Finally! Amidst all the holiday cheer, we are happy to report a positive Architecture Billings Index this month. From August through October, the ABI has had a crazy run with large dips in the index, but November has changed that with a score a 52.0. Up from 49.4 in October, the 52.0 teamed with a new projects inquiry index of 65.0 rounds out a strong November. Interesting to note, the South led the regional averages with 54.4 followed by the Midwest (50.9) and then the Northeast (49.1) and the West (45.6). And, the sector breakdown measured multi-family residential at 55.8 while industrial/commercial tallied 53.9/ “This is a heartening development for the design and construction industry that only a few years ago accounted for nearly ten percent of overall GDP but has fallen to slightly less than six percent,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “Hopefully, this uptick in billings is a sign that a recovery phase is in the works. However, given the volatility that we’ve seen nationally and internationally recently, we’ll need to see several more months of positive readings before we’ll have much confidence that the U.S. construction recession is ending.”

The proposal by Site-Specific for the Burma School competition aims at escaping from social depression, as Karen people are searching for freedom and are displaced from their homes. They are residing on a borrowed piece of land which they can never owned. They are living in a country that they are not considered parts of society – many of them without citizenship. So they believe that the right kind of architecture can create the sense of belonging and the sense of ownership in the hearts of the displaced Karen community members. They want to create a school that this community can say ‘made by us’ and ‘made for us’. Thus, this school can become the center of the community. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The design of the proposal by OODA + OOIIO was instinctively developed under basic and determinant assumptions reflected from the local. Water, rurality, urbanity and cultural habits and traditions. They have tried to form an interactive balance among all the premises and found in nature a conceptual framework that served as a starting point for the formalization of their urban housing plan. The floating water lilies. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Polonsky Academy building, designed by Chyutin Architects, is situated on the cliff facing south towards the Jerusalem Theater. Its northern side faces the Main Garden Court which will function as the heart of the campus in the new master plan. The low horizontal appearance of the Polonsky Academy building fits in with the dimensions and design characteristics of the existing buildings with their closed stone fronts to the city and glass fronts facing the open inner garden. Other building materials to be used are exposed concrete and wood slats. The design of the building elevation respects the modernistic spirit of the existing buildings. More images and architects’ description after the break.

India

As disabled U.S. military veterans return home, they often face the challenge of adapting to a new home and finding ways to cope with their surroundings. In order to better serve the returning soldiers, Clark Reality Capital commissioned Michael Graves & Associates (MGA) to design the “Wounded Warrior Home Project.” In conjunction with IDEO, Graves has designed a complete residential environment for physically impaired veterans. The single-family prototype homes provide everything from adjustable height kitchen counter-tops to easy-access rooms and closets, creating a comfortable environment for the physical and emotional needs of the soldiers.

+ 27

The devastating earthquake and tsunami that ravaged northeastern Japan in early March caused unimaginable damage and heartbreak to many. In response, Google has created a website named “Mirai e no kioku”, meaning “Memories for the Future”. The website allows the people of Japan to share photos and videos of their cities in an effort to preserve the memories collected over generations that may have been lost during the disaster. Google has also provided thousands of miles of Street View imagery that includes “Before” and “After” comparisons of the hardest hit areas.

Check out this great video by SO-IL about their spatial facade for the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale. Referencing the 1980 Venice Bienale where 20 architects collaboratively designed a “facade” that challenged the notions of an individual and collective expression, SO-IL has taken a similar approach for their 2011 work. The firm, no doubt, is used to challenging the accepted norms of architects and architecture – case in point, their Pole Dance for MoMA PS1 - and this Biennale proposal marks a distinction between the facade as a flat symbolic representation, and the use of the facade to actually become a spatial and experiential element. “It is high time to revisit this canonical exhibition of post-modernism. 40 years after our predecessors expanded the territory of the architectural discipline into the experience of time, we continue to believe that growth and innovation are limitless if a new territory of spatiality can be defined,” says Jing Liu of SO-IL when reflecting on the intention this installation. With SO-IL’s prismatic paneled “colonnade” of marble tiles backed with mirrors, visitors can experience a changing depth of the installation and discover new spaces while wandering through it.

