SANAA: The Latest Architecture and News

News from the 2012 Venice Biennale: Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima has been appointed as the first architecture mentor for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Initiative – a unique program that pairs major artists with young talents. Recognized as “one of the most important creative disciplines”, architecture has added as the seventh category in the Rolex’s global philanthropy program, which already includes literature, music, visual arts, dance, film and theatre.

Kazuyo Sejima is expected to announce her protégé in the Fall. She and the young architect will collaborate for a year on the international project Home For All, which she established with other leading Japanese architects – Toyo Ito, Riken Yamamoto, Hiroshi Naito and Kengo Kuma – in response to the 2011 housing crisis caused by Japan’s devastating tsunami.

The idea will be to design community meeting spaces for people who are living in emergency accommodation. Continue after the break to learn more.

A mix of twenty local and internationally renowned firms have been invited to participate in a design competition seeking “creative and practical design concepts” on thirteen acres of prime waterfront real estate at the historic Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. Although mostly comprised of parking lots and former military buildings, the site attracts nearly one million annual visitors with its stellar views, cultural events, historic background and well-respected restaurant.

Depending on who accepts the challenge, local firms may compete with big names such as James Corner Field Operations, SANAA, Studio Gang Architects and BIG.

Continue reading after the break for more.

Sana’a, Yemen is at risk of being the first capital city in the World to run out of renewable, reliable and clean water supplies. With seasonal rain, expensive bottled water and polluted reservoirs, the residents of Sana’a are constantly faced with waterborne diseases and severe drought hazards.

In celebration of World Water Day, we would like to catch you up with the progress Sabrina Faber who was selected as winner of the 2010/2011 Philips Livable Cities Award – a global initiative designed to generate innovative, meaningful and achievable ideas to improve the health and well-being of city-dwellers across the world. Although the project went on hold due to political unrest, The Rainwater Aggregations (RAINS) Project was still able to complete three sites just in time for World Water Day. Continue reading for more.

This article, recently seen on The New York Times, was kindly shared with us by the author Sarah Williams Goldhagen.

A REVOLUTION in cognitive neuroscience is changing the kinds of experiments that scientists conduct, the kinds of questions economists ask and, increasingly, the ways that architects, landscape architects and urban designers shape our built environment.

This revolution reveals that thought is less transparent to the thinker than it appears and that the mind is less rational than we believe and more associative than we know. Many of the associations we make emerge from the fact that we live inside bodies, in a concrete world, and we tend to think in metaphors grounded in that embodiment.

Johann Watzke, Anne-Fanny Cotting & Aurélie Mindel of EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Switzerland shared with us their photographic project on the Rolex Learning Center from SANAA which is the campus hub and state-of-the-art library. More images and a brief description after the break.

2010 Pritzker Prize winning SANAA has released renderings to convert La Samaritaine department store in Paris into a mixed-use development. Commissioned by LVMH (client/developer) the architectural concept for the project expresses above all the ambition to restore the La Samaritaine, recognizing the significance of the building and the role the restoration will play in the revitalization of the neighborhood as a whole. The project is schedule to begin July of next year.

Pritzker Prize winning architect Peter Zumthor’s design for the 11th Serpentine Gallery Pavilion was revealed today. A design that ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again – maybe not’, the materials are significant in aiding the design which emphasizes the role the senses and emotions play in our experience of architecture. The Pavilion will be Zumthor’s first completed building in the UK

Zumthor shared that ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’

Stay tuned to ArchDaily for more images and news on Zumthor’s design for the Pavilion. Our previous coverage of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion can be found here, including Jean Nouvel’s Serpentine Gallery of 2010, and SANAA’s 2009 Serpentine Gallery.

If you are a regular ArchDaily reader you know that we have been providing ongoing coverage of Eli Broad’s Broad Museum in Los Angeles. Nearly 120,000 sqf and $130 million dollars, invitations were given to six top architects to submit designs for the new museum. Rem Koolhaas, Herzog and de Meuron, Christian de Portzamparc, Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Foreign Office Architects competed and in August we informed you that Diller Scofidio + Renfro garnered the commission.

Today, the design for the Broad Museum has been released. Situated adjacent to Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall and Arata Isozaki’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the museum has become a key part of the Grand Avenue redevelopment project that has been losing steam.

ArchDaily had the privilege of attending the Pritzker Prize ceremony last night on historic Ellis Island as Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa were honored. Regarded as the highest honor bestowed upon an architect, the Pritzker Prize’s newest laureates were continually praised throughout the evening for their keen ability to teach us that what is not present can be as important as what is present.

As past laureates, such as Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Richard Meier, Jean Nouvel, and Rafael Moneo looked on, Lord Palumbo, chairman of the jury, discussed Sejima’s and Nishizawa’s work style; an intensively collaborative design process which is so balanced between the two minds that it is impossible to say which one of the pair is responsible for which architectural decision within a given project.

Although the two share similar philosophies when it comes to light, form and space, their differences create “all the possibilities”. Sejima explained that within SANAA, there are actually three firms: each has his/her own individual practice, yet come together to discuss and critique their work under the international firm SANAA. While some criticize this process as inefficient and confusing, Sejima replied, with a laugh, that the organization is simply how they like to work.

Architects: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA Client: Zollverein School Location: Essen, Germany Construction start: March 2005 Completed: July 2006 Project architect: Nicole Berganski Associate architects: Böll & Krabel Built area: 5.000sqm Masterplan: Rem Koolhaas, OMA Landscape: Agence Ter Photos: Iwan Baan

The Rolex Learning Center at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland will open its doors on Feb 22th.

The building, designed by the acclaimed Japanese firm SANAA, features one of the most impressive concrete surfaces I have ever seen, creating a fluid space for students to enjoy. Interesting comments by Ryue Nishizawa on the relation between organic forms in architecture and human life. While the building is a perfect rectangle when seen in a plan view, the curves and slopes which define the interior space give the building a totally organic look.

More photos after the break.