Architecture News

Just a few months after the opening of Apple’s first town square concept retail store, the Foster + Partners-designed glass-box structure is facing the wrath of its first Chicago winter – and it doesn’t appear to be handling it so smoothly.

As reported by the Verge and 9to5Mac, nearly all of the store’s riverfront outdoor space has been roped off due to the presence of large and potentially dangerous icicles that have formed on the edge of the building’s MacBook-shaped roof. Signs reading “watch for falling snow and ice” now surround the store and at the entrance on Pioneer Court.

Rising 150 meters from Dubai’s Zabeel Park, the “World’s Largest Picture Frame” has officially opened in the UAE. Known as the Dubai Frame, the structure is the latest in the city’s line of eye-catching megaprojects, offering up panoramic views of the skyline while framing views of iconic buildings such as the Burj Khalifa for visitors and residents all across the city.

On December 20, the final curating process for the first edition of the National Essay and Research Competition, Arquitectura Escrita 2017, took place at the national headquarters of the Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile.

Organized by Grupo Arquitectura Caliente and co-organized by Ediciones ARQ, the competition awarded the 20 best articles among the 87 proposals submitted in the undergraduate and graduate categories, representing 18 architecture schools across 9 different Chilean cities.

The competition was directed by Gabriela García de Cortázar and featured a jury of 30 prominent academics and professionals who formed the Evaluation Committee. All the articles will be published digitally soon and compiled into a book available for pre-order at this link.

The winners in each category are presented below.

Queens, NY is one of the most diverse places in the world, so it should be no surprise that it’s residences reflect that diversity. From the Architectural League of New York comes Rafael Herrin-Ferri’s exhibition “All the Queens Houses.” An architect and artist, Herrin-Ferri compiled 273 photographs of homes in Queens. The ever growing photographic survey conveys themes of identity, differentiation, and adaptation.

+ 10

Situated behind Snøhetta's iconic Oslo Opera House is another set of buildings which mark out Oslo as a cutting-edge architectural hub. The Barcode Project is a masterplanning project consisting of a row multi-purpose high-rise buildings which largely make up the skyline of Oslo. Each of the buildings is the creation of different combinations of European architecture firms; however, together they form an enticing composition with the gaps between them creating the impression of a barcode—hence the project’s clever nickname.

Each of the resulting buildings pushes the idea of what a high-rise building can be. Whether they take the form of a giant staircase or resemble a 3D version of Tetris, each of the buildings has its own peculiarities. The firms involved in the project included Dark Arkitekter, A-lab, MVRDV, and Snøhetta adding their stamp on the architecture of Oslo. Read on to see German architectural photographer Rainer Taepper’s stunning set of photographs on the Barcode Project.

+ 40

Thousands of people in Tel Aviv put together over 500,000 plastic building blocks to create the tallest LEGO structure in the world. The project was created in memory of 8-year-old Omer Sayag, who loved the toy blocks before he was taken by cancer in 2014.

Videos

The old adage "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" (it's stupid etc.), loses some of its impact when architecture becomes the backdrop for both music, and dancing. Ever since video killed the radio star, famous houses, quirky spaces, and history's great buildings have provided beautiful, unique and dramatic settings for music videos of all types. So which of 2017s music videos have capitalized on the wonderful world of architecture? 

Thespaces.com have compiled a list of the best music videos for architecture lovers for 2017. Here are a few of our favorites and a few additional videos we think deserve a mention.

New York Magazine asked some of New York City’s distinguished architects how they would improve the city and save it from climate change. NY Mag reported on their findings.

Ever wished you had superpowers and could fly through cities like Superman? Now is your chance! Well, kind of. The new XLine Dubai Marina lets you zipline at speeds up to 80 km/hr through the “City of Gold.” An upgrade from its first XLine on the Dubai Fountain, its new sequel is twice the distance, twice the time and, of course, twice the thrill, excitement, and adventure.

