The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced the foundation of a new award focused on recognizing work in housing in the UK. The award is named in memory of Neave Brown, the British architect, and designer famed for his many housing estates in London.
https://www.archdaily.com/910576/riba-announces-a-new-award-recognizing-housing-design-in-the-uk-in-memory-of-neave-brownKatherine Allen
For those in the northern hemisphere, the last full week in January last week kicks off with Blue Monday - the day claimed to be the most depressing of the year. Weather is bleak, sunsets are early, resolutions are broken, and there’s only the vaguest glimpse of a holiday on the horizon. It’s perhaps this miserable context that is making the field seem extra productive, with a spate of new projects, toppings out and, completions announced this week.
The week of 21 January 2019 in review, after the break:
Virtual reality offers benefits that, just years ago, were hardly even imaginable. Projects can be walked through before being built; the interiors fully visualized before all the details are decided. It allows architects and clients the ability to work as true collaborators in the design of a project.
https://www.archdaily.com/909312/exploring-your-project-in-virtual-reality-7-tips-from-the-experts-who-make-itKatherine Allen
Presenting architects in conversation with creative figures, Architecture Foundation’s headline annual lecture in collaboration with the Barbican will see architect Sam Jacob in conversation with Dutch visual artist Madelon Vriesendorp.
https://www.archdaily.com/908394/architecture-on-stage-madelon-vriesendorp-and-sam-jacob-in-conversationKatherine Allen
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected Venturi Scott Brown's Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery of London as the recipient of the 2019 AIA Twenty-five Year Award. Designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in an international competition, AIA commended the project for its ability to “...make its context better than it found it” - a citation borrowed from Venturi himself.
The award is presented annually to a project that has "stood the test of time by embodying architectural excellence for 25 to 35 years."
https://www.archdaily.com/909184/venturi-scott-browns-sainsbury-wing-national-gallery-london-receives-aia-25-year-awardKatherine Allen
As 2018 winds to a close, we've started to look ahead to the projects we're most looking forward to in 2019. Many of the projects listed here have been in the works for years, having experienced the frustrating false starts and lulls that come in a profession dependent on long-term and significant capital investment, not to mention changing politics.
After years of construction, the world's first underwater hotel has officially opened in the Maldives. The hotel, part of the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, will allow guests to relax within the waters of the Indian Ocean and is touted by the developers as "an ambitious display of architecture, design, and technology."
https://www.archdaily.com/908998/worlds-first-underwater-hotel-to-open-in-the-maldivesKatherine Allen
Shoraku-ji, Toru Kashihara Architects, Photo Takumi Ota
Religious architecture has long been one of the most exciting typologies, one has long paved the way for various design and structural innovations. Faith & Form magazine and Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture (IFRAA) annually recognize the continued creativity defining the field.
This year's winners include 35 projects that span a variety of religious denominations, sizes, and location. Additionally, the award has recognized two trends defining contemporary religious architecture: "the preference for natural materials in worship environments, and inventive design solutions to address tight budgets."
Airport architecture is a complex typology in which to innovate. Restrictive technical, security, and circulatory requirements force designs along limited (and precedented) paths; little budget is left over to create space for respite, let alone beauty.
Which makes the central space of Safdie Architect's design for Singapore's Changi Airport all the more unusual. Jewel Changi Airport reinvents the public concourse not just as an in-between space for travelers, but as a major public attraction. Public transit form the city passes through the city and the large garden and shopping space within the central dome establishes it as a node for public gathering. In the future, an event space on the north side of the park will host public events for up to 1000 people.
In the years before his death, the late Marine, astronaut, and US Senator John Glenn had a vision to create a place of gathering and remembrance for veterans of all conflicts. It would not be a traditional war memorial or military museum, but a place that would honor veterans and promote civic discourse, sharing stories of service through interactive exhibits, oral histories, images, and personal artifacts.
https://www.archdaily.com/908954/allied-works-new-museum-in-columbus-is-designed-for-the-history-of-the-futureKatherine Allen
Eyal Weizman, director of Forensic Architecture, will lecture at the Barbican in cooperation with The Architecture Foundation discuss the group's practice combining architecture and digital forensics.
https://www.archdaily.com/908393/architecture-on-stage-forensic-architectureKatherine Allen
British architect John Pawson is to be recognized for his services to design and architecture by the Queen, receiving a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2019 New Years Honours.
https://www.archdaily.com/908634/john-pawson-recognized-in-queens-new-years-honorsKatherine Allen
Zooraji, Olson Kundig's latest, takes its inspiration not from its site (the roof of a department store) or context (the futuristic city of Busan), but from a story. Aesop's The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, to be precise.
Jorn Utzon’s name is, for most people, tied inextricably to his most famous work: the Sydney Opera House. Completed in 1973, the project was named a World Heritage Site in 2007, making Utzon only the second architect (after Oscar Niemeyer) to receive such an honor in his lifetime. The project is arguably the most recognizable and significant works of architecture of the 20th century and remains a work ahead of its time. But the uncompromising detail and futuristic design of Utzon’s work left many of his projects unrealized or unknown by the time of his death in 2008.
https://www.archdaily.com/907488/utzon-unbuilt-competition-to-shed-new-light-on-the-danish-masters-works-and-invites-the-public-to-take-partKatherine Allen