Architecture News

Polish practice 8+8 Concept Studio has released images of a proposed underwater tennis court planned to be built off the coast of Dubai. Staged beneath an expansive glass roof that would put marine life on display, the radical proposal is being called into question as engineers debate its feasibility. As the Daily Mail reports, the scheme seems unlikely due to the challenges of manufacturing glass sheets large enough to span a tennis court and ensure that the structure is impact resistant. Refracting light is also a valid concern.

In honor of International Museum Day we’ve collected twenty compelling museum projects. In this round up you’ll find a truly global selection; from Wang Shu's Ningbo Historic Museum in China and Tod Williams + Billie Tsien's Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia to Monoblock's Contemporary Art Museum in Buenos Aires, see all of our editors’ favorites after the break!

London’s Design Museum has announced the category winners of the prestigious “Design of the Year” award. The winner of this year's Architecture Category is the Anacleto Angelini UC Innovation Center designed by Alejandro Aravena.

Sefaira, the market-leading daylighting visualization tool, has just announced a new feature for their software plugins for Autodesk Revit and Trimble Sketchup. In addition to the real-time visualizations announced last year, the new update adds customizable, exportable graphics which offer both a point in time analysis or an annual overview, and analysis tools which help designers easily identify overlit and underlit spaces and review heating or cooling requirements.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Houzz have announced the winners of their Future of Architecture Residential Design Contest and Showcase. Receiving entries from students and emerging architects around the world, the competition highlights prominent approaches to residential architecture in an effort to both recognize the work of young professionals and inform viewers about the worth of “good design.”

The winners emerged within five design categories and were chosen by Houzz’s extensive community of subscribers. To jumpstart their careers, the winners will receive prizes tailored to professional advancement, including participation in an upcoming community revitalization project and expenses-paid attendance to the 2015 AIA National Convention in Atlanta. See all of the winners after the break.

The BBC has unveiled a mobile recording studio designed by London architecture firm JaK Studio, in conjunction with innovation consultancy Seymourpowell. Commissioned by BBC Radio 4, the design was selected following a 2013 international design competition organized by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and will tour the country to record material for The Listening Project.

Riffing off the project's theme of conversation, JaK Studio's mobile studio converts the form of a speech bubble into a lightweight, aerodynamic booth inspired by the iconic Airstream caravan.

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IS ARCH has unveiled the winners of the fifth edition of its ISARCH Awards for architecture students. From a vast pool of submissions, three were selected by the combined evaluations of a jury and public opinion. The international competition promotes the efforts of young designers and encourages dialogue among students and emerging architects by showcasing work undertaken through university curricula. The winners will receive prizes ranging in value from €1,000 to €3,000.

Learn more about the winning projects after the break. 

SecondMedia has been selected as the winner of Storefront for Art and Architecture's 2015 Street Architecture Prize Competition. Now in its third year, the biennial international competition seeks to implement temporary outdoor installations that facilitate "new forms of collective public gathering." Participants in the 2015 competition were asked to respond to the theme of New York's IDEAS City Festival, "The Invisible City." SecondMedia's winning proposal 'Foamspace' -- which envisions creating an "urban lounge" with Geofoam blocks -- beat out over 70 submissions from teams of artists, engineers, and architects across the globe.

Learn more about the project and view selected images after the break.

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The winners of the Atlanta Bridgescape Competition were announced today at the American Institute of Architects' (AIA) National Convention. The urban design challenge sought proposals for creative interventions at two existing freeway overpasses in the city’s Midtown and Downtown districts, with a referential budget of $3 million per bridge. The winners were selected from five finalists by a panel of industry experts.

See the two winning proposals as well as the winners of the People’s Choice Award after the break. 

