And now, they won the competition for the Frederiksberg Courthouse in Denmark, an extension to a neo-classical building. The new building follows the line of the neighborhood’s architecture, reinterpreted in a contemporary style, following the horizontal lines, materials and roof.
From the public square right next to the building, the heavy volume looks lighter as the opening in the corner give a sense of cantilevering.
More images and the architect’s description after the break:
Spanish architect Jordi Badia, BAAS, shared with us a recent entry for a competition, awarded with the 1st prize.
This office has been doing a very good work lately, clean lines, pure materials… I recommend checking out the recently opened CAM Framis museum in Barcelona.
Project description and mor eimages after the break.
BIG, in collaboration with AKT, Tyréns and Transsolar, just won the competition for the World Village of Women Sports in Malmo, Sweden, a 100.000sqm complex for research, education and training of women’s sports.
Rather than a program organized around a sports arena disconnected from the city, the project becomes a town inside a town, offering rich public spaces as you can see on the renderings.
The central space of the village offers a large area for public gathering, which can host professional football matches, concerts, conferences, exhibitions and flea markets. Around this space we find a series of sloped buildings, which reduce the visual impact of the complex to the adjacent neighborhood.
Between these buildings we find a pedestrian network around the main sports hall which plugs into the surrounding street networks as well as the interior galleries of Kronprinsen, turning it into a complete ecosystem of urban life.
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.
Ninety seven projects and urban schemes have been recognized as part of this year’s International Architecture Awards program. For the 2009 Awards, the jury received a record number of entries, from firms in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas. The International Architecture Awards has “become a global event of an unprecedented scale—an important barometer for the future direction of new architectural design and thinking today—celebrating, recognizing, and highlighting the world’s foremost architectural solutions for the designs of new skyscrapers, corporate buildings, institutions, arts facilities, airports, private homes, industrial structures, and urban planning projects from London to Singapore.”
Out of the 97 projects awarded, the United States received the highest number of thirteen awards, followed by China with eight, Japan and Great Britain with each seven and Germany having six awards. The Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, Canada won four awards each. The winning projects all an innovative approach to design while providing buildings that attempt to respond to the problems of environment, social context, improving quality of life, and sustainability.
More images of the winning projects after the break.
London-based architecture firm ACMEwas awarded third prize in a recent competition to design a United Nations memorial. Initiated by the city of Chungju in South Korea, the selected memorial will rest in the city’s UN Peace Park. ACME’s proposal is comprised of a 1,500 seating assembly, two conference halls, a theater and exhibition spaces. The organization of the memorial is metaphorically modeled similarly to the United Nations, where many parts make up the whole.
Greeen! Architects have been awarded an honorable mention for their Eco Towers, an office building in Hamburg, Germany for the Building and Environment Authorities. The office will accommodate 1400 people and will include several public areas as well as green gardens to “give room to nature and a create a green ambiance to all workers and visitors.”
We are always looking forward to see the results of an awarded competition. As we feature a lot of them, we might as well do a second part of our awarded competitions Round Up. Check out the first one here!
A few months ago, we shared the University of Melbourne’s six short-listed finalists for their new Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning building (short list can be read here). Of the six finalists, the team of Melbourne-based John Wardle Architects and Boston-based Office dAhave been named the winners. Professor Tom Kvan, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, stated, “The winning design showed a detailed understanding of the teaching and research activities of the Faculty and the potential for contribution to research across the campus.”
More images and more about the winning project after the break.
BIG was recently awarded with the first prize on an open international design competition for Kazakhstan’s new National Library in Astana.
The new building has an area of 33.000 sqm, arranged as a continuous circulation on a Möbius Strip, as the result of 2 interlocking structures: the perfect circle and the public spiral. The sections (see below) clearly show how the horizontal program shifts to a vertical configuration, combining vertical hierarchy, horizontal connectivity and diagonal view lines. The skin, which changes from wall to roof as the strip develops. It sounds a bit complicated, but the sections and diagrams explain this pretty well, and you can get the idea on how the spaces and diagonal views relate on the renderings. In short words, a clear lineal organization (ideal for an archive, library) is mixed with an infinite loop.
