Architecture News

New York City’s fast-tracked Penn Station transformation project is moving forward, as Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced the closing of the $1.6 billion deal to redevelop a large section of the James A. Farley Post Office into the new “Moynihan Train Hall.”

The project will consist of a new 255,000-square-foot terminal for the Long Island Railroad and Amtrak, increasing Penn Station’s total concourse floor space by more than 50 percent, while an additional 700,000 square feet will be developed for commercial, retail and dining spaces to create a new mixed-use civic space for West Manhattan.

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Diller Scofidio + Renfro has revealed designs for the Juilliard School’s first overseas campus as the project breaks ground in Tianjin, China. One of the world’s foremost performing arts schools, Juillard had previously tapped DS+R for the design of their New York City campus.

Located within the Yujiapu Pilot Free Trade Zone, the Tianjin Juilliard School will become a center for performance, practice and research, and will welcome in the public with a series of communal spaces and interactive exhibitions focused on the creative process and performance of music. Upon completion, the campus will serve as an international hub for artists to learn and meet, as well as become the first performing arts institution in the country to offer a US-accredited master’s degree.

Foster + Partners has been selected as the winners of an international competition to design a new office tower for Sydney’s Circular Quay, steps away from the city’s harbor and iconic Opera House. Located between George and Pitt streets, the tower will serve as a centerpiece of the urban district’s reinvigorated masterplan, featuring a scheme characterized by its array of pedestrian pathways that cross through the site at multiple levels. Injecting life into the area, the laneways will be lined with retail shops, cafes and bars, helping Sydney maintain its identity as a unique cultural destination.

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The Naomi Milhave Foundation have released OMA‘s first renders and drawings for their upcoming MPavilion which is set to take shape this fall in Melbourne, Austrailia. The counterpart to the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, the MPavilion is now in its fourth year. Comprising static and dynamic elements, OMA’s proposal allows for multiple configurations that can generate unexpected programming, echoing the ideals of the typology of the amphitheater. Following the idea of the traditional amphitheater, OMA’s design will be “itself built to perform” as a space for public debate, design workshops, music and arts events.

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Communicating ideas through imagery are central to the design process. In client presentations, site visits, or public exhibitions, we are required to represent important aspects clearly to the receiver, who is often not an architect. Furthermore, producing detailed architectural drawings can allow us to identify and modify certain aspects of the design. 

Diagrams and charts, because of their non-spatial characteristics, are often neglected until the last moments of the design process, however, they can be a useful tool for analysis and organization. Taking the time to think and articulate these elements yield positive results, from understanding and organizing a design process to providing an unexpected change of idea.

In an effort to enhance the graphics and diagrams in architectural representation, check out this series of case studies to help you boost the visual, analytical, organizational power of your work.

The international Prix Versailles Committee has announced the recipients of its annual awards celebrating built commercial architecture. The awards were held at the UNESCO World Headquarters, with recipients hailing from 6 regions around the world. Chaired by the Mayor of Versailles François de Mazières, the international jury included architects Manuelle Gautrand, Toyo Ito, Wang Shu, and acclaimed chef Guy Laroche.

The 12 World Titles are awarded in 4 top categories: stores, shopping malls, hotels and restaurants. The winners were selected from a diverse range of 70 regional winners already present in the ceremony.

Check out the gallery of the 12 winners below:

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A team of architects from Florence, Italy have won CAMBOO’s bamboo design competition showcasing the material for its strong and sustainable construction qualities. Held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the CAMBOO festival sought to find an innovative design for a landmark pavilion as a centerpiece during the event. Architects Roberto Bologna, Fernando Barth, Chiara Moretti and Denny Pagliai beat out 125 entries with their winning “Hyperbamboo” pavilion, which was chosen for its “intelligent and well thought out use of bamboo as a construction material.”

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Bee Breeders have selected the winners of the Mango Vinyl Hub Competition, challenging entries to marry architecture, music, industry, and design in the repurposing of a decrepit tin foil factory in Cesis, Latvia. With a focus on the revival of the vinyl record industry, “successful projects temper the impulse of retrojecting nostalgic hallmark or tradition, through revitalization of purpose of an artifact and history of a bygone era.”

Here are the winning visions of the Mango Vinyl Hub:

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Renderings have been revealed for a new 832-foot-tall skyscraper that will rise from a current vacant lot on Chicago’s historic Michigan Avenue. Known as 1000M, the tower has been designed by JAHN, the practice helmed by one of Chicago’s most prolific architects, Helmut Jahn. The 74-story building will feature a blue-green glass curtain wall subdivided with metal horizontal spandrel panels, and a metallic mesh crown hovering over a rooftop terrace.

