Architecture News: The Latest Architecture and News

The Media Architecture Biennale 2010 will link stakeholders willing to shape the evolution of Media Territories in Economy, Urbanism, Design, Arts and Architecture.

In an era of declared crises—economic, ecological and climatic amongst others– the notion of soft systems has gained increasing traction as a counterpoint to permanent, static and hard systems.

Although the field of architecture continually changes with advances in technology and shifts in society and culture, there rest a few names that seem frozen in time, as their ideas will continually influence generations of architects to come. Of them, Louis Kahn has been revered as a master of the 20th century and soon, his memorial park design of the 1970s will finally be completed in New York. The memorial is named after FDR’s Four Freedoms speech from 1941 where he declares that “In the future days,….we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want–which, translated into universal terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants–everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.”

More about Kahn’s design after the break.

New York’s MoMA will be featuring a new exhibition that focuses on architects’ social responsibility. The exhibition, entitled Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, which will open at the beginning of October and run through January, will showcase 11 projects on five continents that “respond to localized needs in under-served communities.” These pragmatic solutions demonstrate how architecture can serve the greater needs of society. From a handmade school in Bangladesh, to a cable car that connects a single hillside barrio in Caracas to the city, these realized projects are infused with passion and a strong drive to uplift society through architecture. “Together, these undertakings not only offer practical solutions to known needs, but also aim to have a broader effect on the communities in which they work, using design as a tool,” explained the MoMA.

A list of the projects that will be included in the exhibition after the break.

The Japan Art Association just named Toyo Ito its 2010 Praemium Imperiale Laureate for Architecture. The annual global arts prize is regarded as one of the highest honors for those in the arts. Ito was joined by Sophia Loren for Theater/Film, Enrico Castellani for Painting, Rebecca Horn for Sculpture, and Maurizio Pollini for Music. Practicing architecture for decades, Ito continually brings a sense of sophisticated elegance to his projects with “a deep concern for the relationships between architecture, nature and the environment,” explained the jury. We have featured several projects by Ito previously on AD, and whether it be a residence, a public theater, or a library, Ito consistently pushes the boundary of architectural expression by testing the limits of structure, using a modern material palette and bringing his ideas of transparency to each project.

More about the award after the break.

With 600 participants from 43 countries, the Sukkah City competition has challenged designers across the globe to try their hand at making a temporary structure fusing a traditional religious festival with contemporary architectural strategies. We’ve shared several different proposals for the competition with you, but don’t forget that your vote at NYMag.com will determine which structure will be displayed until October 2, in Union Square.

In the past, we’ve told you about the AA Visiting School, a worldwide network organized by the Architectural Association School of Architecture in collaboration with each country they visit. They have conducted events and workshops all over the world including Beijing, Madrid, San Francisco, Santiago, Sao Paulo and Singapore among others.

Some months ago, they continued with their events in Tehran, Iran and Muscat, Oman. In recent years Iran has emerged as a cultural and economic hub within the Middle East; with its illustrious history in architecture it offers a fertile ground for research and investigation into a number of topics ranging from manufacturing to urbanism. Tehran, its capital city, has become a major laboratory for contemporary cultural production in terms of architecture and has recently undergone massive changes to its infrastructure and urban boundaries to cater for expansion.

Oman has been careful and cautions in its expansion and approach to development, with recent events in the region it is now set to profit with massive increase in tourism. With the existence of a void in architectural thinking and identity in Oman it will be incredibly interesting to see how its will approach issues relating to architecture and urbanism. You can see some photos of the workshop after the break.

After finishing his Hollyhock House and the Imperial Hotel, Frank Lloyd Wright began to push his ideas concerning patterned concrete blocks. Utilizing the textile block, Wright built four houses – La Miniatura, the Ennis House, the Freeman House and the Storer House – as a way to truly challenge himself, as he explained in Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer and Gerald Nordland’s book, Frank Lloyd Wright: In the Realm of Ideas, “ “What about the concrete block? It was the cheapest (and ugliest) thing in the building world. It lived mostly in the architectural gutter as an imitation of rock-faced stone. Why not see what could be done with that gutter rat? Steel rods cast inside the joints of the blocks themselves and the whole brought into some broad, practical scheme of general treatment, why would it not be fit for a new phase of our modern architecture? It might be permanent, noble beautiful.”

