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Editor's Choice

Foster and Gehry Reveal Designs for Battersea Power Station

As phase three of London’s Battersea Power Station regeneration, Foster + Partners has collaborated with Gehry Partners to design the 42-acre development’s primary entrance. Together, the duo has envisioned “The Electric Boulevard” - a massive gateway connecting the Northern Line Extension station to the Power Station, which will be formed by an undulating Foster-designed tower known as “The Skyline” and Gehry’s five-building “Prospect Place.”

Housing more than 1,300 homes and over 350,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, the boulevard is expected to become one of London’s most distinguished high streets.

VIDEO: Extreme Sustainability in the Congo

MASS has just released the third video in their Beyond the Building series, which examines how architecture and design can positively impact our world, beyond buildings (check out the first video here and the second here). The latest - "Ilima: Beyond Sustainability" - explores MASS's collaboration with the African Wildlife Foundation as well as local masons to build a primary school in the rural Congolese village of Ilima, where, due to its remote location, practically all materials must be sourced locally.

A Theory of Architecture Part 3: Why Primitive Form Languages Spread

As you may have seen, ArchDaily has been publishing UNIFIED ARCHITECTURAL THEORY, by the urbanist and controversial theorist Nikos A. Salingaros, in serial form. However, in order to explain certain concepts in greater detail, we have decided to pause this serialization and publish three excerpts from another of Salingaros’ books: A THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE. The first excerpt explained the difference between “Pattern Language” and “Form Language,” while the second established how these languages can combine to form the “Adaptive Design Method.” The following, final, excerpt distinguishes between viable, complex form languages that have evolved over time and primitive, “non-languages” that have come to dominate the 20th century due to their iconic simplicity (and despite their non-adaptive characteristics).

Independently of their technological achievements, all groups of human beings have developed a richly complex spoken language. Differences arise in specificities, in the breadth of vocabulary for concepts important to that culture, and in their transition to a written language, but those do not affect the general richness of the language. Every language’s internal structure has to obey general principles that are common to all languages. A primitive language or non-language, by contrast, is characterized by the reduction or absence of such internal complexity and structure. The complexity of human thought sets a rather high threshold for the complexity that any language has to be able to express through combinatoric groupings. 

Turning now to architecture, a viable form language is also characterized by its high degree of internal complexity. Furthermore, the complexity of different form languages has to be comparable, because each form language shares a commonality with other form languages on a general meta-linguistic level. A primitive form language severely limits architectonic expression to crude or inarticulate statements. 

In Drawings, The Historical Trajectory of Soviet Architecture

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Yakov Chernikhov, Factory building, Ca. 1931, Drafting pen, ink and pencil, 298 x 248 mm. Image Courtesy of the Tchoban Foundation

This article by Ross Wolfe, originally posted on Metropolis Magazine as "Cultural Divide: The 'Paper Architecture' of the USSR" explores the complexity of various Soviet architecture movements through the lens of paper architecture.

In the history of 20th-century Russian architecture, there exists a central struggle. In one corner, the Constructivists, champions of light, airy, and functional buildings that drew their power from the social and aesthetic revolutions of the 1920s; in the other, the Stalinist architects, whose thuggish hybrids and clumsy pastiche became the predominant vernacular throughout the Soviet republics. The latter, as we know, eventually came out on top.

Things are rather more complicated, of course, as an recent exhibition at Berlin's Tchoban Foundation argued. Architecture in Cultural Strife: Russian and Soviet Architecture in Drawings, 1900-1953 brings together a total of 79 unique architectural delineations that chart a historical trajectory running from the twilight years of the Romanov dynasty up to Stalin’s death by the midcentury.

Read on for more about the multiple movements that made up the whole of Soviet architecture.

