The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) has announced 19 semifinalists for the 2016 Fuller Challenge. Now in its ninth annual cycle, The Fuller Challenge seeks proposals to address challenges using holistic approaches and problem solving.
Teams of individuals and groups were judged by the Challenge Review Committee, which looked for projects that are visionary, comprehensive, anticipatory, ecologically responsible, feasible, and verifiable.
The 2016 Fuller Challenge Semifinalists are:
Architecture and Urban Planning firm group8asia has won third prize in the Seoul Metropolitan Government competition for the design of Nodeul Island with its sustainable project Seoul Green Dot.
Nodeul Dream Island leads with the idea of Neverland in mind, and is designed as “a utopia where nature and serenity are abundant.” Here, it is hoped that environmental economy, and socially sustainable practices can be utilized to create a space to transform the dense urban fabric.
Bernabe Labanc Architecture Urbanism (BLAU) has received fourth place out of 58 entries in the international urban planning competition for The Future of Brno-Center, in Brno, Czech Republic.
The competition sought out designs to integrate a transport hub into the cityscape of Brno, as well as integrate a design for the undeveloped southern area of the city.
New York’s H Architecture, in collaboration with South-Korea-based Haeahn Architecture, has won a nation-wide competition, organized by the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, to design the renovation of the 1988 Olympic Gymnastics Arena, which is located within the Olympic Park in Seoul, Korea.
The arena not only holds historic significance with its role in the 1988 Olympics but is also “the premiere cultural performance venue of Korea,” with its location inside one of the largest man-made public parks in Korea.
Architecture competition organizers Bee Breeders have announced the winners of the London Internet Museum competition. This speculative project challenged architects to design a museum for “something historically profound and typologically unprecedented — the internet.” Given a site at the former Great Eastern Railway terminal station building, designers were tasked with creating a location that would “connect visitors to both the history of the internet and open them to the possibilities of the future.” Submissions took a wide variety of approaches, and prizes were awarded to projects that rejected the typical associations and precedents that the internet calls to mind.
Continue reading to see the winning entries with brief descriptions.
The American Institute of Architects has launched the second annual I Look Up Film Challenge, which invites architects to produce short documentaries about the impact of architecture. The 2016 Challenge kicked off with a short film on Auburn University’s design-build program known as Rural Studio. The documentary shows how the small town of Newbern, Alabama has been impacted through the program’s design and construction of a new library and fire station. Through a series of short interviews, the film shows the team's design process from early schematic design discussions through the end of construction.
Anna Puigjaner has been selected from nearly 200 applications as the winner of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design 2016 Wheelwright Prize. The $100,000 travel grant was awarded for her proposal, Kitchenless City: Architectural Systems for Social Welfare, for which she will study “exemplars of collective housing in Russia, Brazil, Sweden, China, Korea, and India, which reflect a variety of approaches to organizing and distributing domestic spaces.” Puigjaner notes that this typology is "deeply understood as a tool for social transformations," and through her investigation, she hopes to apply new thinking to the housing dilemmas of today. The prize will fund her travel and research over the next two years.
Arch Out Loud has announced the winners of their New York City Aquarium and Public Waterfront Competition, which invited students and professionals alike to design "an intertwined public aquarium and park" on an underutilized riverfront property located on the East River in Queens. Participants were asked to “redefine the aquarium typology, examining its relationship to the urban context and the public domain.”
The call for submissions was answered by 556 participants and 178 proposals from forty counties, and included ideas that pushed the physical boundaries of the site and responded to the idea of redefining the typical aquarium typology.
Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has announced a new project in Moscow, winning a competition to design the Sberbank Technopark at the Skolkovo Innovation Centre. This is the firm’s first announcement of new work since the untimely death of Zaha Hadid late last month. As the market leader of the Russian banking and economic circulatory system since 1841, Sberbank’s new 131,000 square meter facility will accommodate 10,000 to 12,000 workers in the sectors of marketing and information technology.
Qatar Museums has announced a shortlist of eight finalists that will move on to the third and final stage of the Art Mill International Design Competition in Doha. On a site extending into the Arabian Sea that was only recently occupied by Qatar Flour Mills, Art Mill will integrate gallery and exhibition space with facilities for education, events, conservation, art handling, and research. Joining the Museum of Islamic Art designed by I.M. Pei, and the still under-construction National Museum of Qatar, designed by Jean Nouvel, in the words of the competition brief, “Art Mill will and extend and intensify the cultural quarter being developed in Doha.”
Hou de Sousa (Nancy Hou and Josh de Sousa) have recently won two competitions for temporary installations in Washington DC and New York, both using salvaged materials. The first, Raise/Raze, is the winning proposal for DC’s Dupont Underground, an abandoned trolley station repurposed as a contemporary arts and culture space. The project reuses the balls from Snarkitecture’s “The Beach” installation at the National Building Museum for a new environment-generating initiative, which opens on April 30.
As winners of the 2016 Folly Competition held by the Architectural League of New York, Hou de Sousa will also soon build a pavilion in Socrates Sculpture Park, in Queens. A simple wooden canopy, the structure is a multi-purpose space made of standard dimensional lumber, but has been accentuated with shingles of scrap wood found on-site. Known as Sticks, the pavilion will open to the public on July 9.
The Association for the Promotion and Exhibition of the Arts in Lebanon (APEAL) has announced a shortlist for the design of a new modern and contemporary art museum in Beirut, Lebanon. The yet to be named museum will be located in the city’s historic center on land owned by the Université Saint Joseph and directly opposite the National Museum of Beirut. A masterplan for the site includes new campus facilities for the university, a business center, and the museum, all sharing green common areas and underground parking.
Three finalists have been selected for the Tel Aviv University Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Center Design Competition.
The competition called for designs to meet scientific needs and establish an identity befitting the local context of the city of Tel Aviv and the University campus. Thus, the three finalists created a balance between technical requirements and soft program elements like office and public space, presenting proposals for a center that acts "as an effective facilitator in the dialogue between modern science, Tel Aviv University, and the general public," according to a press release.
The Museum of London has announced the six architecture teams that are shortlisted to design a new museum in West Smithfield. The international competition was organized by Malcolm Reading Consultants and has a budget of £130-150 million. The museum will help preserve and regenerate a historic part of London, relaunch the recently popular museum, and protect a series of heritage buildings.
The Danish Building & Property Agency with the Aarhus School of Architecture have announced the three winning teams of the open competition to design the NEW AARCH project. These designs include new buildings for the Aarhus School of Architecture and the development of the surrounding area in Aarhus known as Godsbanearealerne.
The team of Peter Bus, Tomas Vlasak, Vaclav Petrus, and Petr Bouril has received an honorable mention for their proposal for the Tokyo Pop Lab Competition, which recently announced its winners. The proposal, entitled "At The Crossroads of Ideas," is designed as a “three-dimensional representation of history and development of pop culture.”
Separated into three parts, one below ground, one above ground, and one in-between, the design is interconnected via cylindrical concrete towers, which act as the main structural support of the building.
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The winners of the latest Combo Competitions challenge, Prison Puzzle, have been announced. Based on the idea of utilizing architecture to reduce recidivism—the large number of criminals that relapse into crime and back behind bars—Prison Puzzle sought out proposals for the design of a medium-security prison with a capacity of 500 inmates. The design was to be sited in Arizona, in the United States, where the number of inmates per resident is high above the national average. Each design had to include elemental components like cells, exercise yards, and visiting rooms, and participants were encouraged to explore "how architecture can help in shaping environments that influence behaviors."
