Vietnamese Practice Vo Trong Nghia Architects has taken home the top honor at the Architects Regional Council Asia (ARCASIA) 2014 awards. The Dailai Bamboo Complex, consisting of the 2009 Bamboo Wing and the 2012 Dailai Conference Hall, was selected out of 276 entries to win Building of the Year Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in Asian architecture.
A new report from Christopher Leinberger and Patrick Lynch at The George Washington University School of Business has unexpectedly named Washington D.C. the most walkable city in the U.S., trumping expected favorites like New York, which ranked second.
Respectively rounding out the top five were Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago. Although a mere 2.8 percent of the population is estimated to walk to work, the report's authors believe the results are indicative of urban development moving away from automobile dependency and sprawl - an event they consider as significant as Frederick Jackson Turner declaring the "closing of the frontier" in 1893.
The Guga S’Thebe Arts and Cultural Centre in Langa, Cape Town's oldest township, is expanding to include a theatre exclusively for children and adolescents. The main component of the theatre, set for completion this fall, will be a large, multi-functional space for hosting performances. The project, a collaborative effort between future users and international architecture students, is aimed at stimulating sustainable development while widening the possibilities for the target demographic. To check out more project images, continue after the break.
Two weeks ago, David Rockwell took a step away from his usual work of interior and set design to present his foray into the prefab game - an adaptable 2,400 square-foot house called "Pinwheel." His design aims to challenge two assumptions about prefabrication: one, affordability and luxury are mutually exclusive and two, pre-fab's limited flexibility makes a cookie-cutter result inevitable. Rockwell says the project, a collaboration between himself and Fred Carl, founder of modular housing venture C3 Design, was inspired by his childhood in Mexico, where "outdoor space was part of the lifestyle." Check out the plan and more designs after the break.
Responding to Rem Koolhas’s theme of “Absorbing Modernity," OfficeUS, the US's National Pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale, launched as an experimental architecture firm with a mission to revisit, rethink and re-evaluate one thousand American architectural projects from the last century. The Giardini Pavilion was transformed by New-York based firm Leong Leong into a multi-functioning and interdisciplinary office, run by the six “partners" who were hand-picked for the job. Assigned with the ongoing task of producing models, drawings, and engaging in workshops and lectures throughout the duration of the Biennale, the partners and their collaborators in Venice and around the world attempt "to construct an agenda for the future production of architecture."
Focused mainly on exported architecture, the projects vary from nuclear plants to US embassies, residential typologies and museums and are lined on the pavilion’s walls within research booklets, available for the use of the partners and the public.
Care to join in? Check out 15 of the projects investigated by OfficeUS, after the break…
PlanGrid, touted as "the fastest blueprint viewer" available, is one of the most mature apps for viewing, amending and discussing construction drawings on a collaborative cloud-based platform. This week they launched PlanGrid for Education, allowing students full and uninhibited access to every feature of the app free of charge. According to the company, they currently have "40,000 blueprints being uploaded to PlanGrid daily and over 9 million blueprints stored digitally", making the platform one of the fastest growing in its market.
Acting as the centerpiece for MoMA's Warm Up music festival on Saturdays throughout the Summer, the temporary structure will provide shade, seating and water until September 7th. Read on after the break for more on the design.
The winners of the Australian Institute of Architects' 2014 Northern Territory Awards were announced last night - continuing a strong year for Troppo Architects, who won four awards to add to their Australian Institute of Architects Gold Medal, which they received in March. Troppo took home the Territory's top award, the Tracy Memorial Award, in addition to the COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture, the Enduring Architecture Award, and the award for Residential Alterations & Additions.
Other winners on the night included Mode Design and Dunn & Hillam Architects, who each took home one award and one commendation. Neeson Murcutt Architects also bagged a Small Projects Award just a day after a very successful outing in the New South Wales Awards.
The Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in partnership with the Fundació Mies van der Rohe have launched an exciting program of discussions and workshops titled: «Rethinking Europe - European experience in the city development»
The series, which, as part of the Strelka Institute's summer program, will run from the June 30 to July 29, invites representatives from the architectural and urban planning communities of Europe's four largest cities - Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, and London - to discuss how their city's approaches to urban development could be applied to urban territories in Moscow. Learn more about this fantastic series, after the break.
Despite severe corrosion, with almost 70% of one its six sections “thoroughly corroded” according to the government, Vladimir Shukhov’s 1922 radio tower has never been restored. Earlier this year, a large group of international architects petitioned the government to save the tower, one of only 20 or so of Shukhov’s 200 towers still standing in Russia. Now Moscow’s government has put the fate of the landmark tower to a public vote.
Until July 6 Moscovites can use the “Engaged Citizen” app to support one of four actions: hold an open competition to restore the tower, move the tower to a new location, move it to its historic location on Shabolovka street, or invent a new solution.
