Governor Andrew Cuomo has unveiled a $4 billion plan to redevelop New York's outdated LaGuardia Airport. Originally built in 1939, LaGuardia has been running inefficiently and overcapacity for decades.
The redesign, envisioned by HOK and Parsons Brinckerhoff, will unify the airport's fragmented terminals with a single roof, while providing expanded transportation access, elite passenger amenities and increased taxiway space. Terminal B will be replaced with a larger structure that will (eventually) connect to the renovated Terminals C and D.
Chinese company ZhuoDa has assembled a two-story home in record speed; the modular house, comprised of six 3D printed modules, was assembled on-site in less than three hours. Likened to LEGO, the prefabricated home was 90 percent built off-site before its components were shipped to its permanent location. As Inhabitat reports, the home only took about 10 days to complete from start to finish.
Following the news earlier this month that their design for Tokyo's 2022 Olympics stadium would be scrapped, Zaha Hadid Architects have released a comprehensive statement about the project's cancellation. Despite the many critics of the project's design - including Toyo Ito and Fumihiko Maki - it was ultimately the project's increasing costs that sparked its demise. However, the 1400-word statement from ZHA attempts to put distance between the firm and the claim by the Japan Sport Council (JSC) that much of the increase in costs was due to a complex design, instead arguing that "At every stage over the two years of development, the design and budget estimates were approved by the JSC" and adding a number of times that "ZHA worked proactively to reduce the estimated cost throughout."
Read on after the break to find out where ZHA pins the blame for the cost increases and to read the statement in full.
Architecture Research Office (ARO) and Heery International have designed the West Pavilion, a 115,000 square-foot extension to the University of Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium. Set at one of America’s most historic college football venues, the new expansion will stretch 450 feet in length —about half of the stadium—and “will introduce the program’s first true premium seating, club spaces, and high-end press facilities.”
In addition to being a part of university-wide expansions, the project is the centerpiece of the $86 million renovation of Nippert Stadium itself, which includes adding more restrooms and concessions, and better pedestrian circulation.
For the 10th Festival des Architectures Vives in Montpellier, Syracuse University commissioned a team to design an installation in the courtyard of Hôtel Audessan. The project, “Trans(inter)ference,” was a 3D drawing designed and constructed by Maya Alam and Daniele Profeta, with the help of three Syracuse University students.
Focusing on the in-between of architecture, the project favors the space between idea and resolution, "between old and new." The installation was developed by projecting the facades of Hôtel Audessan through one another, creating a labyrinth of layered views.
Last month, as part of their Park Nights event series, COS assembled Spanish architects José Selgas and Lucía Cano (SelgasCano) at their new pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery in London's Hyde Park to discuss the concepts behind their design and the history of the Pavilion Commission with Serpentine directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist. They were joined by Chilean architect Smiljan Radić, designer of the 2014 pavilion, and Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, designer of 2013's, in an hour long conversation moderated by Sarah Ichioka.
Daniel Libeskind teamed up with the professionals at Immersive and Innovision to realize the four 10-meter-high, "shimmering" sculptures that are outlining the Milan Expo 2015's central square. The LED-lit aluminium structures, dubbed "the Wings," were designed to "animate the public space with a constant flow of pulsating patterns and imagery related to the theme of the Expo: health, energy, sustainability and technology." They will remain on view through the duration of the Expo, which concludes October 31.
Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, an artistic collaboration between architects Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh, have created a labyrinthine intervention at the heart of the c-mine arts centre in Genk, Belgium. The development of this sculptural-spatial intervention has its foundations in the artists' interest in fundamental architectural typologies; earlier installations of theirs have been based on structures like the city gate, the bridge, the wall, and the dome. Here, the "age-old" form of the labyrinth" is explored as a spatial experience in a unique composition of wall and void.
Air pollution in urban areas is quickly racing to the forefront of the environmental discussion, with several major cities facing a serious deterioration of breathable air supply. New Delhi, Beijing, Los Angeles, Moscow and Karachi represent a handful of cities facing the world's worst urban pollution, each with recorded amounts of particulate matter exceeding acceptable levels. In 2014, the World Health Organization issued a report estimating that 7 million people suffered premature deaths in 2012 due to air pollution exposure.
Enter Aeriform Ecologies: An Atmospheric Archive for Industrial Effluvium. Conceived as a thesis project by Jennifer Ng, University of Michigan with thesis advisor Kathy Velikov, Aeriform Ecologies delves into the possibilities for byproducts of petroleum production by proposing a network of solutions for the 'spatial runoffs' created by fossil fuel extraction. Based on a futuristic approach that includes a network of unmanned atmospheric gas harvesting dirigibles, the project blurs the lines between science, technology, and architecture.
Explore the effervescent world of Aeriform Ecologies after the break
Traversal Landscape by Taehyung Park. Image via Social Cooperation Architects
Social Cooperation Architects (SCoopA) have announced the winners of their competition centered on the theme of the 2015 Expo Milano: Feed the World. The competition collected ideas and solutions from all over the world that addressed problems such as social inequality, population growth and the scarcity of resources. Currently the winners and honorary mentions are on display at the 2015 Expo Milano. Read on for the winning proposals and their accompanying boards after the break.
The Washington Post has published a piece looking at how infrastructure acts as a form of segregation in cities in the US. Using racial dot maps from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, they show how highways, railroads, historically uncrossable avenues, and similar urban design decisions have a huge impact on the physical isolation of different races. These types of infrastructure were also found to reinforce boundaries set by natural patterns of topography and bodies of water. Cities found to have clear infrastructural segregation include Pittsburgh, Hartford, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee. Read the full article, here.
OMA has been selected to design a new building for Brighton College that will host its sport and science departments. Their design combines the two departments into one linear building that runs along the edge of the playing field.
The sport facilities are housed on the same level as the field, while the science department stretches over the top “like a skeletal bridge.” Views between the two departments are offered on the inside creating “lively and animated circulation throughout the new building.” The façade is inspired by the terrace housing that runs opposite the building.
La Paz, the historic de-facto capital of Bolivia, is widely renowned for its incredible setting, colonial architecture, and cultural buildings. El Alto, on the other hand, is not. It was, in fact, La Paz's rather dismal satellite city, all low rise brick and commuting. Yet El Alto has become the centre of an entirely new, independently evolved architectural style that is rapidly catching on across South America.
Spanish architect Josep Lluís Mateo of Mateo Arquitectura has launched the “BCN Architecture Guide,” a free application to help travelers and architecture lovers explore Barcelona. The app guides users to both highlights of the city’s built environment as well as its natural environment, including some “places to experience nature in tension with the city, places to be rather than objects to look at.”
For this edition of The Urbanist, Monocle 24's weekly "guide to making better cities," the team investigate politics in global "power cities." Visiting Brussels, capital of Belgium and administrative capital of the European Union, they explore how politics have changed the city over the last four decades. Further south, they travel to Vienna which, "diplomatically remains very important and wields power." Yet even though the UN have an outpost there, is the Austrian capital still a stage for international diplomacy? The episode also makes a quick stop at Embassy Row in Washington D.C. to examine the architecture of diplomatic design.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has announced the winner and finalists of its 2015 Urban Habitat Award. Launched in 2014, the Urban Habitat Award recognizes the contributions of tall buildings to the urban realm. The winners this year were chosen for influencing their environment and cultural context intelligently, adding social sustainability to their immediate site and wider context. See all of the finalists and the winner after the break.