Metro and subway maps can tell us a lot about cities. For example, by comparing metro maps from different cities, you might be able to understand those cities' relative size or level of development. Or, by comparing a metro map to an earlier version from the same city, you can learn about the pace of development being experienced in that city. What these "maps" rarely tell you with any reliability, though, is the actual geography of the city itself.

In a fascinating series of posts over at /r/dataisbeautiful earlier this year, Reddit users created GIFs comparing the official metro maps of cities around the world with the real geography those maps correspond to. The results show the incredible changes that cities are subjected to in the name of visual clarity: in cities such as London, Tokyo, and Berlin, transit maps expand the urban core, masking the density at these regions' centers; in other cities such as Washington DC, shortened lines hide the extent of the city's suburbs; while in some cities, entire neighborhoods are moved to the other side of the city to make the map layout more attractive (we're looking at you, Prague). Read on to see 11 of the best creations by Reddit users.

The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation launched a website called “Pioneering Women of American Architecture.” The website seeks to promote and document important women in architecture. It is the end result of numerous house conducting interviews, collecting research and photo documentation, as well as fact-checking. Since 2012, Beverly Willis and Wanda Bubriski have been working towards bringing to light the complete works of women architects in America.

The 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial is drawing to a close next week after almost 4 months of exhibitions, discussions, tours, film screenings, and other events. The second edition of the event, which opened on September 16th and is based upon the theme of "Make New History," will round out with two final events before the exhibition finally closes on Sunday, January 7th. Read on for more about the remaining events.

Walking into Abu Dhabi’s new Louvre Museum, one is immediately greeted by a flood of dappled light created by the stunning, multi-layered lattice covering the interweaving interior spaces of the building. The intricate geometric dome is both reminiscent of traditional Arabic architecture screens and crucial in achieving Architect’s Jean Nouvel’s vision for a “rain of light.” But what went into the design and construction of the building’s most striking element, and how does it function structurally? Ateliers Jean Nouvel worked for over one year in close collaboration with BuroHappold Engineering to develop a design which is both an architectural and structural masterpiece. We spoke with Andy Pottinger, Associate Director at BuroHappold, to understand the dome in more depth.

+ 8

Is your knowledge of the world's most notable architects the best of the best? Can it stand the test of cryptic emoji-based clues? In lieu of their usual daily building identification quiz, online architecture quiz What Building? has created a fun knowledge test, converting the names of 20 famous architects into strings of emoji. Covering architects both past and present, the quiz is a great test of both architecture knowledge and lateral thinking. How many can you get?

In the foyer of their London offices, architecture firm Allies and Morrison is displaying "Archiflakes," a series of snowflake designs inspired by the floorplans of famous structures from around the world. Developed by staff member Maria Spada, the series was a response to an internal competition to design the office's seasonal decorations.

+ 9

Ranking cities is a risky endeavor. How can one be objective and fair when this great earth and its 7.6 billion inhabitants would never come to anything close to a consensus? And yet global consulting firm Resonance Consultancy has taken on the challenge based on the opinions of the people they claim matter most: "a city's visitors and its residents."

Surveying the inhabitants and tourists about 23 different factors (that are then grouped into six key categories—Place, Product, Programming, People, Prosperity and Promotion), the methodology aims to be comprehensive in the ranking of quality of place and reputation. In the people category, for example, the surveyors looked at things like the immigration rate and diversity of a city, including number of Foreign-born Residents. Also taken into consideration was the amount of "stories" or "mentions" a city generates on web platforms like Facebook, Google and even TripAdvisor. And, most relevant to us architects, cities were scored on their quality of neighborhoods, landmarks and parks.

From New York to Rome, London to Cape Town and beyond, these city mash-ups blend distinct architecture and attractions to create truly unique imagined destinations. Expedia recently launched a series of campaigns that would inspire travelers by showcasing destinations from different perspectives and unique angles. They took 14 famous cities and combined their architectural DNA into 7 unique hybrid, mash-up cities.

The new year is almost here, and Richard Meier & Partners has four international projects that will be coming to fruition. These new multi-use building designs play with light, transparency, and volume as well as respond to their varying urban context.