The BIG U: BIG's New York City Vision for "Rebuild by Design"

Yesterday BIG, along with 9 other teams including OMA and WXY, unveiled their proposals for "Rebuild by Design," a competition which tasks teams with improving the resiliency of waterfront communities through locally-responsive, innovative design. Each proposal was required to be "flexible, easily phased, and able to integrate with existing projects in progress." As Henk Ovink, the Principal of "Rebuild by Design" as well as the Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, stated: "Rebuild by Design is not about making a plan, but about changing a culture." The winners will be announced later this spring.

BIG's proposal, The BIG U, is rooted in the firm's signature concepts of social infrastructure and hedonistic sustainability. It envisions a 10-mile protective system that encircles Manhattan, protecting the city from floods and storm water while simultaneously providing public realms specific to the needs of the city's diverse communities. Bjarke Ingels states: "We asked ourselves: What if we could envision the resilience infrastructure for Lower Manhattan in a way that wouldn’t be like a wall between the city and the water, but rather a string of pearls of social and environmental amenities tailored to their specific neighborhoods, that also happens to shield their various communities from flooding. Social infrastructure understood as a big overall strategy rooted in the local communities.”

More on the BIG U, after the break...

AD Classics: Kresge Auditorium / Eero Saarinen and Associates

Kresge Auditorium, designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, was an experiment in architectural form and construction befitting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s focus on technology and innovation. This feat of sculptural engineering serves as a meeting house and is part of the cultural, social, and spiritual core of MIT’s campus. Kresge Auditorium is one of Saarinen’s numerous daring, egalitarian designs that captured the optimistic zeitgeist of Post-war America.

AD Classics: Kresge Auditorium / Eero Saarinen and Associates - University, Arch, Lighting, CityscapeAD Classics: Kresge Auditorium / Eero Saarinen and Associates - University, ChairAD Classics: Kresge Auditorium / Eero Saarinen and Associates - University, FacadeAD Classics: Kresge Auditorium / Eero Saarinen and Associates - UniversityAD Classics: Kresge Auditorium / Eero Saarinen and Associates - More Images+ 24

First 3D Printed House to Be Built In Amsterdam

“The building industry is one of the most polluting and inefficient industries out there,” Hedwig Heinsman of Dus Architects tells The Guardian's Olly Wainwright, “With 3D-printing, there is zero waste, reduced transportation costs, and everything can be melted down and recycled. This could revolutionise how we make our cities.”

Working with another Dutch firm, Ultimaker, Dus Architects have developed the KamerMaker (Room Maker), a 3D Printer big enough to print chunks of buildings, up to 2x2x3.5 meters high, out of hotmelt, a bio-plastic mix that's about 75% plant oil. The chunks can then be stacked and connected together like LEGO bricks, forming multi-story homes whose designs can be adapted according to users' needs/desires. For Dus' first project, they've taken as inspiration the Dutch canal house, replacing hand-laid bricks with, in Wainwright's words, "a faceted plastic facade, scripted by computer software."

The Battle for the Skies Over London

In response to the recent study by New London Architecture, which found that there are currently over 230 tall buildings either planned or under construction in London, an argument is brewing over the UK capital's sudden, seemingly uncontrolled, growth.

The most vocal reaction to all of this has come from Rowan Moore, architecture critic for The Observer, who has teamed up with the Architects' Journal to launch a campaign calling for more rigorous planning and public consultation when it comes to tall buildings. The campaign has support from 80 signatories, a list that reads like a 'who's who' of British architecture, including architects, planners, politicians, developers and artists as well as a range of civic societies.

Read on for more reaction to London's tall building boom.

AD Classics: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute / Philip Johnson

The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute is a Modern masterpiece and revolutionary precedent of American museum design. Located in Utica, New York, it was the first of many influential cultural facilities designed by Philip Johnson. Also known as the Museum of Art, the structure represents a stylistic turning point in Johnson’s career, marking the end of his loyalty to the International Style and the beginning of his experimentation with Neo-Classicism.

