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Design Museum: The Latest Architecture and News

Snøhetta Unveils Design for The Museum of Sex in Miami, USA

New York’s Museum of Sex announces its expansion to Miami in spring 2023 with a 3000-square-meters museum designed by the international studio Snøhetta. The converted warehouse will feature three extensive exhibition galleries, retail space, and a bar to preserve, present, and celebrate the cultural significance of human sexuality in one of the most vibrant and diverse arts communities in the USA. The inaugural program will include work by Hajime Sorayama and Super Funland: Journey into the Erotic Carnival, the museum’s main immersive experience.

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White Arkitekter and K2S Architects Win Competition to Design New Waterfront Cultural Destination in Helsinki

The city of Helsinki has announced White Arkitekter and K2S Architects as the winners of the competition to design a new waterfront cultural destination in the Makasiiniranta area of Helsinki’s South Harbor. The redevelopment includes the site of a New Museum of Architecture and Design. Titled ‘Saaret,’ which translates to ‘The Islands,’ the proposal aims to create a well-integrated development that brings together cultural and sustainable environments. It also promises to improve the area’s microclimate and create bio-diverse habitats by using the space available on the rooftops to add beehives, vegetable and herb gardens.

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The Design Museum in London Displays Yinka Ilori’s Vibrant Work for the First Time

PARABLES FOR HAPPINESS by the London-based British-Nigerian designer Yinka Ilori features for the first time at the Design Museum in London. Exhibited from September 25, 2022, to June 25, 2023, essential aspects of Ilori’s work will be placed beside key influences, including artworks, photographs, and furniture, to Nigerian textiles. Curated by Priya Khanchandani, the exhibition celebrates Ilori’s mix of cultural influences and unpacks the ingredients of a diasporic visual language.

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Extension Created for Design Museum Gent in Belgium

Carmody Groarke and TRANS architectuur | stedenbouw have won the Baumeister international competition to design an extension to the Design Museum Gent. Putting in place an innovative architecture, the project stands out from its historical context and encourages the city to explore new grounds.

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History Wins 2017 Design of the Year

Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup’s Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. has been selected as the winner of the Beazley Design of the Year for 2017.

Presented by the Design Museum in London, the award is given to the project that best meets the criteria of design that “promotes or delivers change, enables access, extends design practice or captures the spirit of the year.”

See more from the overall winner and each of the category winners, below.

Shenzhen Sea World Culture and Arts Center / Maki and Associates

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Shenzhen Shi, China

Adjaye, OMA and ZHA Among 13 Shortlisted for 2017 "Design of the Year"

The Design Museum in London has announced the shortlist projects in the running for the 2017 edition of their prestigious Beazley Design of the Year award. Now in its tenth year, the award was established to “celebrate design that promotes or delivers change, enables access, extends design practice or captures the spirit of the year.”

This year, a total of 62 projects have been nominated across six categories: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Graphics, Product and Transport – including 13 projects from the Architecture category. A winner from each category and the overall winner will be announced on January 25, 2018. Previous winners of the architecture category include: IKEA’s Better Shelter last year (also the overall winner), Alejandro Aravena's UC Innovation Center in 2015, and Zaha Hadid Architects’ Heydar Aliyev Center (overall winner in 2014).

See all of the architecture nominees below.

IKEA's Better Shelter Wins Design of the Year 2016

IKEA’s flat-packed refugee housing solution, the “Better Shelter,” has been announced as the winner of the Beazley Design of the Year 2016. Presented by the Design Museum in London, the award is given to the project that best meets the criteria of design that “promotes or delivers change,” “captures the spirit of the year,” “enables access,” and “work that has extended design practice.”

Selected as the winner of the Architecture category, the Better Shelter beat out winners from five other categories, including Digital, Fashion, Graphics, Product and Transport, to take home the top honor of Design of the Year.

A Look at London's New Design Museum Through the Lens of Luc Boegly & Sergio Grazia

With the opening of the new Design Museum in London, the former Commonwealth Institute building designed by RMJM in 1962 has been given a new lease of life. With an exterior renovation by OMA and Allies & Morrison, and interiors by John Pawson, last month the building reopened after a fourteen-year closure—finally offering the public a chance to experience the swooping paraboloid roof from the inside. Read on to see photographs of the Design Museum's new home by Luc Boegly & Sergio Grazia.

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Sam Jacob Studio Creates a "Soft Baroque" Backdrop to New Design Museum's Inaugural Exhibition

The inaugural show at the new London Design Museum, Fear and Love, presents a collection of "reactions to a complex world." Featuring eleven specially-commissioned installations designed by the likes of OMA/AMO, Hussein Chalayan, Andrés Jaque and Metahaven, the spatial context which frames them is the work of Sam Jacob Studio.

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View London's Newly-Opened Design Museum Through the Lens of Interior Architect John Pawson

Intimidating to design a Design Museum for designers? No, because what you're doing is working with the challenges of the existing space.

