We’ve been taking you through the two week installations at the BOFFO Building Fashion event, and this week marks the third installation by Patrik Ervell + Graham Hudson. It is quite remarkable to see the transformation that takes place at 57 Walker Street every few days (remember how last time, the fashion and architecture pair Irene Neuwirth + Marc Fornes / TheVeryMany resulted in a crazy atmosphere of organic metallic forms dancing across the room?). Now, visitors will experience a space with crumbling walls, rubble, scaffold and re-bar designed by Hudson in response to the Ervell’s design brand of innovative materials and unconventional application throughout his collections. “Overall, the environment that has been created where destruction —the decay and the beautiful—are transformed into art and design, both literally and figuratively,” explained BOFFO.

More about the designers and the installation after the break.

As the winning entry for a competition to design an arts and cultural square at Lake Sanyon in Daqing, China, the project by Chi Wai Chan examines the relationships between the elements of the water, the sky and the earth. A waterfront promenade that ensues the formal attributes and fluidity of the water, a 1,394 m long canopy with LED display that transpires the form of the clouds and a ground condition of self-similar marine lifeform that establishes the view corridors to the lake; these three design elements serve as the organizing apparatus for the design of the square. More images and project description after the break.

Between 1989 and 2003, Liberia was ravaged by two civil wars. The fighting killed 300,000 – young and old alike. Currently, Liberia is 162nd in the Human Development Index and is still recovering from the devastation. The Bamboo School Project in Fendell on the outskirts of Monorovia, Liberia, led by Brazilian architect André Dal’Bó da Costa and film maker Vinícius Zanotti, seeks to establish one of the most important social and architectural programs for future development: education.

Follow us after the break for more.

We are sharing with you an interview of british architect Jonathan Sergison of Sergison Bates architects conducted by Hugo Oliveir, as seen in Jornal Arquitectos. Sergison, prior to the founding of his firm in 1996 with partner Stephen Bates, gained professional experience working for David Chipperfield and Tony Fretton. Currently he serves as a Professor of Architectural Design at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland.

The complete interview following the break.

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Spillman Farmer Architects’ proposal for the Dickinson College Kline Sports Facility takes advantage of the existing features, while striving to introduce more transparency and connectivity as well as making the building’s sustainability evident. The new three-level addition transforms the Kline Center into a dynamic campus gateway, a marquee building with bold daytime and nighttime presence. The addition is placed along the eastern side of the existing building, reaching east to Cherry Street and south to High Street and integrated with the existing topography. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The design for the fire station in Porto Santo, Madeira, Portugal by Luis Banazol arises from the dialectic of reflection, at the same time simple and strong, between the artificiality of the urban and the organic naturalness. As a concept of development, we tried to integrate the building with the involving, creating an element in sober, contemporary yet functional and appropriate to their function. More image and architects’ description after the break.

The project proposal for the first CTBUH international student design competition by Ajmona Hoxha, Elis Vathi, Klodiana Millona aims to redefine the gap created between the two extreme social classes of India as the widening income gap between the rich and the poor over the years has raised fears of a social backlash. Since it is highly noticed that the difference between the rich and the poor is displayed not only in the social life but at a major grade on the physical environment, there is a need for redirecting social organization by creating a new environment. Displacement of the concentrated power of the narrow rich circles to wider masses would be achieved by strong physical means. More images and project description after the break.

The recreational family houses near Bratislava, designed by Chybik + Kristof Associated Architects, offer a possibility of permanent settlement. The project aims to create a residential area of high quality with direct contact with water surface. Furthermore, a considerable number of houses are located in the area of an ancient riparian forest in the riverbed of the Danube. The project’s main motto is to set up a space for a life in contact with nature, a life with a link to the original fauna and flora. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The 3-1 Zone of Government Building in Sejong City is a symbolic gate of the central administration town. The Urban Gate, where nature and citizen are together, and the Urban Plaza, which anybody can freely use, are planned for here. It is designed as a comfortable and cozy resting place shaped after nature. It will be used for various events including festivals and various culture and art activities. In terms of urban scale, the linear shape of existing master plan had been maintained.

Vallo Sadovsky Architects recently sent us their latest book, Urban Interventions. We have featured one of Vallo Sadovsky Architects’ projects before, BA_LIK. That project gets to the heart of what this book is about. Small urban interventions can completely transform and revive a space and city. This book is filled with writings and examples that expand on that idea. “The proposals in these pages are, with few exceptions, practical solutions to real urban problems, most of them having to do with the creation of place or connecting disparate places together, by shifting the perception of the value of a piece of open space or mending a neighborhood from the effects of a multilane freeway. Some of the most inspiring are also the most modest, replacing lost trees with potted plants that provide seating for rest or perhaps a conversation with a neighbor,” writes John Peterson.

Take a look inside after the break.

An increasing trend towards sustainable construction within the building industry has resulted in a steady stream of “green” products into the marketplace. It is not uncommon to see products labeled with numerous claims that are certified by previously unheard of governing bodies. Industry leaders recently gathered in Toronto at Greenbuild to focus on avenues to increase the transparency of such claims made in the marketplace, and develop an integrated information source to reduce confusion and increase reliability.

From December 2nd to February 19th, Flight Assembled Architecture, the first installation to be built by flying machines, will be conceived as an architectural structure at a scale of a 600 m high “vertical village”, the installation addresses radical new ways of thinking and materializing architecture as a physical process of dynamic formation. The exhibition is put on in Orleans, France at the Frac Center by Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D’Andrea in collaboration with ETH Zurich. More information on the event after the break.

