The basic idea of the Adana City Hall and Cultural Center building by MTF Proje was based on the surrounding of the building, which is mostly captured with green areas. Half of the building is designed just under the green land which is coherent due to the topography. Here in Adana Çukurova, the building is designed due to the human scale. The building is consisted of a four story city hall, a culture center which has the capacity of nearly 500 people, a city library, a wedding place, city information center and the ateliers. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat recently won the international competition for the new 32.000m2 Sberbank corporate University. As Russia’s largest and oldest state run bank with over 250.000 employees and 20.000 branch offices in the country, the new Sberbank University will provide education, seminars, and team building programs to the company’s top professionals to continuously improve their performance within the corporate standards. The Sberbank University is expected to be completed in 2013. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architects: Architectural Field Office with Architecture for Humanity Location: Kimisagara, Kigali, Rwanda Project Year: 2009 Project Area: 200.0 sqm Photographs: Killian Doherty

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KPF recently shared with us their latest design for a 530 meter mixed-use tower in Guangzhou’s Zhujiang Xincheng CBD – the CTF Guangzhou – which is currently under construction. Joining an already impressive skyline, the new tower will form an urban triumvirate with its immediate neighbors – the 440 meter International Finance Center and the 600 meter Canton Tower.

At the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, three competing projects have been announced winners of the Future Cities: Planning for the 90 per cent compeition: ateliermob (Portugal), Municipal Housing Secretariat of São Paulo (Brazil), and Interazioni Urbane (Italy). The projects were narrowed down from the exhibition’s ten participants, which were selected from more than 100 international submissions. Portugese practice ateliermob has shared with us their winning entry, “Working with the 99%”, a case study on the progress and community work of Lisbon’s self-built PRODAC neighborhood.

The jury, comprised of Anna Detheridge, Joseph Grima, Richard Ingersoll, Fulvio Irace, and Mary Jane Jacob, stated: “Ateliermob, “Working with the 99%” a participatory project in Lisbon Portugal based on a different approach which redefines the architect’s role. Ateliermob have envisaged for themselves a central function stemming from the attempt to answer a basic question: how can architects attempt to solve the many problems they see around them working for clients that do not have the money to pay for their services. The answer they found is to place themselves at the center of a process in which the architect becomes mediator, fundraiser, creating an essential link between the public administration, the financial system and the community enabling the local residents without property or rights to achieve social status and dignity.”

Continue after the break for the architects’ project description. 

The village of Kigutu in Burundi, Africa is on its way to rebuilding a rural, off-the-grid medical site designed by Louise Braverman, Architect in collaboration with Village Health Works. The 40-acre master site plan is a feature of sustainable design that includes several new buildings, all of which embody East African cultural elements. To feature the progress of the five-year plan, Louise Braverman will also be presenting “Kigutu in Formation” at the 2012 Venice Biennale as part of Traces of Centuries and Future Steps event at Palazzo Bembo between August 29th and November 25th.

Join us after the break for more on Village Health Works Master Plan and the upcoming exhibit.

Designed for Bernard Khoury of DW5 for a private residence in Beirut, .PSLAB’s aim for the staircase in this space is to highlight the distinguishing features and shape of the staircase, all the while offering a distinctive experience. inspiration in this project came from the staircase’s main characteristics. The aim was to create a lighting concept that would not only mirror these distinguishing features but also complement the structure. The constraints encountered came not from the space but from the lighting fixture itself which required special handling to turn a concept into reality. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Berkeley Prize 2013, which launches on September 15, is dedicated to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the World Health Organization which is helping to promote and implement the Convention. The International Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence, which focuses on the social art of architecture, is celebrating its 15th prize cycle this year. The online, two-stage essay competition is open to undergraduate architecture majors in accredited schools of architecture throughout the world. Proposals are due on November 1, 2012. For more information, please visit here.