In this new video from NOWNESS, the audience is treated to a viewing of the new Design Museum in London, courtesy of its interior architect John Pawson. Part interview and part guided tour, NOWNESS uses the unorthodox technique of giving the building's designer his own camera, making parts of the video an intriguing insight into how Pawson sees his own work.

Designed in collaboration with OMA and Allies and Morrison, the project is a thorough renovation of the former Commonwealth Institute building, a 1962 structure by Robert Matthew, a founding partner of RMJM. Pawson dwells on the experience of working with their dramatic hyperbolic paraboloid roof, the materials used in the design, and the challenges of working on such a sensitive project.

Study John Pawson's Interiors of the New London Design Museum

This month London's Design Museum will officially open its new home on Kensington High Street. The project, which has been redeveloped and designed in collaboration with Rotterdam-based practice OMA and London-based studio Allies & Morrison, has seen a Grade II* Listed Modernist monument sensitively restored into contemporary galleries. For John Pawson—who has been commissioned to create "a series of calm, atmospheric spaces" ordered around a large, oak-lined atrium—this scheme marks his first major public work.

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Herzog & de Meuron, OMA, MAD Among 13 Shortlisted for “Design of the Year 2016”

The Design Museum in London has announced the shortlist of 13 architecture projects being considered for the 2016 edition of the prestigious Beazley Design of the Year award. From Tatiana Bilbao’s Sustainable Housing Prototype to MAD Architects’ Harbin Opera House, the list features projects from a wide variety of scales and programs, celebrating some of architecture’s most significant achievements from the past year.

The award, now in its ninth year, “celebrates design that promotes or delivers change, enables access, extends design practice or captures the spirit of the year.” Nominees are selected in six categories, including Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Graphics, Product and Transport. An exhibition on the projects will be on display from 24 November 2016 – 19 February 2017.

Last year, the overall architecture prize was awarded to Alejandro Aravena's UC Innovation Center for the building’s ability to be “permeable – visually, socially and climatically with its environment."

View all of the shortlisted buildings, after the break.

Design Museum Mornings: Playable Cities with Maggie Cooper

To celebrate the upcoming Extraordinary Playscapes exhibition in June, BSA Space is teaming up with co-curator Design Museum Boston for an event exploring how to make the urban environment more accessible to play. As part of the ongoing series Design Museum Mornings, this session will feature Maggie Cooper, City Initiatives manager at KaBOOM!, a nonprofit focused on bringing balanced and active play into the daily lives of all children. Join Cooper for a candid conversation as she shares how to bring communities together through initiatives like group playground builds and playability walks, especially for children growing up in poverty. Free

Justin McGuirk Appointed as Chief Curator of London's Design Museum

British writer and curator Justin McGuirk has joined London's Design Museum as their new chief curator. The former editor of Icon, design critic of The Guardian and director of Strelka Press was also named head of Design Curating & Writing at Design Academy Eindhoven earlier this year. As you may remember, McGuirk was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2012 Venice Biennale for an exhibition he curated with Urban Think Tank. He is also the author of Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture

McGuirk will be responsible for coordinating the museum's new program after its relocation to Kensington in 2016. 

Alejandro Aravena's UC Innovation Center awarded "Design of the Year" by London's Design Museum

London’s Design Museum has announced the category winners of the prestigious “Design of the Year” award. The winner of this year's Architecture Category is the Anacleto Angelini UC Innovation Center designed by Alejandro Aravena.

Nouvel, Gehry and Elemental Among 15 Shortlisted for “Design of the Year 2015”

London’s Design Museum has released 15 shortlisted projects that are being considered for the prestigious “Design of the Year” award. From Wendell Burnette’s Desert Courtyard House to Jean Nouvel’s One Central Park skyscraper, the wide-ranging list spans all scales, showcasing some of the best newly completed projects from across the globe.

The award, now in its eighth year, “celebrates design that promotes or delivers change, enables access, extends design practice or captures the spirit of the year.” 76 nominees over six categories have been selected. The jury, chaired by artist Anish Kapoor and includes architect Farshid Moussavi, will choose category winners on May 4. An overall winner will be revealed June 4.

Last year, Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Centre in Azerbaijan was the first building in the award’s history to win the overall prize.

View all the shortlisted buildings, after the break. 

Four Freedoms Park: Louis Kahn's "Ancient Temple Precinct" in NYC

Built four decades after Louis Kahn's death, New York City's Four Freedoms Park - the architect's posthumous memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt and his policies - is becoming one of the architect's most popular urban spaces. In a recent article for the Guardian, Oliver Wainwright investigates what he describes as perhaps Kahn's "best project". Wainwright's spatial description of the monument is interweaved by fragments of Kahn's personal history, building up a picture of a space with "the feel of an ancient temple precinct" and "a finely nuanced landscape". Although Gina Pollara, who ultimately realised the plans in 2005, argues that Four Freedoms Park "stands as a memorial not only to FDR and the New Deal, but to Kahn himself", can a posthumous project ever be considered as an architect's best? Read the article in full here.