Architecture News

Snøhetta has unveiled plans for a flagship public market in Portland - the city's first in over 70 years. Named after a famous chef and Portland native who helped initiate the fresh food movement in the US, the James Beard Public Market will showcase Oregon's best cuisine within an "ambitious civic hub" that will reenergize an underutilized site in Downtown Portland.

"Linking the city to the river, the market will be an asset for residents and visitors alike," says Snøhetta. The market will feature more than 60 permanent vendors, 30 day tables, full-service restaurants, a teaching kitchen and event space.

Despite harsh criticism for being too large and costly, Tokyo's 2020 Zaha Hadid-designed National Stadium will be realized. As USA Today reports, the Japanese government has announced its decision to move forward with the design, saying any major modifications would lead to construction delays.

The 80,000-seat stadium has already undergone some design changes, due to backlash led by Pritzker laureates Toyo Ito and Fumihiko Maki; it's most recent design is said to be more "efficient, user-focussed, adaptable and sustainable." However controversy continues as the city and central government must now decide how to split the stadium's estimated $2 billion bill.

Millions of refugees across the globe, due to global conflict or natural phenomena, are forced to leave their homes and live in low-quality, temporary housing. The majority of these shelters lack a fundamental component of safety and well-being: floors. Emergency Floor is an initiative developed by Sam Brisendine and Scott Key to solve this problem, and bring safety to refugee shelters and the people in them. With their new Indiegogo campaign, Emergency Floor is working to provide efficient, inexpensive flooring that is directly geared towards assisting relief agencies.

Learn more about Emergency Floor after the break.

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Goettsch Partners (GP) has been commissioned to design a 605-foot-tall "Park Tower" for San Francisco. Planned to rise in the SOMA district, on the corner of Howard and Beale streets, across from the new Transbay Transit Center, the new building will feature a variety of office space, flanked by a series of outdoor terraces - "mini-parks in the sky," hence the tower's name.

With the demands of sustainability today placing tight restrictions on performance metrics such as how airtight a building is, one of the sacrifices that often has to be made is user control. Windows are often no longer openable; shades and blinds often replaced with non-openable louvers. In recent years new technology such as smart glass (sometimes called "switchable glass) has promised a modicum of compromise, allowing windows to be tinted on demand. But smart glass is limited - it's either on or off, clear or tinted.

Until now, that is. At the AIA convention in May, SageGlass revealed a range of innovations that greatly increase the options available to designers when specifying smart glass.

Take a peek into SelgasCano's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion—which opened on June 22—through the lens of Romanian photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu.

After two months of a decreasing demand for design services, the US Architecture Billing Index (ABI) has bounced back into positive territory. As the American Institute of Architects (AIA) report, May's ABI score was 51.9, up from a mark of 48.8 in April. The new projects inquiry index was 61.5, up from a reading of 60.1 the previous month. This growth was lead by a growing demand for new schools, hospitals, cultural facilities and municipal buildings.

A breakdown of regional highlights, after the break.

The winning projects of the Boston Living with Water competition have been announced. The competition “sought design solutions envisioning a beautiful, vibrant, and resilient Boston that is prepared for end-of-the-century climate conditions and rising sea levels.” Out of 50 teams, three were selected, each for separate sites—one for a building, one for a neighborhood, and one for a significant piece of city infrastructure—in addition to one honorable mention. Each of the winners will receive a $13,000 prize funded by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management and the Barr Foundation.

The Boston Living with Water competition was organized by the City of Boston, The Boston Harbor Association, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and the Boston Society of Architects. As Mayor Martin J. Walsh honored the winners, he noted that “competition ideas and strategies are already informing Boston’s future, including revisions to building plans and zoning codes, and influencing ‘Imagine Boston 2030.’” Winning projects will be on display at BSA Space through June 2015. Learn more about the winners, after the break.

AZURE has announced the winners of its fifth annual AZ Awards, which recognize excellence in design and architecture worldwide. The 19 winners were chosen from a shortlist of 66 projects.

The jury included Winka Dubbeldam of Archi-Tectonics (New York), architect Brendan MacFarlane of Jakob + MacFarlane (Paris), designer Anwar Mekhayech of the Design Agency (Toronto), landscape architect Janet Rosenberg of Janet Rosenberg & Studio (Toronto) and designer Philippe Malouin (London).

View all of the winning projects after the break. 

The Washington Post has published renderings of the new U.S. Diplomacy Center currently under construction at the State Department in Washington DC. "A shimmering pavilion," as architecture critic Philip Kennicott describes, the new center will serve as a welcoming public entrance to the Department of State's headquarters and be the nation's first museum and education center devoted entirely to the "history, practice and challenges of US Diplomacy.

Designed by architect Hany Hassan of Beyer Blinder Belle, the glass pavilion will house a museum and an underground cafe, bookstore and event space, providing a new destination just two blocks from the National Mall.

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The Architectural Review (AR) has crowned David Chipperfield's Fayland House winner of the 2015 AR House Awards, deeming it the world's best new house. Celebrating excellence and innovation in the design of a one-off house, the award highlights the Chipperfield-designed home for being a "radical new take on the English country house."

"To make a luxury home that isn’t pompous or a projection of the vanity of its inhabitants is a really difficult thing," said judge Adam Caruso of Caruso St John. "Fayland House places a very large house in a special landscape without disappearing. The domestic outdoor spaces, which have always been an issue in English country houses, are in courtyards, which is an innovation."

Izaskun Chinchilla Architects have made their recycled, upcycled, and bicycled “Organic Growth Pavilion” a reality on New York’s Governors Island. One of two winners of the “City of Dreams” pavilion competition (hosted by AIANY Emerging New York Architects Committee and the Structural Engineers Association of New York), Izaskun Chinchilla Architects carried out a kickstarter campaign to fund the pavilion’s construction.

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The World Architecture Festival has announced the shortlist for its 2015 awards. The world's largest architectural awards program, WAF received more than 700 entires from architects and designers representing 47 countries. Some of the shortlisted architects include Foster + Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, Herzog & de Meuron, OMA, Buro Ole Scheeren and BIG.

All finalists will be invited to present their project live at the festival in November at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore to a "super jury" that will include Sou Fujimoto, Peter Cook, and ArchDaily editor-in-chief David Basulto. A winner for each of the awards' 31 categories will be selected. From this, an overarching World Building or Future Project of the Year award will be selected. Book your tickets today (here) and read on to for the complete WAF 2015 awards' shortlist.

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