With Design Miami/ Basel 2017 well underway (from June 13-18), ArchDaily has compiled a list of the best architect-designed furniture pieces on display at the event. This year, notable items include works by MAD Architects, Christ & Gantenbien, Trix & Robert Haussman, John Lautner, Jonathen Muecke, Jean Prouvé and Sou Fujimoto.

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Few architectural typologies are more centered around the human experience than a sporting arena. The design of sports stadiums often feature notable architecture firms, such as Herzog & de Meuron’s design for Chelsea’s football stadium in London, and Kengo Kuma’s 2020 Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. Recently, renowned design practice HOK tackled stadium design using an obvious yet untapped resource in the design of rugby stadiums –rugby players themselves.

John Rhodes, a director of HOK’s Sports + Recreation + Entertainment practice, met with legendary rugby players Jamie Roberts (Wales), Tim Visser (Scotland), James Horwill (Australia) and Danny Care (England) to capture their ideas, both as players and fans. The findings were collated into a video by HOK, which you can watch below.

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Rome-based firm Schiattarella Associati have unveiled the design of a new community mosque complex in the city of Ha’il in Saudi Arabia, using traditional cultural elements of Najd architecture to create a new landmark in the area. The 22,500 square meter Al Jabri Mosque accommodates 3000 people and focuses on “the principle of a people-oriented city and proposes it back again using a contemporary language respectful and attentive in the use of shapes and materials.”

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Architect Jeehoon Park has filed a lawsuit against Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), claiming the design of New York City’s One World Trade Center was stolen from a project he developed as a graduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1999.

The lawsuit states that the 104-story One World Trade bears a “striking similarity” to his 122-story “Cityfront ‘99” tower, which also featured a glass facade of inverted triangular planes.

“The world’s most sustainable eco-city,” Masdar City, is preparing for its next phase of development, as unveiled in the award-winning detailed master plan (DMP) by CBT. Depicted in a comprehensive masterplan by Foster + Partners, Masdar was originally envisioned as a carbon-neutral elevated city without cars, instead featuring pod-based transportation located below the podium. As the first phase was constructed, including the Masdar Institute of Technology, a new vision for the city began to emerge, eventually leading to CBT’s pedestrian-oriented innovation community plan for Phase 2.

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One of the world’s most recognizable landmarks, the Seattle Space Needle, is set to undergo a $100 million renovation project focused on the structure’s preservation and the enhancement of the visitor experience by opening up spaces to dramatically improved views.

Designed by Olson Kundig with interiors by Tihany Design, the scheme will intensify the Observation Deck experience through the addition of floor-to-ceiling glass on both the interior and exterior spaces, creating unobstructed 360 degree views of the Puget Sound and Seattle skyline . The renovation will also reimagine the Needle’s restaurant level by featuring a “first-of-its-kind” rotating glass floor to offer never-before-seen downward views of the structure.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects' (RIBA) new national architecture center, RIBA North, will open this week (June 17th) in Liverpool as part of the Mann Island project – a complex of waterfront buildings designed by Broadway Malyan and completed in 2013. At the core of the launch of the Institute's largest national outpost will sit an exhibition, located in the new City Gallery, exploring Liverpool’s "long, often maverick, history of architectural ambition, its willingness to take risks and consider audacious [architectural] schemes."

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This article was originally published on Autodesk's Redshift publication as "Augmented Reality in Construction Lets You See Through Walls."

Imagine you’re part of a crew constructing a new office building: Midway through the process, you’re on-site, inspecting the installation of HVAC systems. You put on a funny-looking construction helmet and step out of the service elevator. As you look up, there’s a drop ceiling being installed, but you want to know what’s going on behind it.

Through the visor on your helmet, you pull up the Building Information Model (BIM), which is instantly projected across your field of vision. There are heating ducts, water pipes, and electrical boxes, moving and shifting with your point of view as you walk along the corridors. Peel back layers of the model to see the building’s steel structure, insulation, and material finishes. It’s like having comic book-style X-ray vision—and soon, it could be a reality on a construction site near you.

Mecanoo and MAYU Architects+ have begun construction on the new Tainan Public Library in Taiwan. The joint proposal was selected as a winner of a competition by the Tainan City Government held in February 2016. The proposal’s program hosting people of all ages, combined with its distinctive stepped façade will serve as a key addition to Tainan's cultural landscape. The design has gone through revisions with updated drawings released by Mecanoo.

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