Olympic Park Legacy Company has announced the winners of two competitions that will transform the north park and south plaza at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. New York-based James Corner Field Operations’ proposal for a 50 acre urban landscape consisting of a tree-lined promenade connecting flexible event and cultural spaces was selected as the winning entry for the south plaza.

The north park winning proposal by London-based firm erect architecture consists of an imaginative community hub building that is integrated within the parkland and river valley. Along with community hub, the design proposes an interactive playground that inspires children to “climb trees, build dens and have everyday adventures in nature.”

Continue reading for the complete team list and their design proposal boards.

Architect: Cox Architecture Location: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Courtesy of Cox Architecture

The main idea of the Multi-functional Pavilions by Aleksander Wadas is to create public spaces with social functions like culture, recreation, sports. They would be built with temporary pavilions of minor scale that can be easily fitted in the existing urban tissue, would have light components and could be mobile . They could be places where people could take some fitness exercises, take part in workshops or expositions or just rest. More images and project description after the break.

Architect: Diamond Schmitt Architects & Edward J. Cuhaci And Associates Architects Inc. Location: Ottawa, Canada Project Area: 194,000 sqf Project Year: 2011 Photos: Tom Arban

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Taking place at the Vranken Pommery Monopole in Reims, France, La Fabrique Sonore combines ancient paper folding techniques with contemporary computer-aided-design and manufacturing processes. Curated by Charles Carcopino and Claire Staebler and designed by Hyoung-Gul Kook, Ali Momeni and Robin Meier, the form is inspired by mathematician and origami expert Taketoshi Nojima, especially his work reproducing organic forms from folded paper. More images and information on the exhibition after the break.

Vulmaro Zoffi shared with us a proposal for the Disaster Prevention and Education Center in Istanbul. The design shows the events which involve earth, air and water in a friendly manner, enclosed by a public ETFE greenhouse, where all the inhabitants can found harmony with nature, under the shade of the trees. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Building Trust International recently announced that designers Amadeo Bennetta and Daniel LaRossa, of Berkeley, California have won the School 4 Burma Design Competition. The winning design, for a modular school for migrant and refugee children in the Thai-Burma border town of Mae Sot, beat entries from all over the world as the competition generated progressive, contemporary design solutions. Over 800 designers and academic institutions expressed interest. More images and description on the winning proposal after the break.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Board of Directors and the Association of Collegiate Schools for Architecture (ACSA) has selected George Baird, Intl. Assoc. AIA recipient of the 2012 AIA/ACSA Topaz Award for excellence in architectural education. Baird is known for his extensive association with the University of Toronto’s architecture school and for being one of Canada’s most celebrated architects. His award-winning firm Baird Sampson Neuert was founded in Toronto in 1972.

I don’t think you understand what I’m telling you. I’m not trying to open the door here. I’m trying to open your mind.

It’s a simple problem really. Just keep the rain off of them as they enter the building. That’s all you really need to do, right?. Hardly… This is the first impression this building will make. I’m not going to waste it. You’re not going to open the doors and just walk inside. You’re going cross this threshold into the rest of your life.

BIG wins an invited competition for a 47,000 sqm ski resort and recreational area in Levi, Finland. The future Ski Village will transform the existing Levi ski resort into a world class destination, offering top quality accommodation and leisure services for skiers of all levels and demands. More images and complete press release after the break.

As the depressed economic state of the U.S. continues, home trends shift from large residential subdivisions towards small scale infill development projects. The 2011 American Institute of Architects (AIA) third quarter Home Design Trends Survey reflects the current desires of today’s buyer towards affordability, access to public transportation, commercial opportunities and job centers.

Located in the beautiful Marselisborg district, within the center of Aarhus city, is Marselisborg High School, one of Denmark’s most renowned schools, rich in tradition and history – often featured in books and movies. Today, Marselisborg High School is very popular among the students within the city of Aarhus. With this first prize winning new addition, designed by GPP Architects, the school will continue to meet the high demands of modern and visionary high school education requirements. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Our friends from architectural videos told us about this video of Norman Foster‘s Humanitas, Oxford University Lecture which took place on November 28th. The lecture considers ‘Heritage and Lessons’ where Foster encourages us to imagine how differently we might understand the modern world if we could travel back in time. We would discover that the cathedrals, the castles and the viaducts that form our ‘heritage’ were once new themselves and were seen as quite alien at the time; and that many of the landscapes we revere as ‘natural’ were in fact shaped subtly by man — some the outcome of the Industrial Revolution itself. We would also find that many of the challenges we face now have been met before.