The new library in Dalian by Architects Collective is designed to become the center and heart for the local community with a strong relationship to the ocean and the bay. The building is placed in a park setting and aims to be a landmark for locals and visitors and a symbol for the creative and environmentally friendly future of New Pulian. More images and project description after the break.

AIA Seattle, the Seattle Chapter of American Institute of Architects, with partners BetterBricks, the City of Seattle, and Architecture 2030 present AIA+2030 Professional Series: Prepare for the New Energy Future at Seattle City Hall.

The aim of the design proposal by sam architecture for the sports facilities at Lille-Fives was to create a pure and efficient building. The clearly identifiable shape of the concrete plate, which covers the grandstand and the gymnasium, announces the sport facility from far around. It is undeniably inspired by Future system’s Lords Cricket Ground Media Stand. It truly identifies the building and is ment to become a symbol of the renewal of Lille-Fives, a former industrial and socially fragile district. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The proposal of Dreiecksplatz, designed by Artur Borejszo, Leena Cho, Jason Hilgefort, and Andreas Karavanas recently won the first prize for Europan 11 competition in Vienna, Austria. Located between the Vienna Ring and Vienna Woods, the site embraces the marks of both environment – urban and nature – as a basis for future development. Currently surrounded by houses with a large amount of private green space, what they believe is needed in the site is a generous, quality public space that will invite and sustain diverse groups of community to gather, live and work by. More images and project description after the break.

Thomas Park has compiled a gallery of all 357 of Apple’s stores from all over the world. The images are pulled directly from Apple’s own website and include information about where the store falls among the 357, where it is located and when it was opened. Park’s initiative was sparked by the desire to detect the evolution in Apple’s strategy of storefront design. Apple’s retail architecture shows the success of closely adhering to design principles in the visual branding of products, the products themselves, and the environment in which they are actually sold. Apple has a simple, crisp and sleak design that comes through in their products and in their stores and give off the same feeling of reliable design.

More after the break.

Architects: VIGLIECCA&ASSOC Location: Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil Date: 2008 – under construction Client: State of Ceará Government / Special Department of the State of Ceará for 2014 Cup Total Intervention Area: 215.000 sqm Design Team: Hector Vigliecca, Luciene Quel, Ronald Werner, Neli Shimizu, Caroline Bertoldi, Bianca Riotto, Fernanda Trotti, Hernani Paiva, Kelly Bozzato, Luiz Marino, Mayara Christ, Pedro Ichimaru, Rafael Alcantara, Paulo Serra, Luci Maie, Renata Haring Construction: Galvão + Andrade Mendonça Landscaping: Rodolfo Geiser Paisagismo e Meio Ambiente Photographs: Azul Serra

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Along with engineers G.O.C. and Cabanelas Castelo Architects, Foster + Partners have won an international competition to design a new high-speed rail station in the city of Ourense in Galicia, located in northwestern Spain. The winning proposal integrates transport infrastructure with a new urban park, providing a large public space that will open up a series of pedestrian links to connect the districts divided by the track.

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A recent article discussing the disconnect between the decades old Intern Development Program and its effective reality in the current environment brings to light shortcomings that are in dire need of redevelopment. NCARB recently announced an upcoming significant overhaul of the IDP program, which in its current state requires 5,600 hours of various logged tasks in addition to the seven exams for licensure.

Architectural photographer Cristobal Palma has shared with us this video of the Chilean Pavilion at the 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture.

“Gimme Shelter!”, designed and curated by Sebastián Irarrázaval and Hugo Mondragón, features projects and architectural innovations developed by local architects during emergencies and natural catastrophes in the last years.

