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.
https://www.archdaily.com/177512/update-covington-farmers-market-designbuildlabChristopher Henry
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.
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” ?
https://www.archdaily.com/178277/definition-of-architectureJody Brown
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.
A metallic Los Angeles dawn. The streets are dry [Unlike film shoots where they spray them down for that surreal reflective quality. Or maybe that was only in the eighties and nineties when they did this, but he thinks the history of the street location wet-down must have started much earlier, peaking at the height of the drought specter--but there is perpetual drought here. When the citizens of the realm were asked to let their lawns die and bathe quickly the preponderance of wet streets on film increased dramatically. He's almost positive of this. At which point it also becomes a sort of trope for car ads. A study of aforementioned car ads will reveal that 65% were shot in various abandoned and decrepit late-night downtown post-industrial locations. A significant subset of these were staged with moistened blacktop. He’s not certain what the ads were trying to insinuate. The figure driving was always opaqued behind dark windows and the cars were always speeding through the empty streets, though much of that could have just been CGI.] but his windscreen is still streaking with the dew that started out on his car at his point of departure. He thinks it’s really too early to be down here.
For our 8th selection of previously featured retail projects we have five great buildings from Europe, all published in 2009. Check them all after the break.
Esseker Center / Produkcija 004 In 2002 we won an urban architectural competition for one of the rare not built plots in the historical center of Osijek. Urban part has to give a solution that will connect the main city square and the promenade along Drava River. The building has to put together: public garage, shopping center, offices and the housing on one side and to fit into the existing urban tissue on the other side (read more…)
“So no, I don’t accept that the future is over-sold : it’s productised an as a result it’s over constrained by our current ways of thinking and immediate practices …”
Have you ever wondered how a single cell can finally transform in a complex organism? And how the survival of this organism depends on the key relations set with its species and the environment. The same questions could be applied when talking about our cities. If we see humankind as the top of evolution, the obvious consequence is to see nature as a resource to achieve all of our goals. The adoption of “Sustainable Development” concept is just another way to name the same behaviour adding a green make-up.
But what if we perceive humankind and its manifestations as part of nature? In this case, natural and technological systems should coexist, and their survival depends on reaching an equilibrium in their exchanges of matter and energy. Some forward thinkers have been spreading this message. Now we can found compiled some of them in the new issue of KERB magazine: Paradigms of Nature. Post Natural Futures.
Within the location from which the project for the sick childcare home is designed, considering the delicate topic, the basic concept of AVP_arhitekti‘s design is site. All other concepts (space, building, construction, physical production, form design) are subject to that basic concept and are obliged to support it. Attention is directed to the welfare of children. Spaces, materials, and organizational schemes are designed to support the general atmosphere of tranquility, security, comfort, safe internal communication, linked external and internal spaces and intimate courtyards.
The project thus possesses a modest significance of the preferred construction system, unusual geometry and coerced approach to plot which at the end are those (heavy, external) factors on which the concept is tested and detailed to a mathematical precision. More images and project description after the break.
The AIA just reported September’s Architecture Billings Index measuring 46.9, a sharp drop since August’s 51.4. Such a low index reflects a decrease in demand for design services, and the new projects inquiry index was 54.3, down from a reading of 56.9 the previous month. “It appears that the positive conditions seen last month were more of an aberration,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “The economy is weak enough at present that design activity is bouncing around more than usual; one strong month can be followed by a weak one. The economy needs to be stronger to generate sustained growth in design activity.” Regional averages place the Midwest first with as score of 51.0, with the Northeast following at 50.8, South at 47.3 and West at 46.7. As we’ve been seeing, the commercial/industrial sector is leading with 52.4.
Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO – IL), the architectural practice of Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu in New York, was awarded the first prize in an open call by the Flemish Government Architect to design an 500 m2 community center for a small village in Flemish-speaking Belgium. Out of 5 designs, SO – IL’s solution was considered the most appropriate. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Melbourne-based architectural practice Lyons has brought together a panel of leading architects and designers to discuss the central theme of this year’s Melbourne Architecture Annual, What makes a home?
The panel discussion, “Talking Homes”, will take place at Lyons’ Bourke Street office on October 25th from 5-6pm and will feature; Jill Garner, Victoria’s Associate Government Architect; Dr Karen Burns, from the Faculty of Art and Design at Monash University; and Rachael Nolan, of the award winning Melbourne architectural practice Kennedy Nolan. More information on the event after the break.
Our projects from the archives this week include a 15 meter cantilevered vernacular house, a bamboo sustainable campus, and two projects – a house and a cultural center – that both utilize perforated metal as an exterior facade. We couldn’t help but include the hundred foot house, a gallery with a rain skin of natural cedar, a guest house that was assembled in just one day, and a museum and house that both incorporate polycarbonate as a main material in the design. Featured after the break are these projects and their highlights along with a link to their original project feature on ArchDaily.
Bystrup’s innovative T-Pylon design has been unanimously agreed by the judging panel as the winner of the Pylon Design competition run by the Department of Energy & Climate Change, National Grid, and the Royal Institute of British Architects.
