Carefully placed within the urban context and the product of searched perspectives and precise gestures, Ateliers Jean Nouvel's mixed-use project Tours Duo is set to become a landmark for Eastern Paris. Located close to the Paris ring boulevard and in the vicinity of a vast expanse of railway infrastructure, the project's site was the main driving point for the design, giving it its iconic shape. The project featuring two inclined towers nears completion, and photographer Jad Sylla shows the structures changing the Parisian skyline.
The International Union of Architects (UIA) has announced the UIA Gold Medal and Prizes winners. The UIA Gold Medal is awarded to Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, president of the 27th UIA World Congress of Architects — UIA2021RIO Honour Committee. The architect will also participate in a keynote speakers session programmed for July.
Paulo Mendes da Rocha, now 92 years old, has been honored with important awards, such as the Pritzker Prize in 2006, considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes, and the Venice Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, in 2016. Mendes da Rocha was the first Brazilian to be awarded this prize.
Social media usage around the world is ever-increasing, and the social distancing inflicted by the pandemic over the last year has dramatically changed its role. Currently, there are around 4.2 billion active social media users - this is more than half the world's population! For this reason, companies are putting efforts into these channels to keep in touch with their customers and even build better connections with them.
https://www.archdaily.com/961845/how-to-promote-your-products-and-materials-through-instagram-storiesPola Mora
The Majlis undergoing construction at San Giorgio Maggiore. Image Courtesy of Caravane Foundation
Part of the official collateral events of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, Caravane Earth Foundation will bring a unique bamboo Majlis, to the gardens of the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Designed by internationally acclaimed bamboo architects Simón Vélez and Stefana Simic, the project will be on display from 22 May to 21 November 2021.
Titled "elephant", the Thai pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia answers the question of how architecture can promote the way human beings and other species live together naturally and culturally based on the culture of Kuy and their elephants. Curated by Apiradee Kasemsook and designed by Boonserm Premtada of Bangkok Project Studio, the Thai pavilion will be on display at the Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, from May 22nd to November 21st.
For this edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Irish Pavilion focuses on data technologies and their presence within the physical landscape, exploring the cultural end environmental implications of data production and consumption. Titled Entanglement and curated by the multidisciplinary research and design collective ANNEX, the exhibition challenges the presumed immateriality of the Cloud, highlighting the infrastructure of data production and its impact on everyday life while also examining Ireland’s role in the evolution of global communication.
OMA New York / Jason Long has revealed the design for The Terminal, a new performance venue serving as a cultural anchor for POST Houston, the office's redevelopment of the historic Barbara Jordan Post Office in downtown Houston. Integrated within the eastern wing of the mixed-use design, the 5,000 capacity music venue makes use of industrial materials and lighting effects to create a performative space on and off the stage.
A sneak peak of Uncertainty, the highlight of the Spanish Pavilion at the 2021 Biennale of Venice taking place from May 22 to November 21 of this year.
As a member of the Urban Design Expert Committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, I strongly urge an immediate increase in architectural and urban design fees. This is a matter of utmost urgency, for several key reasons:
1. The current fee structure is a relic of China’s era of rapid, large-scale incremental construction, when design work focused primarily on spatial capacity and fees were strictly tied to project scale. Today, however, almost all cities have entered the era of existing urban stock. Moving forward, as the focus shifts to urban renewal, design work can no longer be mass-produced. Instead, architects must tackle an immense volume of bespoke, custom-tailored projects. Consequently, traditional fee metrics are completely out of sync with the actual workload;
2. The flaw in traditional fee calculation methods is that when project scales shrink and design complexity increases, the upward adjustment coefficients for fees remain far too low. This is especially true for small-scale projects and renovations, which are incredibly time- and labor-intensive. Architects are essentially working at a loss, driven solely by passion. This leads to the absurd reality where years of design fees might not even equal the cost of a single tree. It is truly tragic when human value is deemed worth less than material objects;
3. While the state encourages urban design—the essence of which is fostering urban diversity—achieving diversity requires architects and urban designers to invest significantly more time and labor into custom, site-specific solutions. Without a fee mechanism adapted to this level of customization, how can we support their creative work? While passion might sustain a single project or a brief moment, only a proper mechanism can ensure fair and sustainable practice. The so-called "cookie-cutter" urban landscape is, in reality, the product of a cookie-cutter fee structure.
In short, transforming Chinese cities begins with raising design fees!
Encouraging households to adopt solar power generation is essential for a cleaner future, but investing in large-scale solar applications is what will truly shift the needle toward net-zero emissions. This is revealed by a new study from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) in Australia.
