After a grade school in Sweden, with a very limited budget, contacted Visiondivision to transform their schoolyard, the team decided to use the school’s existing budget for asphalt maintenance as the means to improve the yard. Limited budgets always pose a challenge for projects, yet the team saw this as the opportunity to experiment with different materials to stay within their monetary restraints. “With the help of the fast growing Swedish bamboo Salix, we managed to create a large visual impact on the boring asphalt yard that also was relatively inexpensive,” explained the architects.
For three weeks in October 2009, 20 teams of college and university students will compete in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. The competition provides the teams with an opportunity to “design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house.” Organized in three stages, (building, moving to the solar village in the National Mall in Washington D.C., and the actual competition) the Solar Decathlon aims to raise awareness among the general public about renewable energy and energy efficiency, help solar energy technologies enter the marketplace faster, foster collaboration among students from different academic disciplines, and educate the student participants. “The Solar Decathlon brings attention to one of the biggest challenges we face-an ever-increasing need for energy. As an internationally recognized event, it offers powerful solutions-using energy more efficiently and using energy from renewable sources.”
Santa Clara University, known for their excellence in engineering/business got the third place at the 2007 competition, and for this year’s competition they teamed with CCA, dedicated to architecture, art and design, to create a 100 student team to participate in the Solar Decathlon. The team is the only undergraduate-led team participating in the competition (most are filled with Ph. D programs), combing “youth and process, set the standard in green living”. The young team of future architects, engineers, construction managers, graphic designers and interior designers have created a proposal, entitled Refract House, that is dedicated to promoting the idea of “Living Light: harnessing sunlight to power our energy needs, lightening our carbon footprint upon the earth, and enlightening today’s consumers and the next generation of concerned, responsible citizens about the possibilities of sustainable living.” “We want the project to have a lasting impact as both a case study for green design and as an exhibit of technology. We already know it’s going to have an impact on all of us,” explained Allison Kopf, an SCU Engineering Physics student.
More about the winning Refract House after the break.
With the current housing crisis, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, increasing carbon emissions and rising energy costs, the future of suburbia looks bleak. It is obvious that a change in the American landscape is necessary, which is why Inhabitat has teamed up with Dwell Magazine to launch the REBURBIA design contest.
We just received Zaha Hadid Architects’ latest project for the Manchester International Festival. ZHA has created a chamber music hall for solo performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s chamber music masterpieces. The project’s form, a suspended ribbon of translucent lightweight synthetic fabric (150 g/m2) articulated by an internal steel structure, translates the intricate relationships of Bach’s harmonies into an architectural spatial condition. Festival Director Alex Poots exclaimed, “Zaha Hadid Architects consistently come up with challenging and innovative ideas. It has been wonderful to see the realisation of this project and experience such intimate performances from the leading concert musicians within it.”
Further description about ZHA’s Music Hall and more images after the break.
The New York Highline, a project by James Corner Field Operations with the collaboration of Diller Scofidio + Renfro has been open to the public for a few weeks (as we reported previously on AD) and as a New Yorker who has waited patiently for the project to finish, I was anxious to stroll along the latest addition in Manhattan. The visit was a completely new way to experience the city. Just the idea of observing Manhattan by walking above (and through) it, rather than being an actual part of it, made the Highline a project one must encounter to feel what the space can offer.
More about some impressions after a visit to the Highline and more pictures after the break.
Chinese Studio Pei-Zhu has designed the Xixi Wetland Art Museum located in a rural nature preserved near Hangzhou, China. The concept stems from the interaction between building and nature. As leaves fall from trees they arrive naturally on the ground. The resulting form creates shelter against the earth.
This design creates the genuine qualities of scattered, fallen leaves and shelter through five buildings. Some leaves overlap and attach with other leaves. One leaf remains separate, yet still unites in visual language with the linked leaves. The four linked structures house functions for business, recreation, a hotel, restaurant, and reception. The single standing leaf is the art museum.
The buildings are covered by light colored, reflective zinc panels that have a brushed finish, resulting in a diffused and soft reflection of their interactions with people and nature. this blending influences a person as they experience the museum. All colors, light, and details merge into a continuous representation that is not recognizable as individual objects, but are distinguished as a uniform and natural image.
GRAFT was one of the first practices that started working with Make It Right to redevelop the Lower 9th Ward area in New Orleans. Their single family home design has been picked by 3 homeowners so far, with 2 already finished and 1 in construction phase.
GRAFT’s proposal for the new set of duplex homes we featured yesterday, has LEED Platinum certification and in my opinion proposes an interesting strategy to connect with the street level, mandatory to all MIR projects.
Architect’s description and more images after the break:
https://www.archdaily.com/28043/duplex-house-for-make-it-right-graftAmber P
Gerd Priebe, a German based architecture firm, has completed a new curved office building to expand Saegeling Medizintechnik’s medical equipment complex in Heidenau, Germany. The new building is “organically formed….and sets a striking architectural highlight directly adjacent to the existing company headquarters,” explained the architects.
More about the new office building after the break.
We have featured some pretty peculiar houses on AD. Many of them come from Japan. So to start this week’s Round Up we bring you our first selection of houses in Japan.
Designliga, a design agency from Munich, Germany, has just created the perfect room for a child. Here, the children can play, hide, built or just relax.
“Playground for Leif” marks a clear end to tradition in children’s room design and offers a new look and a brand new world of experiences for children and family members alike. The room is designed using a unique piece of furniture that meets the practical needs of a children’s room while at the same time provides excitement, inspiration, and a feeling of independence.
