The concept design competition for the Romania Pavilion, “Exchange of Ideas”, was won by SC M&C Strategy Development who designed Greenopolis, “The green mega polis”. Name of the pavilion is term with universal meaning, metamorphosed in a fruit, the apple, which means health, knowledge, freshness, temptation, eternity. The surrounding Greenopolis landscape recreates principal elements of the nature (the lawn from the hills, rivers, grass).
The apple is divided in two parts: the main body from which is detached a slice, the secondary body. The inside architectural design has generous and multifunctional spaces, disposed on 5 floors and the access in Greenopolis follows a natural line which allows visiting all the modules without passing over any zone. Seen at Big Creative Industries. More images after the break.
Saturday 28th of November the Beijing Centre for the Arts opened the exhibition “Green Projects II, Three Dimensional City: Future China” featuring work of Paolo Soleri and MVRDV. The centre piece is an installation by MVRDV, “China Hills”: a scale model of a future Chinese city which offers alternatives to the current urbanization in China.
Two events will take place next week at Columbia University. On Monday, ‘Pointless’, a lecture by Elizabeth Diller. Then on Wednesday, ‘Re:Activators’, a lecture by Jürgen Mayer H. Both events will take place at 6:30 PM in Avery Hall, Wood Auditorium, Columbia University.
Sustainability Round Up to end the week. Some really interesting projects may be done using green roof. Here we show you our second part (see the first one here), of previously featured projects with green roof.
Mexican architects SLOT won an international competition to design the Mexican Pavilion for the World Expo Shanghai 2010. The pavilion’s design is born from the idea of representing Mexico through its traditional elements which haven’t been exploited in these kinds of fairs. The proposal scheme is centered around the idea of creating a green space within the expo which at the same time represents our preoccupation to offer a better life standard for cities through the recovery of green areas rather than creating a protagonist building.
The Mexican pavilion is a volume defined by a talud (slope) which transforms itself into a plaza privileging public space as an urban gesture within the expo. Space is divided in three levels which represent three different moments of urban life in our country. The past is represented on the plinth, present time Mexico at the entrance level, and future on the platform.
The pavilion’s main feature lies within the design of the papalotes (kites), a word that comes from the Nahuatl papalotl which means butterfly, used as a cultural meeting point between mexican and chinese cultures. Our proposal is to look into a future with areas which are thought, destined and planned specifically for leisure, the recovery of parks and green areas, where new generations might meet in a city with a “better living”. More images and a video after the break.
Argentinian architects B4FS shared with us their proposal in the Punggol Waterfront International Housing Design competition in Singapore, which was shortlisted and awarded a Merit Prize (second prize ex aequo).
The two-stage design competition was launched in December 2008 to generate fresh, innovative and new design ideas for high-rise public housing along the waterway. Participating firms were required to incorporate new sustainable development concepts and features to realise the theme “Green Living by the Waters”.
The first stage required participating firms to propose urban and new architectural concepts for the housing district. The top five firms were then short-listed for Stage Two, where they further developed their design concepts proposed in Stage One into a more thorough and implementable architectural design that included landscaping and other detailing.
More images and architect’s description after the break.
The competition hosted by the Northern Ontario School of Architecture (now known as Laurentian Architecture) searched for ideas for a new school in northern Ontario. Winners were selected at the end of October. This competition generated ideas which pushed the enevolope, questioning the roles of schools of architecture. What are the physical characteristics? What are the more abstract, theoretical ones? How can this new school satisfy the unique nature of Northern Ontario?
There are two distinct aspects proposed for the school that were to be carefully considered. First, it will be providing a dual-stream education – students can study in either French or English. The second is that it will deeply engage with and learn from the First Nation communities throughout the province. Winners after the break. More information on the competition’s official website.
From England, Norway, Netherlands and China. Some great Cultural Centers have been featured in ArchDaily. In case you missed the first part, check it our right here.
The Piranesi Award 2009 was awarded to deca ARCHITECTURE from Greece for the project Aloni House in Antiparos. You can see the two Honorable Mentions and the Student’s Honorable Mention after the break. For more information, visit the competition’s official website.
SHIFTboston is calling on all visionaries to submit his and her most provocative ideas for the City of Boston. Think: WHAT IF this could happen in Boston? SHIFTboston seeks to collect visions that aim to enhance and electrify the urban experience in Boston. We want innovative, radical ideas for new city elements such as: public art, landscape, architecture, urban intervention and transportation. Competitors could explore topics such as: the future city, energy efficiency and ecological urbanism. YOU TELL US.
