20 prominent women in architecture have been shortlisted for the arcVision Prize - a prize that "aims to give recognition to women whose work brings an innovative new design, theoretical or practical approach to the economic, social and cultural issues at play in the field of architecture." Referred to some as the "Pritzker for women," the yearly arcVision Prize is now in its fourth edition.
The full list of nominees includes:
A total of 68 buildings have been shortlisted for the 2016 RIBA London Awards, including projects from John McAslan + Partners, dRMM Architects, Níall McLaughlin Architects, Eric Parry Architects and Rogers Stirk Harbour. All shortlisted buildings will now be visited and carefully assessed by one of four regional juries, and regional winners will be considered for a RIBA National Award. The shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize - given to the UK's best building of this year - will be composed of the winners of the RIBA National Award.
See a complete list of shortlisted buildings after the break.
Common Edge has published a cheeky "letter to prospective architecture parents" that preps them for the changes their child will soon undergo by detailing the 6 phases of architectural education: "Architecture school is a peculiar beast. It almost never actually prepares students to be practicing architects, and 90% of what is written by architects and architectural theorists is incomprehensible garbage. But being able to discern what is and what is not incomprehensible garbage is a profoundly useful life skill."
The six phases each architecture student goes through includes:
The City of Vancouver has agreed to purchase the Arbutus Corridor from Canadian Pacific Railway for $55 million to make way for a future public greenway. According to a report by CBC, this ends a long-standing dispute between the city and CP Rail over the worth of the nine kilometer stretch of land, which hasn't been used for nearly 15 years.
8 years ago today, ArchDaily launched with a daunting mission: to provide inspiration, knowledge and tools to the architects tasked with designing for the 3 billion people that will move into cities in the next 40 years. This mission has captured the imagination of architects worldwide, leading us to become the world's most visited architecture website – serving over 400,000 visitors daily in English, Spanish, Portuguese and now Chinese. In our 8th year, we've made great strides towards this goal: from conveying information in another language through ArchDaily China to finding new ways to transmit information such as our ArchDaily Essentials series; from better ways to engage readers such as our #YourArchDaily Instagram campaign to presenting more of an editorial voice through articles such as our selection of most inspiring leaders of 2015; and from a better way to display our site with our new redesign to a better way to manage our database with our custom publishing platform.
Of course, the most important part of this progress is the continued support and engagement of our ever-growing readership. By sharing our content on social media or discussing it with friends and colleagues, you're helping us to reach more and more architects, and thus helping us to fulfill our goal – thank you for joining us on this mission. Read on after the break for a round-up of our highlights from the past year.
Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin has recently completed "the ultra-marathon of photoshoots:" twenty-eight architectural offices in twenty-eight days, spread across four capital cities – Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Helsinki. His aim was to understand what sort of spaces architects in the Nordic countries operate in, and how they differ between each respective country. From former boathouses to stables and coal deposits, Goodwin has captured some of the most unique working environments the profession has to offer.
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Studio Gang Architects has been chosen by the Department of State to design the new US Embassy compound in Brasília Brazil's federal capital. Selected from a shortlist of six, the Jeanne Gang-led practice won the commission with their "strong and cohesive team approach with more than 20 years of collaborative experience executing projects with complex constraints at challenging sites," says the report.
Japanese practice Nikken Sekkei, in collaboration with Joan Pascual-Ramon Ausió Arquitectes, has been chosen to design the new Camp Nou stadium for FC Barcelona, according to Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. The winning team was chosen over three other finalists: HKS + COX + Batell i Roig Arquitectes; BIG + IDOM + BAAS Arquitectes; POPULOUS + Mias Arquitectes + RCR Arquitectes.
The new design intends to compliment the recently unveiled New Palau Blaugrana, FC Barcelona's main basketball arena that will be designed by HOK and TAC Arquitectes. All this is happening alongside the Espai Barça remodel that is expected to begin in 2017 and complete by 2021.
Yamagiwa has just released a new version of Toyo Ito's popular Mayuhana lamp - Mayuhana Ma Black. "Ma," meaning "true" or "genuine," represents the new lamps darker color that is, as the company describes, "more deep and profound."
"Mayuhana Ma Black is light in darkness. It is the quintessential quality of light found in Japan that reminds me of ‘In Praise of Shadows’ by Junichiro Tanizaki," says Toyo Ito.
In recent years, there has been a significant amount of attention paid to the gender debate in architecture, with many asking why, in the 21st century, our profession can still be such a challenging career path for women. In many ways, this focus on women in architecture has seemed successful: In 2014, Julia Morgan became the first woman awarded the AIA Gold Medal, and while Denise Scott-Brown may not have been retroactively awarded a Pritzker Prize, the AIA's decision to open up its Medal to more than one person at a time finally allowed her to join Julia Morgan on the (very short) list of female winners. Over in the UK, this year Zaha Hadid was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal, making her the first woman in history to receive the prize without sharing it with a male partner. Yet despite these apparent victories for equality in architecture, we still see headlines like the recent discovery by the AR's Women in Architecture Survey that gender disparities are, in fact, increasing.