More images and architect’s description, after the break.
In addition to the Benetton competition providing participants with the possibility to redefine the influence of retail in an urban landscape, the competition also provided participants with the choice to design “Building A” or “Building B”. While we shared some of the winning proposals for Building A (Grzegorz Witold Woronowicz and Giuseppe Iodice), we now share Maarten Scheurwater and Oliver van den Hoven‘s proposal for Building B, which placed second in the competition.
Atelier Hitoshi Abe shared with us their duplex house for the new phase of the Make It Rightproject we presented earlier. A renovated version of a shotgun house, the Hotlinks project offers several configurations depending on the client´s needs as described on the architect´s description and diagrams after the break:
Brad Pitt´s Make It Right Foundation has been working with a group of international architects to redevelop the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, after hurricane Katrina. The name of the foundation addresses the desire of Pitt, architecture enthusiast, to design these houses the best way and not just as a temporary solution, in a process that also included working not only with these renowned firms, but also very close with the community, with a focus on sustainable development.
The designs are referential, and each client (as the houses aren´t “free”, yet they use existing finance ways and low interest loans) can pick a design, which is then adjusted by local firm John C. Williams Architects to suite the client´s needs.
A first phase included single family homes, designed by practices such as Kieran Timberlake, Shigeru Ban, Morphosis, MVRDV and Trahan Architects. As of now 8 houses have been built, and more than 10 houses are already on construction or in the permit process.
Make It Right has recently unveiled a second phase with 14 duplex homes to accommodate up to 2 families, which include a site-specific sustainable strategy and flexible plans for future family growth. But also, the practices were required to meet integration with the street and the use of landscaping as a design and energy element.
Nestled among the Forest Hill neighborhood in Toronto, Paul Raff Studio‘s latest sustainable residence is “a marriage of environmentally responsible building strategies and elegant architectural composition.” The 353m2 residence, entitled the Cascade House, is designed in an I-formation around an outdoor swimming pool and offers a high quality of aesthetics in addition to environmentally friendly strategies.
C. F. Møller Architects, in collaboration with Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter, have won a major competition to design a new landmark for Oslo. Their project, entitled Crystal Clear, consists of three towers, which are composed of stacked, prismatic volumes that will provide a dynamic new addition to the city’s skyline.
The walking houses are man-sized models of their latest architectural project: a tourist destination located on the northern west coast of Norway. As the project depends on the idea of travelling, they decided it was only fair that the houses got to do some travelling too!
The project consists of a group of narrow high-rise modules welcoming the guests of the Norwegian west coast. The systematic and flexible module-system allows the outdoor spaces, the miniature high-rise modules and the interiors to be designed in collaboration with the future inhabitants and selected artists.
More images after the break.
https://www.archdaily.com/27772/walking-berlin-fantastic-norwayAmber P
It seems fitting that since the Guggenheim is currently featuring the works of its designer, Frank Lloyd Wright, we should feature some of the process work of the iconic museum. Well known for its white curving form, it is important to note that the current rendition of the museum is vastly different from Wright’s original ideas. The struggle between the architect and the client (in this case Solomon R. Guggenheim, a wealthy mining entrepreneur) to see eye-to-eye is not something new, however it is interesting to consider whether the renowned museum would still have its status if it were as Wright had originally envisioned: a polygonal structure, partly in blue or perhaps a red-marble structure with long-slim pottery red bricks.
SPF Architects, based in Culver City, California, have created an design for the Zhuhai Opera House in Guangdong Province, China. Learning from the traditional principles of the region, the opera house’s form gives the appearance of stacked pebbles. Such an idea was conceived as a way to create a visual balance based on the Chinese principle from the five element theory. The opera house has three stacked levels that provide varying programmatic activities, such as a 1500 seat auditorium, large plaza gathering space, rehearsal hall, restaurants and other public amenities. A forest behind the structure gives the impression of growth and sustainability.
In times of crisis, hope is what we need. And hope is what the latest issue of Volume magazine explores under the title “Architecture of Hope”.
Once again, Arjen Oosterman writes a short yet provocative editorial, starting by why they choose to only use black&white images on this issue. He brings back the subject of the welfare society during post-War, and compares the european and american models of sprawl/density which are key aspects of current crisis.
And since hope is the word of the day, “Yes we can” is also mentioned on the editorial and other articles related to Obama.
Visiondivision shared with us their design for the Royal Elephant Pavilion which was rewarded an honorable mention in a not so ordinary competition. Recently, the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav received two female elephants from the King and Queen of Thailand as a way to express their gratitude for the creation of a Buddhist pavilion in the north of Sweden. Stemming from this event, a competition was created to design the facilities for the two elephants.
You just bought a nice site by the lake and need a nice house to built? To finish this week of Round Up, here you can see five examples of nice lake houses on different parts of the world.
With the city of Almere’s growth expected to require thousands of new residences, work places and related facilities, MVRDV was commissioned to collaborate with the city to design a concept structure vision to accommodate such drastic expansion. MVRDV’s Vision 2030 will create a framework to satisfy the growth for about 20 years. ”The structure vision for Almere is more than an urban master plan…” said Adri Duivesteijn, city councilor of Almere, “…it describes how the city can develop in economic, cultural and social terms. The expansion is not a quantitative effort. Even though the number of 60,000 new homes is impressive, the main objective is the addition of new qualities. Almere wants to serve the demand of the Randstad and at the same time needs the chance to develop into an ecologic, social and economically sustainable city”.
