Architecture News

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected The Grand Louvre – Phase I as the recipient of the 2017 AIA Twenty-five Year Award. Designed by I.M. Pei with his firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the project is notable for its 71-foot-tall glass and stainless steel pyramid, which according to the AIA, “now rivals the Eiffel Tower as one of France’s most recognizable architectural icons.”

The award is presented annually to a project that has "stood the test of time by embodying architectural excellence for 25 to 35 years."

With nearly 25 million inhabitants the Chinese city of Shanghai is currently the most populous city in the world and, in addition, has a central library system that dates back to the mid 19th Century. A new city library, designed by Danish practice Schmidt Hammer Lassen and won following a two-stage international competition, will provide 110,000 square meters of space in the Pudong District and adjacent to Century Park – the largest green space in the city.

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Quicken Loans Arena, home of the current NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers, is set to receive a $140 million transformation. Designed by SHoP and Rossetti, the project will consist of significant upgrades to address the arena’s structural and operational deficiencies and improve the overall fan experience.

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Brett Steele, Director of London's Architectural Association (AA) since 2005, has announced that he will become Dean of UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture in August 2017. Although American-born, Steele has since become a naturalized British citizen. He studied at the AA, the University of Oregon, and the San Francisco Art Institute respectively, before working as a Project Architect at Zaha Hadid Architects in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Working with developer Skanska, Grimshaw has designed a master plan for Bristol Temple Square in Bristol, England, that will contain a new start-up incubator and co-working space known as Engine Shed 02. The development will serve as an activated public area linking the Bristol Temple Meads Railway Station and the city center.

The masterplan unlocks a previously isolated site adjacent to the Temple Circus roundabout by creating a new walkway, the Brunel Mile, which prioritizes pedestrian and cyclist circulation through the area. A new public square along the path will also contribute to reinvigorating the neighborhood.

Construction has begun on Kengo Kuma’s design for the Tokyo 2020 National Olympic Stadium, a year after the scheme was selected to replace the original stadium design by Zaha Hadid Architects and three and a half years before the event’s opening ceremony on July 24, 2020.

UNStudio and textile manufacturer MDT-tex have completed the Eye_Beacon Pavilion for the Amsterdam Light Festival. Serving as a ticketing and information booth for event goers, the pavilion’s design draws inspiration from the festival’s 2017 theme of biomimicry, specifically the bioluminescent organisms of the deep sea world.

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After a career as a professional skateboarder, Helsinki-based Janne Saario has become one of few landscape architects in the world with a practice devoted completely to designing skate parks for young people. Saario’s designs—all of which are located in Europe—diverge from the typical brutalist stereotypes of concrete skate park masses, and rather, are site-specific and heavily influenced by their natural surroundings.

“Young people are our hope and future,” says Saario. “And by offering beautiful and meaningful surroundings to grow, like wonderful skate parks, we can make a positive change on their picture of the world and future behavior.”

The architectural team comprised of Davis Brody Bond and Kieran Timberlake has unveiled its newest updates on the design for 181 Mercer, a 735,000-square-foot complex for New York University that will replace a 35-year-old gym facility and become NYU’s largest classroom building, as well as a space for performing arts, athletics, and students and faculty housing.

The end of 2016 is nearly upon us, and with the start of 2017 comes speculation about who will be the next Pritzker Prize winner. Will the jury honor an influential member of the "old guard," as they did in 2015 when they bestowed the award upon the late Frei Otto? Or will they recognize a young architect who is redefining the profession, as they did when they selected Alejandro Aravena earlier this year? Will they reward virtuoso spatial design, or will they once again acknowledge the role of social impact, as they did in recognizing Aravena and Shigeru Ban in 2014? Will the award go to an individual or to two or more architects working together, as it did in 2010 when SANAA scooped the prize?

We want to hear from our readers – not just about who probably will win the prize, but about who should win the prize, and why. Read on to cast your vote in our poll, and let us know in the comments whose name you'd like to hear announced in 2017.

Following the announcements of the 2017 AIA Gold Medal and Architecture Firm of the Year winners, The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the winners of three other national awards: the Edward C. Kemper Award,the Topaz Medallion, and the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award.

This here is an architect. The architect is a strange sort of a creature. Typically nocturnal, it survives purely on an unhealthy work-life imbalance. After years of primary research, our experts have finally succeeded in dissecting The Architect...

Here is an anatomy.

Next year the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) will open a seminal new exhibition: Mies van der Rohe & James Stirling: Circling the Square. The show will examine two iconic schemes proposed for the same site in the City of London: Mies van der Rohe’s unrealised Mansion House Square project (developed by Lord Peter Palumbo) and its built successor, James Stirling Michael Wilford & Associates’ No.1 Poultry.

San Franisco-based Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects (LMSA) has been chosen as the recipient of the 2017 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Architecture Firm Award.

“Their passion for addressing some of the profession’s thorniest issues including regenerative design, universal access, social equity and housing for the most disadvantaged has been consistent and impressive,” wrote Bob Berkebile, FAIA Emeritus, in a recommendation letter.

Videos

The team led by light artist Leo Villareal and architects and urban planners Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands has been announced as the winner of the Illuminated River International Design Competition.

Selected from a six-strong shortlist of internationally acclaimed architects and designers, the winning design was lauded by Illuminated River Foundation Chair Hannah Rothschild as “beautiful, ambitious and realisable but always considerate to the environment, lighting levels and energy conservation.”

Unequal distribution of public space when it comes to pedestrians, cyclists and people driving cars is an issue that urban mobility specialist Mikael Colville-Andersen calls "The Arrogance of Space." 

The urban planner and founder of Copenhagenize believe that this term can be applied to streets that are dominated by traffic engineers from last century where streets were made primarily for cars.

To illustrate his position, Mikael analyzed the amount of space allocated to each of these groups, in addition to "dead space” and space for buildings, in the streets of Calgary, Paris, and Tokyo by comparing each sector using different colors. 

Take a look at the findings below.