Visualisation. Image Courtesy of Marks Barfield Architects / i360 Brighton
British practice Marks Barfield Architects, famous for designing the London Eye, are a step closer to realising their latest urban observation structure: the i360 Brighton. This week the international team who created the London landmark were reunited on Brighton beach as as loans of more than £40 million have been agreed to begin the tower's construction. Bringing together companies from the UK, France (Poma), the USA (Jacobs Enginneering) and the Netherlands (Hollandia), the project has been described as "truly unique."
In an interesting analysis in the Guardian, Olly Wainwright draws attention to the questionable process by which of Thomas Heatherwick's Garden Bridge proposal has gained such strong support from the British government. It is, according to Wainwright, the product of "one voguish designer, one national treasure and one icon-hungry mayor" - however he contends that compared to other more needed potential bridges over the Thames, the Garden Bridge may just be "a spectacular solution to a problem that doesn't really exist," and a terrific waste of infrastructure funds. You can read the article in full here.
3XN has won an architectural competition -- beating out Wingårdh, Arkitema Dot, Christensen & Co, Juul/Frost, and White -- to design a new educational building for Mälardalen University in Eskilstuna (southwest of Stockholm, Sweden). The project not only includes a new 18,250 square meter building, but also the renovation of a listed Modernist Public Bath Paul Hedquist. The new campus is planned to be ready in 2018. Read the architect's description of the winning project, after the break.
Surface Magazine's reintroducing its famed Avant Guardian photography contest, a competition that has helped launch the careers of many photographers. Surface editors and a star jury - featuring international photographer Iwan Baan, along with Johan Lindeberg, Klitos Teklos (Air Paris), Benoit Lagarde (Splashlight), and Keren Sachs (Offset) - will select 10 finalists. Finalists' work will be showcased in Surface's October 2014 issue and in a traveling photography exhibition.
Physical model making can be time intensive and expensive. However, thanks to the makers of Arckit, that has changed. Based on a panel by panel modular system and a standard 1.2 meter grid, the newly released Arckit provides an easy-to-use, flexible model building system that allows architects to quickly construct and modify a diverse range of scaled structures. Architect tested and approved, the kit is currently available for purchase in the EU, US, Amazon and now Barnes and Noble.
To celebrate its success, the makers of Arckit have agreed to gift 5 ArchDaily readers their largest, most expensive set: Arckit 240, a 620+ piece kit valued at $399. For a chance to win, check out all four sets available on the Arckit website and enter the sweepstakes after the break.
CTBUH, the organization best known for its Tall Building Awards, has announced the winner of its inaugural Urban Habitat Award: OMA / Ole Scheeren's The Interlace in Singapore. The jurors, including Studio Gang Architects' Jeanne Gang, praised the apartment complex, which includes communal gardens and spaces on the roofs and in between the apartment blocks, for responding to its tropical context and "integrating horizontal and vertical living frameworks."
CTBUH Jurors also recognized Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners' NEO Bankside as a finalist. Read more about the The Interlace and NEO Bankside, after the break.
The Australian Institute of Architects announced its 2014 NSW Architecture Awards in a ceremony held in Sydney last night. Among the 42 Awards and 18 Commendations given out, perhaps the biggest winner was Neeson Murcutt Architects, whose Prince Alfred Park + Pool Upgrade won the Sulman Medal for Public Architecture, the Lloyd Rees Award for Urban Architecture, and was a joint winner of the City of Sydney Lord Mayor's Prize.
In awarding the scheme by Neeson Murcutt Architects, the jury noted that it was "a rare synthesis of art and landscape, urban design and architecture" making the experience "a delight in every detail."
See the full list of 69 Awards, Prizes and Commendations after the break
Although already an icon in architectural circles, “birthday boy” Antoni Gaudí may soon be receiving a new accolade: sainthood. Due to his renowned, unique style and tireless efforts on La Sagrada Família, Gaudi, potentially our first Patron Saint of Architects, will be beatified by Pope Francis within the next year.
Although beatification is only the third of four steps towards full-fledged canonization (which will require proof that Gaudí performed at least one miracle), it still seems a good moment to celebrate Gaudí and explore some of his most astounding works scattered throughout the city of Barcelona (seven of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites). Discover some of our favourites after the break.
Today marks the 81st birthday of Portuguese modernistÁlvaro Siza. Originally slated to become a sculptor, Siza’s switch-over to architecture took place early in his career, after experiencing the work of Antoni Gaudí (whose birthday he shares). Since then, he has risen to become one of the most respected architects of the era, winning the Pritzker Prize in 1992.
Robert Venturi, the architect famous for "less is a bore," turns 89 today. Venturi started his firm in 1964 and ran it with his wife and partner Denise Scott Brown from 1967 until 2012. Today the Pritzker Prize winner's legacy lives on as the firm continues under the name VSBA (Venturi Scott Brown Associates).
Contemporary society is based on written rules or not – whether right or wrong – that influence people's existence, thus as in everyday's life, also the city creates its rules, offering hidden scenarios going beyond their normal ordinary perception, proposing new types of space and relation.
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