Architecture News

New photographs have emerged of the Zaha Hadid Architects-designed Leeza SOHO, a mixed-use office tower in Beijing’s Leeza Financial Business District. Featuring the world’s tallest atrium, the twisting, contorted structure weaves two separate sections of the tower in a visual infusion.

The new images celebrate the 190-meter-tall atrium rising through the full height of the building, designed to “rise as a single volume, divided into two halves.” The 172,800-square-meter scheme sits atop a new transit hub straddling a subway tunnel currently under construction.

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In the 1960s, as the verticalization of Avenida Paulista intensified with the construction of large commercial buildings and headquarters for corporations, companies, and banks, the most notable addition to the landscape was the construction of MASP, designed by Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992).

Prague's architecture is known for a patchwork of buildings ranging in styles and eras. A recent proposal for the redesign of the Trojska Skola aims to supplement a similar cohesive attitude to the space. Titled, Dissonant Unity, the project designed by Stefano Corbo Studio explores the ways to incorporate new programs and increased public space to an existing grammar and primary school with an attached sports center, auditorium, and cafeteria.

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Some years ago, researchers in the United States previously tested the concept of using synthetic urine-based substances to fabricate building materials. However, new research conducted by Masters student Suzanne Lambert at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, puts forth a zero-waste process of producing urine-based bricks by using collected human urine for the first time.

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Swiss Designer Yves Béhar has partnered with Plant Prefab to create LivingHome YB1, a series of Accessory Dwelling Units to be unveiled at the Summit festival in Los Angeles. Designed to address California’s legislation, the ADU aims to encourage increased urban density while limiting the environmental impact of new construction. LivingHomes YB1 is the first in a line of structures made to rethink prefab and increase accessibility, livability, and sustainability.

Tec de Monterrey, in collaboration with the Architectural Association (AA), is launching a new certificate program titled Metropolitan Landscapes / Escenarios Metropolitanos. This program combines Tec's commitment to urban development with the AA's experimental tradition, addressing the emergence of a metropolitan discipline worldwide.

Based in Mexico (Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey) and the United Kingdom (London), the program explores the visionary role that design can play within the so-called "urban age" and "Anthropocene epoch," given the scale of global urbanization processes. To do so, it utilizes the latest urban, critical, technological, ecological, and landscape concepts to shape the discipline.

The office building Torre Reforma in Mexico City has won the prize for the world’s most innovative high rise awarded by the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM). One of the world’s most important architectural prizes for tall buildings, the International Highrise Award is presented every two years to the project that best exemplifies the criteria of future-oriented design, functionality, innovative building technology, integration into urban development schemes, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness.

Benthem Crouwel Architects has designed a multifunctional building for the University of Amsterdam’s Faculty of Science. The 14,000-square-meter scheme is envisioned as a “lively lab of research, development, and co-creation, in the center of the campus and society.”

The competition-winning “LAB 942” centers on energy neutrality, flexibility, and openness. A modular framework and circular construction made of recycled and recyclable material enable the scheme to operate as a future-proof, adaptable addition to the school’s rapidly-expanding investigations in innovation and artificial intelligence.

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York has unveiled an exhibition showcasing 50 years of undergraduate architectural thesis projects by students of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.

Drawing together the works of Elizabeth Diller, Laurie Hawkinson, Daniel Libeskind, and others, the exhibition titled “Archive and Artifact: The Virtual and the Physical” presents hand-drawn, digital, and three-dimensional works.

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With rising sea levels and incessant consumption of plastic, the state of the earth's oceans is rapidly deteriorating. Instead of discarding or burning this plastic, architects Erik Goksøyr and Emily-Claire Goksøyr questioned whether any architectural potential exists in this neglected material. By conducting an extensive material study, the duo designed three prototypes to postulate this theory. 

Though starting out as a humble thesis, this project is being actualized under the organization, Out of Ocean. From the shores of the Koster Islands in Sweden, plastic samples were collected and studied for their various material performance in areas such as color, texture, light, and translucency.

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The state of Illinois has launched a new testing program for connected and automated vehicles. Called Autonomous Illinois, the research initiative was announced by Governor Bruce Rauner's office. As Curbed Chicago reports, Created by executive order, multiagency program will be state-wide and led by the Illinois Department of Transportation to advance the state’s research in self-driving cars.

The world’s largest statue has been unveiled today by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The “Statue of Unity” depicting former Indian Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was designed by Michael Graves Architecture & Design and stands at 182 meters tall: almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York City.

The statue sits on the Sadhu-Bet Island, approximately 3.5 kilometers south of Sardar Sarovar Dam in the Narmada district of India. The unveiling of the statue will coincide with Patel’s 143rd birthday and celebrates his leadership in the country’s struggle for independence.

WE Architecture has unveiled its “WE” showroom at BLOX Copenhagen, the new gathering point of Danish architecture, design, and new ideas. The BLOX showroom consists of a staircase gallery showcasing “the next wave of Danish architecture – told and conveyed by a number of invited talented and distinguished young Danish architectural companies.”

The “pixelated” installation uses the steps of the BLOX staircase gallery to create an integrated workstation and exhibition for the firm’s projects, presented through models, renders, technical drawings, sketches etc.

Apple has released new details about their MacBook Air, Mac Mini and iPad Pro. The MacBook Air has finally gotten the long-requested Retina Display, and the design has new features like its Touch ID fingerprint sensor. The broad redesign also extends to the new iPad Pro, where the design nearly gets rid of the bezel that has traditionally wrapped around the sides of the screen and Apple's Face ID facial recognition technology has been included in the tablet for the first time ever.

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HENN have been selected to redesign the Gasteig, Europe's largest cultural center in Munich, Germany. The renovation and remodel aims to bring new life to the center after 30 years of use. Originally designed by the architecture partnership Raue, Rollenhagen, Grossmann and Lindemann, the Gasteig welcomes around two million visitors annually. The new design celebrates the building's role as a revered cultural hub and introduces a new glazed bridge to connect the existing parts of the building and bring transparency to the complex.

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Living Architecture has published photographs of the Peter Zumthor-designed “Secular Retreat” as it nears completion in Chivelstone, Devon. The retreat will be the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s first permanent building in the UK.

The dramatic, layered concrete and glass retreat is the seventh commission in the Living Architecture series, “designed by leading artists and architects in distinctive, unique sites across England.

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Dublin is one of the world’s most beloved cities. The Irish capital welcomes over 5.6 million tourists every year from around the world, seeking out the city’s red brick rows, cobblestone streets, and lush green parklands.

Dublin has good reason for being on any architect’s travel list. Modest Georgian tenements, sensitively altered by local architects, stand alongside major civil and public works by some of the world’s most renowned international firms, while warm art nouveau and art deco cafes sit alongside the sleek, modern headquarters of the world’s largest tech firms.

The RIBA's ‘Ten Characteristics of Places Where People Want to Live’ combines a series of case studies that illustrate components of contemporary community housing design. This study was completed to identify and analyze specific, successful elements of past projects that can be easily incorporated into future projects not only in England but also internationally.

The study hopes to demonstrate to its readers the relationship between design quality and the rate of supply in the delivery of much needed well-built affordable housing. Each building example illustrates how appealing and successful design can be easily replicated.

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