Buro Ole Scheeren recently revealed their design for two new towers to be built between Davie and Robson Villages in Vancouver, Canada. Named “Barclay Village,” the project combines residential units (with 30 percent of the units reserved for social housing), a variety of public amenities, and green terraces. The design was inspired by the "texture and scale of the surrounding urban fabric and folds the typologies of the two historic villages."
In his first public statement since the June 16th fire, Glasgow School of Art director Tom Inns said today that the Mackintosh Building would be rebuilt. This commitment, while putting an end to weeks of speculation, is still no guarantee of the famed structure’s future.
As Inns explained to The Guardian, “The building is insured and we’re confident that we can rebuild the building based on that.” The renovations that were begun after the first fire that hit the building in 2014 and damaged around a third of the interior, were made possible by large-scale fundraising efforts from both the public and government bodies. However, it is unclear whether similar efforts will be necessary for future rebuilding efforts, with Inns maintaining that “at the moment, we’re not requesting support from either government [Scottish or UK].”
As identity-based politics continues to grow in influence, we may do well to examine the effect it has on the way we think about and design our cities. In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Rem Koolhaas discusses these changes - and how they mark an evolution from the generic city concept he introduced in S,M,L, XL.
This morning, planning permission was awarded for the construction of 100 Leadenhall Street, an SOM-designed skyscraper in the eastern cluster of skyscrapers in the City of London. At 263.4 meters tall, the building will be the third tallest in the cluster, trailing only 1 Undershaft (305 meters), which is approved but yet to begin construction, and 22 Bishopsgate (278 meters), which is currently under construction. The Shard, at 310 meters, is also nearby on the south of the river.
This article was originally published by Autodesk's Redshift publication as "Could Modular Wood Stadium Construction Be a Game Changer?"
Imagine a sports stadium that could expand and contract with its fan base and team’s fortunes, one that could pick up and move to greener (and more lucrative) pastures.
Given team owners’ history of playing fans against each other, making stadiums more mobile isn’t likely to give pennant-wavers a sense of security, but the concept is an incredible breakthrough for building technology. Endlessly modular and made of ultralow-impact mass timber, this vision of low-carbon construction, conceived by engineered-wood manufacturer Rubner Holzbau and prefabricated stadium designer Bear Stadiums, could soon materialize at a soccer pitch near you.
Completed last year, AL_A's porcelain public courtyard at London's V&A Museum is the largest architectural intervention and restoration of the site in more than 100 years. AL_A also designed a new colonnade and a column-free exhibition gallery. The design connects the space with the neighboring buildings on site, giving the museum a more streamlined sequence between gallery spaces.
Tradition and innovation. Those are the two pillars within which Bamboo U's workshop’s creative pendulum strives to swing. Following the practice of ancient Mongolian yurts, participants of Bamboo U, a build and design course in Bali, have created a bamboo yurt which can fold like an umbrella and can be deployed in an instant. Under the guidance of the German master-builder Jörg Stamm, students built the first retractable yurt prototype in Bali during Bamboo U’s last edition in April.
Architecture can give you a headache. That sentence probably doesn't sound surprising for anyone who has dealt with the stress of practicing or studying architecture but, increasingly, psychologists are beginning to understand that you don't need to work on architectural designs for buildings to cause you pain. In an interesting article published by The Conversation, Arnold J Wilkins, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Essex, discusses how discomfort, headaches, and even migraines can be caused or exacerbated by simply looking at certain visual stimuli—with the straight lines and repetitive patterns of urban environments singled out as the main culprit.
OMA has released updated images of their Feyenoord City masterplan after reaching initial city approval in 2016. Developed for the Feyenoord football club in Rotterdam, the project comprises a mixed-use district and a new 63,000 seat stadium along the River Maas.
Both today and in centuries past, it is a reality of building that not every project is destined for success. Financial issues or unrealistic timetables can complicate a building’s construction but, while usually the final result eventually meets the initial expectations, other times the worst-case scenario of a building being abandoned during construction becomes a nightmare come true. Unfortunately, these failed projects have an extensive history. Economic factors are the most common cause of unfinished construction, but buildings have also been stranded in limbo by wars, geopolitical shifts, epidemics of disease and other unpredictable obstacles, leaving partial structures as haunting reminders of what might have been.
Whether partially completed and left as ruins or still under construction decades (or centuries) after initial groundbreaking, unfinished buildings offer an alternative history of our built environment, promising long-delayed gratification or examples of design so ambitious that they prove impossible to realize. Initiated by civilizations across the globe, the following list details just a few examples of history’s most interesting and infamous unfinished construction projects.
Bridging the gap between the old and the new is never easy. Traditional building methods, where you often adjust to the unpredictability of a natural material, seem to contrast with the mechanical precision of modern construction. Sombra Verde - a bamboo gazebo developed by AIRLAB and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) as part of Singapore’s Urban Design Festival 2018 - bridges this gap. The traditional raw bamboo poles, used extensively throughout Southeast Asia, are combined with 3D printed connectors, utilizing a series of new technologies. The result is an iconic, lightweight structure in Singapore’s Duxton Plain Park that promotes the use of public space, sheltering the population from both the intense sun and heavy rain.
This summer, July 11-13, the annual Fab City Summit will take place in Paris at the Paris City Hall and Parc de La Villette. The yearly event will gather the core team behind the Fab City Global Initiative together with city officials, innovation ecosystems from civic society and industry. Get your tickets with 30% discount using code FABDAILY30.