Today, the existing station in Helsingborg is built into an anonymous office block. In the proposal by Metro Architects, the standalone station is expressed as a modern equivalent of the old train station from around 1860 which was located on the same site. The new structure will thus be an identity building and unifying node – for the station area as well as for Helsingborg as a whole becoming a signature building for the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Every industrial energy system inscribes its technological order into the urban fabric. Therefore, what shall be the shape and the fingerprint of the next zero carbon economy in the big cities? While the world is looking for alternatives to fossil fuels, Algae is an unlimited source of energy, food, and most important, a remarkable natural CO2 absorber. So, which spatial implications shall have Algae’s new technologies, and which potential integrations could be imagined for Algae bioreactors in central urban areas? Influx Studio believes re-use is by far the most sustainable option: that’s why the key issue is how to anticipate Algae’s green future in the core of the major cities, transforming existing buildings, where most people live and where emissions of CO2 are the most important. More images and project description after the break.

Dutch firm MVRDV has received harsh criticism since they revealed the proposal for two luxury residential towers in South Korea, named after its inspiration, The Cloud. The two towers are connected by a “pixilated cloud of additional program.” Critics are outraged, stating the design resembles the collapsing twin towers of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

If you haven’t finished all your holiday shopping, and you need something for someone who loves both architecture and London then we might have the right gift for you. We recently received Matteo Pericoli’s London Unfurled. This accordion-style book folds out to a length of 25-feet with elevations of London on both sides of the Thames. The book is accompanied with an essay on the north side of the Thames by Iain Sinclair, one on the south by Will Self, and an afterword by Matteo Pericoli.

OFF & Duncan Lewis SCAPE Architecture shared with us their proposal for the Anglet Logements where they were invited to conciliate a project where the interests of protagonists are sometimes contradictory: the density of needed housing, the neighbors’ quality of living as well as the conservation of fauna and flora. This is an opportunity to invent new scenarios and to propose a strategy that reconciles history and development. More images and architects’ description after the break.

DesignByMany’s latest challenge: Electric Vehicle Charging Station sponsored by HP and media partners ArchDaily. Historically, the filling station was designed with the basic concept of sheltering those in need of filling up their tanks and nothing more. However, as consumers adopt an environmentally conscious lifestyle and hybrid technology advances, the functionality of the filling station is no longer what it used to be. This challenge is to design an electric vehicle charging station that will define a new era of electric mobility.

DesignByMany is a challenge based design technology community where users post challenges to the community along with their design source files. The community can then post responses with their own source files to solve the challenge. They can also comment on the challenge and interact with other designers throughout the process.

Architect: John Ronan Architects Location: 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, USA Project Team: John Ronan AIA, Lead Designer; Marcin Szef, Tom Lee Graphic Designer: Studio Blue General contractor: Art Institute of Chicago Project Area: 6600 sqf Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Steve Hall/Hedrich Blessing

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Apple has released updated plans revealing an ambitions solar installation for their proposed campus in Cupertino. Announced back in June, the campus will include an office, research and development building, research facilities, corporate auditorium, fitness center, a central plant and associated parking. Foster + Partners will collaborate with ARUP North America and local civil engineering firm Kier & Wright for the completion of the project.

Continue reading for more details.

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ATHENS

National Technical University of Athens, School of Architecture

Cipher City, 01-07 April 2012

In today’s world of amplified social interaction and connectivity there is a need for the built environment to evolve beyond its current relatively static state. In 2012, Cipher City takes place in one of Europe’s most historical and ever-changing cities, Athens, offering a direct engagement with design models characterized by action. In the capital of Greece, where innovation has been always a force of creativity, the workshop will be hosted by the NTUA School of Architecture.

In its urban context, Athens presents a challenging mixture of historical diversity and current developing territories in the outskirts of the city. The act of reaching from one place to another in a continuous and fluid way therefore becomes the starting point in developing working kinetic prototypes energised by motion on horizontal planes. The workshop aims to bring out the dynamic qualities of the seemingly inanimate urban surroundings, such as urban paths, sense of orientation, topography, and bridge these with the animate qualities of the human body. During this process, participants will have the opportunity to experience the historical, contemporary, and geographical diversity of Athens during studio trips, while challenging the conventional design approach in order to break the dichotomy between the building and the urban realm. Capable of responding to external stimuli, the proposed structures will apply the concepts of motion and real-time reaction to various parameters.

The concept for the new UNO Charter School by STL Architects has been conceived as a response to the organization’s bold vision for the Latino community in Chicago. Rather than replicate a tired, traditional school archetype solution, the design embraces the challenge of modernity with heroic determination. The heart of the building is an abstract yet powerful multinational expression of the neighborhood cultural identity – an environment to fuel the aspirations of students and community. More images and architects’ description after the break.