Whether you would like to admit it or not, most of us share a similar fetish for Legos, Tinkertoys and any other awesome “childrens” toy that most likely helped us create our first “masterpiece”. Well, you will pleased to know that F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab have created the Free Universal Construction Kit: a matrix of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten popular children’s construction toys. By allowing any piece to join to any other, the Kit encourages totally new forms of connections between otherwise closed systems – enabling radically hybrid constructive play, the creation of previously impossible designs, and ultimately, more creative opportunities. As with other grassroots interoperability remedies, the Free Universal Construction Kit implements proprietary protocols in order to provide a public service unmet—or unmeetable—by corporate interests.
The Free Universal Construction Kit offers adapters between Lego®, Duplo®, Fischertechnik®, Gears! Gears! Gears!®, K’Nex®, Krinkles®, Bristle Blocks®, Lincoln Logs®, Tinkertoys®, Zome®, ZomeTool® and Zoob®. Adapters can be downloaded from Thingiverse.com and other sharing sites as a set of 3D models in .STL format, suitable for reproduction by personal manufacturing devices like the Makerbot (an inexpensive, open-source 3D printer).
Compared to the design of a secular building, where the focus primarily lies on the programmatically and functional aspects, Studio DMTW believes a church has additive characteristics which need to be considered. Their design combines both the history of the place and all requirements that are imposed on a contemporary church with a high symbolic value and aesthetics and is thus entitled to the new living center for the Våler community. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The proposal by LÜPS for the Energy Center, Woodchips Energy Plant at the the convent of arch abbey St. Ottilien aims to stand out from the existing, architecturally less appealing buildings. Above a massive concrete architrave block, a transparent facade arises, made from frame-less polycarbonate sheets, allowing a view onto the wooden branch-like structure inside the building. Lying in the north of the convent grounds, between agriculture and hen-houses, the energetic project finds its importance represented by the impression one gets of the newly constructed building. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Nominations are now being accepted for the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s (CTBUH) 11th Annual Awards program. They are asking all interested candidates to submit your tall building projects for consideration for one of the Council’s Best Tall Building awards, and have your projects profiled in the Annual Awards Book and promoted around the world. In addition to the regional Best Tall Building Awards, the Council announces two new awards this year: the Performance award and the Innovation award. Deadline for receipt of nominations is April 30, 2012, at which time the Awards Committee will deliberate and choose the winners. More information after the break.
Hilton Worldwide and Schiphol Real Estate, Schiphol Group’s real estate subsidiary, have today signed an agreement to introduce a new landmark 433 guest room Hilton Hotels & Resorts hotel to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, to be designed by prominent Dutch architects, Mecanoo. The new cube-shaped building, which will feature rounded edges and a diamond-shaped façade with diagonal lines, has been designed with a view to it becoming an airport landmark. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Mark Foster Gage, from the Yale University School of Architecture and Gage Clemenceau, has put together a wonderful collection of text that together shed light on the various ideas about beauty through history. Gage’s added commentary helps relate each of the text to contemporary thinking on architecture and design. The text range from Plato, Aristotle, Vitruvius to Nehamas and Zangwill. (I, personally, found the last piece by David Freedberg and Vittorio Gallese very intriguing. It bridges many of the theoretical positions with advancements in cognitive science.) If you are interested in the theoretical side of architecture but don’t where to start or you prefer the practical side over the theoretical this book is a good one to have under your belt. It gives you the basics from which you can expand upon, if you are so inclined.
You can see an ArchDaily interview with Gage here, and some of his work here.
https://www.archdaily.com/208477/aesthetic-theory-essential-texts-for-architecture-and-design-mark-foster-gageAmber P
Yesterday, we announced the WTTW premier of the new 30-minute documentary, Architect Michael Graves: A Grand Tour. If you missed it, there is no need to worry. You can watch the documentary right here on ArchDaily! Host Geoffrey Baer takes you on a fascinating tour through Graves’ life and legacy, with in-depth tours inside some his famous works and commentary from many of his good friends, such as Peter Eisenman and Denise Scott Brown. Learn about the influences that shaped each chapter of Graves’ life, from the boy who aspired to be an artist, to modernism and The New York Five, then onto post modernism, product design and his most recent focus on health care.
We are nearly at 75,000 photos from our fantastic Flickr Pool, so keep submitting yours… maybe you’ll make our selection next week! Remember you can submit your own photo here, and don’t forget to follow us through Twitter and our Facebook Fan Page to find many more features.
The photo above was taken by +seeAN. Check the other four after the break.
The International jury, chaired by Prof. Jörg Friedrich (Hamburg), has awarded two second-place and two third-place prizes in the worldwide, open architectural design competition for the New Bauhaus Museum in Weimar. The purpose of the competition is to find an architecturally innovative, sustainable, energy-efficient and museologically sound solution for a new museum that takes full advantage of the urban-planning potential of the Weimarhallenpark. The announcement of the winners officially concludes the architectural design competition, in which 536 architectural offices around the world participated.
Designer: United Visual Artists Score: Scanner Client: The Creators Project Location: New York City (2011) and San Francisco (2012) Additional Audio Programming: Henrik Ekeus and Dave Meckin Producer: Keri Elmsly Photographer: James Medcraft
Under the guidance of David Mah, Carl Koepcke and Marshall Prado from Harvard Graduate School of Design created a system for constructing a rapidly deployable ice shelter using snow and ice as building materials. The temporary shelter is intended for cold environments and utilizes the insulative properties and inherent compressive strength of the proposed building materials to craft a spatial catenary volume.