AD Classics: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute / Philip Johnson - Gallery, Lighting, BenchAD Classics: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute / Philip Johnson - Gallery, Facade, HandrailAD Classics: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute / Philip Johnson - Gallery, Fence, FacadeAD Classics: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute / Philip Johnson - Gallery, FacadeAD Classics: Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute / Philip Johnson - More Images+ 6

The Latest Illustration from Federico Babina: ARCHIPORTRAIT

Federico Babina, the illustrator behind the extremely popular ARCHIST and ARCHICINE, has just released his latest project: ARCHIPORTRAIT, "an artistic representation of 33 architects, in which the faces and the expressions are made of their architecture." As Babina says, "The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the protagonist through his aesthetic."

See all the portraits - from Corbu to Foster to Gehry and more - after the break.

The Latest Illustration from Federico Babina: ARCHIPORTRAIT - Image 1 of 4The Latest Illustration from Federico Babina: ARCHIPORTRAIT - Image 2 of 4The Latest Illustration from Federico Babina: ARCHIPORTRAIT - Image 3 of 4The Latest Illustration from Federico Babina: ARCHIPORTRAIT - Image 4 of 4The Latest Illustration from Federico Babina: ARCHIPORTRAIT - More Images+ 28

Fernando Guerra On Photography In The Internet Age

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Aires Mateus Arquitectos / House in Alcobaça, Portugal. Image © Fernando Guerra

In this interview, originally published by Paperhouses as "Decisive Moment: Conversation With Fernando Guerra", the Portuguese photographer details his career in architectural photography, and how he approaches the art of photographing buildings. As an advocate of free sharing and online publicity, and one of a new breed of photographers who - shock horror - likes to include people in his shots of buildings, Guerra is well placed to explain how the world of architectural photography has changed over the past decade.

I do not want to call it an interview—it was a fabulous discussion that Fernando Guerra led as a loose narrative with notes on work that he practices with hedonism and filled with life. They are all stories dedicated to the great beauty of doing what one loves and letting it grow.

Read on after the break for the interview

Material Substance: When Material and Mechanism are One

The following is the first article of Material Substance, a column, penned by Christopher Brenny and presented by AD Materials, which investigates the innovative applications of materials in architecture.

A material is nothing without a process. The characteristics of plastic, for example, vary dramatically depending on where and how the raw material is applied during the forming process. The same material can be used to create a bag, a solid container, or a woven textile. The difference between a disposable water bottle and carpeting is so distinct that one could not make the material connection without some foreknowledge of the manufacturing process of each.

The result of this material ecosystem is a scenario in which design and manufacturing must inform one another. This connection often moves so slowly in the building industry that it is difficult to perceive and very slow to adapt. Shape memory alloys such as nitinol (muscle wire), for example, are gradually moving into public nomenclature. While the novelty of such materials is ripe for exploration, application has proven difficult as the cost of such materials is quite prohibitive. Shape memory alloys, unless they are developed using more abundant metals such as aluminum, will likely remain a niche product developed for very specific applications.

Memory plastics, while less developed and responsive, have significant potential to become a familiar fixture in our daily lives. Combining this technology with the lightweight, structural capabilities of foamed materials, our preconceptions of the portable and flat packed may soon transform from disposable and insubstantial into something much more beautiful and valuable.

eVolo Skyscraper Winner 2014 Transforms Korean 'Hanok' Into Impressive High-Rise

Vernacular Versatility, recently awarded first place in the 2014 eVolo Skyscraper Competition, seeks to adapt traditional Korean architecture into a contemporary mixed-use high-rise. The vernacular design of the Hanok, the "antonym of a western house" and epitome of the Korean style, has disappeared from every town. Extensive urban development in the 1970s led to a boom in modern apartment dwellings and, consequently, a loss of established Korean vernacular architecture. Yong Ju Lee's proposal aims to reimagine the Hanok in one of the country's busiest districts, drawing people's attention to and stimulating their interest in traditional architecture with the intention that "it will eventually be absorbed into people’s everyday lives"

eVolo Skyscraper Winner 2014 Transforms Korean 'Hanok' Into Impressive High-Rise - SkyscraperseVolo Skyscraper Winner 2014 Transforms Korean 'Hanok' Into Impressive High-Rise - SkyscraperseVolo Skyscraper Winner 2014 Transforms Korean 'Hanok' Into Impressive High-Rise - SkyscraperseVolo Skyscraper Winner 2014 Transforms Korean 'Hanok' Into Impressive High-Rise - SkyscraperseVolo Skyscraper Winner 2014 Transforms Korean 'Hanok' Into Impressive High-Rise - More Images+ 4