Geospatial researchers used the city of Bendigo, in the state of Victoria, to conduct the case study. They estimated the solar electricity generated over a year in the city, which has 17,000 residential solar panels. In comparison, the study evaluates the solar potential of 21 government-owned airports across Australia.
“Playground, Artifacts for Interaction” by Felipe Ferrer will be featured in the Peru Pavilion in the 2021 Venice Biennale of Architecture. The project was the winner of the Curatorial Competition held by The Cultural Patronage of Peru that aimed to highlight how fences and gates shape our understanding of public spaces.
To provide greater safety for those wishing to enjoy nature, Urbia has marked 40 circles on the lawn of Praça da Paz in Ibirapuera Park. The concessionaire, which manages the largest park in São Paulo, adopted this measure to encourage social distancing among visitors.
Measuring approximately 4 meters in diameter, the circles were marked using organic waste from the park's own vegetation management, making them entirely sustainable. This allows visitors to remain safe within their own social distancing zones. Additionally, masks must be worn at all times while inside the park.
Titled "Mapping Festivities", the Pakistan Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, explores the national wedding hall as an architectural typology of post-colonial Pakistan. Curated by Sara M. Anwar, the pavilion will be on display on the second floor of the Palazzo Mora from May 22nd until November 21st.
The upcoming edition of Open House Madrid, taking place from September 24 to 26, will pay tribute to Spanish architect Luis Gutiérrez Soto, a key figure and promoter of the Modern Movement in España.
Kazuyo Sejima - Photo by Aiko Suzuki . Image Courtesy of La Biennale Architettura 2021
The Board of Directors of the 2021 Venice Biennale has appointed Kazuyo Sejima as president of the international jury, in charge of awarding mainly the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for the Best participant, and the Silver Lion for a promising young participant. In addition, they have also selected four other jury members from Peru, Lebanon, Ghana-Scotland, and Italy. The Awards Ceremony will take place in Venice on Monday, August 30th, 2021.
Overall view of a KTT apartment building; Hanoi, Vietnam – 2018. Image Courtesy of Christophe Hutin
The French pavilion at the 2021 Venice Biennale, “aims to reflect on the meeting between architectural know-how and the inhabitants’ own experiences of their living spaces”. Curated by Christophe Hutin, the intervention entitled “Communities at Work” will provide an immersive experience with the help of images in motion. Using five specific case studies on different continents: in Europe, Asia, America, and Africa, the exhibition presents a journey into a world where communities transformations their own living spaces, without following any formal schemes designed by an architect.
Rodrigo Escandón Cesarman and Ricardo Roxo Matias of APRDELESP. Image Courtesy of APRDELESP
The Architectural League of New York has announced the 6 winners of 2021 Prize for Young Architects + Designers Awards, the North American annual competition that celebrates the works of young architects and designers who have completed their bachelor’s or master’s degree within the last ten years. This year's theme was Housekeeping, which asked participants to explore how the domestic settings have changed over the past couple of years, changing the definition of "ideal residence".
The Serbian contribution to the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale explores the connection between a city's economy and its urban structure -that the curatorial team defines as the life-work relationship- investigating the prospective futures of mono-functional industrial cities. Titled 8th Kilometer and developed by MuBGD, the exhibition uses the mining town of Bor, located in eastern Serbia, as a study case for how economic activities have not only shaped the urban environment but the forms of collectivity connected to it.
With less than half a year to go until the opening, Expo 2020 Dubai released a series of images of the venues hosting the event, which intends to bring together 192 national pavilions, as well as businesses and educational institutions. As the program was delayed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the world expo site is mainly complete, awaiting its opening on October 1st.
Entitled Primitive Migration from/to Taiwan, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) and curatorial teams Divooe Zein Architects and Double-Grass International Co., organized an immersive exhibition for the Biennale Architettura 2021. Taiwan’s Collateral Event for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia will run from 22 May to 21 November 2021 at Palazzo delle Prigioni.
Courtesy of Studio One Eleven and Adjaye Associates
Adjaye Associates and Studio One Eleven, along with Continuum Partners will transform an industrial facility in downtown Los Angeles into a dynamic mixed-use master plan of residential, commercial, hospitality, and retail facilities. Titled Fourth & Central, the project proposes ten buildings, ranging in heights, design, and functions, transforming the area into a pedestrian-oriented community. The project, which is expected to break ground in 2024, will reflect the area's dynamic character with uniquely designed buildings that compliment the neighboring Arts District and Little Tokyo neighborhoods.