Real Madrid, one of the most important soccer teams and sports institution worldwide revealed yesterday their plans to build the Real Madrid Resort Island, a 1 billion development which will include exclusive villas, a 5-star hotel, an amusement park, a club museum and the world’s first stadium with one side open to the sea.
The 430,000 sqm resort, designed by J+H Boiffils, will be supported by the government of the Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. “Real Madrid Resort Island will be a major tourist and sporting centre of great dimensions and the highest level. This extraordinary complex will attract millions of people looking for quality leisure services”, said Florentino Pérez, the club president. Real Madrid Resort Island will open in January 2015. More images after the break.
1st prize – Courtesy of Nicolas Montesano, Victor Vila, Boris Hoppek
[AC-CA] recently announced the winning proposals for their Amsterdam Iconic Pedestrian Bridge competition. The aim the international competition was to design an iconic pedestrian bridge in the heart of Amsterdam. The architecture of this new structure would reflect contemporary design tendencies. The winning proposals not only attend to the specific function, but also take into consideration the urban insertion and impact geared towards creating a new architectural symbol for an European capital city. Images and concepts of the winners after the break.
Following their success in winning first prize in an international competition, gmp Architekten hs been commissioned to design the new southern railway station in Hangzhou, China. The project involves the conversion and extension of the station in the Xiao Shan district to the south of the Qiantang river; after the eastern and main railway stations it will be the third largest railway station of this metropolis. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Mecanoo+ Royal Haskoning design team was recently announced as the winner for the realization of the new Eurojust headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands. This design concept illustrates a strong connection with Eurojust’s neighbouring organisations, the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and Europol. The atmosphere of soft slopes and grassy vegetation is designed to sit within the lush surroundings of The Hague’s ‘Green Heart’. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Today the world celebrates its most precious resource: water. Countries world-wide suffer from water shortages so extreme that they cannot produce enough food to support their basic needs. In an effort to protect the World’s largest source of surface fresh water, the City Design Practice of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is gaining international support in their pro bono pursuit to create a 100-year vision that will environmentally protect and economically revitalize the entire U.S. and Canada Great Lakes region, a vision known as The Great Lakes Century.
“The availability and quality of fresh water to sustain a radically urbanizing world is unquestionably a core issue of our time and requires holistic environmental thinking at an unprecedented scale,” said Philip Enquist, SOM partner in charge of urban design worldwide.
Continue reading for more information on this important cause.
Sana’a, Yemen is at risk of being the first capital city in the World to run out of renewable, reliable and clean water supplies. With seasonal rain, expensive bottled water and polluted reservoirs, the residents of Sana’a are constantly faced with waterborne diseases and severe drought hazards.
In celebration of World Water Day, we would like to catch you up with the progress Sabrina Faber who was selected as winner of the 2010/2011 Philips Livable Cities Award – a global initiative designed to generate innovative, meaningful and achievable ideas to improve the health and well-being of city-dwellers across the world. Although the project went on hold due to political unrest, The Rainwater Aggregations (RAINS) Project was still able to complete three sites just in time for World Water Day. Continue reading for more.
Tetra Shed is inspired by the growing need to accommodate the desires of more and more people wanting to establish a home office. The architects at Innovation Imperative designed this garden office as a challenge to the notion that a home office is simply a converted room in one’s house. It is an alternative solution to the “cuboid offices” that have grown in popularity over the last few years. This concept and mock-up will be on display at Grand Designs Live London between May 5th and May 13th.
Read on for more about Tetra-Shed after the break.
In approximately 3 1/2 months I will be standing on a stage in Washington D.C. at the American Institute of Architects 2012 National Convention talking about blogging and social media for architects. Most of the people who swing through here probably don’t much care about that – and I don’t blame you (you already know that I’m making it up as I go). However, what struck me this morning as I was standing in the shower (where I do some of my best problem solving), was how blogging, my presentation for the convention, and architecture in general, all have something really important in common …
Walk into the cafeteria at the Googleplex and you are nudged into the “right” choice. Sweets? Color-coded red and placed on the bottom shelf to make them just a bit harder to reach. “Instead of that chocolate bar, sir, wouldn’t you much rather consume this oh-so-conveniently-located apple? It’s good for you! Look, we labelled it green!”
Like the Google cafeteria guides you to take responsibility of your health, Google wants to transform the construction industry to take responsibility of the “health” of its buildings. They have been leveraging for transparency in the content of building materials, so that, like consumers who read what’s in a Snickers bar before eating it, they’ll know the “ingredients” of materials to choose the greenest, what they call “healthiest,” options.[2]
These examples illustrate the trend of “medicalization” in our increasingly health-obsessed society: when ordinary problems (such as construction, productivity, etc.) are defined and understood in medical terms. In their book Imperfect Health, Borasi and Zardini argue that through this process, architecture and design has been mistakenly burdened with the normalizing, moralistic function of “curing” the human body. [3]
While I find the idea that design should “force” healthiness somewhat paternalistic and ultimately limited, I don’t think this “medicalized” language is all bad – especially if we can use it in new and revitalizing ways. Allow me to prescribe two examples: the most popular and the (potentially) most ambitious urban renewal projects in New York City today, the High Line and the Delancey Underground (or the Low Line).
More on “curative” spaces after the break. (Trust me, it’s good for you.)
