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Explore This 1:250 Model of Ancient Rome Which Took 38 Years to Construct

The city of Rome attracts millions of visitors each year to explore its ancient ruins and to learn about how the culture and architecture has transformed over thousands of years. Now, after many years of tedious construction, visitors will be able to see the city as it has never been seen before, through a 1:250 model of imperial Rome, known as the Plastico di Roma Imperiale. The plaster model, which was commissioned by Mussolini in 1933 and completed in 1971, depicts Rome as it stood in the 4th century under the reign of Constantine I.

This Stackable Emergency Shelter Can Be Assembled in Under 15 Minutes

MADWORKSHOP Fellows Jeremy Carman and Jayson Champlain have designed a unique approach to emergency post-disaster shelters. The 2017 Fellows of the MADWORKSHOP Foundation created "Shelter Squared" as a response to "the current scarcity of design-oriented solutions to emergencies."

Overall, the design utilizes cost-effective, recyclable materials to provide a meaningful alternative to the current standard of post-disaster shelters, described the architects. 

SOM Unveils Images of Striking Mixed-Use Tower in Hangzhou, China

SOM Unveils Images of Striking Mixed-Use Tower in Hangzhou, China - Image 11 of 4
Courtesy of SOM / Brick Visual

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has unveiled images of its proposed 54-story mixed-use tower in Hangzhou, China. Standing at a height of 945 feet (288 meters), the "Hangzhou Wangchao Center" seeks to act as a gateway to the eastern Chinese city’s newly-planned Qianjang Century Town district. With 1.3 million square feet (125,000 square meters) of office, hotel, and retail space, the scheme represents the ambitions of Hangzhou to become a global destination, spurred by its hosting of the Asian Games in 2022.

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On Jørn Utzon's 100th Birthday, 11 Prominent Architects Pay Tribute to the Great Architect

On Jørn Utzon's 100th Birthday, 11 Prominent Architects Pay Tribute to the Great Architect - Image 1 of 4
© Flickr user seier licensed under CC BY 2.0

Today marks what would have been the 100th birthday of the leading Danish architect, Jørn Utzon. Notably responsible for what could be argued to be the most prominent building in the world, the Sydney Opera House, Utzon accomplished what many architects can only dream of: a global icon. To celebrate this special occasion, Louisiana Channel has collaborated with the Utzon Center in Aalborg, Denmark to put together a video series to hear prominent architects and designers talk, including Bjarke Ingels and Renzo Piano, about their experiences with Utzon and his work—from his unrivalled visual awareness of the world, to his uncompromising attitude that led him to create such strong architectural statements.

Unlike many architects around at the time of Jørn Utzon, who as modernists rejected tradition in favour of new technologies and orthogonal plans, Utzon combined these usually contradictory qualities in an exceptional manner. As the architects recount, he was a globalist with a Nordic base, that has inspired the next generation to travel the world and challenge their concepts. Many of them compare his work to Alvar Aalto’s, as both shared an organic approach to architecture, looking at growth patterns in nature for inspiration. Utzon even coined this approach "Additive Architecture," whereby both natural and cultural forms are united to form buildings that are designed more freely.

Agoraphobic Traveller Takes Incredible Photos Through Google Street View

The Instagram account @streetview.portraits presents stunning images of people and architecture from Arizona to Kyrgyzstan. At first glance, it seems to be the work of a professional photographer gallivanting across the globe, but the owner of the account is actually Jacqui Kenny, a woman who suffers from agoraphobia and anxiety, capturing these beautiful images through Google Street View.

Through her alternative method of travel, Kenny discovered incredible scenes that displayed the magic of the ordinary: "I found a surprising and unique refuge in the creative possibilities of Google Street View. I began clicking through Google Maps to navigate to faraway countries like Mongolia, Senegal, and Chile. I found remote towns and dusty landscapes, vibrant architectural gems, and anonymous people, all frozen in time. I was intrigued by the strange and expansive parallel universe of Street View, and took screenshots to capture and preserve its hidden, magical realms."

A New Roof by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Turned This Ancient German Castle Into an Enlarged Exhibition Space

The Moritzburg castle in the city of Halle is exemplary of the Gothic military architecture in 15th century Germany. Despite the partial destruction of the north and west wings during the Thirty Years War, the site has managed to retain most of its original features: a surrounding wall, three of the four round towers at the corners, and a central courtyard.

