Architecture News

In recent years, it seems like Bjarke Ingels has been everywhere you look; he has been profiled by The New Yorker, was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2016, has given TED Talks, and featured in countless other documentaries, videos, and articles (yes, including many on ArchDaily). But there is one place he hasn't yet appeared: on the cover of Surface Magazine. Today, with the launch of Surface's May/June issue, that changes.

"When The New Yorker published Ian Parker’s 11,000-word story on BIG’s rise in 2012, I knew Surface should put a pause on any major coverage, at least for several years, just to see how the firm’s story would evolve," says Surface editor-in-chief Spencer Bailey to explain the magazine's apparent omission. "I think that inkling was right: BIG has grown to five hundred employees, twelve partners, and three offices, with twenty projects under construction and fifty in development. His clients include Google, WeWork, and Audemars Piguet. There’s so much to unpack now."

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Get ready to add to your reading and watch lists because the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) just announced the 2018 award recipients for the SAH Publication, Film and Video Awards. Winners received their awards at SAH’s 71st Annual International Conference awards ceremony on April 20th in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The list of SAH Award recipients represents some of the best media in architectural, urban, and landscape history, as well as historic preservation scholarship and architectural exhibition catalogs. Nominations for the 2019 awards will be accepted by SAH on June 1st of this year.

See the list of this year's SAH Award recipients below.

Videos

Foster + Partners has released a video depicting their vision for a future high-speed transportation infrastructure, taking advantage of recent advances in hyperloop technology. Designed for DP World Cargospeed, a collaboration between cargo giant DP World and Virgin Hyperloop One, Foster + Partners’ vision for an infrastructural network seeks to create a new ecosystem where urban centers and rural landscapes are interconnected, as are humans and nature.

Have you ever thought a building looked suspiciously similar to a futuristic tank? Or, perhaps a gothic spire was eerily reminiscent of a matchstick? You’re not alone. Rich McCor, aka paperboy, has been traveling the world since 2015 filling his Instagram account with whimsical photographs of black paper cut-outs that transform often serious works of architecture into playful cartoon-like images.

Taking Christoph Niemann’s surreal account abstractsunday as a starting point, McCor was inspired to disrupt the norms of architecture and embellish the everyday. Though the account originally began while McCor was exploring the UK “it's taken me way beyond London to corners of the world I never thought I'd see,” he says. It’s easy to see why his humorous images of golf ball domes, beach-side creatures, and a pyramid-turned-magic trick have garnered McCor over 350k followers.

Sketchfab, the powerful architectural visualization software and database, is more convenient than ever thanks to a new extension for Revit developed by Emanuel Favreau of Montreal firm Larose McCallum Architects. Adding Revit to Sketchfab's extensive list of software add-ons is a big win for the Building Information Modeling (BIM) community. The new extension will allow Revit users to export models and scenes directly to Sketchfab, where they can be viewed in 3D and virtual reality from any device simply by following a link.

The MIT Press, in collaboration with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is set to digitize landmark out-of-print architecture and urban studies books published by the MIT Press, making them freely accessible online for discovery and research. Aided by a $157,000 grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, MIT Press are enabled to digitize a collection of “image-rich and intellectually prized architecture and urban studies titles” complete with the commissioning of new forewords for the works. Following the project’s completion, MIT Press intends to distribute a minimum of 25 titles for free on several platforms, including its own ebook service.

Among the titles to be released are Francoise Choay’s “The Rule and the Model: On the Theory of Architecture and Urbanism,” which links modern theory with classical and Renaissance architecture, and John Templer’s “The Staircase,” regarded as the first theoretical and historical analysis of the elemental stair. Books on the subject of famous architects will also be released, such as Donald Leslie Johnson’s “Frank Lloyd Wright vs. America: The 1930s” and Grant Hildebrand’s “On Leon Battista Alberti: His Literary and Aesthetic Theories.”