Designed by Saraiva + Associados, the design of the present office center in Ataşehir, located on the Asian side of Istanbul, provides a cost effective solution to the changing needs of office spaces. This development plays a significant role in the city and within the financial community since it is seen as an important investment. Therefore, in order to perform as a new landmark in Ataşehir, this new office center, located in a not very privileged spot, aims to be exceptional in an unexceptional context – an iconic complex full of identity and easily recognizable. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architects: L’Escaut Architectures Location: Vassivière Island, France Project Author: Koo Jeong A Project Year: 2008 Project Area: 212 sqm Photographs: Courtesy of L’Escaut Architectures

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LEGO® has just announced the newest classic building to join the collection of renowned architectural replicas in their Architecture series, the Villa Savoye, designed by Le Corbusier. Capturing the essence of the modernist villa, the small scale replica also makes sure to touch on Corbusier’s well-known ‘five points’. One of the most easily recognizable and renowned examples of the International style, the LEGO version will be available September 1 at a suggested price of $69.99.

Lying on the outskirts of Paris, France, Villa Savoye was designed as a private country house in 1931 and quickly became one of the most influential buildings and cemented Le Corbusier’s reputation as one of the most important architects of the 20th century. More images after the break.

Inspired by the 13th International Architecture Exhibition‘s theme Common Ground, Peter Eisenman has formed a team to revisit, examine and reimagine Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s 1762 folio collection of etchings, Campo Marzio dell’antica Roma. Derived from years of fieldwork spent measuring the remains of ancient Roman buildings, these six etchings depict Piranesi’s fantastical vision of what ancient Rome might have looked like and represent a landmark in the shift from a traditionalist, antiquarian view of history to the scientific, archaeological view.

Eisenman’s team consists of Eisenman Architects, students from Yale University, Jeffrey Kipnis with his colleagues and students of the Ohio State University, and Belgian architecture practice, Dogma. Each group has contributed a response to Piranesi’s work through models and drawings that stimulate discourse on contemporary architecture. In particular, they explore architecture’s relationship to the ground and the political, social, and philosophical consequences that develop from that relationship.

Described as “precise, specific, yet impossible”, Piranesi’s images have been a source of speculation, inspiration, research and contention for architects, urban designers and scholars since their publication 250 years ago. Continue after the break to learn more.

Architects: Menis Arquitectos Location: San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain Parish Architect: Fernando Menis Photographs: Simona Rotta, Courtesy of Menis Arquitectos

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The National Building Museum has named Paul Goldberger as the fourteenth laureate of the Vincent Scully Prize for “his lifetime work of encouraging thoughtful discourse and debate about the importance of design”. The Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic is currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and has written for a number of publications, including The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Vincent Scully Prize jury commended Goldberger for understanding that “architecture is in itself a form of public discourse”. Jury member Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk further explained that Goldberger has a unique ability to “explain architecture to the popular readership in a way that bridges the perceiver and the designer.”

Continue reading for Goldberger’s response.

Studio Mode are excited to share the launch of their new Facebook Page and news regarding their upcoming NON-LINEAR LAB: Growth Systems and Digital Fabrication Workshop. If you “Like” them on Facebook, you can enter a Sweepstakes to win a complimentary seat in the NON-LINEAR LAB on September 8th. For all the workshop details and registration, please click here.

Architect: Taniguchi and Associates Location: Houston, Texas, United States Architect of Record: Kendall/Heaton Associates Project Manager: Project Control Contractor: W. S. Bellows Construction Corp. Consultants: GBA Architecture, Ingenium Inc., CHPA Consulting Engineers, Walter P. Moore, Office of James Burnett, Fisher Marantz Stone, Minor Design Group, Theater Projects Consultants, Inc., Waterscape Consultants, Inc., Shen Milsom Wilke, CDC Curtain Wall Design and Consulting, Persohn/Hahn Associates, Ulrich Engineers, Inc. Project Area: 3,716 sqm Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Hester & Hardaway

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Commencing. A Brief History of Balconies entails the examination of subjectivities above ground, on little bits of buildings in air, looking down, at pennies on the sidewalk, oddly visible from the 34th floor, which appears to be the same level as jumbo jets coming into Logan from wherever they were coming from and above the sea. I once stood parallel with the jets as they banked and tipped their wingtips a little.