But more importantly, the castle has been home to an art museum since 1904. The challenge arose when this exhibition space needed to be expanded, without modifying or adding onto the original columns. With some genius and creativity, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos created a new exhibition space based on a single, clear architectural idea: a new roof.

A New Roof by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Turned This Ancient German Castle Into an Enlarged Exhibition Space  - SustainabilityA New Roof by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Turned This Ancient German Castle Into an Enlarged Exhibition Space  - SustainabilityA New Roof by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Turned This Ancient German Castle Into an Enlarged Exhibition Space  - SustainabilityA New Roof by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Turned This Ancient German Castle Into an Enlarged Exhibition Space  - SustainabilityA New Roof by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Turned This Ancient German Castle Into an Enlarged Exhibition Space  - More Images+ 16

Learn to Pre-Dimension a Reinforced Concrete Structure

It's fundamental that architects know about structures, not only to bring their designs to reality but also to be able to discuss their projects with engineers in order to find the best solutions for construction. Structural pre-dimensioning is crucial to the initial design of the structural components, revealing the restrictions and the possibilities of the spaces.

One of the main loads that a structure must support is its own weight, so it's essential to know this information so that the different parts of the building can be dimensioned. When starting a structural project, the engineer doesn't yet know the dimensions of the different pieces that make up the structure, and therefore, can't know their own weight. A paradox appears without a solution: to know the weight it's necessary to know the dimensions, but, to know the dimensions, it's necessary to know the weight.

During the development of the project the architect finds himself in the curious situation of having to design without necessarily knowing the size of each of the parts of the building (such as the size of the pillars, for example). These important elements directly affect functionality and aesthetics of the project.

Woods Bagot Masterplan "The Next Generation of Mixed-Use Development" in Perth

International design studio Woods Bagot has generated a masterplan for what they are calling, “the next generation of mixed-use developments for Perth.” The 17,469-square-meter island development, named Applecross Central, boasts three sides of storefront in the heart of the Canning Bridge Precinct, overlooking the Swan and Canning Rivers.

AIM STUDIO Proposes Airplane-Wing-Inspired Design for Krakow's New Science Center

London-based AIM STUDIO’s entry for the Małopolska Science Center in Krakow, Poland, was recently awarded second place. Responding to the competition's call for an iconic design for the center, the team proposed a structure that creates a new landmark which blurs the boundaries between landscape and building, while also taking into consideration the important historical context of the site.

Read about more their proposal after the break.

11 Works of Asian Architecture in Full Bloom

This week, we present a selection of the best images of Asian architecture in bloom. These 11 projects from Japan and South Korea incorporate the springtime beauty of trees such as cherry and almond. Read on for a selection of images from prominent photographers such as Shigetomo Mizuno and Kai Nakamura.

Foster + Partners' Roman Antiquities Museum in Narbonne Nears Completion

Foster + Partner’s Musée de la Romanité Narbonne (Roman Museum of Narbonne) has moved closer to completion, with the scheme's building envelope now fully constructed. The museum seeks to become one of the most significant cultural attractions in the Southern French region, hosting more than 1000 Roman artifacts. The scheme’s progress was celebrated at a topping out ceremony on 30th January 2018, with the installation of VELUX Modular Skylights marking the completion of the building envelope.

Once a major Roman port, the city of Narbonne has amassed an abundance of ancient buildings, relics, and archaeological sites. The Foster + Partners scheme, designed in collaboration with museum specialist Studio Adrien Gardere, centers on the prime exhibit for the museum: a collection of over 1000 Roman funerary stones recovered from the city’s medieval walls in the 19th century. The stones are to be placed at the heart of a simple rectilinear structure, separating the public galleries from private research spaces.

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Bataan Chapel by Swiss Artist Not Vital Questions the Boundaries Between Art and Architecture

Art, in general, is made to be seen or experienced by another, an interlocutor, who, in turn, establishes various relationships with the art work. However, this is not the case of the Bataan Chapel, built by the Swiss artist Not Vital in the Philippines.

Ravaged by constant winds, the art work rises on a hill in rural Bagac, a town of just under 30,000 inhabitants located about 50 kilometers west of Manilla. The remote location of the building makes access difficult and the journey becomes a sort of pilgrimage — part of its grace lies precisely in its inaccessibility.