Renzo Piano’s Shard is quickly climbing up London’s skyline. The 1,016 ft high skyscraper will provide the mixed use density the city needs, as it incorporates apartments, office space, a spa, hotel and restaurants within its sleek pyramidal form. Inspired by perhaps a ship’s mast from the Pool of London, or a modern take on the church spire, the Shard will become a prominent fixture in the skyline as it nears it completion. Check out these images illustrating the Shard’s progress – the crisp aesthetic commonly found in Piano’s projects is becoming evident as the low-iron glazing is applied to the structure.

More images after the break.

NOVAE Architecture has been recently selected as one of the 10 Young Italian Architects under 35 at the “Architects Meet at Fuori Biennale”, for the Venice Biennale. For the event, they presented their project “Teritorial Dissonances”. More images and architect’s description after the break.

LEDarchitecturestudio + HIDDENOFFICE’s Efficient Living Machine project transforms a building into an infrastructure able to improve and expand the lifestyle of the metropolis. The firms propose that the skyscraper become a system of overlapping grids upon the existing environment as a way to read the city differently. These grids contain different layers of programmed activities, ranging from recreational areas to farms, and from public parks to areas of commerce.

More details about the project, by architects Alessandro Liberati, Roberto Straccali in partnership with Roberto Salvatelli, Simone Pirro, Luca Tappatà, and Roberto Turtù, after the break:

Peaking above some contemporary New York favorites – such as Gehry’s IAC Building and Field Operations + DS+R’s High Line – Jean Nouvel’s 100 Eleventh Avenue adds yet another touch of character to Manhattan’s West Side. ArchRecord‘s great pieces on curtains walls gave us a better look at Nouvel’s textured glass curtain wall.

More about the curtain wall after the break.

Based on the idea of Mirage, described at the wikipedia as a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky, the team that designed the Croatian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale decided to create a floating pavilion to present arts and architecture of Croatia at the Venice Biennale.

Following the same principles of a Fata Morgana, which is an unusual and very complex form of Mirage that can be seen in a narrow band right above the horizon, the Floating Pavilion is constructed on an existing barge with dimensions of 10m x 20m x 3m. It is designed by a group of 14 leading Croatian architects, who have made the recent Croatian architecture visible on the global scene. Instead of working in the usual formats of their practices and presenting speculative projects, they decided to work together on a single proposal and to have it constructed and towed toward its final destination in Venice right away. The pavilion structure is the barge’ cargo, welded from 30 tons of Q385 wire mesh in more than 40 layers of varying contours. The cargo presented here maps the process of intense interaction between architects working on the common project, their collaboration with the Croatian maritime industry, and the extraordinary act of architecture it produced. Please follow the pavilion’s maiden voyage across the Adriatic over here

HOK has infused green strategies into Chicago’s Greenway Self-Park facility – a not so typical place to find sustainable ideas. While the 11 story energy efficient parking garage features a naturally ventilated exterior wall, a cistern rain water collection system, a green roof, and electric car plug-in stations, we can’t get over the dozen wind turbines made by Helix Wind that attach to the external structure.

More about the self-park and more images after the break.

Back in May, when American philanthropist, Eli Broad, announced his plans to build a new museum in downtown Los Angeles, six invited top architects competed for the commission ( Rem Koolhaas, Herzog and de Meuron, Christian de Portzamparc, Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Foreign Office Architects). Yesterday, Broad confirmed that Diller Scofidio + Renfro (one of just two invited firms who have not been awarded the Pritzker) will design the 120,000 sqf downtown museum.

The current need for housing in Chile after the earthquake is a unique opportunity to re-think architecture. It has generated an exceptional scenario that demands for new proposals and solutions.

Architecture usually responds to definite problems with specific, unique and unrepeatable responses. Projects are configured as rigid and closed systems that can hardly be replicated with success anywhere else. At the same time, these architectonic solutions are linked with an ‘elite’, they are luxurious commodities that are specific-individual-crafted, normally at a very high cost.

After the break you can see Emilio Marin’s proposal regarding this issue, including diagrams, renders and the complete text description.

Slovenia-based OFIS arhitekti (see their projects here) are looking for a local office around Minsk, Belarus and Sochi, Russia to work with two sports projects (a football stadium and a building for Winter Olympics).

Continuing our coverage of Herzog and de Meuron’s Elbe Philharmonic Hall, we just found some interesting news regarding the construction site. Currently around 80 meters high, the music hall still has a few years of construction left. As huge cranes rise high above the building, Michael Batz, a scenographer, has taken advantage of the cranes and turned an ordinary construction site into a tourist attraction. Usually, people come to see a finished building – yet Batz’s idea of covering the cranes with blue LEDs creates a new kind of attraction.

Check out more images of the blue cranes, and a close up shot of the skin after the break.