“What is a library but an efficient archive of books… and a path for the public to reach them” (Thomas Christoffersen, Project Leader)
This shape also looks forward to become a symbol for the nation: “the circle, the rotunda, the arch and the yurt are merged into the form of a Moebius strip. The clarity of the circle, the courtyard of the rotunda, the gateway of the arch and the soft silhouette of the yurt are combined to create a new national monument appearing local and universal, contemporary and timeless, unique and archetypal at the same time” (Bjarke Ingels).
But once again, BIG diagram´s are way better to explain this than my words. See the diagrams, sections and renderings after the break:
Inhabitat and Dwell have just announced the winners of the Reburbia Design Competition. The competition, which has been running for the past 6 weeks, challenged architects, designers and concerned citizens to come up with solutions that would address the problems that plague present-day suburbia by envisioning different scenarios for the future.
Proposals tackled foreclosed McMansions, vacant big box stores, strip malls, parking lots and more with design fixes ranging from community agriculture and algae-based biofuels to zeppelin-based transit and pools transformed into water treatment plants. The competition drew over 400 entries from countries all over the world.
The Steel Structures Education Foundation organized a competition designed for students to fuse their conceptual ideas with the reality of physical structure. With the program and scale left to the discretion of the designer, the proposal had to emphasize the “essential relationship” between the exploration of form and material, with regards to surfaces, members and connections. As an academic project, students also had to use their details to communicate with the steel fabrication industry as a way to expose ”the opportunities and restraints inherent in realizing conceptual design.” “It is important for students of architecture to grasp the fact that structural design lies not just in the realm of the engineer, but can be a means for architects of arriving at a meaningful realization of architectural ideas,” explained the SSEF. The winner, student Matt Schmid from the University of Waterloo, designed a bird sanctuary in Niagara Gorge in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
A restricted competition for a new museum in the middle of one of the most iconic places in Rio de Janeiro, the Avenida Atlantica at Copacabana, has just been awarded.
The building will host the Museu da Imagen e de Som (Image and Audio Museum), that as of now is desegregated through the city in separate offices. The new building will host in one place facilities for the conservation and study of the brazilian visual heritage, along with a state-of-art museum.
Just when I was writing this post, I found that the competition was awarded to Diller Scofidio + Renfro, at a ceremony held today.
I´ve heard a lot of buzz about this competition in Twitter and Facebook from our brazilian readers, it seems to be generating a lot of debate as of now. And it´s very obvious, as the building will be erected on a very iconic avenue, at a close distance from Museum of Modern Art by Affonse Eduardo Reidy and the Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum by Brazilian master Oscar Niemeyer.
Not much to say about the winning entry by DS+R, it´s just another project along their line. But it´s not just the jury who voted unanimously for their project, they also won a reader´s poll at the main Brazilian news site O Globo.
And Libeskind… seriously?
My vote goes to Isay Weinfeld. And yours?
Images from all the projects so you can be the judge, after the break.
GAZ Arquitectoswere recently announced as the winners of the headquarters design for the Higher School of Music in Basque Country in San Sebastián, Spain. The proposal, entitled Muskiene, compiles a dense program in a relatively small site, causing the volumes to almost exceed local regulations.
More about Muskiene and more images after the break.
The Re: Vision Dallas competition named three winners, two of which we previously featured on AD (DB + P and Atelier Data + Moov). The third winner is Little, a studio based in North Carolina, with their Entangled Bank proposal. “Entangled Bank combines heavy duty technological prowess with artistic integration of systems. The building is designed as a holistic, integrated design…The Entangled Bank entry materials was incredibly impressive… Each unit type was designed, completed with suggested sale price and amount of energy consumption. A wide array of green collar job programs were provided that work with the design of the building to engage residents and educate visitors. All of the jurors were struck by the thorough and joyous submission of Entangled Bank,” explained juror Eric Corey Freed.
More about the project (including a great video) after the break.
Our friends from F451 Arquitectura, a Barcelona-based office have shared with us their design of a ferry terminal that won a competition in Spain. The terminal will be located in the Mahón Port, on the island of Menorca. More images after the break.