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) have been appointed as designers for the “Una” tower in Miami, Florida, a 47-story scheme set to contain 135 condominiums. Inspired by the iconic Riva yacht, the scheme is defined by a sculptured façade of “clear modern lines and ribbon-like curves.” AS+GG’s most notable achievement to date has been the design of the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, set to be the world’s tallest building.

We all know the typical architect’s look: a black turtleneck, slim fit pants, pointed toe boots, and minimalist jewelry pieces. Almost all of us, at one point or another, have tried to imitate the style of our favorite architect. Perhaps it was by sporting a pair of Corbusier and Philip Johnson’s iconic round glasses. Maybe it was through a chic statement haircut, or it could even have been by adopting the unofficial uniform of designers with the all-black outfit. If none of these sound appealing to you, there's no need to worry- there are still plenty of other ways to look like your favorite famous architect.

Concrete Toronto Map is the latest addition to Blue Crow Media's series of architectural guides. The London-based publisher collaborated with ERA Architects editorial team and Jason Woods photography to detail 47 of Toronto's concrete buildings and structures.

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Modern architecture has had many faces and developments, ranging from post-war reconstruction strategies in Europe to the International Style in the United States. One of these facets - perhaps the least glorious - are the social housing buildings of the eastern part of Europe, the results of initiatives by the Soviet regime to offer low-cost housing to the population. 

Often associated with unsuccessful programs, these buildings were generally very similar to each other, presenting very simple prismatic geometries with little chromatic variation. Blocks, so to speak, that in the hands and imagination of designer Lukas Valiauga take on a ludic aspect that has never been natural to them.

France-based Hamonic + Masson Architects has been selected as one of the winners for the Imagine Angers Competition, which asked teams to propose innovative designs to be built on one of six different sites in the town of Angers, France. The winning teams were announced by the mayor of Angers at MIPIM, a real estate conference, held in Cannes. Other participating architects include Manuelle Gautrand, Steven Holl, Duncan Lewis, XTU, Sou FUJIMOTO and OXO architects.

France-based SCAU Architectes has proposed their design for a new stadium project to be built on the outskirts of Paris. The site, which is located at the edge of a forest in Clamart, France, inspired the team to create a design that extends the forest by covering the stadium in a green mass of vegetation.

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Last spring, the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services tested a new, creative approach to combat the rising temperatures in the city center. The pilot project covered one neighborhood street in each of the LA's 15 council districts with CoolSeal, a more reflective asphalt-based coating developed by California-based company GuardTop. After seeing a difference of 11-13 degrees Fahrenheit on the coated streets, Los Angeles and other cities plan on implementing more reflective roofs and pavements to reduce the side effects of "heat islands."

More on the CoolSeal coating and the fight against heat island effect after the break.

Construction has resumed on the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Pier 55 on the Hudson River in New York. Almost eight months since the scheme was officially abandoned by primary backer Barry Diller due to soaring costs, work has resumed on the site following negotiations between New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Diller and the civic organization City Club in October 2017. The Architect’s Newspaper has reported that the scheme’s walkways are currently under construction, with concrete piles being laid into the river.

The shortlist for a new landmark project in Melbourne has been announced, comprising award-winning global architects such as Bjarke Ingels Group, MVRDV, and OMA. For the “Southbank by Beulah” mixed-use development, the shortlisted architects will engage in a design competition working in collaboration with local Australian firms, each producing a design proposal for Melbourne’s BMW Southbank site.

With an end value in excess of $2 billion, Southbank by Beulah will be the first large-scale private project adhering to the Australian Institute of Architecture guidelines, while the design competition will be chaired by a jury of seven regarded individuals from academic, architectural, property and government sectors.

In partnership with a 3D laser-scanning nonprofit called CyArk, Google Arts & Culture began the Open Heritage Project, a new chapter for historic preservation in the form of virtual reality. By using advanced 3D laser scanning technology, high-res drone photography, and DSLR cameras, CyArk can virtually recreate historic architecture to be more easily explored and restored.