New Canadian $10 Bill to Feature Antoine Predock's Canadian Museum for Human Rights

New Canadian $10 Bill to Feature Antoine Predock's Canadian Museum for Human Rights - Image 2 of 4
© Bank of Canada

The Bank of Canada has recently unveiled a new $10 banknote featuring Viola Desmond, a black Nova-Scotian businesswoman who challenged racial segregation in 1946 by refusing to vacate a "whites-only" area of a theater. To reinforce this pro-human rights message, the reverse side of the bill will feature an image of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, designed by Antoine Predock and completed in 2014.

Heinle, Wischer und Partner Awarded First Place in Małopolska Science Center Competition

Heinle, Wischer und Partner's design for a triangular shaped building has been awarded first place in a competition to design the Małopolska Science Center in Krakow, Poland. The competition brief, which called for a design which would be both iconic and innovative, was responded with a proposal by the team that creates a new landmark for the Malopolska region of Poland.

Read about their winning design after the break.

Tadao Ando’s Punta Della Dogana Museum Through the Lens of Luca Girardini

At the meeting point of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal in Venice is a triangular plot of land, the Punta Della Dogana. On the site sits a long, low-slung 17th-century structure punctuated at its tip by a squat tower topped with an ornamental green and gold weather vane representing fortune. This former customs house of Venice, the Dogana da Mar, was purchased in 2007 by François Pinault with the intention of converting the structure into an art museum, a task he entrusted to Tadao Ando.

While the Japanese architect may not have been the obvious choice to work with a historic Italian building, Ando's solution combined a total respect for the existing building with the sharp minimalism for which he is known. Stripping back centuries of additions, the building was largely restored to its original structure. At the heart of the building's deep plan, a pure concrete volume hints at the architect of the restoration, serving to organize the spaces around it. In 2013, the building was photographed by Luca Girardini on the occasion of the exhibition "Elogio del dubbio."

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Chisel & Mouse Recreates Miniature Architectural Icons Perfect for Your Coffee Table

Have you ever wanted a miniature model of the Flatiron Building, Burnham and Root’s famous Monadnock building, or even a 3D map of Amsterdam? Would you want to have your home transformed into a dollhouse-sized replica? UK-based Chisel & Mouse is reconstructing these architectural icons and custom pieces, and bringing them right to your shelf or mantle.

Belgian Architect Aude-Line Dulière Announced as Winner of 2018 Wheelwright Prize

Belgian architect Aude-Line Dulière has been selected as the winner of Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s 2018 Wheelwright Prize. The $100,000 award supports travel-based research and investigative techniques to further explore contemporary design. Dulière’s winning proposal Crafted Images: Material Flows, Techniques, and Uses in Set Design Construction, aims to “examine construction methods and supply systems in the global film industry, engaging the space-making elements of film and set design as well as potential innovations around material use and reuse throughout architecture and construction generally.”

Hip-Hop Architecture Camps Use Rap Music to Inspire a Diverse Generation of Future Architects

Throughout the spring and summer of 2018, seventeen US cities will host “Hip Hop Architecture Camps,” an initiative founded by the Urban Arts Collective seeking to address the lack of diversity in America’s architectural community. As reported by CNET, the architecture camps will be sponsored by Autodesk, makers of the architectural software AutoCAD.

Hip Hop Architecture Camps are geared towards students between the ages of 10 and 17, introducing students to architecture and urban planning by analyzing the structure and rhythm of rap music. By demonstrating a connection between music and architecture, the organizers hope to ignite a design flair in young students, helping to create a future where local communities have a stronger input into how urban areas are shaped or altered.

Carlo Ratti's Writing Robot Transforms Your Wall into an Artistic Canvas

Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) has unveiled Scribit, a “writing robot” which draws images and text on any wall surface, turning office, living, and bathroom walls into a blank canvas for artistic expression. Using in-built engines, Scribit can draw, cancel, and re-draw new content an infinite number of times, allowing users to print different images, messages, or feeds every day.

Scribit is always connected to the internet, allowing users to download, upload or source any online content. Operating in real time, Scribit immediately reproduces any data sent to it by the user, be it a restaurant posting the day’s menu, a financial firm posting stock market updates in its lobby, or an art enthusiast projecting their own content on the living room wall.

