Architecture News

Scandinavian practice White Arkitekter has won the architectural competition for Jönköping Bathhouse in southern Sweden. Designed to be an all-season bathhouse on the shores of Lake Vättern, the project takes advantage of different conditions in the cardinal directions to create an all-year bathing experience. Built entirely from wood, the bathhouse is designed to create a contemplative setting, immersing the bather in tranquil, natural surroundings.

Brazil has just received another World Heritage designation. Paraty and Ilha Grande (RJ) were recognized this Friday, July 5, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Committee during a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan. There are now 22 Brazilian properties on the list of sites of outstanding universal value.

For its 31st competition, organized in partnership with the Associação Parque Minhocão, the Projetar.org portal invited students and young professionals to envision what the Minhocão Park could be. In total, 310 students participated, representing 74 cities, 13 states, and 51 universities.

Eight buildings by acclaimed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Titled “The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright,” the list of eight major works is a revision of a previous application lodged in February 2015. Submitted by the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, the list spans Wright’s 70-year career with schemes such as Unity Temple, Taliesin West, Fallingwater, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Bjarke Ingels Group has launched an exhibition at the Danish Architecture Center, reflecting on the firm’s extensive history in design. “Formgiving – An Architectural Future History from Big Bang to Singularity” explores how the world around us has taken shape with 71 BIG projects.

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Developer Sunland has revealed plans for four residential towers in a $1.3 billion masterplan along Australia's Gold Coast. Sited in a former 42-hectare dairy farm, the project is designed to create a new urban village. Dubbed “The Lanes”, it would include the towers and new retail space, boulevard, and outdoor amphitheater. Conceived by ex-Zaha Hadid designer Contreras Earl, the towers are made to represent the geometry of plant life.

“Are you looking at the latest revision?”

This is just one of the many questions we architects frequently ask, and get asked. But how much easier it would be if there was a foolproof way to manage revisions and know that everyone else is on top of it too.

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During June, Mexico City hosted one of the world's most famous workshops for the first time: Porto Academy. Held annually at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto—designed by 1992 Pritzker Prize laureate Álvaro Siza—this event is the result of a deep passion for architecture and for those who believe that practice, as the exercise of the profession, is fundamental to the future of the discipline.

While visiting a city one has never been to before, it is common to go to touristic places, the 'must-see' spots advertised in the media. On the other hand, when establishing residency in a place, it is likely that one will start to attend some less popular locations, and will often spend a long time without passing by the city's most famous touristic sights. Artist Eric Fischer has developed a project that explores precisely the difference in perceiving - and photographing - a city from the point of view of tourists and locals. The work, which is entitled Locals and Tourists, gathers the maps of 136 of the largest - and most visited - cities in the world.

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Korean architecture practice GBO and Aworks have designed a futuristic new technology museum in Seoul. Made for SK Telecom, South Korea's largest telecommunication operator, the project is laid out over two floors in the Company’s 33-story headquarters building in the city center. Called T.um, the technology museum gives a glimpse into the future life of urbanites and aims to demonstrate how technology will innovate society.

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Resilience has become increasingly common in our vocabulary when we talk about people, buildings, cities or even whole societies overcoming all kind of problems. In fact, Google searches related to resilience have continued to grow since 2004 in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The history of the Triadic Ballet dates back to 1919, when the Bauhaus was founded in Weimar, Germany, including a theater workshop within its curriculum. Directed by Oskar Schlemmer, this theater workshop focused on staging new concepts and reflections on the relationship between humans and space, based on a geometric analysis of bodily forms and movement in space.

The volume of debates, ideas, discourses, and discussions triggered by theater at the Bauhaus—and its subsequent influence on architectural production—is almost incalculable. Schlemmer opened a door to an architectural study centered on the body. One of his most famous works is the Triadic Ballet (Das Triadische Ballett), staged in 1921. It comprised 12 small-format pieces featuring 18 costume and lighting changes spanning several hours.

The largest park project in the United States is underway at Dorothea Dix Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. The city purchased the Dorothea Dix campus from the State of North Carolina in 2015 with the intent of creating a great destination park in the heart of the community. This year, Raleigh City Council adopted the Dorothea Dix Park Master Plan, and now an implementation plan is underway for Phase 1. Designed to span decades, the creation of the 300 acre park will include the site of North Carolina’s first mental hospital.

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The Chicago Architecture Biennial has announced more than 40 citywide partner sites and organizations for the festival’s 2019 edition. Cultural organizations from across the city, such as the Art Institute of Chicago and Navy Pier, will be activated by independent programming in coordination with the Biennial, resulting in “a citywide exploration of architecture, space, the environment, history, and community.”

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A large percentage of a city’s building stock is designated for housing. Considering that our way of life is changing significantly, housing in cities has also begun to follow these changes. This creates interesting challenges and opportunities for the materials suppliers in this industry.

Over 120 projects have been recognized during the 2019 International Architecture Awards. The oldest, largest global awards in the industry, the awards are organized by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

Amazon has revealed more details of its new $620-million expansion in Culver City, California. Designed by Gensler to rethink the The Culver Studios, a 100-year-old film studio in Downtown, the project will become the new home of Amazon's Los Angeles area operations. Made for Hackman Capital Partners, the expansion broke ground last year building upon the film studio typology.

The National Ideas Competition for the Pabellón del Centenario and its surroundings, promoted by the State Property Management Agency and organized by the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos, closed on April 22, yielding a total of 65 proposals and the participation of architects from across the country.

The significance of the competition lay, on one hand, in the opportunity to restore the architectural value of the Pavilion which, designed by Virginio Colombo, is the only standing building of the 20 constructed for the Centennial celebrations in 1910. At the same time, it presents an opportunity to enhance and revitalize the adjacent areas, generating urban-scale impacts that will drive the future development of the area and integrate a wide variety of scenarios.