China, Germany, Spain and Italy. The distinguished architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, who at the time was a Pritzker juror, said: “Zaha Hadid is one of the most gifted practitioners of the art of architecture today.”

More after the break.

Our sponsor GRAPHISOFT recently launched their new mobile device, called GRAPHISOFT BIMx™, which is their latest innovation for the iPad/iPhone. The development makes BIMx an interactive environment with game-like navigation, available to anyone, even those that do not hold a license of the professional authoring software in which the building model was originally created.

BIMx models can be viewed on the iPad/iPhone through a purpose-built app directly linked to the BIMx community for “social” model sharing on Facebook.

More information on their innovative product after the break.

USA Today has put together a list of city neighborhoods which are satiated with activity, areas which offer a “great slice of urban life.” These districts trend from the urban vicinity to its very core, each in itself exemplifying the revitalization of the American city. The list includes regions which have been influenced by deliberate urban revitalization projects, such as High Line Park in Chelsea; while other neighborhoods have experienced an influx of a younger populace which has contributed to its growth, such as Lawrenceville in Pittsburgh.

See the 10 Up and Coming Urban Neighborhoods after the break.

Ten years since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the National September 11 Memorial was dedicated in a private ceremony with the victims’ families. It was officially opened to the public as of today, September 12th. The opening of the 9/11 Memorial is a first step towards the closing of a long chapter of construction at the World Trade Center site.

On August 22, 2011 a live map that charts members of interior design, architecture, and related consultants on Twitter was released into the wild. In only three days it had already surpassed 8000 views, and added 120 professionals to the map.