For those of you that enjoyed our post on the Covington Farmers Market you might enjoy visiting an exhibition that features Jeff Goldberg’s images and the students’ bass wood models of the project at The Virginia Center for Architecture in Richmond, Virginia. The exhibition, ”Design 2011: A Retrospective of Winning Work”, will be held from October 20, 2011 – January 8, 2012.

Additionally, design/buildLAB has been invited to give a lecture to coincide with the exhibit. The lecture, ”Teaching Practice”, will be held at the Richmond Convention Center on Thursday November 3rd from 10:45-12:15. For more information visit: http://www.virginiaarchitecture.org/ae_index.html

More images of the project after the break.

CAAT Studio shared with us their design for a media complex located in the main cultural zone of Tehran. Their goal is to show that the human itself, acts as a media in the project. During the day, the presence of humans can make the project alive by moving towards different parts of it such as amphitheatre on the roof and other spaces. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The headquarters of the Verbund AG is a block perimeter development built around a central courtyard in Vienna’s first district. It was erected between 1952 and 1954 to designs by Carl Appel and is bordered on three sides by public streets or squares. The street facade extends from the square known as Am Hof along Heidenschuss towards Freyung and into Tiefer Graben. The block perimeter development is made up of two volumes, one facing onto Am Hof and the other towards Freyung. In formal terms the building refers back to the architecture of the interwar period. On the other hand the economical use of design and decorative elements, for example the window reveals of real stone, is characteristic of the post-war era. As this facade design had reached the end of its useful life, an invited competition was set up for the redesign of these areas. This competition was won by SOLID Architecture. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Holcim Awards Gold 2011 for North America and USD 100,000 was awarded to the Arctic Food Network (AFN) regional food-gathering nodes and logistics infrastructure for the scattered Inuit communities in Northern Canada. The project by Lateral Office / InfraNet Lab based in Toronto and Princeton, New Jersey, enables a better distribution of local foods, serves as a series of bases for the reinforcement of traditional hunting, and also establishes new foundations for a sustainable, more independent economy.

Holcim Awards Silver went to a two-level zero energy certified school building design to be constructed on multiple campuses throughout Los Angeles. The project led by architects Swift Lee Office of Los Angeles uses “off-the shelf” components and modular panels to create a pre-fabricated system that features a double-layered façade for solar, acoustic, and environmental control and achieves a climate-responsive solution for each site.

Holcim Awards Bronze was presented to Julie Snow Architects of Minneapolis, for a border control station on the US frontier to Canada at Van Buren, Maine. The approach meets a range of stringent regulations for safety, operation and durability, sets zero net energy and water saving targets, and yet is a highly aesthetic structure marking the national frontier.

You can see more info and images on the winners after the break. For a complete list of the winners including the acknowlodgement prizes and “next generation” prizes please click here.

Architects: Pedro Varela & Renata Pinho Location: Porto, Portugal Project Year: 2011 Photographs: José Campos

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SCI-Arc‘s introduction of the Robot House (spring 2011) – a multifunctional robotics lab that enables the exploration of advanced fabrication techniques, manipulation of high tech materials, and numerous methods for simulation – has brought about a new and intriguing component to the school. Designed by faculty members Peter Testa and Devyn Weiser, its primary goal is the advancement of next generation platforms for the experimentation and future speculation of architecture.

Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future by Matt Hern is a collection of ten essays about the future of city-living – or living in general – with very specific examples derived from his city of residence, Vancouver, and its relationship to the numerous cities he has visited. Hern addresses the successes and pitfalls of Vancouver, a relatively young city, through the critical lens of ten cities each of which is the point of departure for the essay.

Each city gives Hern insight into the structure of cities in the future with references to how Vancouver is dealing with its own development: its history, its urban identity, its division of public spaces, the privatization of the natural environment, its density and the activities that it wishes to foster for its inhabitants.

Come back after the break for more on this collection of essays.

I can’t believe I’ve written this blog for over a year and never bothered to define Architecture. A glaring ommission to be sure. Perhaps I could get some help on this one? What’s a good definition of “Architecture” ?

Architecture is often considered a social art of function adjustment that seeks an implicit idea of permanence and formal consistency. This usually results in a demand for a creation that sustains the progress of time in an attitude of survival and maturation. However, on this intervention by architecture firms FREE and OODA, the building’s integration and urban landscape was based on the awareness of the direct relationship that the site has with works by internationally renowned architects (SANAA and Alcino Soutinho) and in compliance with the heterogeneity of the surrounding urban fabric. Thus, the building assumes its identity but deliberately quiet and in continuity with the pre-existence. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The plan CHAINREACTION created by a multi-disciplinary team led by Joep van der Veen and Tom Bokkers recently won the bi-annual Ymere Nai prize. CHAINREACTION gives an answer to how the city of Haarlem can develop itself as an essential part of the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam and carefully delineates East Haarlem’s (Haarlem-Oost) role in this scenario. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The “Urban Interventions” civic association, in collaboration with the Vallo Sadovský Architects studio, have prepared an instant urban intervention under a bridge. The situation in regard to quality of the environment at the bus terminal under the New Bridge in Bratislava has been bad for a long time. People have to wait for their bus connections in a totally unsuitable area, and we consider it a disgrace that the city of Bratislava leaves its citizens and tax-payers to function in such an inadequate environment. More images and architects’ description after the break.

NAUTA Architecture & Research, in collaboration with P.B.A. Architectural Design Ltd. shared with us their design for the Yunlong Digital and Technology Park. Sustainability in a fast urbanization calls for simplicity, sobriety, pragmatism and elegance. The most efficient way to emerge in a screaming parade is silence. The design for the business park provides R&D offices and facilities for innovation industry, which focuses on mid-high level of the market. More images and architects’ description after the break.