WOHA's first exhibition in Latin America, Garden City Mega City: WOHA's Urban Ecosystems presents over two decades of WOHA's international designs. With its inauguration at the Museum of the City of Mexico during the MEXTRÓPOLI International Festival of Architecture and City, the exhibition proposes the introduction of biodiversity and lively public spaces into vertical, climate-sensitive highrises within megalopolises.
The exhibition features sixteen intricate architectural models, an immersive video installation and large-scale drawings and images that show WOHA's proposals for vertical communities in the tropical megacities. PLANE-SITE documented the exhibition's opening along with the points of view of various MEXTRÓPOLI contributors and city officials.
As part of the MEXTRÓPOLI festival in Mexico City early last month, Singapore-based firm WOHA debuted their first exhibition in the Latin America, GARDEN CITY MEGA CITY. WOHA's architecture introduces biodiversity into public spaces, turning high-rise courtyards and hallways into teeming community assets. In this exhibition, the architects show how their work has addressed both climate change and the social challenges that occur as a result of rapid (upward) urban development.
The challenges associated with the provision of adequate and affordable housing around the world demand that architects respond with original solutions that challenge traditional building forms, typologies and methods of delivery.
In recognition of this demand, last month’s World Architecture Festival in Berlin chose housing as its thematic focus. The festival made headlines with Patrik Schumacher’s inflammatory keynote speech that called for cities to be turned over entirely to market forces, scrapping social housing and privatizing all public space. The controversy that followed belied the diversity of the discourse on housing at the Festival and the presentation of innovative architectural responses to housing challenges.
Driven by the hyper-density of the city-state from which they operate, WOHA have emerged as Singapore's quintessential architects. Combining a locally-specific approach to climate control and spatial planning with an international approach to form and materials, their work holds lessons that can be instructive to architects in all climates. In this interview, the latest in his “City of Ideas” column, Vladimir Belogolovsky speaks to WOHA founders Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell about their environmental approach and the future of our global cities.
Singapore-based WOHA’s “Fragments of an Urban Future” will be on display at the 2016 Venice Biennale, addressing some of the critical issues that megacities face today -- “unprecedented urbanization, accelerating climate change and the need for preservation of tropical biodiversity.” Part of the Global Art Affairs Foundation’s collateral exhibition, “TIME SPACE EXISTENCE,” WOHA’s contribution will be housed in the Palazzo Bembo.
In honor of World Photo Day (August 19th) ArchDaily wanted to thank the photographers who bring to life the projects that we publish every day. So we asked architects to weigh in on the work of some of our most-appreciated architecture photographers. Here, Richard Hassell of WOHA writes on behalf of Patrick Bingham-Hall.
BCI Asia recently released its top ten awards list for architecture firms in Singapore. In recognition of some of these firms, as well as the excellence of the built work across this sovereign city-state, we’ve collected some of our favorite projects from Singapore. In this round-up you’ll find a mall by Aedas, a house by Ong&Ong, and a theme park attraction by DP Architects - all firms that placed on BCI’s list. No less deserving of attention is this public library by LOOK Architects, a hospital by Broadway Malyan, an art school by WOHA. The Tangga House, Cluny House, and The Golden Box, designed by Neri & Hu, Guz Architects, and K2Ld respectively are also fabulous works. We hope you’ll enjoy these projects, as well as our full list of architecture in Singapore located here.
As an update to last year's post on WOHA's 'Breathing Architecture' exhibition, their work has seen great success in Frankfurt and Taichung. Now on its last leg, it will travel to Taipei and be on display from March 22-May 10 at the "Mobile Museum - SEED project". Reminding us of bold visions of the future, in which plants reclaim nature for themselves, the architects realize the permeation of buildings and landscape, and of interiors and exteriors in projects. WOHA’s tropical architecture is permeable, leafy and interspersed with community spaces, which truly capture the essence of how architecture is breathing. For more information, please visit here. More images can be viewed after the break.
