Located in the Tongzhou district of Beijing, Urban Creek is an attempt at having architecture merge within various spheres of public space. Designed by ATOL Architects, the project is focuses around the idea that architecture should be conceived as a cultural connective tissue that creates opportunities to link spaces and neighborhoods together. In redefining the very notion of mixed-use from a free standing commercial box/podium/tower typology, this design aims at creating an ever evolving city center to reconnect with its secret past. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The project “Living in the City in the City” by the team composed by Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi(architecture), Margherita Del Grosso(architecture), Openfabric(landscape), Marco Manzitti(urban marketing), Buro Happold(energy and environmental strategies), D’Appolonia(infrastructures), andDoro Dietz (visualization) recenlty won the international design competition organized by the Municipality of Genoa for the enhancement of Via XX Settembre. The idea of the project promotes a strong sense of self-identification by the Genoese, recovering the essential meaning of living seen as taking care of their city. More images and architects’ description after the break.
We recently shared six conceptual visions for the transformation of Los Angeles’ Union Station. Upon the release of the vision boards, the team’s proposals (EE&K, a Perkins Eastman Company, in association with UNStudio; IBI Group with Foster+Partners; Grimshaw with Gruen; Moore Ruble Yudell Architects and Planners, with Ten Arquitectos and West 8; NBBJ with Ingenhoven Architects; and Renzo Piano Building Workshop with Parsons Transportation Group Inc.) sparked much public interest. As we reported earlier, the Metro staff will recommend a winner to the Metro board on June 28th, but in the meantime, we’d like to share a closer look at some of the proposals.
UNStudio’s proposal with EE&K imagines Union Station as a multi-modal transit hub filled with mixed use development and outdoor spaces. The conceptual vision board explores possibilities for the station and its surrounding areas, highlighting a key integration of transportation and outdoor park spaces with its “green loop” strategy.
New York-based architects Weiss / Manfrediand Philadelphia-based landscape architects OLIN have been announced as winner of the National Mall Design Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater in Washington, DC. Weiss / Manfredi and OLIN were one of three winning teams selected by the Trust for the National Mall to rejuvenate and transform three neglected sites on the National Mall (read our original announcement here). In the winning proposal for Sylvan Theater, Weiss / Manfredi and OLIN sculpt the ground plan and restore the existing tree canopy to create a new performance landscape that can accommodate a wide variety of events, while permeating the site with critical visitor amenities.
Continue reading for more images, video and the architects’ press release.
The new city, designed by Mekano Studio, will be a smart data city, a city driven with data, a city that can help each person to choose and decide, a City respects the human mind and gives him the option to take part in his own life as it must have to be. The data city is a city that administrates everything with a real time data, in order to evaluate and respect the time factor as well and to increase the productivity with a well organized community. More images and architects’ description after the break.
After an intense and highly publicized competition, the Trust for the National Mall has announced the three winning teams selected to redesign the neglected sites of America’s front yard. As reported by the Washington Post, Rogers Marvel Architects &Peter Walkerand Partners will redesign Constitution Gardens east of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, while Weiss/Manfredi&OLIN will bring new life to the Sylvan Theater, southeast of the Washington Monument. The Union Square will be forwarded to the Architect of the Capitol and transformed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol&Davis Brody Bond.
Continue reading for more on the winning proposals.
Metro officials have released six conceptual visions that suggest how the historic Los Angeles Union Station could be transformed by 2050. Preliminary “Vision Boards” were released in a public forum at Union Station last week, and although they are not part of the formal evaluation process, they have ignited an immense amount of public interest in the competition.
In an article posted on The Source, Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Antonio Villaraigosa described that this competition is “about preparing for the future.” As plans for the California High-Speed Rail System evolve, it is imperative that Union Station is redeveloped to meet the standards of a 21st century transportation hub.
Continue after the break to view each Vision Board provided by the six well-known practices shortlisted for the competition.
The HA Tower, designed by Frontoffice + Francois Blanciak, proposes a hybrid model for urban life that embraces the city, pulling it in the heart of the units, while still offering large open spaces that otherwise are only available on the urban fringe. Located in Higashi-Azabu, within walking distance of a cluster of rail lines, Shiba Park, and the iconic Tokyo Tower, the corner site is small, covering only 130 square meters and is constrained by a floor area ratio that limits construction to 8 floors. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Located to the north-east of Crowley, a small town in Louisiana known to be the “Rice Capital of America”, the Acadia Parish Conference Center by Trahan Architects will mediate the threshold between the urban development to the west and the agricultural fields to the east. Envisioned as an extension of the landscape, the center creates a harmonic balance between the two environments, expressing the importance of local agricultural.
