Taichung Cultural Center- Park View. Image by Luxigon. Image Courtesy of PAR
Design firm Platform for Architecture + Research (PAR) has been awarded AIALos Angeles’ Presidential Emerging Practice Award. The award, which reflects “notable, innovative achievements in design and service to the profession,” is the highest honor given by AIA LA each year. This year, in response to Los Angeles’s continued urban evolution, the award jury nominated those firms who “take leadership roles in advancing the profession and thus, the City.” PAR fit the bill, both for their research-based design approach, and their commitment to improving public life through design. See some of their latest work, after the break!
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Image Courtesy of Adjaye Associates
In an interview with Rowan Moore for The Observer, British born architect David Adjaye discusses his work, personality and ambitions as head of the one of the fastest growing internationally operating practices. With Moore's immersive descriptions and expertly written narrative, the "breadth of Adjaye's vision" becomes apparent. Featuring precise descriptions of some his upcoming projects, including the designs for the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and a number of smaller buildings in London, Moore's discussion ultimately explores Adjaye's early (and successful) steps into the African architectural market. You can read the interview in full here.
What will New Orleans look like in one year? Ten years? Fifty years? The Future Ground design competition, hosted by the Van Alen Institute, is looking for multidisciplinary teams help shape the city's future by answering these questions. The competition is specifically looking for teams to "generate flexible design and policy strategies to reuse vacant land in New Orleans, transforming abandoned landscapes into resources for the city."
New York-based architect and co-founder of WORKac, Amale Andraos, has been selected as the new dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), the Columbia Spectator has reported. Andraos will assume the position on September 1, replacing Mark Wigley who announced his retirement last year.
The scaffolding has come down, revealing the first glimpse of FAT's extraordinary A House ForEssex. Designed in collaboration with British ceramic artist Grayson Perry and commissioned by Alain de Botton’s alternative holiday rental project Living Architecture, the house will be the final built work that FAT complete. The bejewelled two bedroom dwelling, topped with a shimmering golden copper alloy roof and clad in glinting green and white tiles, sits in the rolling landscape of Essex - Charles Holland (FAT) and Perry’s home county. Adorned with sculptures integrated into a wider narrative that spatially recounts the life of a fictional character called Julie, the barn-like shape, bold colours and decoration has not simply garnered widespread attention but has also captured people’s curiosity.
Find out more about the project in an interview with the architect after the break.
Details have been leaked of a major new development on the Southern edge of downtown Toronto, just East of Union Station. The scheme, uncovered by UrbanToronto and its inquisitive users, involves the connection of sites on both sides of the railway tracks, and will include three towers and a pedestrian bridge featuring a park and retail space. It is understood that Wilkinson Eyre are the architects, after BD confirmed last week that they have recently won a major competition in Toronto.
Rio de Janeiro has been selected to host World Congress of Architects UIA 2020, one of the world's most important architecture forums. The news was announced yesterday by one of the UIA's former presidents and current Secretary of the Session, Vassils Sgoutas, during the General Assembly of this year’s congress in Durban, South Africa. Rio's application was spearheaded by Brazil's most important architecture institution - Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil (IAB). The South American city beat out two strong candidates: Melbourne and Paris.
After the presentations of the three candidate cities, two rounds of voting began. In the first round Rio got 85 votes, against Melbourne’s 73 votes and Paris’ 44 votes. In the second round Rio beat Melbourne with 107 votes against 95.
Since we spend most of our waking hours in buildings, shouldn't they be designed to encourage a healthy lifestyle? It turns out there are many ways in which architects can design spaces that encourage us to exercise as part of our daily routine. Likewise there are many design features that often dissuade people from physical activity. For example, while a dark or secluded staircase may be off-putting, centrally located and open staircases tend to be used even more than elevators. Find out how buildings can serve as our personal trainers in this article from Fast Co. Design, “How To Keep Our Buildings From Making Us Fat.”
With the intention of creating a beautiful public space from what is usually a one-function building, JAJA architects are redefining what a parking deck can be. Their recent competition entry for a parking garage in the city of Nordhavn, Copenhagen is an inviting structure that incorporates green facades and a rooftop playground, making full use of its placement in an up-and-coming urban neighborhood. Read all about the aptly named “Park ‘N’ Play”, after the break.
In their collateral event for the debut of the Moscow pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the exhibition "Moskva: urban space" explores the historic development of public spaces and examines the city’s progress in the context of Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s winning proposal for Zaryadye Park. Curated by Sergey Kuznetsov, Chief Architect of Moscow together with Kristin Kristin Feireiss from AEDES, and organized by MCA - Moscow Committee of Architecture and Urban Development, the exhibition comes at a pivotal moment in determining the future of urban development in Moscow. As Kuznetsov states, "While the face of Moscow in the past 100 years was largely determined by the architecture of its buildings, representing political and economic developments, today’s urban singularity is based on the “connective fabric” of its public spaces that have become equally important identity-makers and contributes significantly to improving the quality of urban life for its citizens." To see photos of the exhibition by Patricia Parinejad and learn more about the story behind it, continue reading after the break.
When someone is in the public eye as much as Frank Gehry, it's easy for them to be misrepresented in the media. Fortunately, this interview by Architectural Record's editor-in-chief Cathleen McGuigan sets the record straight: Gehry doesn't consider himself as an artist, and he doesn't think of architecture as sculpture (despite what he once said). He is however hugely influenced by the way artists work, inventing ways to make things when it might otherwise be thought impossible. That's why he's always the one to "jump off the cliff", as he puts it. You can read the full interview here.
