Architecture News

The Royal College of Art (RCA) has announced that Herzog & de Meuron has been selected as the winner of a competition to design a strategic approach for the center at its new £108m Battersea South campus.

Beating out runner-up practices Christian Kerez (Switzerland), Diller Scofidio + Renfro (US), Lacaton & Vassal (France), Robbrecht en Daem architecten (Belgium), Serie Architects (UK/Singapore) and Studio Gang (US), the winning proposal was lauded for its “strong engagement with the existing College buildings and wider surroundings in Battersea.”

In the beginning of 2010, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced the creation of a “Silicon Valley for Russia,” to be located in a southern suburb of Moscow, that would feature research facilities, university laboratories, start-ups, meeting hubs, and housing. After an international competition in 2011, each of the districts within this larger project was awarded to its own architect. After careful planning, Agence d’Architecture A. Bechu & Associés has unveiled its design for District 11 of the project.

Concentrating on ecological housing, this district will contain individual houses dedicated to researchers and their families, under the greater goal of positive social interactions.

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Jean Nouvel is engaged in talks to provide master planning concepts for the town of North Adams, Massachusetts, home to the renowned art institution MASS MoCA and a few miles from the Tadao Ando-designed Clark Art Institute. Initial discussions have included preliminary design proposals for three buildings in the city center along Heritage Park and on Main Street.

The new plan would be tasked with contributing to the economic revitalization of the city’s downtown, and would need to respond to the MASS MoCA campus, itself master planned with consult from Frank Gehry, Robert Venturi, David Childs and Simeon Bruner of Bruner/Cott & Associates.

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A metal microlattice developed by Boeing and HRL Laboratories has just been awarded the Guinness World Record for lightest metal.

Made from nickel phosphorus, the microlattice emulates human cell structure, reaching a density and surface area similar to lung tissue. So light it can be balanced on the top of a dandelion seed head, the material weighs in at approximately 100 times lighter than styrofoam.

Studio Seilern Architects (SSA) has unveiled its design for a new skyscraper in New York, located on the riverfront of the Hudson River, which will offer views to the South West towards the river and Hoboken, as well as to the East towards the Empire State Building and Manhattan skyline.

The 16.107 square meter building (24 floors) will feature commercial units in the form of a gallery in the plinth—which is reduced to form a sculpture garden—at the lower levels, while upper levels will contain residential units.

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Molenaar & Co architecten (Rotterdam), Hebly Theunissen architecten (Delft), and landscape architect Michael van Gessel (Amsterdam) have won the 2016 World Monuments Fund/ Knoll Modernism Prize for the preservation and rehabilitation of the Justus van Effen complex in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Originally designed by Michiel Brinkman in 1919-1921 and completed in 1922, the Justus van Effen complex is a strong example of the ideals embodied in the modern movement, particularly with its use of an elevated “street” as a means of facilitating social cohesion, which became very influential for subsequent generations of designers. 

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Dubai Design District (d3) has announced the opening of offices by 4 of the world’s leading architecture firms – Zaha Hadid Architects, Santiago Calatrava Architects & Engineers, Foster + Partners and Benoy – marking another step towards the city’s goal of becoming a global design hub.

Since first launching in April 2013, d3 has become the region’s preeminent destination for artists, designers and creative types of all kinds to work and collaborate. So far, d3 has welcomed in over 30 architecture firms of medium to large size, including SSH and Viktor Udzenija, RMJM and Wanders Wagner.

Tadao Ando’s only project in the United Kingdom, the ‘Japanese Pavilion’ at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, is slated for demolition as part of a £10m redesign of the park and plaza.

Built in 2002 as part of a makeover for the square, the pavilion takes the form of a long, gray concrete wall along the park’s southwestern edge, which critics have argued divide the public space, describing the design as “bleak and depressing” and comparing it to the Berlin Wall.

JAJA Architects has been announced as the winners of an open international competition to design a new parish church in the Sydhavnen (South Harbor) district of Copenhagen. When completed, it will be the first new church built in Copenhagen since 1989.

The competition, organized by The Danish Association of Architects, sought proposals for a 3,200 square meter church to be located on a waterfront site in the revitalized district of Sydhavnen that could be used for a range of religious, social, cultural and musical events. Construction of the church is expected to be completed in 2019.

Continue reading to see the winning proposal as well as several additional entries.

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Aedas has unveiled plans for Gemdale Changshou Road, a new mixed-use project located within Shanghai’s urban city ring that will add 45,000 square meters (484,000 square feet) of terraced office and retail space within close proximity of a planned residential development.

Designed by Andrew Bromberg at Aedas, the design is nicknamed “Cloud on Terrace,” as it uses a series of green terraces as a visual and occupiable “bridge between the low-rise, residential developments to the south and Changshou Road to the north.”

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Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Hyperloop One have unveiled joint designs for an autonomous transportation system and the world’s first Hyperloop pods and portals in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The designs are being presented as Hyperloop One signs a deal with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), bringing the project one step closer to reality.

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SketchUp developer Trimble has launched SketchUp Viewer, a new virtual and mixed reality app for the Microsoft HoloLens that will allow users to inhabit and experience their 3D designs in a completely new way. Using the holographic capabilities of the HoloLens, SketchUp Viewer creates hologram versions of models that can be placed in real-world environments –allowing architects to study and analyze how their buildings will react to their context while still in the design stage.

At today’s Trimble Dimensions keynote, architect Greg Lynn presented SketchUp Viewer for the first time, demonstrating the technology using his re-imagining of the Packard Plant in Detroit, commissioned as part of the “Architectural Imagination,” the U.S. Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale exhibition.

"Trimble mixed-reality technology and Microsoft HoloLens bring the design to life and bridge the gap between the digital and physical. Using this technology I can make decisions at the moment of inception, shorten the design cycle and improve communication with my clients,” said Lynn.

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The Illuminated River Foundation has unveiled the six designs shortlisted to transform the river Thames in London by lighting up key bridges along the length of the river. The six teams were selected in September and asked to work their initial schemes into concept designs for the Westminster, Waterloo, London and Chelsea bridges. The teams comprise: Adjaye Associates; A_LA; Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Leo Villareal with Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands and Future\Pace; Les Éclairagistes Associés with ecqi and Federico Pietrella; and Sam Jacob Studio with Simon Heijdens. Read on to see all six designs.

Architectural photographer Danica O. Kus has shared with us new images of BIG’s VIA 57 West. Having opened earlier this year, the “courtscraper” has already been the recipient of several awards, including its unanimous victory of the 2016 International Highrise Award last week. This new photoset takes us inside the public and private spaces of the 32-story building, including interior shots of the lobby, lounge, pool and the residential units.

Check out the full set after the break.

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One of modernism’s most iconic houses, Case Study House 21 (Bailey House) by Pierre Koenig, is now on sale. The two-bed/two-bath Hollywood Hills landmark has been touted as among the finest of Arts & Architecture Magazine’s Case Study Houses, and one of the program’s few truly experimental projects to explore groundbreaking design and materials.

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The Sunday Times British Homes Awards has selected the recipient for its Resilient Home for the Future Award: "A Home for All Seasons" by JTP Architects and environmental design specialist Ed Barsley. JTP and Ed Barsley's proposal was chosen from four other entries by means of a public vote. Competition requirements asked for designs to respond to potential flooding and overheating — two of climate change's impending variables.

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