Hybrid Category - Apartment #5, a Labyrinth and Repository of Spatial. Image Courtesy of World Architecture Festival
The World Architecture Festival has announced the winners of the Architecture Drawing Prize 2020. Entries were chosen in the Digital, Hand-drawn and Hybrid categories. The contest included 165 entries from 30 countries, and the 2020 competition also introduced the ‘Lockdown Prize’ focusing on the global pandemic, awarded to a drawing related to the architectural changes brought by the coronavirus.
The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France, known also as Beaubourg, is set to undergo major renovation works. Designed in the 1970s by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, and inaugurated in 1977, one of the capital’s leading cultural attractions is scheduled to be closed completely as of the end of 2023 until 2027. Showing signs of aging, especially when it comes to the heating and cooling system, escalators and elevator malfunctions, and asbestos that must be removed, this is not the inside-out museum's first revamp, in fact, it was closed down once before in 1997, during its 20th anniversary, for a couple of years.
Jennifer Luce, principal and founder of LUCE et Studio Architects has shared her vision for the Mingei International Museum renovation in San Diego. The design is featured in a video by Jeff Durkin of Breadtruck Films. The Mingei is a nonprofit that collects, conserves and exhibits folk art, craft, and design objects in Balboa Park. During the building’s centennial, a $55 million campaign began to renovate the structure.
Heatherwick Studio has shared plans for a pair of residential towers in Vancouver, Canada. The "curvaceous" skyscrapers were designed for Kingswood Properties and Bosa Properties in the city's West End neighborhood. Inspired by tree-like forms, the towers aspire to create a "new level of global design excellence" that emerges from a ground level plaza. The two towers would rise between 30 and 34 stories tall in height, and would feature views across the city and Vancouver Harbor.
2020 was a challenging year for ArchDaily and for all of us. The changes and uncertainty that emerged around the globe allowed us to double down on our mission to provide information, knowledge, and tools to architects, leveling the access to architectural knowledge and working towards a more diverse, equitable profession. This includes the importance of building a community, for which the Building of the YearAwards has always been one of our flagship community-led initiatives.
This is why for the 12th consecutive year, we are tasking our readers with the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that are making an impact in architecture and in our built environment, with ArchDaily’s 2021 Building of the YearAwards. By voting, you are part of an unbiased, distributed network of jurors and peers that has elevated the most relevant projects over the past decade. Over the next two weeks, your collective intelligence will filter over 4,500 projects down to just 15 stand-outs for the best in each category on ArchDaily.
The 2021 Building of the YearAwards is brought to you thanks to Dornbracht, renowned for leading designs for architecture, which can be found internationally in bathrooms and kitchens.
Skyler Dahan, an LA-based photographer, has captured Frank Lloyd Wright's Civic Center, in Marin County. Shot on Kodak Portra film with a Contax 645 medium format camera, the series of images highlight Frank Lloyd Wright's latest commission. Serving as a justice hall, the project was actually completed by Wright's protégé Aaron Green after the architect’s death.
Architecture practice Bey Arquitectura has shared details of the firm's Punta Cana Bey Garden project in the Dominican Republic. The 28 loft-type villas were designed to connect with the surrounding natural context and support the implementation of renewable energy. Located in the heart of Bávaro, the project is sited near shopping malls, restaurants, schools, the Punta Cana Airport and the beach.
The Nordic Pavilion at the 17th International ArchitectureExhibition of the Venice Biennale will be transformed into an experimental cohousing project by architects Helen & Hard, supported by a curatorial team from the National Museum of Norway. Responding to the theme of How will we live together? the intervention “will present a framework for designing and building communities based on participation and sharing”.
Scott Brownrigg have been appointed to design the 44 hectare masterplan for The Barony, a wellbeing and cultural visitor facility in East Ayrshire, Scotland. Made to transform the site of an ex-coal mine, the project will include 344 villas, a reception, spa and visitor center, as well as ecological sites for produce and research. Led by Board Director Neil MacOmish, the team developed the concept to embrace the site's topography.
3XN and IttenBrechbühl have been selected to design Tilia Tower, an 85-meter-tall mixed-use wooden building that includes apartments, retail, and a hotel. Located in Lausanne, Switzerland, the project also encompasses the transformation and renovation of two existing buildings, as well as the implementation of new public spaces, bringing vitality to the neighborhood.
Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) has designed a new, mixed-use office building in Paris called ILOW. Created with property development company Bouygues Immobilier, the project was made to act as a bridge between La Défense and the nearby social housing projects Tours Nuages (Cloud Towers). Designed in collaboration with Agence d'Architecture Willerval et Associés, the building takes on the shape of "open arms" connecting two different socio-economic neighborhoods.