Tonight the Pritzker Prize will hold its annual award ceremony, this year honoring the work of 2015 laureate Frei Otto, who sadly passed away the day before he was announced as this year's winner on March 10th. This year, the ceremony will be hosted in Miami Beach at Frank Gehry's New World Center, the first time the ceremony has been held in the Miami Area. Speakers will include Tom Pritzker and Chair of the Jury, Lord Peter Palumbo, alongside a selection of past Pritzker Laureates.

A temporary pavilion designed by London-based firm Adjaye Associates is housing a selection of works for the 56th International Art Exhibition, "All the World's Futures," in Venice. Curated by Okwui Enwezor, the exhibition explores the numerous ways in which art can be experienced in "an unfolding of typologies." Adjaye Associate's temporary museum seeks to parallel Enwezor's curatorial vision, and is nestled within a 316-meter-long, 16th-century ship-building warehouse in the Arsenale district.

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Videos

Waterlicht (or 'water light') is a new light installation which has temporarily transformed Amsterdam's Museumplein into a "dream landscape" expressing both the power, and the poetry, of water. The shifting shapes and liquid movement of the artwork also have a very real purpose: like a virtual flood, the level of the lights show how high the water could submerge Holland and parts of The Netherlands without constant human intervention. The installation highlights how innovation in engineering, something which is embedded "within the DNA of the Dutch landscape" of polders and dikes, has been "almost forgotten." The nation's vulnerability against the power of the oceans is pertinently expressed in this experiential urban intervention.

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In the midst of the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) 2015 National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, we had the chance to sit down with Elizabeth Chu Richter, CEO of Richter Architects and the AIA President for 2015 to discuss some of the important issues facing the architecture profession today.

The Architectural League of New York has announced the winners of its 2015 Prize for Young Architects + Designers. Launched in 1981 and organized by a committee comprising League Programs Director Anne Rieselbach and a selection of winners from last year, the Architectural League Prize is one of the United States' most prestigious awards for young architects, recognizing provocative work and offering a platform for the winners to disseminate their ideas. This year's theme, "Authenticity," asked designers how technological changes in computation, visualization, material intelligence, and fabrication technologies are altering our perception of design and the role of the architect.

The jury for the prize consisted of Keller Easterling, Sanford Kwinter, Michael Meredith, Lyn Rice, and Billie Tsien, as well as previous winners Carrie Norman, John Rhett Russo, and Jenny Sabin. As part of their prize, in June the six winning practices will present a series of lectures, and their work will be on display in an exhibition during the summer.

Read on for the complete list of winners.

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The world’s longest glass skywalk has been inaugurated in China, jutting off the edge of a 718-meter tall cliff in the Longgang National Geological Park in Chongqing, reports CCTV. Aptly named Yuanduan, which means “at the end of the clouds,” the horseshoe-shaped walkway offers visitors stunning (and a bit terrifying) views of the surrounding mountains and canyon below. Extending for more than 26 meters off the cliff’s edge, the bridge is five meters longer than the Grand Canyon Skywalk. Only 30 tourists will be allowed on the bridge at a time. View a gallery of photos at The Daily Mail.

Deemed “the biggest architectural awards programme in the world,” the World Architecture Festival (WAF) annually awards and recognizes inspiring and innovative built projects from around the globe. The awards have been held over the past seven years, honoring buildings across 30 categories and ultimately selecting the World Building of the Year. From Grafton Architects' School of Economics at the Universita Luigi Bocconi — the first Building of the Year awarded in 2008 — to A21 Studio’s The Chapel — the most recent winner — the awarded projects have included everything from a chapel to an art gallery and even a public garden, spanning the world from South Africa to Vietnam, Italy and Spain.

This year WAF will be held from November 4-6, featuring three days of conferences, exhibitions and lectures in addition to the awards ceremony. As the 2015 award ceremony nears closer we look back at the World Building of the Year winners from the past seven years. See who has taken home the award after the break and learn how to submit your project here. Projects can be submitted for consideration until May 22nd. Use the code ARCHDAILY10 to receive a discount.

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