The poetic expression of these emergency landscapes has also oriented the construction of the Chilean pavilion. To achieve this, we chose to overturn the conventional relationships of the elements that comprise it: mattresses positioned vertically become screens for projecting images; security cones and water bottles, cut up and then reassembled, become lamps; emergency tape and water bottles become tensors and counterweights. Once this mechanism was set in motion, we provocatively introduced certain conventionally used forms: a massive bed with mattresses placed in the center of the pavilion, and a window display with large water drums and dispensers at the far end of the pavilion, promising visitors a bit of rest and relief.

For the exhibition, we selected architectural works, visual pieces and technological innovations that experimented with the concept of the essential and the ingenious in precarious contexts. On the other hand, and in keeping with the project mechanism put into action through the formalization of the pavilion, we also decided to select projects that exhibited a certain degree of disruption to some element of the cultural or material patrimony of Chile.

More videos by Cristobal Palma at ArchDaily:

In more recent times, the importance of the changing climate and its effects on the environment are being given more attention in regard to design practices. As a result, sustainable work spaces are becoming more prominent and some may even argue that a more energy efficient building correlates to a more efficient and productive work environment. With a growing demand for energy efficient buildings comes a greater responsibility of architects today and in the future.  In turn, officer owners and managers are also placed under increasing obligations to be focused on cutting down on productivity costs and to find more sustainable ways of going about their business endeavors. Companies are coming to the realization that investing in ‘green’ principles is more profitable in the long run.

In this post we are going to present to you office buildings that offer sustainable techniques through innovative architecture.

At first glance, Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis’ Contour Crafting (CC) seems both fascinating and unreal – a fabrication machine that has the potential to construct entire structures in a single run. Supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, CC’s combination of conventional robotics and “age-old tools” creates a layered fabrication process where large-scale parts can be fabricated at remarkable speeds. On his blog, Khoshnevis, a professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, explains that the system is a scale-up of the rapid prototyping machines now widely used in industry to “print out” three-dimensional objects designed with CAD/CAM software, usually by building up successive layers of plastic. ”Instead of plastic, Contour Crafting will use concrete,” explained Khoshnevis.

More about Contour Crafting after the break.

The hotel proposal by BNKR Arquitectura aims to reproduce in material form the ephemeral process of the diffusion of sound. This is a process of vibrant outward expression and subsequent decay. It is a narrative of the loss of integrity and dematerialization in space. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Hrvoje Sedlić shared with us a proposal for a mixed use design in an industrial area in Croatia.The project site is on the east part of Zagreb`s horizontal axis. It`s located next to an industrial area of “Janko Gredelj”, but due to a ghetto type organization of that still active industry (a big wall surrounding it), these two spaces were never perceived as one. But like any other industry infrastructure being so close to the city center, it will be dislocated . At that moment, a huge amount of space (20 ha) is opened to be integrated to the city, with a size potential to house any activity and content. More images and project description after the break.

For those of you still in search for some last minute gift ideas, we present to you part three of the 2011 ArchDaily Holiday Gift Guide. We hope this provides you with that last bit of inspiration to finish your holiday shopping. In case you missed our previous guides, view Part One and Part Two for more gift ideas that is guaranteed to please any architect.

On the first day of Christmas,

my Architect gave to me

A study guide for the A.R.E.

.

On the Second day of Christmas,

my Architect gave to me

Two turtlenecks,

And a study guide for the A.R.E.

.

On the Third day of Christmas,

my Architect gave to me

Three French Curves,

Two turtlenecks,

And a study guide for the A.R.E.

.

Sitting near the southern boundary of Foresterhill at the edge of the Westburn field, Snohetta’s plans for Maggie’s Cancer Care Center at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary is envisioned as a pavilion within the parkland. The facilities will be mainly on the ground floor with a mezzanine area for office functions.

The Elizabeth Montgomerie Foundation (EMF) and Maggie’s are raising £3m in an attempt to bring a Maggie’s Center to Foresterhill Hospital in Aberdeen to provide for the families of Grampian. Aberdeen is Scotland’s third largest caner treatment center but is the only clinical center in Scotland not supported by Maggie’s.