© Herreros Arquitectos

Herreros Arquitectos in collaboration with Daniel Bermudez, were recently awarded the design of the Centro Internacional de Convencions de Bogota. Beating some of the world’s most prestigious architects, Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield, Rem Koolhaas, Diller & Scofidio, Snøhetta, and Dominique Perrault, the winning design is defined as an urban experience, in which its inhabitants and strangers will come together to share their common interest in knowledge, innovation and the strength of civil society. Aspiring to obtain the Gold-status LEED certificate the new 70,000 sqm Centro Internacional de Convencions de Bogota will be the maximum exponent of Colombia’s ability to apply state-of-the-art technology as well as of the country’s commitment to the environment

An exhibition devoted to Herreros Architectos’ recent work is currently on display at the ROM for Kunst og Arkitektur Gallery in Oslo.

More renderings of the winning design following the break.

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The Amman Lab Workshop is an intensive three week exploration of emergent issues concerning contemporary public space in the Middle East. With the city of Amman serving as an active testing ground, students and faculty from universities throughout the region collaborate to expand their understanding of design issues through research, experimentation, discussion and feedback.

The 2010 session of the workshop focuses on Comfort. As a precondition of public space, Comfort is necessary to provide an environment in which assembly and exchange may occur. With physical, virtual, sensorial and emotional attributes, Comfort can be expressed through different mediums and at varying scales. It is delicate, elusive, and necessary.

The workshop ends with an exhibition of the students’ final work at the Nabad Art Gallery and we want to invite you visit it and check what the students are developing these days.

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When is was a kid, the futuristic alternative world featured in Tron blew my mind.

So, I was very excited to hear about Trong Legacy, a remake of the film. With details such as Jeff Bridges coming back (he starred in the 1982 version) and a soundtrack by Daft Punk (who also star as “MP3″s on the movie), I knew this sequel would be up to the level set by the original.

And thanks to  Cliff Kuang’s article at Fast Company “Why Tron Legacy Will be Awesome: the Director’s an Architect”, I noticed that the guy behind this awesome movie is an architect graduated from Columbia: Joseph Kosinski. And the fact about his school is not casual, as he states on the video:

I decided that architecture would be the kind of ultimate combination of the creative interests I had and the technical interests I had, so… Columbia was one of the first institutions that was giving architecture students the tools that automotive designers and visual effects facilities down in Los Angeles were using in feature films…

And Jeff Bridges explains further:

It’s interesting different filmmakers where they come from and what they bring to the film and [Kosinski's] an architect and so the film has a very, you know, heightened design feel to it. And he hired this wonderful production designer, Darren Gilford. And he is out of car design so it adds another thing. It’s not somebody, you know, who is an interior decorator.

I have the feeling that the movie won’t disappoint Tron fans, and will be something worth watching from an architecture point of view.

Read Cliff Kuang’s article at Fast Company.

Emblematic figure of French architecture, Dominique Perrault gained international recognition after having won the competition for the National French library in 1989 at the age of 36. This project marked the starting point of many other public and private commissions abroad, such as the Velodrome and Olympic Swimming Pool of Berlin in 1992, the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg in 1996, the Olympic Tennis Center in Madrid in 2002, the campus of EWHA Womans University in Seoul.

Since 2009, Dominique Perrault is working on the development of the Thermal Baths in San Pellegrino, the New City Center in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, the new FFS train station district in Locarno, Switzerland, the Grand Theatre in Albi and the Dobrée Museum in Nantes, France.

Dominique Perrault has been appointed by the French President to curate the French Pavilion for the 12th Venice Architecture Bienniale.

Lecture will take place this Friday, February 26 at 6:30pm at the Avery Hall, Wood Auditorium, Columbia GSAPP.

A few months ago we interviewed Mark Wigley, Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

In 2005, Wigley founded Volume Magazine together with Rem Koolhaas and Ole Bouman, one of the most interesting architecture magazines addressing current society and cultural affairs.

So far, is one of the most passionate deans I´ve known when it comes to students, empowering them to go always further, which has resulted on a very innovative architecture school.

MArch from Columbia University sent us this interesting information. They are organizing an open international design ideas competition called Imagining Recovery, which is hosted with support from C-LAB and in collaboration with the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.

The competition asks designers to imagine what recovery can look like, acting to supplement the maps, charts and graphs of Recovery.gov with images of lived experience. Participants are asked to support this image with specific design of any type or scale.

The competition coincides with the first 100 days of the Obama presidency, and pairs design participants with students of the Global Public Policy Network to participate in a 10 day online forum to collectively write the brief, advocating a model of designers participating in the initial imaginings of recovery.

Submissions are due on April 29, 2009, Day 100 of the Obama presidency. The jury will address the public and issue awards on May 13, 2009, Day 114.

For more information, go to Imagining Recovery official website.

While in New York a few months ago, we interviewed several architects with a set of standard and specific questions, gathering different opinions on current state of practice in contemporary society.

This issues are also being addressed by the C-Lab, the Columbia Laboratory for Architectural Broadcasting, an experimental research unit devoted to the development of new forms of communication in architecture, set up as a semi-autonomous think and action tank at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University, and important collaborators on Volume Magazine.

So when we interviewed C-Lab´s director Jeffrey Inaba and Benedict Clouette, it was a great conversation since we shared some concerns about architecture and society.

I hope you guys enjoy watching this interview as much as we did doing it.

More interviews coming soon.

p.s.: We also reviewed Volume #16.