Former ArchDaily's Managing Editor. BA in Architecture from Newcastle University, and interested in how overlooked elements of architectural culture —from the media to competitions to procurement processes can alter the designs we end up with.
CEBRA Architects has won the competition to design the Skamlingsbanken Visitor Center near Sjølund in Southern Denmark. At 113 meters above sea level, Skamlingsbanken is the highest point in South Jutland and historically has been an important meeting place, serving as the backdrop for some of Denmark's key historical public speeches. The new visitor center is posited as a way to restore this historic importance, and once again make Skamlingsbanken a local meeting place.
Intimidating to design a Design Museum for designers? No, because what you're doing is working with the challenges of the existing space.
In this new video from NOWNESS, the audience is treated to a viewing of the new Design Museum in London, courtesy of its interior architect John Pawson. Part interview and part guided tour, NOWNESS uses the unorthodox technique of giving the building's designer his own camera, making parts of the video an intriguing insight into how Pawson sees his own work.
Designed in collaboration with OMA and Allies and Morrison, the project is a thorough renovation of the former Commonwealth Institute building, a 1962 structure by Robert Matthew, a founding partner of RMJM. Pawson dwells on the experience of working with their dramatic hyperbolic paraboloid roof, the materials used in the design, and the challenges of working on such a sensitive project.
Adjaye Associates, alongside development manager Alchemi Group, have submitted a planning application for 5 Strand, a mixed-use scheme adjacent to London's iconic Trafalgar Square. Inspired and informed by the surrounding historic buildings, the new 5 Strand will include 62,000 square feet (5,760 square meters) of office space, 26 apartments, and two ground-level retail units.
Gensler's Shanghai Tower has won the 2015 Emporis Skyscraper Award. Selected from over 300 buildings of over 100 meters in height completed in 2015, the Emporis jury was impressed by the Shanghai Tower's "elegant spiraling cylindrical shape," and the "extraordinary energy efficiency" provided, in part, by the building's double-skin facade.
Currently the world's second tallest building at 632 meters, the Shanghai Tower becomes the second Chinese building to win the Emporis award, after Zaha Hadid Architects' Wangjing SOHO took the prize last year. In addition to Gensler's first-place project, Emporis also recognized 9 runners-up including Rafael Viñoly Architects' 432 Park Avenue, Arquitectonica's Icon Bay in Miami, and the Evolution Tower in Moscow by Kettle Collective and RMJM Edinburgh. Read on to see all ten awarded projects.
Helical staircases are often designed to be show-stoppers, focal points of architectural spaces that are intended to impress. But even compared to its eye-catching peers, this staircase developed by Webb Yates Engineers and The Stonemasonry Company is unusually audacious. Developed for a residential design by RAL Architects in Formby, UK, each step of the two-story, 4.6-meter diameter helical staircase is composed of an individual block of stone, giving an impression of weightlessness as the structure circles its way up through the building's atrium towards the glazed roof above. For their efforts, Webb Yates recently won the Award for Small Projects at the Institution of Structural Engineers' 2016 Structural Awards, whose judges said that they were "amazed by the grace and audacity" of the design. Read on to find out how Webb Yates achieved this feat of engineering.
The Illuminated River Foundation has unveiled the six designs shortlisted to transform the river Thames in London by lighting up key bridges along the length of the river. The six teams were selected in September and asked to work their initial schemes into concept designs for the Westminster, Waterloo, London and Chelsea bridges. The teams comprise: Adjaye Associates; A_LA; Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Leo Villareal with Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands and Future\Pace; Les Éclairagistes Associés with ecqi and Federico Pietrella; and Sam Jacob Studio with Simon Heijdens. Read on to see all six designs.
Update: Unfortunately this free online viewing was only intended for a limited time and National Geographic has now removed the video. If you didn't catch the documentary in time, you can still watch it on DVD. In place of the full documentary, we have now included the trailer above.