The SingaporePavilion at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 is to be called Urban Symphony – a tribute to how Singapore houses a delicate harmony of cultures coexisting together in a city-state.
Designed by Kay Ngee Tan Architects, the theme is best expressed in the pavilion’s architecture, one which evokes images of a musical box. It forms an orchestra of elements and a symphony for the senses – from the choreography of the plaza’s water fountain, the rhythm of fenestrations on the façade, the interplay of sounds and visuals, to the mélange of flora on the roof garden.
Pictures and exhibits of Singapore adorn the way to the atrium space and main hall of the first floor, where visitors will enjoy various activities; taking in performances right up to the expanse of the second floor’s column-free open space. Topping off Singapore’s reputation as a much-admired garden city is the rooftop’s A Garden in the Sky, which ably captures the essence of life in Singapore. More info in the pavilion’s official website. More images and a video after the break.
For years, Northern Virginia’s Four Mile Run has functioned as a flood control channel and a border between the City of Alexandria and Arlington County. More recently, growing community interest in revitalizing and celebrating the Run has resulted in the Four Mile Run Restoration Master Plan. The plan outlines a broad range of ambitious, feasible goals to restore the ecology of the Run while re-establishing it as a cherished park space and a means of stitching together communities.
Probably, the first place outside our homes where we spend a large time of the day. So to finish this week’s Round Up, we bring you our second part of previously featured Kindergardens. See the first part here.
German office rasmussen | brunke | sauer shared with us their design of the new administrative building for BSU in Hamburg, Germany. It was an invited competition and they won the first prize ex aequo with three other offices (Sauerbruch Hutton, Behnisch Architects and GAP). More images and architect’s description after the break.
The architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson believes that “the sensuality of place, the emotive qualities of materials, and the ability to give pleasure and insight, to comfort and to transport can produce humane and spirited architecture.” Whether designing corporate headquarters for Pixar Animation Studios, the Software Engineering Institute for Carnegie Mellon University, the new Apple Stores in New York, Chicago, and Tokyo, or the twelve wooded retreats shown in this book, the firm’s architecture is alive to the subtleties of place, man-made or natural, and to the rich possibilities of materials and the means of construction.
Yesterday the mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb and city councilor Hamit Karakus officially started the construction of the new Rotterdam Market Hall (previously featured here). The arched building located in the centre of Rotterdam, developed by Provast and designed by MVRDV is a hybrid of public market and apartment building.
The project with a total of 100.000 m2 is set to be completed in 2014 and part of the current regeneration of Rotterdam’s post war centre. Project developer Provast realizes the building, Unibail Rodamco invested in the shops and restaurants whilst Housing Corporation Vesteda will manage the rental apartments, making the building a socially integrated part of the city.
Twenty years after the Romanian government was overthrown and its dictator, Nicolae Ceauşescu executed, Anca Trandafirescu erected a “monument ” to that dark chapter in the otherwise peaceful events of Central and Eastern Europe ’s 1989 revolutions. Trandafirescu, an architect and assistant professor in architecture at the University of Michigan, designed and constructed the large inflatable, inhabitable structure ―in the iconic shape of the head of a toppled statue ―that was displayed on the Piata Victoriei (Victory Plaza) in Timişoara from November 3 -7, 2009.
This location was the site of the first large demonstrations in the country and that led to the subsequent fall of the Ceauşescu dictatorship. The head itself is without specific identity and is meant to signify, rather than a particular hero, a toppled everyman who has in the course of twenty years following the revolution continued to await a government free from rulers of the past regime.
The name HOT AIR refers to both the unusually warm temperatures in Romania during that special week in December 1989, which helped to bring citizens out into the streets to rally against the government; and also to the large amount of rhetoric surrounding the events that ensued.
The inflatable monument was erected in association with the city ’s Young Artists/Young Democracy expo and the American-Romanian Music Festival and was a venue for visitation,conversation,and a bit of recreation by the public.It kicked off a series of planned celebrations commemorating the events of December 1989 in Timisoara.
Sometimes, designing a renovation or repair of a project may be more difficult than designing something from scratch. So to start this week’s Round Up, we bring you our first selection of previoulsy featured Refurbishment projects.
