The new Indore School design by STL Architects aims to radically rethink both the traditional classroom learning environment as well as the physical arrangement of those spaces. With a prototype designed for mid, mass and premium markets, the Indore School educational experience will never differ, only the materials used to build each school. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Located in the Xiaguan District in Nanjing, China, W2Y2L was required to design a high rise complex which included entertaining, sport, commercial and official parts. Hence the major concern of the design was how to merge this “huge complex” into the existing circumstances and get a brilliantly transitional connection with the landscape there. The distribution of architectural volumes in this design follows the idea of traditional Chinese Gardens, which transforms the elements of water, stones, hills, bridges and flowers into significant urban shapes animating and vitalizing the daily life of the entire district. More images and architects’ description after the break.
How can you condense more than ten thousand years of civilization into a single project that faithfully tells the story of a great nation? The answer is in the winning design of a prestigious architectural competition, to design the new compound for the General Secretariat for the Council of Ministers in Baghdad. Zaha Hadid and more than 30 other international architects participated in this competition, won by the architecture firm CAP.
Architects: Achterbosch Architectuur and Onix Location: Sneek, The Netherlands Project Year: (First bridge) 2008; (Second bridge) 2010 Photographs: Courtesy of Achterbosch Architectuur and Onix
Controversial artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude – known for making large-scale architectural interventions in urban and rural environments – have finally gotten approval from the Bureau of Land Management to construct their most recent project “Over the River”, which will stretch along 5.9 miles along the Arkansas River in Southern Colorado.
Read on for details of the project and more images!
Open to architects, designers, engineers and students from November 22-27, this workshop put on my LaN (Live Architecture Network), in collaboration with SOLIDO, is intended to suit a range of levels- those with no Rhinoceros modeling or CNC machining experience will gain experience working with between modeled geometries and designing tool-paths for production. Those with previous experience will have hands-on access to taking their understanding further. Sessions are co-instructed by Solido Founder Filippo Moroni & LaN Co-director Monika Wittig.
The SEED Network recently launched the 2nd Annual SEED Awards for excellence in Public Interest Design to showcase and promote projects that help create socially, economically, and environmentally healthy communities. The projects will be judged using “SEED”: Social Economic Environmental Design”® a standard evaluation to measure the positive impact of design projects.
Sixwinners will be announced January 27, 2012. Each winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to present at Structures for Inclusion conference at the University of Austin in Austin, Texas March 24-25, and a $1,000 cash prize. Each winning project will also be included in a documentary series by The UpTake. More competition information after the break.
The detailed master plan for the Jordan Development Zones Company (JDZ) by Sasaki Associates encompasses 40 square kilometers of land along the north and east coast of the historic Dead Sea. Over the past 15 years, the Kingdom of Jordan has focused on a balanced approach towards development and preservation in order to capitalize on increased tourism and to provide improvements to local existing communities. In 2008, a development authority was created to establish a detailed master plan as a sustainable framework for existing committed lands, future development parcels, infrastructure provisions, and natural resources protection. The resulting master plan establishes a comprehensive and site specific approach to the social, economic and environmental sustainability issues facing this stunning setting. More images and project description after the break.
British architect, David Chipperfield, will curate the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. Chipperfield will have only eight months to decide on a theme and prepare to curate the world’s largest architecture exhibition. He will become the first British architect to curate the event.
We recently received KieranTimberlake’s newest book, Inquiry. Instead of listing one project after the next, as in most monographs, this book is organized around ten gerunds: bending, coupling, filtering, inserting, offsetting, outlining, overlapping, puncturing, reflecting, and tuning. This is a lovely and informative way to view their work. The reason behind the book’s organized is explained by Karl Wallick in the preface. Wallick writes, “Architecture is not exactly whole: we remember instances, elements, and details, but rarely are the experiences and sensations in architectural experience comprehensive. The context of what we do as architects is also fragmentary, even as it seeks to be resolved comprehensively. Rather than insisting on the totality of complete works, architecture might be better understood as an infinite matrix of detailed moments.”
BIG + Paris-based architects OFF, engineers Buro Happold, consultants Michel Forgue and environmental engineer Franck Boutte is the winning team to design the new 15.000 m2 research centre for Sorbonne’s Scientific university University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. More images and complete press release after the break.
The computerization and urbanization of the 21st century is creating new lifestyles and forms of public space. Architectural Environments for Tomorrow presents the spatial experiments of 23 architects and artists from around the world responding to the transformation of their surroundings. “The metaphors of the world-views suggested by the artists resonate with the practical proposals of the architects, presenting images of future humanity from a variety of different angles.” Architects featured include Toyo Ito, Frank O. Gehry, Sou Fujimoto and many more.
Continue reading for a complete list of the participants and more information on the exhibit.