Today, on International Women's Day, we wanted to open up a discussion among ArchDaily readers to see what else could be done. What more could architects, institutions and indeed even the media do to close the gender gap in our profession? Let us know in the comments below and the best responses will be featured in an upcoming article.
NOW Architects and Grimshaw have been selected to design "LetsRun Park" - a new home for horseracing in the South Korean city of Yeongcheon. Selected through an international competition by the Korea Racing Authority and International Union of Architects, the team's masterplan calls for new racecourse and equine-themed family park on the 148 hectare site.
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has selected La SHED Architecture as the recipient of its 2016 Emerging Architectural Practice Award. The small, nine-person office in Montreal is known for designing "fresh, contemporary houses inspired by the informal qualities," says the RAIC. It was founded in 2011 by University of Montreal graduates Renée Mailhot, MRAIC, Sébastien Parent and Yannick Laurin.
“This is a recently created firm that has developed a coherent and consistent body of high-quality architectural work in a rapid time frame,” said the five-member jury. “It has achieved this while often working within limited budgets.”
For nearly two millennia, European architecture was closely affiliated with and shaped by Christianity. Prior to the advent of Modernism, there was scarcely a style that was not promoted, or more likely defined, by the designs of churches. Such a hypothesis makes it difficult to imagine Medieval England outside the purview of Gothic Cathedrals, or Renaissance Italy as separate from its Basilicas. But with the Industrial Revolution and the economic and population growth that ensued, infrastructure and housing became the new symbols and necessities of cultural representation, finding their ultimate expression in the ease and simplicity of Modernism. The field of architecture, so long shaped and dominated by the church, had been subsumed by the changing concerns of a commercially driven society. Of course there were still churches being built, but the typology that once defined architecture in its ubiquity became novel and rare. Or so we’ve all been lead to believe.
Surprising as it might be, in the wake of World War II and under Soviet control, Poland built more churches than any other country in Europe. The majority were built in the 1980s, at a time when church construction was neither authorized nor forbidden, and as a result played a pronounced role in Cold War politics. The construction of these churches was a calculated affront to the proletariat-minded Modernism of the Soviets. In their project Architecture of the VII Day, Kuba Snopek, Iza Cichońska and Karolina Popera have sought to comprehensively document these Polish churches and the circumstances of their construction. Unique not only in how they defied the prefabrication and regularity of the Eastern Bloc, the churches were community-led endeavors that relied on local funding and input, long before these practices became buzzwords in 21st century architectural circles.
Metals in Construction Magazine and a jury of architects and engineers have announced the winners of the “Reimagine a New York City Icon” competition. The 2016 Design Challenge, which was sponsored by Metals in Construction magazine and the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York, called for submissions from architects, engineers, students, and designers from around the globe to reimagine the cladding of 200 Park Avenue (formerly the Pan Am Building, now the MetLife Building), with a “resource-conserving, eco-friendly enclosure” that simultaneously creates transparency and preserves the building’s original aesthetic.
Anish Kapoor, a British-Indian sculptor, now owns the exclusive rights within the field of art to Vantablack, currently the world’s darkest material. Developed by a team of scientists at Surrey NanoSystems in 2014, Vantablack absorbs all light and creates a crease free abyss which is often compared to a black hole. Other artists, such as Christian Furr, had intended to use Vantablack in a series of paintings, but no longer can due to Kapoor’s monopolization. “All the best artists have had a thing for pure black — Turner, Manet, Goya,” he told Daily Mail. “This black is like dynamite in the art world. We should be able to use it. It isn’t right that it belongs to one man.”
Twenty postcards depicting Detroit have been selected for “My Detroit,” part of The Architectural Imagination,” the exhibition for the US Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Selected from among 463 entries by curator Cynthia Davidson and sociologist Camilo José Vergara, the 20 winning postcards --- taken by 18 different individuals -- were selected as a group, for helping to tell the story of Detroit today. Ten of the 18 winners are Detroit-area residents.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected 12 recipients for the 2016 AIA Young Architects Award. The award, now in its 23rd year, recognizes architects who have been licensed for 10 years or fewer. These young architects have shown exceptional leadership and have made significant contributions to the profession. The recipients will be honored at the 2016 AIA National Convention in Philadelphia. Click here to see the winners and their profiles.
Over the past few months, Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has been caught in the crossfire between two groups who have very different opinions on the future home of the George Lucas Narrative Art Museum. The site in question is a 1,500-space parking lot situated north of the McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center and just south of Soldier Field. The commission for the museum was won in July of 2014 by MAD Architects. Their design proposes a large, white, sculptural “mountain” which rises up from the site and is topped by a “metallic crown”.