Having an office with a view may be more than just a symbol of seniority. New findings show that there are public health benefits associated with working by a window, Fast Co Design reports. An interdisciplinary group of architects and medical researchers compared workers exposed to natural light with those who aren’t, and found that window workers sleep, on average, 46 minutes more a night. They also scored better on self-report health and sleep surveys. Learn more about the study in the full article, “Workers in Windowless Offices Lose 46 Minutes of Sleep a Night,” at Fast Co Design and start convincing your boss that it’s time you had a window office!
Led by Will Alsop, aLL Design’s funky apartment tower will soon add a whole lot of interest to London’s south bank. The tubular building, which tapers at the bottom and top, will rise above an existing four-storey building on purple stilts and be adorned with corten steel cladding, brightly colored balconies, and irregular rounded windows. Each apartment will include two balconies overlooking the River Thames and the neighboring heliport – bringing about the name “Heliport Heights.” To learn more about the lively design, keep reading after the break.
"The 12 Thousand Pairs of Shoes From Abrantes" by Victor Lledó Garcia, Juan José Pérez Moncho and Mateo Fernández-Muro. Image Courtesy of Canal 180
Twelve thousand pairs of shoes and stacked, rotating geometric forms were installed in the city centre of Abrantes, Portugal from July 13th-20th. The installations were the two winning projects of Portugal’s 180 Creative Camp 2014, which was designed by the country's Canal 180 to promote Urban Interventions Projects.
The competition received 72 entries from 18 countries and was created in partnership with Archdaily, Canal 180, and the Municipality of Abrantes. The contest ran until June 8th with a jury that included Archdaily Executive Editor Becky Quintal, the Executive Director of Canal 180, and the President of the Municipality of Abrantes. The two winning projects each received 2,500 Euros to realize and install their work in Abrantes.
See photos and read more about the winning projects of 180 Creative Camp after the break.
One of the latest installations at London'sSerpentine Gallery, where Smiljan Radicrecently unveiled an ethereal pavilion, is Marina Abramović's performance installation entitled 512 Hours. Creating what has been described as "the simplest of settings" in one of the gallery's large spaces, the artwork employs Abramović's most frequently used material: herself. Coupled with the audience and a selection of common objects, the constantly changing sequence of events on display is the very first live installation by the artist displayed in the UK. Upon arrival, visitors are asked leave their baggage (including mobile phones, cameras and any other electronic equipment) behind in order to enter the exhibition. Find out more about what you can expect from it here.
Creating designs for cities all over the planet may have just gotten a whole lot easier - thanks to Brandon Liu, a Software Developer from San Francisco who used data from OpenStreetMap to create .DXF CAD files of 241 major cities worldwide. These files are entirely free to download, and from San Francisco to Sydney, Buenos Aires to Beijing and Helsinki to Harare, most of the world's major cities are included.
Numerous awards recognize innovative, forward-thinking and environmentally-friendly design, yet there is no way to recognize projects that are harming the environment or detrimental to the planet – until now. Created by Cameron Sinclair, one of the co-founders of Architecture for Humanity and current Executive Director of the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, the recently launched “DEAD Prize” seeks to highlight projects that have a negative impact on the planet, with the aim of inspiring designers to “see these failures as a challenge to create something new, to correct the mistakes of the past or to find the antidote for the project in question.” Tweet your nominations for the prize to @deadprize by November 1 and learn more about this tongue-in-cheek award at the DEAD Prize website.
Set to be installed over a set of light rail tracks, Junya Ishigami’s Cloud Arch will soon be one of the biggest landmarks in downtown Sydney. Commissioned by Sydney’s public art program, City Art, the arch will symbolize Sydney’s qualities of being “Green, Global, and Connected.” Over 50 meters high, it will change shape as viewer’s walk past it. Cloud Arch will act as both a gateway for the pedestrian George Street, and a defining feature of the city.
The only Chilean architects selected by Rem Koolhaas to participate in the Collateral Event “Time Space Existence” at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale were Ortuzar & Gebauer and Simonetti & Stewart. The architecture firms teamed up to showcase two singular projects – a hotel on stilts and an open plan office building – that mark the beginning of renewal in different neighborhoods. The exhibition, which runs until 23 November 2014, looks at how architects influence our daily existence through our understanding of time and space. To learn more about the Chilean team’s contribution to the event, keep reading after the break.
Every year as the weather gets warmer, millions of visitors flock to music festivals around the world. Fans often have to brave the elements and sleep in tents to attend such events, and if hotel rooms are available they are usually in short supply. However, the B-AND-BEE camping concept may offer a smart alternative.
CurrentSet, one of a number of cloud-baseddigital apps for managing construction drawings on the go, seeks to foster collaboration among architects, project managers and on-site professionals. Uniquely, the app is offered free of charge before allowing users to add features as and when they require them.
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_FAT_-_Living_Architecture_(2).jpg?1407615522 "Sculptures by Grayson Perry. Image © FAT/ Living Architecture")
_Dave_King_-_Channel_4_Television.jpg?1407615749 "Under Construction (August 2014). Image © Dave King / Channel 4 Television")
_FAT_-_Living_Architecture_(3).jpg?1407615601 "Aerial View. Image © FAT/ Living Architecture")
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