As a group, architects are without question among the most enthusiastic supporters of sustainable initiatives around. It should therefore be welcome news to many architects that National Geographic has released its latest documentary on climate change, Before the Flood, for free on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter—pretty much everywhere.
Presented by Hollywood superstar and recently-appointed UN Climate Ambassador Leonardo DiCaprio, the documentary is perhaps the most ambitious film about climate change since Al Gore's 2006 An Inconvenient Truth. Throughout the course of the 90-minute film, DiCaprio travels the globe to see the damage wrought by the early signs of irreversible climate change, from melting glaciers, to dying coral reefs, to flooding cities. Speaking to world leaders including Barack Obama and The Pope, as well as a whole host of climate scientists, DiCaprio's aim is not so much to convince viewers of the existence of climate change, as with An Inconvenient Truth, but instead to investigate just how far down the wrong path we've traveled, and whether there is any hope for humanity to save itself.
Today, Microsoft announced the latest in their Surface family of personal computers. Called the Surface Studio, the device is essentially a 28-inch touchscreen drawing board which the company is targeting specifically at creative professionals, potentially placing it at the top of many architects' wish lists.
Designed in 2006, and under construction since 2009, Toyo Ito & Associates much anticipated Taichung Metropolitan Opera House has finally officially opened. The design is notable for its cavernous, curved and folded interior forms, which produce a dramatic and complex section that is neatly resolved into a rectilinear exterior form. Taiwan-based photographer Lucas K Doolan visited the new Opera House to study its impressive internal spaces and its presence in the surrounding urban environment.
The United States is currently embroiled in what is unquestionably one the most bizarre and unpredictable presidential races in its history. In this strange context, the world of architecture has unexpectedly found itself a hot political topic, with one architect at the center of the controversy: Andrew Tesoro.
Tesoro's involvement in the presidential race began with a video created by Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign. In the video, Tesoro tells a story of how Republican nominee Donald Trump "bullied" him and his architectural firm Tesoro Architects out of "many thousands of dollars" which were owed for their design services. Subsequently, Tesoro received something of a shout-out from Hillary Clinton in Monday's presidential debate as evidence that Trump's business experience does not qualify him to be president.
Given the nature of the campaign video, which was undoubtedly edited to paint Trump in a negative light, many have understandably questioned whether Tesoro's opinions and story were accurately portrayed. This skepticism was then reinforced by a "condensed and edited interview" published by Forbes, which suggested that Tesoro's opinion of Trump was much more forgiving than the one perpetuated by the Clinton campaign. Given the confusion around Tesoro's true opinions, ArchDaily decided to give the architect a chance to present his message unambiguously. What follows are Andrew Tesoro's responses to three simple questions about Donald Trump. These responses have not been edited by ArchDaily staff.
Recent years have seen a rapidly increasing interest in the architecture of the former Soviet Union. Thanks to the internet, enthusiasts of architectural history are now able to discover unknown buildings on a daily basis, and with the cultural and historical break caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, each photograph of a neglected and decaying edifice can feel like an undiscovered gem. However, often it can be difficult to find more information about these buildings and to understand their place in the arc of architectural history.
That was the reason behind the creation of Socialist Modernism, a research platform started by BACU - Birou pentru Artă şi Cercetare Urbană (Bureau for Art and Urban Research) which "focuses on those modernist trends from Central and Eastern Europe which are insufficiently explored in the broader context of global architecture." Socialist Modernism already consists of a website on which BACU has cataloged a number of remarkable and little-known buildings. However, now the team is raising funds on Indiegogo's Generosity platform for the next step in their research project. With this money they hope to create an app on which users can add new sites and buildings to the database.
In architecture, perhaps the most remarkable change heralded by the 20th was the radical rethinking of housing provision which it brought, driven by a worldwide population explosion and the devastation of two world wars. Of course, Modernism’s reappraisal of the design and construction of housing was one part of this trajectory, but still Modernism was underpinned by a traditional process, needing clients, designers and contractors. Arguably more radical were a small number of fringe developments, such as mail-order houses in the US and Walter Segal’s DIY home designs in the UK. These initiatives sought to turn the traditional construction process on its head, empowering people to construct their own homes by providing materials and designs as cheaply as possible.
