Architecture News

Harvard GSD is presenting during the month of April 2020, an online series of talks and webinars via Zoom, where attendees can interact and submit questions. Accessible for everyone who registers, the events are also streamed live to the GSD's YouTube page.

The new Twist Museum by Bjarke Ingels Group is open in Norway. Traversing the winding Randselva river, the inhabitable bridge is torqued at its center, forming a new journey and art piece within the Kistefos Sculpture Park in Jevnaker. The project was recently captured through a series of images by photographer Jacob Due. The photos explore the museum's formal approach and place the design in its larger natural context.

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Though Modernism is sometimes criticized for imposing universal rules on different people and areas, it was Richard J. Neutra's (April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) intense client focus that won him acclaim. His personalized and flexible version of modernism created a series of private homes that were—and still are—highly sought after, making him one of the United States' most significant mid-century modernists. His architecture of simple geometry and airy steel and glass became the subject of the iconic photographs of Julius Schulman, and came to stand for an entire era of American design.

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Marc Thorpe, New York-based architect and multidisciplinary studio, has designed the Dakar Houses for the workers of Moroso M’Afrique furniture collection. Located on the outskirts of the Senegalese capital in West Africa, the prototype houses are made from earth bricks.

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Designed by Sasaki in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team including Arup, JLL, and the Wuhan Planning Institute, the Wuhan Yangchun Lake Business District master plan was approved by the city. Imagining “a progressive yet realistic vision for the district”, the project, a landscape-forward urban blueprint, will define Wuhan’s next generation of growth.

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Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) has announced three shortlisted architects for the 2020 Wheelwright Prize. Now in its eighth cycle, the Wheelwright Prize supports innovative design research, crossing both cultural and architectural boundaries, with a $100,000 grant intended to support two years of study. The 2020 Wheelwright Prize drew 168 applicants from over 45 countries.

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Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Sasaki have announced the groundbreaking for new construction on 212 Stuart Street, in the historic Bay Village neighborhood in downtown Boston. The residential tower is a 19-story building containing 126 units with two townhouses and retail space on the ground level.

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On the 200th anniversary of Gregor Mendel’s birth, CHYBIK + KRISTOF will bring the historic St. Augustin Abbey greenhouse to life in Brno. As the location where the notorious scientist and father of modern genetics conducted his pioneering experiments, the greenhouse is located in the 14th-century Augustinian monastery’s gardens. After the original building was swept away by a storm in the 1870s, the team aims to return the significant site to Brno’s old city in 2022.

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With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing many architecture firms to quickly transition into a work from home, designers are having to discover new ways to work without everyone being in the same room. The casual conversations, overheard ideas, and site visits that were once an integral part of our jobs have been put on pause, and have left some architects wondering how everyone else is continuing project work.

Shift architecture urbanism developed micro-markets that can operate on a hyper-local scale during coronavirus shutdowns. The research elaborated on a scheme allowing traders to provide fresh food in a safe way to the self-quarantined inhabitants of the city. 

The Drawing Matter Trust has announced a new Drawing Matter Writing Prize for 2020. Over the next few months, Drawing Matter will be focused on encouraging writing about drawings for both architecture and design. The competition invites writers to consider what drawings reveal about the process of design, and the buildings or objects they represent. The hope is to make the prize an annual event.

UNStudio completed two remodel projects in the Netherlands rethinking traditional glazing techniques. Located in Eindhoven and on the P.C Hooftstraat in Amsterdam, the projects each draw from their context and take inspiration from local history and culture. Made to restore and connect the two existing structures to their respective cityscapes, the projects are designed to restore the urban fabric as they connect to passerby.

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Design and the City is a podcast by reSITE, raising questions and proposing solutions for the city of the future. In the final episode, Ravi Naidoo from Design Indaba discusses the purpose of design. Aiming to define the field, the founder of Interactive Africa, a company based in Cape Town, and the design platform Design Indaba shares his personal thoughts on empowering people to create a better future through creativity.

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As New York is facing unprecedented circumstances and as the numbers of infected people with the coronavirus are reaching new highs, officials are seeking fast and efficient solutions to generate useful spaces for patients. With a timeline of a few weeks, the city is looking into ways of altering the existing structures.

World Architecture Festival and World Festival of Interiors: Inside is scheduled for 2 – 4 December, in Lisbon.  Preparations for the event are going ahead in the typical way and architects from across the globe are continuing to submit their online awards entries.

Michael McKinnell, a British-born American architect, known for his work on the acclaimed Boston’s Brutalist City Hall, and co-founder of the Kallmann McKinnell & Wood architectural design firm, has passed away on March 27, 2020, at the age of 84, from COVID-19-induced pneumonia.

GWP Architects imagined a mixed-use development tower, reaching a height of 200 meters with a total construction area of approximately 81,000 square meters. Located in Guangzhou, the project entitled Fengsheng 101, includes hotels, offices, apartments, and commercial stores.

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