Architecture News

New York-based ODA has revealed their design for new residential towers in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood. These three towers, called 416-420 Kent, aim to revitalize the neglected East River waterfront and will introduce a new sense of community, while providing ample natural light and green spaces for residents.

Italy has selected “Taking Care, Designing for the Common Good” as the theme of their pavilion for the 2016 Venice Biennale, examining architecture as a community service that takes care of individuals, spaces, places, principles and resources. The exhibit will present 20 projects by Italian architecture firms that address a range of problems from health to housing, education and culture. The exhibit will be curated by a team from TAMassociati comprised of Massimo Lepore, Raul Pantaleo and Simone Sfriso.

This episode of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, examines the changing use and role of "one of the most simultaneously decried and admired materials in twentieth century architecture:" concrete. Exploring the "unlikely revival of a polarising product" in the cultural perception of many, this cheap, abundant and energy-hungry resource is studied as one of the most prolific and diverse building materials in history.

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Budapest-based Hello Wood has announced an open call for team-leaders to participate in its award-winning summer school from July 14-22, 2016. The eight day Project Village program focuses on envisioning a design for a “new village model,” and then on building the imagined projects. The 2015 program brought together academics and students from more than 30 countries and 25 universities. This year, Project Village is looking for experienced architects, designers and artists to join the team in western Hungary, only two hours away from the capital.

The theme for the 2016 program is “Settling: The Rituals of Arrival,” which will explore the ways communities make themselves feel at home. Participants will be asked to build “a place of arrival, permanence, and connection," exploring in their designs the architectural aspects of settling, what makes a place feel like home, and the roles of hosts and guests.

New interior images have been released of Studio Gang's's Vista Tower, a 95-story luxury residential high rise located in Chicago. Upon completion, Vista Tower will become the third tallest tower in the city.

The British firm RMJM, founded in 1956 by Robert Matthew and Stirrat Johnson-Marshall with its first offices in London and Edinburgh, is celebrating its 60th anniversary. The international firm has grown considerably in six decades and now boasts offices and design studios in numerous cities – including New York, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Shanghai, Karachi, Dubai, Pretoria, Nairobi, and many more – on five continents.

The firm's early success in the United Kingdom led to international commissions in the Middle East and North Africa, with RMJM anticipating the impending globalism of the architecture profession, its actions allowing it to become "one of the largest and most geographically diverse architecture firms in the world." Read on for a small selection of RMJM's most notable designs, with one example taken from each decade of the firm's illustrious past.

Jennifer Siegal, founder of Los Angeles-based Office of Mobile Design (OMD), has been announced as the winner of the fourth arcVision Prize – Women and Architecture, an international award to women’s architecture organized by Italcementi. Siegal was unanimously chosen by the jury for being “a fearless pioneer in the research and development of prefabricated construction systems, at low prices for disadvantaged users and areas, who has been able to invent and build practical solutions and a new language for mobile and low-cost housing."

"Innovation and unconventional thinking are both hardwired into my DNA. This shows in my body of work and research that questions everything, particularly the static, heavy, inflexible architecture that we somehow still expect in a world that is anything but," said Siegal in a press release.

Responding to curator Alejandro Aravena's theme "Reporting from the front," the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo has selected Washington Fajardo to present an exhibition titled “JUNTOS.” The project for the Brazilian pavilion will highlight stories of people who have fought to achieve changes in institutional passivity in Brazil's big cities. They have created architecture within slow processes, bringing stable solutions in a politically tumultuous territory. According to the curator, “the exhibition is a composition of these pathways and partnerships, where activism meets architects and architecture, becoming a magnet in the preparation of a new space.”

Photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu has captured the latest photos of BIG's courtscraper, VIA 57WEST. Exploring the urban context of this unconventional high-rise, the images illustrate how the building's swooping facade and peak appear from different sight lines.

For more on BIG's courtscraper and the firm's boundary-pushing design philosophy, check out this New York Times video or this gallery of under-construction photos.

Steven Holl Architects (SHA) has been commissioned by Williams College to complete a program and masterplan study for the Williams College Department of Art and Museum of Art (WCMA). "The Master Plan aims to evaluate programming and space needs toward the determination of a program to catalyze the engagement of students, faculty and visitors with the visual arts," says SHA.

After talking with nearly 30 distinct groups of students, faculty and museum staff, SHA defined five main goals in which the study is based on:

Rotterdam—the original "tabula rasa" city—will soon become host to a giant staircase, ascending 180 steps from Stationsplein (outside Rotterdam Central Station’s iconic entrance) to the top of the world-renowned Groot Handelsgebouw building. According to MVRDV, the structure will "follow in the city's tradition of celebrating reconstruction milestones" and, as such, the scaffolding system used to construct the staircase will be "a nod" to the 75th anniversary of the rebuilding of the city following World War II.

Studio Esinam, in collaboration with London-based photographer Rory Gardiner, has released Utopia, a photo series that captures and pays tribute to London’s Brutalist architecture. The series aims to “highlight the subtle beauties hidden beneath the hard surface of some of London’s brutalist buildings.”

Photographed during the early spring of 2016, the project captures some of the city’s best examples of Brutalism: the Barbican Estate, Royal National Theatre, Hayward Gallery, Trellick Tower, and the Robin Hood Gardens.

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The Western Australia Government has commissioned OMA and Hassell to design the new WA Museum in Perth. The team was chosen over three shortlisted consortia for the reputation of "creating dynamic architecture" and "international reputation," according to WA Culture and the Arts Minister John Day. A schematic design is expected to be released this summer. The museum plans to open by 2020.

Three finalists have been selected for the Tel Aviv University Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Center Design Competition.

The competition called for designs to meet scientific needs and establish an identity befitting the local context of the city of Tel Aviv and the University campus. Thus, the three finalists created a balance between technical requirements and soft program elements like office and public space, presenting proposals for a center that acts "as an effective facilitator in the dialogue between modern science, Tel Aviv University, and the general public," according to a press release.