Architecture News

The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has selected the architectural programs at Mississippi State University, Philadelphia University and the University of Florida as the recipients of the 2015 NCARB Award for the Integration of Practice and Education. The Award helps the selected universities develop "innovative curricula that merge practice and education." This year over $99,000 was awarded to the three programs to develop their proposed initiatives.

“What makes the NCARB Award different from other awards is that it is focused on fostering collaboration between the academy and practice,” said NCARB President Dennis S. Ward, AIA, NCARB in a press release. “This year’s proposals all go further to give students, practitioners, and others within the profession meaningful interactions that will raise awareness for the architect’s role and address issues that are central to practice.”

Learn more about three proposals after the break. 

Recent graduate @rickaredough's stunning award winning M.Arch #portfolio! #Columbia #GSAPP #Architecture #portfolio #award #excellence #archidaily #architecturelovers #pastel #graphicdesign #composition

A video posted by Columbia GSAPP (@columbiagsapp) on Aug 20, 2015 at 8:44am PDT

Earlier this year the Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning (GSAPP) at New York City's Columbia University took to Instagram to showcase a collection of their "award-winning" student portfolios across a week of posts. Nineteen stop-motion films highlight the highly individual nature of the architectural portfolio, demonstrating a wide range of graphic styles and methods of book-binding. From hardback-bound theses to gold foil embossing and 'box-in-box' constructions, you can get a taste of some of what the school considers its finest work from 2015 graduates, after the break.

Chilean art and architecture studio Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s “Finite Format” exhibition is currently on display at one of the most important cultural sites in the Czech Republic: The House of Art of Ceske Budějovice. Composed of more than 480 paintings (Finite Format) and six ink drawings (Infinite Motive), the installation aims to demonstrate the firm’s “underlying method to understand not only the artistic qualities in a work of architecture but also the architectonic attributes of a work of art,” according to the architects.

In parallel, Pezo von Ellrichshausen also carried out a workshop with 14 architecture students from the Technical University of Liberec to conceptualize and construct a twelve-square-meter scale model for the "Infinite Motive" installation. Using the circle as the basic element, the architects reflect on how “architectonic intentions may be diluted by means of the repetition of a single figure with a diverse range of dimensions.”

United States Artists (USA) has selected 37 artists for their 2015 “USA Fellows” – artists who will receive an award of $50,000 to fund their creative practice and development. Among the 37 artists, chosen across nine disciplines, two of the awarded fellows were architects: Jonathan Muecke, a USA Knight Fellow, and Chat Travieso, a USA Young Arts Fellow.

New York-based d3 has announced the winners of its international Natural Systems 2015 competition. The annual competition asked architects, designers, engineers, and students to “explore the potential for ecologically-grounded and sustainable design influences in urbanism, architecture, interiors, and designed objects.”

Three top prizes were awarded, with six special mentions. The jury included architects, designers, and academics from Shigeru Ban Architects, Syracuse University, and Studio Nguyen, among others.

View the winners, after the break.

The International Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities (IAKS) has created an All-Time Award to celebrate their 50^th anniversary. The Award highlights outstanding examples of sports and leisure facilities that have become both landmark and influential projects over the last few decades. See the eight winners after the break.

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has selected Stefano Boeri’s Bosco Verticale as the Best Tall Building Worldwide 2015 for “its extraordinary implementation of vegetation at such scale and height," according to a press release. The tower was selected from a shortlist of four buildings, which included SOM’s One World Trade Center, Toyo Ito and RSP Architects’ CapitaGreen and Foster + Partners’ Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower.

Dubai, home of the Burj Khalifa and a significant number of the 21st century's tallest buildings, is set to match its futuristic skyline with an equally futuristic emergency response service. At the recent Dubai Airshow, the city's Directorate of Civil Defence announced a deal with New Zealand-based Martin Aircraft to bring jetpacks to their firefighting arsenal. Intended to be used in a "first responder role," the jetpacks will give firefighters access to higher locations and be able to navigate the tight spaces between buildings that helicopters can't access.