The rapid urbanization of the 20th century was possible thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the assembly line, which allowed the rapid reproduction and replication of infrastructure, products and repetitive urban patterns in cities around the world. Urban morphology and dynamics produce standard patterns and forms of living. At the same time, and following the linear economy, cities consume most of the world’s resources and generate most of world’s waste (according to the United Nations). However, the exponential growth of digital technologies (computation, communication, fabrication) of the last decades offer the opportunity to enable a transition towards a spiral economy (an open circular economy approach), in which data (and knowledge) flow globally, and materials flow locally: from networks of logistics that move atoms, to networks of information that move bits.
The story of the "Redondinhos" housing project in Heliópolis, São Paulo began with a misinterpreted quote by Ruy Ohtake. In 2003, a magazine published the following statement attributed to the prestigious architect and urban planner: "What I find most ugly in São Paulo is Heliopolis." After seeing the report, Ohtake clarified that his intention was to say that the ugliest in the city is the difference between rich and poor neighborhoods - "the difference between the Morumbi neighborhood and Heliopolis, the largest favela," he corrected.
Last month, we reported on the topping out of 53 West 53rd, a skyscraper designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel. The impressive 1,050-foot tall building will serve as a luxury residential condominium and offer its residents views across Central Park and downtown Manhattan. The Real Deal recently sat down with the architect to talk about his new project, and how he predicts it will transform the city’s iconic skyline.
In his ongoing photo-series "Façades," French photographer Zacharie Gaudrillot-Roy a series of images in which he removes the mass and depth of buildings, and leaves behind the mere fragments of exterior skin. The photos, which resemble deserted Hollywood sets, illustrate roadways, towns, apartment complexes, and other environments without giving away the ideas of anything beyond the superficial image of the facade—leaving much to the imagination.
Architectural comprehension as a field deals with representation as a synthesis of varied efforts —constructive, compositional, spatial, and technical qualities— which are then articulated in the constructed building. For this purpose, it is essential to think about the graphic representation that presupposes all these efforts, since it is both a procedure and a product of architectural design.
A new short film by the non-profit organization AERIAL FUTURES explores the complex relationships between cities and their airports. In conjunction with New York's AERIAL FUTURES: Urban Constellations think tank, this video asks how cities can be imagined collectively to improve both urban life and future travel capabilities. The film features several experts who discuss the challenges and opportunities for the future of New York City’s airports and supporting infrastructure, drawing on the think tank’s focus of urban design and digital interfaces.
As a part of the second Art and Architecture Triennial in Bruges, Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY’s prototype pavilion entitled nonLin/Lin has been taken out of storage and placed on public display for the first time. First commissioned and displayed in 2011 by the FRAC Centre in Orleans, France, the exhibition will explore the rise of computational form-making. The work will spend the summer installed in the nave of the Grootseminarie, a 17th century Cistercian Abbey hosting an exhibition curated by Abdelkader Damani entitled Liquid Architectures.
Paris-based h2o architectes revealed their designs for three pavilions to be constructed along the Seine River, near the western entrance of the Lagravère Park in Colombes.
The pavilions are woven into the existing landscape, creating a dialogue between the architecture and surrounding nature. The three small structures were designed according to function and are spread out along the promenade.
“Self-build”: no mention of an architect, or anyone else for that matter. Maybe it’s a prehistoric urge that makes this idea so enticing; our earliest ancestors constructed their primitive huts to suit their unique needs and reflect their status or style. “Self-build” promises to physically re-connect people to the homes they live in.
However, the romantic notion of "self-build" housing is rarely compatible with the modern reality we live in. Building has become increasingly clouded by the difficulty of procuring land, excessive governmental red-tape, and an increase in building complexity. While self-build remains the purest form of this dream, there are now a series of nuanced processes that can help us achieve similar results. As a new generation of communities that encourage this dream emerges, we must look at the role the architect plays within them.
Neighboring Grand Central Station, Company’s office building at 335 Madison Avenue has one of the most coveted locations in midtown Manhattan. Charged with completely renovating the building’s atrium and office floors, the local New York firm SHoP Architects has unveiled a set of interior renders that show their plans for the commuter-friendly office space.
Held every two years, the International VELUX Award challenges students to generate projects that take advantage of daylight, with the aim of developing a deeper understanding of this energy source.
A jury of renowned architects chose 9 regional winners for its 2018 iteration, who will now compete for the winning title at the World Architecture Festival in November. The winners were chosen from projects presented by students from 250 different architecture schools in 58 countries.
In what has to be one of the most spectacular collisions of high fashion and architecture, fashion designer Guo Pei has tapped into the "immutable" qualities of Gothic buildings with a series of outfits inspired by vaults, spires, flying buttresses, and elaborate window tracery. According to Vogue, the Chinese designer described her work as "a dialogue between the human body and spatial dimension," while Pei's own Facebook post explained her Fall 2018 collection with just a short phrase: "Time flows unhurriedly, while architecture stands immutably."
Many of the designs in Pei's collection seem to have been conceived as architectural structures in themselves, projecting outwards from the body to create striking church-like forms. Converting the rigid stone structures of the Gothic style into fabrics designed to hang from the human body is clearly a challenging technical feat, and proves extremely satisfying for architecture-obsessed onlookers when achieved with the audacity brought to her work by Pei.
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