The Indicator: Thank You, Patrik Schumacher

First off, I would like to thank Patrik Schumacher for taking to Facebook on March 17 at 9:45pm to let off steam -- thus starting a meaningful discussion on the role of the architect in society and culture. We could deconstruct it line by line, but I don’t think that will yield much in the way of enlightenment. What I take from it is that architecture creates form and should be free to do so without being restricted by ethical or moral imperatives to be social or political. But, as Benjamin Bratton remarked in reply to Schumacher, “To set the political to one side and at the same time make grandiose claims for how architectural form can in fact ‘remake civilization’, is a self-defeating program.”

Perceptions on the role of architecture in society can easily fall along class, race, and national lines. Coming from a place of privilege, it is easy to assume an apolitical, form-making agenda for the profession. The argument that architecture has nothing to do with the social domain, or the “content” as Schumacher calls it, is an argument for political conservatism, a hands-off, sink or swim argument for social Darwinism, that limits the range and impact of high architecture. Why can’t the best and most challenging forms of architecture penetrate through all social strata? Why shouldn’t it serve the poor? And why shouldn’t this be one criteria among others for judging the value of architecture? 

A Theory of Architecture Part 2: The Adaptive Design Method

As you may have seen, ArchDaily has been publishing UNIFIED ARCHITECTURAL THEORY, by the urbanist and controversial theorist Nikos A. Salingaros, in serial form. However, in order to explain certain concepts in greater detail, we have decided to pause this serialization and publish three excerpts from another of Salingaros’ books: A THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE. The previous excerpt explained the difference between “Pattern Language” and “Form Language.” The following excerpt will establish how these languages can combine to form the “Adaptive Design Method.”

Proposition: An adaptive design method arises out of a complementary pair consisting of a pattern language and a form language.

I have indicated very briefly what a pattern language and a form language are; we still need to understand what an adaptive design method refers to. Out of many contemporary approaches to design, there are very few that result in structures and environments that are adapted both to physical human use, as well as to human sensibilities. In the past, the opposite was true. Human use is straightforward to understand: the physical dimensions and geometry have to accommodate the human body and its movement.

By accommodating human sensibilities, I mean that environments should make human beings feel at ease; make them feel psychologically comfortable so that persons can carry out whatever functions they have to unselfconsciously, without being disturbed by the built environment in any way. This imposes a strong constraint on the design process to adapt to the many factors (both known and unknown) that will influence the user on many levels, including emotion. An adaptive design method should accommodate all these criteria, and this Chapter shows how this may be accomplished.

TED Talk: How to Build with Clay... and Community / Diébédo Francis Kéré

In this TED Talk, Aga Khan Award-winning architect Diébédo Francis Kéré explains how to build a community with clay. With his firm Kéré Architecture, the Burkina Faso native has achieved international renown by using local building materials and techniques to engage and improve local expertise. Watch as explains how he applied his personal success to benefit the small African village he grew up in.

Light Matters: Sacred Spaces

The use of light can lead to very diverse feelings: a ray of sunlight calls attention; glare overpowers; the nocturnal sky fascinates, while a dense dark forest arouses fear. Religions have made use of these experiences to convey the mystic aspects of their respective deities — accordingly, so too do their erected buildings.

After the break, an exploration of the different approaches for using light as a vehicle of symbolic meaning and spiritual experience in religious spaces.

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Ban vs. Schumacher: Should Architects Assume Social Responsibility?


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