Videos

Architect and engineer, Werner Sobek, is urging cities to become emissions-free by the year 2020 – for all cars and buildings to be entirely powered by renewable energy. Sobek shared this goal during his acceptance speech of the Fritz Leonhardt Prize in July 2015, saying that this goal is achievable, but only with the full support of automotive and construction industries. Although seven leading, industrialized nations have agreed to de-carbonization by the end of the century, Sobek believes that that would be too late. Read more about Werner Sobek’s vision of the future after the break.

Participating in the What Can Design Do conference in Amsterdam, Ole Scheeren took time, along with several other creators, to discuss the impact of the working environment. Playfully dubbed, “Pod Sessions,” each talk takes place in De Vorm’s contemporary Pod chair, the PET plastic improving acoustics and signature Dutch felt providing comfort. In his Pod Session, Ole Scheeren, founder of Buro OS and lead designer on the CCTV Building in China, talks about the nature of a transitional workplace, the importance of collaboration, offices as a creative tool and the necessity of having a personal presence in a project. Having participated in projects across the world, Scheeren frequently moves to the site of his latest projects, as was the case with the CCTV Building.

The Pulitzer Arts Foundation and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis are inviting architects, designers and artists to propose a temporary structure in St. Louis, Missouri, for the second cycle of “PXSTL”. The competition aims to transform an under-used lot in the heart of St. Louis’ Arts and Culture district, catalyzing creative intervention and artistic programs. Nominations will be solicited from deans of architecture, art, and design programs; editors of art, architecture, and design publications; distinguished practitioners; and directors and curators of arts institutions. Read more about this competition after the break.

Andrea Maffei Architects has unveiled their entry for the Redemptoris Mater Church competition to design a new church complex in Cinisi, Italy. Influenced heavily by religious iconography, their design makes use of liturgical concepts to organize its spaces. Read more about the entry after the break.

The Municipality of Varna and the Chamber of Architects in Bulgaria have launched a competition open to architects worldwide to design the new Varna Regional Library. Varna, the third-largest city in Bulgaria, has lacked a proper library building for years, and the library’s collection of over 860,000 items is spread across six different buildings in the city. The new competition aims to create a single space where the collection can be brought together, while creating an attractive public space in the city’s centre.

Text description provided by the architects. Following up a year of development, Penda has unveiled their installation for Beijing Design Week (BJDW) 2015 – Rising Canes, a structural system made entirely of bamboo and ropes. Meant to be a speculation system for larger developments, the installation is fully modular, ecological and easy to expand in every direction. Bamboo was chosen as the main construction material for its long traditional roots in China and fantastic structural capability, as well as part of a desire to fight its current obscurity as a construction material.

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Drawings from the private collection of Alvin Boyarsky, Chairman of the Architectural Association (AA) from 1971 to 1990, will be on display as part of Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association. Hosted by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union from October 13 to November 25, 2015, the free, public exhibit will also feature panel discussions with Nicholas Boyarsky, Joan Ockman, Bernard Tschumi, Anthony Vidler, Michael Webb and Dean Nader Tehrani. Read more about this event and the drawings exhibited after the break.

Known for their work in adding greenery to the cities of Vietnam, Vo Trong Nghia Architects have unveiled their latest set of condominiums for Ho Chi Minh City – three towers covered in bamboo. Located 3.5km from the centre of Ho Chi Minh City, their project “Diamond Lotus” has enough units for 720 families, with a total floor space of 67,240 square meters across its three buildings. Read more about this project after the break.

The RIBA Future Trends Survey for August 2015 showed signs of slowing after indications of growth for architects during the summer. The RIBA Future Trends Workload Index dropped one point to +21.

Videos

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has unveiled their design for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL): a 3D-printed building powered by a 3D-printed vehicle developed by ORNL. Dubbed AMIE, the project was developed in collaboration with ORNL, University of Tennessee (UT), Clayton Homes, General Electric, Alcoa, NanoPore and Tru-Design. SOM was able to take the design from concept to completion in less than a year.

Combining mobile power with energy-efficient design and photovoltaic (PV) panels, the AMIE presents possibilities for human shelter off-the-grid. Following previous work by SOM, demonstrating the use of 3D printing for complex, organic geometries, the new building combines structure, insulation, air and moisture barriers, and exterior cladding into one shell.

Following a turnkey competition, NORD Architects was awarded the contract for their design of the new Furesø City Hall in Denmark. The project, consisting of 2,000 square meters of renovation and 3,400 square meters of new space, is set to finish by 2017 and will house 300 employees. Driven by sustainable and democratic design, the new city hall is estimated to reduce annual operating costs by 8 million DKK for the Furesø government. Read more about this upcoming project after the break.

Replicating the corner of Friedrichstrabe and Kavalierstrabe, Guerra De Rossa Arquitectos and Pedro Livni Arquitecto's entry for the Dessau Bauhaus Museum is organized as an L, suspended above ground to create a passage and meeting space in the park in which it’s situated. The monolithic volume, built in reinforced concrete, acts as a single gesture, emphasizing its weight. Read more about this entry after the break.

In the continuing quest for smarter cities, the White House has announced the dedication of 160-million dollars toward the integration of sensors and data collection in cities across the United States. The new initiative strives to produce better, real-time data for local organizations, companies and governments to improve responses, both in time and effectiveness. The initiative broadly covers various organizations and federal grants, but hopes to address issues like crime, traffic congestion and climate change. Read more after the break.

New York City is replacing one of its 40 salt sheds on the Gansevoort Peninsula with a new, origami-like structure by Dattner Architects at Canal St/West St, along the Hudson River. Once completed, the shed will rise almost 70 feet tall and hold over 4,000 tons of salt in its six-foot thick concrete walls. In response to the complaints leveled against the Sanitation Garage across Spring Street from the new salt shed, Dattner Architects deliberately created a monolithic, crystalline form to contrast the scrim-like façade of its neighbour.

Uncountable hours, and piles of failed sketches and models to go with them – much of the architecture process is left unseen, held behind locked doors, but Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)’s Pavilion for Design Miami exposes this process for the first time. After a school-wide competition involving over 100 students in 32 teams, a judging panel of GSD faculty and representatives of Design Miami selected “UNBUILT” to represent the school at this year’s fair.

o2a Studio has unveiled their proposal for the Lorry I. Lokey School of Management at Tel Aviv University. Part of an invited competition, the design brief required a two-phase proposal sited at the focal point of the Tel Aviv University Campus: an initial 3,500 square metres of classrooms, offices and an auditorium and a future 1,500 square metres of extra classes and offices. Though not selected for the final design of the school, the o2a Studio proposal for the Lorry I. Lokey School of Management encompasses contextual, programmatic and climatic concerns in an elegant solution. Read more about this proposal after the break.

Imagine that Eurasia has been brought to absolute destruction - by wars over religion, ethnicity or countries, or maybe even nuclear destruction. Cities, towns and villages across the super-continent are left in rubble or abandoned; all forms of organization are a fairy tale from a bygone era. Thousands of years of culture and civilization, gone.

What if a new Eurasia could arise from the remnants of this destruction? What artifacts and memories would remain, to seed the creation of a new Eurasia? Imagining New Eurasia, commissioned by Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, South Korea, invites anyone living in, or from Eurasia to submit their ideas, in the form of drawings, sketches, text, artwork, found objects, photographs, maps, memorabilia or any other kind of artifact, on how the future of a New Eurasia may pan out.