David Chipperfield Architects has unveiled his restoration plans for the Grand Hotel in Nieuwpoort, Belgium. Started in 2019, the project converts the structure into a residential building, while seeking to reinstate its landmark status. Becoming “The Grand residential building”, the architecture will also take on an extension that underlines a “sensitive understanding of heritage value and entails reinterpretation and invention as well as restoration”.
Architecture and urban planning studio STL Architects has created a design concept for the Korean Museum of Urbanism and Architecture in Sejong, South Korea. The team's minimalist approach features open, airy interiors and rectilinear building volumes located within the National Museum Complex Master Plan. The design aims to re-address the idea of Human Ecology by exploring ways to intensify the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments.
A new film by OMA / Reinier de Graaf titled “The Hospital of the Future” has been released as a part of the exhibition, Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales at Matadero Madrid Centre for Contemporary Creation. Dubbed a “visual manifesto”, the 12-minute short film questions the long-standing conventions in the field of healthcare architecture in terms of the methodology behind how hospitals are built and also why they are built in certain ways. Through an exploration of the role that disease has played in shaping cities, the film offers a lens into the future of what we might expect for healthcare design, especially as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new Piccadilly Hotel in the United Kingdom by FCBStudios has received planning approval from the Manchester City Council. Designed for Pestana’s Cristiano Ronaldo CR7 brand, the hotel is sited at the corner of Piccadilly and Newton Street with a lounge bar and rooftop terrace. The scheme reuses a Grade II listed building with an 11-story new build to mark the gateway to the Northern Quarter and city center.
Sou Fujimoto Architects has unveiled its design for the top part of the tallest skyscraper in Japan“Torch Tower” in Tokyo, collaborating mainly with Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei, Inc. Standing tall at 390m, the highrise building planned to be ready by 2028, takes on a large plaza at around 300m, generating a space for people.
Blank Space has announced the winners of the second annual Outer Space competition. The competition asked architects and designers to leverage real scientific advances in robotics, AI, rocketry and autonomous spacecraft to create visions for the near future in outer space.The competition attracted thousands of participants, with winning entries showcasing narratives and images of architecture beyond the planet Earth.
Courtesy of ir Richard Rogers and Graham Stirk of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners have unveiled images of their latest venture, No. 33 Park Row in New York City. Located across the street from City Hall Park in Downtown Manhattan, the project, nearing completion and set to officially launch in the spring of 2021, is the city’s first residential project designed by Sir Richard Rogers and Graham Stirk of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.
German design practice Barkow Leibinger has finally received a building permit for the Estrel Tower in Berlin, Germany. Set to become the city's tallest high-rise at 175 meters, the tower comes seven years after winning the initial competition. Construction is now set to start, and the project will be built on Sonnenallee in Neukölln. The design references the existing Estrel hotel und connects both into one unit.
The RENAZCA international competition has released a shortlist for the design of the financial district of Azca in Madrid, Spain, according to El Pais. Directed by IE School of Architecture and Design Martha Thorne and Edgar González, the competition aims to transform the district into the most important economic and cultural node in the Spanish capital. The winning team will be chosen at the end of January 2021 and will have the task of transforming the sector into a "new, open, sustainable urban space connected to the city."
Mar del Plata is Argentina's second-largest tourist hub, just behind the capital, Buenos Aires, and sees its population swell by nearly 300% in the summer months. To accommodate this influx of visitors, a large portion of the city's real estate is dedicated to hotels and short-term rentals and this had led to a colorful and varied architectural landscape.
To illustrate, as well as celebrate, this diverse and ever-changing architectural tradition, audiovisual media producer Obralinda initiated the Arqmardelplata project, a visual compilation of Mar del Plata's architecture that allows viewers to discover the wide range of styles found throughout the city—from the historic, to the sacred, to the residential, to the everyday, and to the anonymous.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has approved a comprehensive plan to transform Champs-Élysées, the city's most famous avenue. Though the €250m makeover will not happen before the French capital hosts the 2024 Summer Olympics, the proposal aims to turn a 1.2 mile stretch of central Paris into an expansive garden. The proposal includes reducing space for vehicles, turning roads into pedestrian green areas, and creating tunnels of trees to improve air quality.
Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, has unveiled plans for a 100-mile long linear city called The Line. Announcing the project in a new video, the city would include a series of walkable communities for a million people with no cars or streets. The project locates essential facilities within a five-minute walk of housing, connected "modules" linking the Red Sea coast with north-west Saudi Arabia as part of the NEOM city-state.
Foster + Partners has revealed its latest project for Qatar, a 1.1 million-square-meter landmark development consisting of four high-rise buildings. Part of a larger masterplan also designed by the architects, to be completed ahead of the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar, Lusail Towers is envisioned as a “catalyst for a new central business district in the city”.