Today we got the news that OMA has won the competition for a new regional library (Bibliothèque Multimédia à Vocation Régionale) in Caen, France. The 12,000m2 project will be OMA’s first cultural building in France, and was led by associate-in-charge Clément Blanchet.
Canadian architects HCMA shared with us their project “Jasper Place Branch Library”, located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. For this project, HCMA is working in joint-venture with Dub Architects, an Edmonton-based firm. See more images and architect’s description after the break.
The jury for the Museum of the Second World War Competition in Poland have recently announced the winner. Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat received 1st Prize and will design the new museum in Gdańsk, the city where the war broke out. 2nd Prize was awarded to Polish architects Piotr Płaskowicki & partnerzy Architekci and 3rd Prize to Greece-based BETAPLAN S.A.
See more images and justification of the jury for the winner after the break.
We took a few shots of Foster + Partners’latest addition to the Bowery – a new gallery to house theSperone Westwater’s growing collection from prominent artists of different nationalities and ages. Sitting a few steps away from SANAA’s musuem, this new gallery’s CNC milled glass facade elegantly responds to its neighboring art museum. According to Foster, the gallery is “both a response to the dynamic urban character of New York’s Bowery and a desire to rethink the way in which the public engages with art in the setting of a gallery.”
The 35,000sqm project designed by UN Studio between 2001-2006, includes also a restaurants, stores, offices and an auditorium.
The design is based on the geometry of a clover, with the spaces connected between two helical ascending ramps, around a central atrium.
According to Ben van Berkel, joint founder and director of UNStudio “The Mercedes‑Benz Museum sets up an interface for a series of radical spatial principles in order to create a completely new typology”.
And by this, he refers to how visitors experience the museum: They do not begin their visit to the exhibition at a conventional entrance at the base of the building. They are transported by lift to the top floor. Here they have the choice of two tours, during which they descend through the building. The paths of each tour meet on each floor, enabling visitors to switch between tours – the Collections tour and Legend tour – should they wish to do so.
After this project was completed, several tried to imitate it and these kind of circulations became a cliché among architects (and students).
You can see more details of the lift system at NotCot.
The new library, placed centrally at the Dalarna university campus, is organized as a ”spiral of knowledge” (see diagram below). The sloping terrain continues in a ramp through the building. Wrapping itself the ramp creates a spiral-shaped space – the heart of the building for information seeking and easy orientation. This organization of program creates a various learning environment where students can take part in the vibrant life of the library as well as retreat into various study niches. The different sound levels and activities create a diverse and eventful library.
Charlotte Wilson, recently graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University, shared with us her Final Major Project, which tells the story of ‘Women at War’, whilst dealing with the re-modelling and re-animation of a 1960s underground cold war bunker.
Situated within a unique cliff side location in Bempton lies the RAF Bempton bunker. Disintegrating and of great historical interest, it is proposed the site will be sensitively renovated and reclaimed.
In the center of Berlin, an amazing institution known as the Temporäre Kunsthalle is a great venue for contemporary art as exhibits are housed not only within Adolf Krischanitz’s free plan interior, but also on the exterior. As each new artist brings his own personality to the building’s exterior, the 11 meter high building, which covers a ground surface of 20 by 56.25 meters, becomes the artist’s blank canvas, patiently waiting for its new treatment. The most recent exterior exhibition, autoR by Carsten Nicolai, is the third project to be realized on the façade.
More images and more about the exhibit after the break.
The Botanical Garden, one of the oldest institutions in all Brazil, is a space of great relevance for the city of Rio de Janeiro. With around 600 thousand visitants each year, it is an important touristic spot, orientated to environmental and scientific education as well as leisure, and recently also cultural program.
New York will be the recipient of another Steven Holl project – a new library at the Queens West Development at Hunters Point. Envisioned as a contemporary “urban forum”, the project will shape public space and create new connections across the Queens West Development, Hunter Points South, and the existing neighborhood of Hunters Point. Steven Holl states, “We are very pleased with this great commission for an addition to the growing community. We envision a building hovering and porous, open to the public park. A luminous form of opportunity for knowledge, standing on its own reflection in the east river.”