It’s an odd sensation to be in the air at such heights, stationary. It feels more natural to be in motion, to be flying. Chin on the warm aluminum extrusion of railing, I could fit my knees through the verticals. Just a slight web of metal anchored into concrete. I was once fearless at such heights and would sometimes stand on a patio chair to have the sensation of being clear of the rail. Was back a safe distance, or so assumed, with palms pressed to the balcony above. Holding myself in the in-between space like a jack, wedged between two floors and looking out over the rail to the vanishing point.

With their early work inspired by Russian Suprematism, Zaha Hadid Architects’ pays homage to the historical lineages of collective research that has led to the major works of today’s contemporary architecture at the 2012 Venice Biennale with the installation ‘Arum’. The pleated metal structure is derived from the work of German architect Frei Otto, who paved the way for material-structural form-finding processes. This installation is a response to David Chipperfield’s belief that the theme of ‘Common Ground’ is meant to “reassert the existence of an architectural culture, made up not just of singular talents but a rich continuity of diverse ideas united in a common history.”

Beautifully crafted, the installation at the Corderie of the Arsenale also includes models and explorations of ZHA, related to the work of Frei Otto, Felix Candela, Heinz Isler. In this aspect the firm has able to expose visitors to the inspiration and research from modern architects that can be found on ZHA’s contemporary works. We saw Patrik Schumacher before the Biennale’s preview on top of every detail, leading to an impecable result.

Videos, photos and more from the architects after the break:

Armi OPEN Workshop – Urban Brain Stream is an international workshop that aims to develop our urban environment. It is part of the program of both World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 and the Helsinki Design Week. In a series of workshops, to be held around the world in a span of 24 hours on September 6, professionals in architecture, art, business, construction, design, graphic design, media and traffic planning, together with city residents, discuss current challenges in urban planning in the context of each city involved. The workshops will discuss topics that have to do with movement and communication – the redesigning of the experience of moving and communal urban spaces. The findings of the workshops will be summed up in an open public meeting at the Huutokonttori information center in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki, on Septmeber 7, from 3pm to 7pm. For more information, please visit here.

Architects: architecture WORKSHOP Location: Tokyo, Japan Design Team: Koh Kitayama, Hiroko Hasama, Mariko Hama, Kim Young Woo, Shimpei Yamashita Project Year: 2010 Photographs: Daici Ano

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Organized by Singapore Institute of Architects, the annual month-long architecture festival is back for the sixth year running to celebrate the urban environment and the communities that make it alive. With the theme of ‘Rethink Singapore’, the event aims to consider the city in new ways – its people, spaces and the way we inhabit it. Taking place October 6-31, they hope to place Singapore under new light and be seen through new lenses, rethinking and re-framing it as an urban ecosystem, beyond singular architectural projects. For more information, please visit here.

Architects: Jordi Herrero Arquitecto Location: Palma de Mallorca, Spain Equipo De Diseño: Jordi Herrero Campo, Sebastián Escanellas Genovard, Juan Gabriel Valls Palmer, Gabriel Palmer Socías Project Year: 2009 Photographs: Jaime Sicilia, Courtesy of Jordi Herrero Arquitecto, Juan Gabriel Valls Palmer

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The jury of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale has awarded the United States pavilion a “Special Mention” for it’s innovative installation, titled Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good. Curated and commissioned by Cathy Lang Ho, along with David Van Der Leer and Ned Cramer, the exhibition presents 124 socially-minded urban interventions that have brought immediate improvements to the public realm.

Brooklyn-based practice Freecell collaborated closely with the Sausalito-based design studio M-A-D, led by Erik Adigard and Patricia McShane, to design a kinetic system of color-coded banners, weights and pulleys, that showcase each urban intervention. Learn more after the break.