The new building for the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre, Brazil designed by Portugal´s Alvaro Siza, is a big rectangular white concrete structure. It has a big central space enclose by circulations and exhibition spaces. Some of this circulations separate from the main body as arms going out through the facade.

I´ve always loved the big white orthogonal Siza buildings, and i think that this form is really informed by brazilian modernists, resulting on sculptural rock in front of the river with an amazing light use, a tradition on Siza´s works.

Pictures by Grazielle Bruscato, plans taken from Fundação Iberê Camargo.

The Architectural Review informed us that they launched the 10th version of their Emerging Awards.

Foster + Partners just finished the first tower in Amsterdam, at the Vivaldi-park area of the new Zuidas district, south of the city.

The 24-storey building is divided into two twelve metre-wide column free towers with open, flexible floor plates. The blocks are staggered in plan to admit as much natural light as possible, helping this tower to be ten per cent more efficient than the target Dutch environmental standards. Plus, it has a very nice looking lobby.

There’s nothing more exciting for an architect than to shape the form of his own city with a new building. And that’s what Rem Koolhaas is about to do in Rotterdam with a large scale mixed use building. Also, a project developed for The Hague, also in the Netherlands, will start construction as of next year. Site visits will be closer to the central OMA headquarters this time.

First, we’ve got a 120.000m2 (30.000m2 for retail, 70.000m2 for office, residential, culture and leisure) mixed use building in the Rotterdam’s shopping district, the Coolsingel. This district is actually the true centre of Rotterdam, where the most important streets in Rotterdam merge (Coolsingel, Lijbaan, Binnenweg and Beurstraverse).

Undoubtly, Wall House was one of the most innovative house designs in the last few years. But after winning the AR Emergent Awards 2007, being selected as one of the Record Houses 2008 by Architectural Record and their clients response, FAR frohn&rojas architects decided to go one step ahead and now they present Your Wall House, a customizable kit to build your own Wall House.

The kit goes from squematic drawings to a full custom climate concept, which will result on a variaton of the original Wall House according to personal needs, interests, local building code and the local climate conditions.

Kits and prices:

The La Defense is a 160 ha business district in the west of Paris, currently under a renewal plan to strengthen its place among the great international business districts. The plan is managed by the EPAD (The Public Establishment for Installation of La Défense), an organization formed by local authorities, government and neighbors focused on developing the La Defense for the best interests of its 20.000 residents and 150.000 inhabitants in floating population.

The renewal includes several high rise sustainable towers. One of this towers, the Tour Signal, entered an international closed competition for teams of architects/investors/developers, on which EPAD didn’t impose a site. The candidates were thus able to choose their sites either from among the entrances to the business district (South Gate and West Gate), either from sites subject to demolition operations. The Tour Signal will thus endow the business district with a new landmark in 2013.

The finalists for this project were Jacques Ferrier Architectures, Foster + Partners Ltd, Studio Libeskind Architect, Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Wilmotte et Associes SA.

And a few days ago, the winner was announced: Ateliers Jean Nouvel, project shown on the video above.

More pictures of the Jean Nouvel proposal, and the rest of the candidates/finalists after the jump.

Right next to their VM Housing project, BIG is currently finishing their new project: Mountain Dwellings. But this time, the client asked for a specific program with 2/3 parking and 1/3 living. Rather than doing 2 separate buildings, BIG decided to combine the splendours of the suburban backyard with the social intensity of urban density, resulting on a terraced housing over the parking area.

Another fire on a remarkable building. Today, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall by Hans Schauron caught fire. Firemen were able to control it, but its outer metal skin collapsed. Structural damage is unknown at the time, but it was seriously damaged by fire and water.

This building, finished in 1963, was an icon for the Expressionist movement, with a great acoustic work achieved trough it´s inner spaciality which conditioned its external appearance.

Pictures before and during the fire after the break.

As I had previously mentioned we visited Work AC in New York a few months ago, where we interviewed Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. This turned out to be a great interview, where they shared their thoughts on the current state of architectural practice, the role of architects in current society, humor, networking, media and something that really interested me: the importance of knowing how to manage the growth of your office.

On their office we saw the amazing model for their Cadavre Exquis Lebanese, a proposal based on a series of interventions to re-create Downtown Beirut presented at the 2007 Rotterdam Biennale. We also got to see their on on going projects and a 1:1 prototype of their Public Farm 1 structure soon to be opened at the PS1. You can check the construction progress at the PF1 website.

Pictures of Work AC after the jump.

Foster + Partners just informed us that the new Willis headquarters at Lime Street in London is complete. As usual, the firm lead by Sir Norman Foster developed a urban piece that integrates with the city at street level and features environmental strategies to reduce its energy consumption and carbon footprint.

This two buildings are developed as a series of overlapping curved shells while its section is arranged in three steps. The roof terraces overlooking the plaza on the lower two steps are directly accessible from the office spaces. Both buildings have a central core to provide open floor plates and maximum flexibility in use.

The entire development is visually unified by its highly reflective façade. The pressed form of the panels and their mica finish give them depth and texture. A dynamic effect is established through the interplay of solid and glazed panels arranged in a saw-tooth pattern, the fins also increase insulation while reducing glare and solar gain.

Together with the highly efficient services equipment and systems in the building, the façade design is integral to the energy strategy, which is rated BREEAM Excellent. What surprised me is the parking capacity: 42 Cars, 88 motorcycles, 264 bicycles

According to Sir Norman Foster this building has come out of a very different design process, yet continues the practice’s commitment to developing humane, flexible and dynamic workplaces that are both informed by, and woven into, the urban fabric. Foster has some very interesting approaches when it comes to sustainable design and urban spaces. I recommend checking his presentation at DLD we posted last week.

b720 just informed us that they won the ideas competition for the new Market dels Encants in Barcelona, Spain, commissioned by the city.

TU Delft Architecture School was devastated by fire today. The fire, belived to have been started by a short circuit in a coffee machine caused by a faulty water pipe, was so poweful that the fire brigade couldn’t get close to it and decided to stand back and let the fire burn itself out.

Gage / Clemenceau Architects is a NY based architectural firm that deals with a wide scale of projects, from product design, commercial & residential projects to exhibition design. Also runners for the Young Architects Program @ PS1 in 2007, Gage Clemenceau´s work is motivated by the premise that architecture transcends the practice of mere building- in favor of a new and vibrant alliance between progressive technologies, new materials, context and program.

We interviewed Mark Foster Gage (G/C partner, assistant professor at Yale), and discussed about education, media, networking role of architects in contemporary society, among other topics regarding the current state of architectural practice in our second issue of AD Interviews, in a very interesting and fluid talk.

More interviews each Sunday. Please leave your feedback at the comments for future issues.

Pictures of the Gage Clemenceau Studio after the break.