In the 21st century, the spirit of these fringe movements is alive and well, but the parameters have changed somewhat: with a rise in individualism, and new technologies sparking the “maker movement,” the focus has shifted away from providing people with the materials to construct a fixed design, and towards improving access to intellectual property, allowing more people to take advantage of cheap and effective designs. The past decade has seen a number of initiatives aimed at spreading open source architectural design--read on to find out about five of them.
OMA has unveiled its first residential tower for New York. Located at 121 East 22nd Street, the building sits at the intersection of two neighborhoods, with the busy Madison Square area to the North-West and the relative tranquility of Gramercy Park to the South. The building's facade reflects this duality, with a striking "prismatic corner" of glass contrasting the rest of the building's more conventional window layout. The corner element is designed to frame views, in some places directing users' attention up towards the sky and in others along the busy streets below.
Metropolis Magazine has released their 2016 rankings of the world's most "livable" cities. Acknowledging that what makes a city "livable" can often be subjective, the team at Metropolis emphasizes that in creating the list they "focused on the concerns at Metropolis’ core—housing, transportation, sustainability, and culture." The result of this research was last year's top prize-winner Toronto dropping to the number 9 spot and Copenhagen, which last year took the number 4 spot, jumping to the top. Rounding out the top three are Berlin and Helsinki.
Today, Morpholio has unveiled a new addition to their flagship Trace app. The new addition, called simply “Stencil,” offers a quick way to add figures and annotations to your Trace sketches using a tool that has been familiar to architects for years. The update to the app features a number of pre-loaded stencil designs, but thanks to its new digital twist, the act of stenciling is also augmented through the ability to take any image you can find or photograph and turn it into a stencil in seconds.
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The 2016 European Architecture Students Assembly (EASA) has concluded in Nida, Lithuania. Centering around its title theme of "Not Yet Decided," the two-week event included 35 workshops, with over half of the results still available to view around Nida. Among the most noticeable are "Highlight," a 10-meter tall observation tower close to Nida's lighthouse, a "nomadic theater" named "Atmosphere," a relaxation space known as "The Living Room" at the end of a pier, and a sculptural seating installation on the beach known as "Dream Dune." Read on to see images of all the completed installations.
At just 1,310 feet (400 meters) across at its widest point, Fire Island, a barrier island to the south of Long Island in New York, may not seem like an ideal place to host a community. Nonetheless, the island is home to a number of small villages, whose seclusion and proximity to the ocean make them popular getaway locations. With its beach atmosphere (the community is only accessible by ferry) and its growing reputation from the 1960s onward as a safe space for the gay community, Fire Island Pines is one such popular summer destination. As the village grew in the post-war years, the care-free recreational lifestyle encouraged by Fire Island Pines' setting was an ideal proving ground for many of the ideals of mid-century modernist house design, with architects such as the prolific Horace Gifford—who designed 40 homes in Fire Island Pines alone—answering the call.
In its recent issues, The Architectural Review has been on a mission, highlighting a phenomenon that they have named "Notopia." Characterized by a "loss of identity and cultural vibrancy" and "a global pandemic of generic buildings," Notopia is - in overly simplistic terms - a consequence of the cold logic of market forces combined with a disinterested populace. The AR's campaign therefore aims to analyze this "thing of terror" and push back by raising public awareness and by proposing alternatives. And they need your help.
_Alexandra_Kononchenko_(23).jpg?1472389191 "The Living Room. Image © Alexandra Kononchenko")
_Alexandra_Kononchenko_(33).jpg?1472389433 "© Alexandra Kononchenko")
_Alexandra_Kononchenko_(27).jpg?1472389297 "The Next Step. Image © Alexandra Kononchenko")
_Lucas_Bonnel_(1).jpg?1472388851 "Highlight. Image © Lucas Bonnel")
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