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Barcode Architects Brings New Triangular Residential Tower to Rotterdam's Skyline

Barcode Architects Brings New Triangular Residential Tower to Rotterdam's Skyline - Image 1 of 4
Courtesy of Barcode Architects

Rotterdam-based Barcode Architects have designed a new 110-meter-tall triangular shaped residential tower to become an icon in the city’s skyline. The tower, which has been named CasaNova, features a large plinth and a building base which tapers down four stories to meet the ground with a sharp angular form.

What It’s Like to Be an Architect Who Doesn’t Design Buildings

There's an old, weary tune that people sing to caution against being an architect: the long years of academic training, the studio work that takes away from sleep, and the small job market in which too many people are vying for the same positions. When you finally get going, the work is trying as well. Many spend months or even years working on the computer and doing models before seeing any of the designs become concrete. If you're talking about the grind, architects know this well enough from their training, and this time of ceaseless endeavor in the workplace only adds to that despair.

Which is why more and more architects are branching out. Better hours, more interesting opportunities, and a chance to do more than just build models. Furthermore, the skills you learn as an architect, such as being sensitive to space, and being able to grasp the cultural and societal demands of a place, can be put to use in rather interesting ways. Here, 3 editors at ArchDaily talk about being an architect, why they stopped designing buildings, and what they do in their work now. 

Henning Larsen Brings Canals and Rooftop Farming to Brussels in Competition-Winning Masterplan

Henning Larsen Brings Canals and Rooftop Farming to Brussels in Competition-Winning Masterplan - Sustainability
Courtesy of Henning Larsen

Danish firm Henning Larsen has released images of their competition-winning Key West urban development, seeking to revitalize a socio-economically challenged area of the Belgian capital Brussels. Developed in collaboration with A2RC Architects, the masterplan aims to balance urban and recreational life along the Brussels Canal Zone through a combination of housing, schools, urban farming, and a market hall.

Like many European cities, Brussels is moving towards a post-industrial economy, giving new opportunities to old industrial areas such as the Canal Zone. The Henning Larsen redevelopment seeks to remodel the area as an urban center, tying the urban areas west of the canal to central Brussels.

Henning Larsen Brings Canals and Rooftop Farming to Brussels in Competition-Winning Masterplan - SustainabilityHenning Larsen Brings Canals and Rooftop Farming to Brussels in Competition-Winning Masterplan - SustainabilityHenning Larsen Brings Canals and Rooftop Farming to Brussels in Competition-Winning Masterplan - SustainabilityHenning Larsen Brings Canals and Rooftop Farming to Brussels in Competition-Winning Masterplan - SustainabilityHenning Larsen Brings Canals and Rooftop Farming to Brussels in Competition-Winning Masterplan - More Images+ 1

Beauty or Tragedy? Aerial Imagery of Spain’s Abandoned Housing Estates Wins DJI Drone Photography Award

The winners of the DJI Drone Photography Award have been announced, a competition calling for ideas to make creative use of drone photography, and to explore subject matters impossible to experience on foot. This year, the two winning projects consisted of a new perspective on Spain’s 3.4 million abandoned houses, and the documentation of salt production across Europe.

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How Architectural Drawing—In All Its Forms—Can Help Us See the World Anew

What do architectural drawings do? Convey visual information about the design of buildings. This much is certain. They do much else besides. They can be idiomatic and ideological, they can express the personality of those who make them and by whatever means—charcoal, pencil, pen, or computer program. They can inspire, provoke and radicalize. They might be realistic or the stuff of fantasy. Or, of course, they can instruct those charged with building a three-dimensional representation of what they see on paper or, in recent years, on computer screens. Intelligence visible, they can also be art.

So, judging an open competition of architectural drawings from around the world, like The Architectural Drawing Prize, can only ever be an exercise in open-ended judgment even when these have been sorted into three technical categories: Hand-drawn, Digital, and Hybrid. How do we begin to compare Chris Raven’s intriguing digital analysis of Publicly Accessible Spaces in St Paul’s Cathedral with Xinyuan Cao’s almost fond cross-section through the Renovation of Denggao Village, two commended entries in the Digital Drawings category?

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