Andrew Zago presents Zago Architecture’s transformation of Rialto, California “defaulted” subdivisions, suggesting a new species of urbanism that grows from the existing American suburb. Zago Architecture is one of five interdisciplinary teams participating in “MoMA’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.” Each team is challenged to re-imagine struggling American cities and suburbs, seeing the current economic crisis as an opportunity to evolve.
The first prize winning proposal for the Nursing & Retiree Home, designed by Firma d.o.o., was directly influenced by the characteristics of the immediate surroundings of the plot. Through detailed site analysis, they concluded that the most important aspects of the context are the landscape and the extreme impact of the rural environment. Therefore, the proposed residence for the elderly, apart from fulfilling all functional prerequisites, must be consistent with those surrounding features. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The winning proposal for the new Panama City Hospital, designed by TASH, is based on the design of ecological protections and passive bioclimatic strategies. The project is configured as a city, it is in no way a single building but a complex, keeping the capacity of total intercommunication between different buildings in a way that benefits from the different synergies, general systems, logistics, production systems, waste disposal, etc, avoiding element duplicities and improving the general performance of the complex, thus giving sense to the concept of a hospital city that is at the core of the project. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Visual Workshop shared with us their proposal for the Hotel Liesma competition. The aim of their concept is to make a new landmark of the surrounding neighborhood as a contemporary, sustainable and functional hotel. More images and brief description after the break.
Australian studio INDEX Architecture has completed a proposal for a new hotel on the beach side of a resort in Jurmala, Latvia. The design is located a short walk from the beachfront and includes 130 rooms, a restaurant, conference and health club facilities. The brief called for a design based around the theme of music that reused an existing tower on the site. The ground floor is to be constructed from a curved timber LVL framed roof structure, which was drawn from the waveforms of Handel’s ‘Water Music.’ The tower reuses the existing concrete structure with a new curtain wall featuring a white ceramic interlayer pattern. More images and architects’ description after the break.
If you are in the Chicago area, Jeanne Gang, 2011 MacArthur Fellow and lead architect of Studio Gang Architect, will be joined by Henry Henderson, Midwest Program Director of The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), to discuss the new book, Reverse Effect: Renewing Chicago’s Waterways. The book explores the importance of the Chicago River and the possibilities for its 21st century transformation.
There wasn’t much time to reflect on the accident. The casualty was taken away in the hot daylight. There was an awkward group moment following. The instructor said a few words of encouragement and caution to the assembled and then chuckled a little to himself like he know what that was like, or like he had almost lost some fingers, too, at some moment in time. He then shook his head and said, Well…. But he said nothing further for a moment as he glanced around the little blood-spattered scene.
For an instant, Dean made the sickening association with the Reservoir Dogs warehouse. He couldn’t help looking at the machine with the slippery fluid on it’s clean steel. They didn’t belong together. That was one of the secrets to Reservoir Dogs and the whole Tarantino oeuvre, he thought. It wasn’t a new thing, but it was something familiar taken for a spin in a twisted way. Something irreconcilable. A little manipulative, he thought. But, he couldn’t stop the gaze. The scene in the car. Black suit, white seat, red blood. It had the effect of making the person disappear, turn into a stand-in. The kid with the paddle for a hand would now march through life with a deformity. His fingers would be found in the sawdust but it would be too late for them. The girl who found the one finger was endlessly rubbing her hands with anti-bacterial hand-gel. Everybody was fucked mentally. Just like Paul Auster had surmised the Greatest Generation was actually insane because of all the killing and destruction and broken homes from WW II. Their kids were the ones who launched the sixties. Most of Dean’s peers were born out of the sixties to seventies, which meant that all their parents were fucked up by their parents who were fucked up by the war in one way or another. Seems like there is always a war to fuck up a whole generation or a good group of them, anyway. Dean was pissed that he had to witness that and keep that awful paddle image in his mind. He wasn’t pissed at Tarantino, but he was pissed at the stupid kid for making him more fucked up than he already was.
Krueck + Sexton Architects have been selected by the GSA Design Excellence Program for the firm’s design of the Federal Office Building in Miramar, Florida just outside of Miami. The 375,000 square foot building is designed with three goals in mind: reduce energy, resources and consumption, incorporate high performance buildings materials and systems and harvest renewable energy sources available on the site. Currently out to bid, the project is scheduled for completion in mid-2014.
Read on for more after the break.
Architects: Buol & Zünd Architekten
Location: Basel, Switzerland
Project Team: Matthias Aebersold, Martin Schröder, Silvio Schubiger
Site Area: 3250 sqm
Photographs: Michael Fritschi
The Economist featured an interview with Michael Pawlyn discussing sustainable architecture inspired by nature. Michael Pawlyn is known for his passionate investigations of the unique, efficient structures of natural organisms and how they may translate through design. Biomimicry has been an important topic amongst the innovators and educators who are learning from the 3.8 billion years invested into the design of our natural world.
The shell of an abalone is “twice as strong as the toughest man-made ceramic.”
Continue reading for the complete interview.
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