This international competition aims to rethink and redesign one of the most iconic streets in the world—42nd street in Midtown Manhattan. Remaking this dense live/work transportation corridor into a more livable space 24/7 will transform New York City at its core and become a model for major urban thoroughfares worldwide. The aim of this competition is to increase interest in and gain support for the vision42 initiative for a river-to-river auto-free light rail boulevard on 42nd Street.
MONU– magazine on urbanism is a unique bi-annual international forum for artists, writers and designers that are working on topics of urban culture, development and politics.
A new series of international architecture competitions are characterizing a clear change in the current urban planning strategy of Moscow. The initiator of these developments is the incumbent chief architect of the Russian capital, Sergey Kuznetsov. Together with his team, he has breathed new life into Moscow’s urban development since taking office in mid 2012. The exhibition New Moscow – Новая Москва presents two international competitions – from the fields of landscape planning (1st prize Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York) and cultural building (1st prize Heneghan Peng, Dublin) – and through these demonstrates the great gains for the city’s urban planning that are being drawn from this open, global approach.
SketchUp have recently unveiled the latest app in their suite, SketchUp Mobile Viewer for iPad. Allowing "on the go" access to models, the app also features access to "the entire universe" of files in their 3D Warehouse. Users can use the same familiar features, such as Orbit, Pan and Zoom, to "present their own private 3D models to clients and partners." With a price tag of $9.99 from Apple's App Store, early reviews suggest that this is a good first step with some way yet to go. Being the first ever SketchUp tablet product (with a planned Android version in the works), it has been released in conjunction with SketchUp 2014 which incorporated BIM capabilities for the very first time.
Winsun New Materials, a construction firm based in Suzhou, China, has successfully built ten small-scale houses using a massive 3-D printer. The 22 foot tall machine uses glass fibers and cement to produce building elements, such as walls, in successive layers. Winsun estimates that their printing process is approximately half as costly as traditional construction methods. Acknowledging China’s strict environmental policies, the company also has plans to use scrapped construction materials to print future buildings. You can read more about this ongoing project in this article from the Wall Street Journal.
The American architect Louis Kahn (1901-1974) is regarded as one of the great master builders of the Twentieth Century. Kahn created buildings of monumental beauty with powerful universal symbolism.
RIBA has announced the first round of RIBA Regional Award winners, all of which will be considered for the RIBA national awards. From the list, Mecanoo's Library of Birmingham takes center stage, as the artisan-inspired structure received a number of awards, including the West Midlands Building of the Year and Emerging Architect. Check out the complete list, after the break...
New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress has teamed up with the developers of Hudson Yards to transform the future 28-acre mixed-use neighborhood into the nations first “quantified community.” As Crain’s New York reports, the aim is to “use big data to make cities better places to live.” Information, from pedestrian traffic to energy production and resident activity levels, will be collected in order to study how cities can run efficiently and improve quality of living. You can read more on the subject, here.
The Philadelphia Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron has won journalism’s most prestigious award, the Pulitzer Prize, for her “distinguished criticism of architecture that blends expertise, civic passion and sheer readability into arguments that consistently stimulate and surprise.” Passionate about cities, Saffron’s work has had a profound impact on Philadelphia’s city policy and development. You can learn more about Saffron’s selection and read her column, here.
Sasanbell has been chosen to design the UK's "most sustainable facility:" the £200 million Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre (AECC). The Glasgow-based company will provide a new home for the city's existing exhibition and conference center, which will be redeveloped by Cooper Cromar, freeing up space for future development and providing a sizable venue that can accommodate "large and popular events."
Responding to the bevy of critics slamming LG Electronics for building their new headquarters in the Palisades in New Jersey (half an hour north from NYC), Lee Rosenbaum, the Palisades-resident and architecture blogger known as CultureGrrl, maintains that "When it comes to preserving the 'pristine Palisades,' the boat has already sailed." Since LG's planned strip will be located on what is, according to Rosenbaum, already "a very commercial strip," she suggests that "that the incensed defenders of the purportedly unspoiled beauty of the Palisades [...] haven’t actually set eyes on them." Check out the images of her neighborhood as well as her very interesting Twitter tussles with The New York Times' Michael Kimmelman, Vanity Fair's Paul Goldberger, and New York Magazine's Justin Davidson at her blog, and let us know what you think of the debate in the comments below.
As reported by Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper, a group of Chinese investors has revealed plans for a new city in Kenya that will "match the splendour of Dubai". Though the investors are still resolving details with the Kenyan government, the city is planned for an area in Athi River, around 30km south-east of Nairobi, and is billed as a Chinese-controlled economic zone. At this early stage, the plans feature at least 20 skyscrapers. You can find more details of the proposal here.
Preparations have commenced to demolish Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects’ American Folk Art Museum in New York. Despite international backlash from preservationists, architects and critics, the neighboring Museum of Modern Art will raze the 12-year-old structure in an effort to make way for an expansion designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro. According to recent reports, scaffolding has arrived at the site and will soon be erected in front of the museum’s distinct, copper-bronze facade. More on the controversy, here.
In time with the release of the 42nd issue, Human, Thresholds Journal — MIT’s peer-reviewed journal of art, architecture and culture — has launched a new website. The new ThresholdsJournal.com has been redesigned with more content, spanning the past two decades of the journal’s publication. Other features include online purchasing of past issues, enhanced search capabilities for past contributors, and social media interactivity. The new website will feature news on upcoming issues and related events, submission calls, as well as the broad range of voices that Thresholds has featured since 1992.
In this episode of KCRW's Design & Architecture (DnA) podcast, ArchDaily contributor Guy Horton speaks with Frances Anderson about the architect's ethical responsibility to protect construction workers' rights, following up on his popular article "Will We Stay Silent? The Human Cost of Qatar's World Cup." The episode also features a fascinating look into Shigeru Ban's career and Pritzker win as well as the Folk-Moma controversy. Listen here.
AS.Architecture-Studio has announced the 2014 Young Architects in Africa. The award aims to highlight creative African projects and help a rising generation of young architects achieve worldwide recognition. Selected from nearly 200 projects, these three practices have been named as finalists: Architects of Justice (South Africa), Urko SANCHEZ (Kenya), and Andre CHRISTENSEN & Mieke DROOMER (South Africa).
Spanish architect Rafael de La-Hoz has designed a mirrored, 60-meter monument to commemorate the 30 anniversary of the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA). The design, titled “A Cut between heaven and earth”, was “driven by an effort to analyze the process of abstraction and reinterpretation of the site.”
“Instead of locating the object on the road junction,” described La-Hoz, “the new location enables a more balanced dialogue with the existing buildings. [...] The monument examines the essential link between sustainability and beauty and can be further visually interpreted using estimates of the fixation distance.”
Jeanne Gang, founder of Studio Gang, will be hosting a public lecture at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on Monday, April 28, 2014. The lecture, named 'What Mammals Want', will start at 5:15pm and seating is first-come, first-served.