Did you know that there are 48 million children under 13 in the US? Well, the new National Children´s Museum is for all of them, inspiring them to care about and improve the world. The design, by renowed architects Pelli Clarke was unveiled a couple of days ago, and includes over 150,000 sqf to house permanent exhibitions by three prominent design firms – Amaze Design, Roto Studios, and Aldrich Pears.
After the break, more images and the green features of this LEED-certified project.
The Rice Design Alliance Prize, presented annually, has been created by Rice Design Alliance (RDA) to recognize exceptionally gifted architects in the early phase of their professional career. The jury saw avant-garde architecture and a personal language in the work of Antón García-Abril that is at the forefront of the contemporary architectural scene.
RDA – a committee of architects and academics – will meet annually to review the work of national and international architects, young talents that exemplify excellence in design and are within their first 15 years of professional practice.
The inaugural “Rice Design Alliance Prize” was formally delivered to Antón García-Abril, founder of Ensamble Studio (Madrid), on April 15 in Houston. In addition García-Abril gave a lecture to present his latest work.
More images, after the break.
Here’s a little game developed by AutoDesk. You get to see 10 images. Some of them are photographs of real objects or scenes, others are created by computer graphics (CG) artists.
NRJA, previously featured on our AD Futures series, shared their entry for the House of Arts and Culture competition in Beirut, Lebanon.
Project description and images after the break.
Our friends from visiondivision sent us this interesting project. A Swedish family wanted a dream house in the south of Spain that at the same time could be turned into an invisible fort when the client is not there. Passing the house on the nearby road one will only see a garage. If you would accidentally walk pass the hidden garden you will see a façade with a flower patterned mesh.
The client will experience a totally different house. Inside the garage there is a spiral staircase inside a steel cylinder leading down to a big living room, and as the mesh is flipped into sun protecting panes, the panoramic view towards the surrounding mountains will appear from all the social rooms and the bedrooms. The bathrooms are located towards the hill and will have a cave-like appearance.
More images after the break.
Mixed Use buildings can provide different types of activities and programs in just one place. So to start this week of roundups, we bring you our first selection of previously featured Mixed Use projects on ArchDaily.
Singapore-based WOW Architects designed this hotel in Tanzania. It has two buildings, and the overall design was inspired by geological processes that shape rock formations in nature.
Flowing gardens spill out of the building’s windows and the orientation was planned so that the sunlight enters the interior courtyard in the center, providing the hotel guests a warm and inviting space to mingle.
For more information, click here. More images after the break.
The American Institute of Architects have just granted ten houses a Housing Awards. The recognition is handed out every year to outstanding residential designs. For this year, many houses incorporate eco-fiendly ideas, like solar panels, radiant heating and “daylighting”. Seen at The Wall Street Journal. All the winners, after the break.
This interdisciplinary project explores the interaction between dance, motion graphics, light and music in a live performance.
When David Basulto and David Assael from ArchDaily went to NY and interviewed Work AC, they got the chance to see this book before being published. Now, it has been published as the catalog of the 49 Cities exhibition we featured a couple of weeks ago, currently taking place at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.
“The Architect develops…” is an exhibition of plans for the experimental housing plots in the Homerus Quarter in Almere-Poort. The Homerus Quarter is a new residential area, designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, which is completely realized by private sponsorship.
Green construction is a huge deal nowadays. With more and more architects designing sustainable buildings, anything you can do to make your house more eco-friendly is more than welcome. One of those things, is prefabrication. So to end this week’s Round Up, we bring you previoulsy featured prefabricated projects.
A couple of weeks ago, we featured the six finalists for the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. Finally, the Smithsonian Institute chose the team lead by Tanzanian-born, London-based architect David Adjaye.
If you have fantasies of living like the Swiss Family Robinson or even the characters in Lost, this rainforest resort near Quepos, Costa Rica may be just the ticket. Situated on the edge of the Manuel Antonio National Park, the Costa Verde Resort features an incredible hotel suite set inside a 1965 Boeing 727 airplane. In its former life the airplane transported globetrotters on South Africa Air and Avianca Airlines, and it now serves as a two bedroom suite perched on the edge of the rainforest overlooking the beach and ocean.
The airplane was transported piece by piece from the San Jose airport to its current resting place on a pedestal 50 feet above the beach. It looks a bit like a model airplane on a stand, and we can only imagine the spectacular views from the balcony and the airplane windows. Five big trucks were needed to get the plane out to the resort, and while the transportation certainly had a negative ecological impact, the finished project is a stunning example of adaptive reuse.
Seen at inhabitat. More images after the break.
CGarchitect.com is hosting the 6th annual Architectural 3D Awards to be awarded at this year’s Mundos Digitales Conference in La Coruna, Spain. The Awards Competition is open to everyone in the Architectural Visualization industry to highlight the best imagery and animations done in 2008/2009.
The Royal Palace at Scholssplatz, located in the german city of Berlin, was destroyed by the German Democratic Republic in 1962 and in its place, they built the Palace of the Republic which was also demolished in 2005.
Since then many proposals have come, till in 2007, the Bundestag (German Parliament), decided on a reconstruction plan. Three façades of the palace will be rebuilt, and the interior will be renewed. One of the proposals came from Graft Architects who designed an art heaven in the form of a kunsthall for the young and vital international art scene in Berlin. The design is envisioned as an art cloud a temporary light structure of exhibition space, seemingly floating and resting for a moment above the topography of soft mounds.
Seen at designboom. More images after the break.
ASTOC Architects & Planners have won first prize in the international competition for the new harbor and pier in Senftenberg, Germany. The purpose of the competition was to design the new harbour on the basis of an urban study.
The integration of the lake into the 70 square kilometers of navigable interconnection will further develop the tourist infrastructure of the region “Lausitzer Seenland”.
The new pier plays an important role as a new landmark for the region. The project consists of port facilities as well as a restaurant with meeting rooms overlooking the harbor.
More images after the break.
Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena will continue with The Architectural League NY lectures today in The Urban Center, at 7:00pm.
Aravena has been in practice since 1994 and since 2006 has also served as Executive Director of ELEMENTAL S.A., a “Do Tank” for the design and implementation of urban projects of social interest and public impact. His work includes the Mathematics Faculty, the Medical Faculty, the computer facility “Siamese Tower,” and the Architecture School at the Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile; House for a Sculptor; House in the Pirehueico Lake; new residence and dining halls for St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas; children’s workshops and training facilities for Vitra in Weil am Rhein, Germany; a Villa in Ordos, Inner Mongolia; and social housing and urban projects for Elemental. In 2009, Aravena was appointed a member of the Pritzker Prize Jury.
He has received several awards, including Silver Lion at the XI Venice Biennale, 1st Prize in the XII and the XV Santiago Biennale, the Erich Schelling Architecture Medal 2006 (Germany), finalist in the Mies van der Rohe Award (2000), top 10 finalist in the Iakhov Chernikhov Prize 2008 (Moscow), and finalist in the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2008 (Paris).
Tickets are required for admission to League programs. Tickets are free for League members; $10 for non-members. Members may reserve a ticket by e-mailing: rsvp@archleague.org. Member tickets will be held at the check-in desk; unclaimed tickets will be released fifteen minutes after the start of the program. Non-members may purchase tickets online here.
For more information, click here. All the lectures after the break.