Continue after the break for more on the Acadia Parish Conference Center.
With the aim of the Green Architecture competition to stimulate and collect innovative proposals on how architecture, urban design & planning, and landscape architecture could contribute to maintain and improve our biodiversity, Lijbers Architect looked at the decline of natural biodiversity from the perspective of complex human dynamics. By investigating the organized but fundamentally unpredictable behavior of human systems and its consequences for the natural environment, they find that the highly dynamic reallocation and changing of the earth’s habitat by human action falls short in providing vulnerable species of plants and animals with sufficient time to recover. More images and architects’ description after the break.
As Larry Levine and Ben Chou discuss in their NRDC blog post ”New York and Pennsylvania: Among the Best at Planning for the Inconvenient Truths of Climate Change”, we have already seen what the progress of climate change has done to the most recent weather patterns and the harm it has caused to our infrastructure. Rising temperature throws off climate balances making some areas wetter and others drier, complicating water supplies, farmland and infrastructure. In the post, they point out the specific affects on densely populated urban areas and outdated infrastructure that cannot support heavy rains and increased runoff, which inevitably ends up in our waterways: New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. While many parts of the country lack a comprehensive strategy to respond to these mounting threats, nine states have created detailed reactionary and preventative measures to deal with climate change (see the NRDC report).
However, public policies, regulations and reports are not always in sync with what people choose to construct or what actually gets built. New York’s 2012 Green Infrastructure Grant Program is promising in that respect; it is a step towards bridging that gap that exists between building purely for utility versus building to keep cities livable, functional and safe. The program focuses on storm water management, giving private enterprises the incentive to make responsible decisions that will alleviate the burden on the NYC sewer system. The grant has set aside $4 million for green infrastructure projects, which include green roofs, blue roofs, combined roofs, bioswales, permeable pavers and perforated piping. This money is open only for use on private properties and businesses, or along streets that abut privately owned properties and are located on sites that drain into a combined sewer. The full report is outlined here.
The proposal for the Kyiv Urban Wildlife Park by Katya Larina, Yevgeniya Pozigun, Irina Klixbull, and Roman Pomazan responds to what the place means for the thousands of people who cross the area which is nestled between two fast developing banks. Therefore, the design becomes a development of a decision-making instrument which is intended to guide the future development of Kyiv Islands. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The ten finalists competing in the final phase of the National Mall Design Competition are dreaming big. Proposals to restore the National Mall include flourishing lakeside gardens, contemporary cafés hovering over water, grassy new amphitheaters and underground pavilions exposed at the foot of the Washington Monument. Since the announcement of the finalists, the teams have been refining there proposals behind closed doors.
Now, the Trust for the National Mall has released the highly anticipated proposals to the public. From now until Sunday, at the Smithsonian Castle and the National Museum of American History, you can view each proposal in its entirety. If you don’t live in the D.C. area, no need to worry. Continue after the break to catch a glimpse of each submission and learn how you can help the jury decided who will revamp America’s “front yard”.
The center of Tirana is marked by a clear urban layout, but its recent growth filled up a large area around it without any order, structure, adequate services or meaningful public spaces. In this proposal by Cino Zucchi Architetti, in collaboration with One Works, Gustafson Porter, Buro Happold London, and Antonello Stella Architects, the voids rather than the buildings become the catalysts of new urban regeneration. In doing so, their design attracts public and private functions around a sequence of green spaces of high environmental quality. The extension of the boulevard into a lively green promenade progressively opens up to the beautiful landscape of the hills across the Tirana river. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The contenders: NYU and the Greenwich Village community. Let Round 2 commence.
Almost two years after we first brought you news about NYU 2031, NYU’s plans for expansion in Brooklyn, Governor’s Island, and (most controversially) in Greenwich Village, and the fight has not only continued, but escalated. A debate, hosted by The Municipal Art Society of New York, two nights ago brought about 200 NYU affiliates and community residents together, but only spatially; there was a considerable lack of willingness to compromise from either camp.
NYU’s plan, thought up by Toshiko Mori Architect, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, and Grimshaw Architects, has ruffled feathers mostly for the fact of its bulk. The 2.5 million square-foot development (1.1 million of which would be underground) is the largest ever proposed for the Village, and has drawn criticism for its potential to diminish light, greenery, and open space in the neighborhood.