MVRDV, working alongside The Urbanist Collective and LLJ Architects, has been selected in a competition to transform downtown Tainan in Taiwan with their design for new green corridor and urban lagoon connecting the city to its waterfront. Transforming the area of Tainan known as the T-axis, the design will see the city's Haian Road turned into a public park and connected to the city's canal by demolishing the existing China-Town Mall, a commercial structure built alongside the canal in 1983 and described by MVRDV as a "rotten tooth of downtown Tainan."

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For this episode of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, Sophie Grove and the team explore the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Singapore, take a considered look at post-war buildings across England, as well as hear from some longstanding manufacturers in East London who are "bucking the trend of constant change" that’s come to define their ever-developing neighbourhood.

#AuctionUpdate: Thousands of visitors came to view Cy Twombly's 'Untitled (New York City)', which sold moments ago in our #NY salesroom for a record-setting $70.5 million. The auction continues now – updates to come! #SothebysContemporary #Twombly #NewYorkCity

A video posted by Sotheby's (@sothebys) on Nov 11, 2015 at 5:19pm PST

OMA's first ever building for a religious institution will be constructed with a little help from one of the United States' greatest 20th century artists. In an auction at Sotheby's in New York yesterday, Cy Twombly's 1968 "Untitled (New York City)" - one of the artist's notable "Blackboard Paintings" - sold for $70.5 million, $30 million of which will be donated to LA's Wilshire Boulevard Temple by the painting's owner, Audrey Irmas, to fund the temple's OMA-designed extension.

As reported by the LA Times, the synagogue's new "Audrey Irmas Pavilion" has been designed to be "clearly in dialogue" with the 1929 Byzantine revival temple, and will be used in the celebration of weddings and bar mitzvahs, as well as for meetings, conferences, and gala events by other nonprofit groups. Though the design has not yet been unveiled, the pavilion is currently slated for a 2019 opening.

The David Adjaye-designed Aishti Foundation in Beirut, Lebanon is nearing completion. Located in central Beirut, the building replaces former warehouses, housing both an art gallery and retail space. This unique “juxtaposition of art and shopping” inspired Adjaye and Associates “to create a design for an entirely new typology that would integrate two, often conflicting, worlds,” write the architects in a press release.

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Manifesta—a nomadic, European biennial of contemporary art which "responds to the new social, cultural and political reality that developed in the aftermath of the Cold War"—emerged in the 1990s. For the eleventh incarnation of the event, which will take place in Zurich during the summer of 2016, Studio Tom Emerson have developed designs for a floating island which "will constitute a new temporary landmark in the city." Located on Lake Zurich and hosting an open-air cinema and integrated swimming pool, the Pavillon of Reflections will act as the central node for the 100-day festival. Designed and realised by a team of thirty students from ETH Zurich, the pavilion aims to offer a space for dialogue and reflection on the specific artworks created for the biennial.

Since the advent of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century, materials experts have been in constant pursuit of the world's strongest materials. From stone to bricks, concrete to steel, innovation in building material has become a crucial element of architectural progression. For decades, steel has been considered the industry leader in building strength with applications in structures of all types. In a recent online documentary, researchers delved into the possibilities for alternatives to the strongest building materials on the market and arrived at some surprising results.

Could spider silk replace steel cables? Could carbon nanotubes become a substitute for rebar? Find out after the break.

RFR and Foster + Partners have released new images of One Hundred East 53rd Street, a 63-story luxury residential tower in New York next to Mies van der Rohe's famed Seagram Building. The skyscraper, which was announced last year, will contain 94 residences, a swimming pool, wellness facility, spa, library and sitting rooms, and its trademark Foster minimalism is intended to "provide a counterpoint to the Seagram’s bronze edifice," according to the developers RFR.

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