Architecture News: The Latest Architecture and News

Digital technology has broken into the timber construction scene at ETH Zurich, where a research team is using programmed robots to construct load-bearing timber modules. These modules are being used to stabilize the top two levels of their DFAB HOUSE project, a three-story residential unit located in Dübendorf, which aims to bring a variety of digital construction methods together under one roof.

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Since 1996, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has hosted awards for exemplary buildings across the UK by RIBA Chartered Architects and RIBA International Fellows. This year, 93 projects were shortlisted out of 203 entries for the 2018 RIBA London Awards; including designs by Foster + Partners, Hawkins\Brown, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, and Make Architects. Each project will be visited by one of five London juries during the month of April. Winners will be announced at the award ceremony on May 15th at the RIBA headquarters at 66 Portland Place, London.

Scroll down to see a complete list of the shortlisted architectural works.

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Other Architects and Retallack Thompson designed a site-specific installation in the sculpture garden at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne for their inaugural NGV Triennial; an exhibition of international, contemporary art and design. Their concept? An "anti-pavilion."

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The development company Fisher Brothers' "Beyond the Centerline" competition was launched in October 2017 as an open call to "enliven and activate the medians for a new generation of New Yorkers." The competition addresses the Park Avenue commercial district, which sits between 46th and 57th Streets.

Out of nearly 150 submissions, an eight-person jury narrowed the field down to 17 finalists, details of which can be found here. Two designs have since been selected as winners, with "Park Park" by Maison winning the jury selection, and "Park River" by Local Architects winning the popular vote.

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Spanish architect Anna Puigjaner has revealed how she is applying her “Kitchenless” housing typology within her own projects in a recent interview with Metropolis Magazine as one of their 2018 Game Changers. After receiving funding from the Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize for her controversial proposition in 2016 (after which ArchDaily published an interview with her), Puigjaner talks about the time she spent traveling the world and visiting the many different cultures that share her idea of communal cooking, adding that millennials are more inclined to co-habit or share resources.

The kitchen is the most provocative part of the house. It has been used as a political tool for a long time, to the point that nowadays we can’t accept living without a kitchen.

For the "Imagine Angers" international design competition, Vincent Callebaut Architectures worked in collaboration with Bouygues Immobilier group to submit a proposal for the French city at the intersection of social and technological innovation, with a focus on ecology and hospitality. Named Arboricole, meaning “tree” and “cultivation,” this live-work-play environment gives back as much to the environment as it does its users. Although WY-TO prevailed in the competition, the Callebaut scheme succeeded in winning the public vote.

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Videos

Imagine having input in the design process for your custom apartment built alongside the second largest river in Europe. T2.a Architects has unveiled their design for DANUBIO, a new residential development in Budapest, which aims to do just that.

The driving concept behind the development of DANUBIO is to give the freedom of design back to the residents, inviting them to give input into the configuration of units within the building. Using Grasshopper, a Rhinoceros plug in, a script was developed to allow creative flexibility in the design of each resident’s future home. This algorithm is altered every time a new resident enters the community by allowing them to define the typology, orientation, and location of their future home during the design process.

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From March 30 to June 10, 2018, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain will host Junya Ishigami's exhibition, Freeing Architecture. This is the first major solo exhibition that the Fondation Cartier in Paris has devoted to an architect, and fitting that it would lend itself to an important and singular figure of Japan's young architecture scene.

Ishigami - winner of the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale in 2010 - has instilled this conceptual body of work with his trademark flair: calm, free fluidity, with bright tones and playful curves. The projects in the exhibition range from large scale models to films and drawings, and when placed in the context of the exhibition, they bring to life Jean Nouvel's iconic building as well.

Laurian Ghinitoiu gives us a glimpse inside the exhibition ahead of the opening day tomorrow. His photos reveal the lightness and ethereal quality of Ishigami's hand. 

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Last week, the City of Arlington, Texas announced plans to collaborate with Populous in transforming the city’s convention center into North America’s first Esports Stadium. This 100,000-square-foot venue will be designed to draw in both competitive players and fans from around the world, and create the most immersive experience in the live esports market.

Last week, Sel Kardan, the President and CEO of the Colburn School, announced that Frank Gehry has been selected to design a campus expansion, adjacent to its existing facilities in Downtown, Los Angeles. The expansion site, located on Grand Avenue, will become the newest neighbor to other notable projects including Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Broad Museum, Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Isozaki's Museum of Contemporary Art, and just a few blocks away from Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, and Coop Himmelb(l)au's High School #9. Gehry's contribution to the school will make this area of Los Angeles one of the world’s largest sites for performing and visual arts programs.

For all those Brickheads out there, interior designing has just reached another Lego-filled level. Created by an Italian team of designers, Stüda has made the dream of Lego compatible furniture a reality. Their modular furniture comes in an array of colors textured in studs that are capable of holding the infamous bricks and can be customized to your heart’s content.

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Within a week of its successor being awarded the Silver Lion at the 2016 Venice Biennale, the original Makoko Floating School collapsed. Designed by Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi of NLÉ Architects, the school was located in the Lagos Lagoon in Nigeria. Now, almost two years later, Lagos-based writer Allyn Gaestel has investigated the vulnerable coastal community and architect behind the project in a remarkable narrative nonfiction piece, "Things Fall Apart."

Aedas' latest project is inspired by the tech cloud as a platform to boast connectivity within the mixed-use development and enable maximum productivity between the zones. Vanke Tianfu Cloud City will be within the new development zone in Chengdu, China designated for new hi-tech and sci-tech industries and provide offices, exhibition, residential and retail facilities.

3D printing just got a whole lot more impressive. If we weren’t already enthralled by the bridges, homeless shelters and structural components that have been made possible through 3D printing, a Canadian team have managed to print the world’s first 3D printed campervan that beats records for the largest indoor 3D print ever – three times larger than the previous record holder. Made from hundreds of feet of plastic filament, the seamless camper measures 13 feet long and six feet wide and took over 230 hours to build on their custom ErectorBot 3D printer.

In an industry-affiliated overshadowed by the so-called ‘starchitects’, do we really know who is dominating in the field of architecture? Often it is found that for most of the projects bearing the big names, there are the firms assuming the roles of “executive architect” that work behind the scenes to enable the high-profile buildings to get through planning and construction.

To give us insight into which architecture practices actually have the most impact across in New York City, The Real Deal have compiled a list of the 30 firms with the highest square footage of new buildings across the five boroughs over a six-year period from the 1st of January 2012 until the 31st of January 2018. There are of course many of the firms that you would expect, although as you will see there are also a few that have gone under the radar so far and may be worth watching out for in the future...

After Pascall+Watson’s success with their concept design for the £130m Arrivals Terminal at Stansted Airport, the firm have been selected for the £600m transformation programme by MAG (Manchester Airports Group owners of Stansted Airport). As demand for air travel continues to increase, Pascall+Watson’s plans aim to provide a greater choice of airlines and destinations by making use of the airport’s spare runway capacity and supporting the future growth.

Toronto based architecture studio, Rounthwaite Dick and Hadley Architects (RDHA) have been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Firm Award. The annual award recognizes firms that demonstrate architectural excellence and design for a better quality of life by addressing the important issues in society. This year’s winner, RDHA, is one of Canada’s oldest practices, established in 1919, that has recently undergone a successful renewal to produce the highest caliber of architecture.

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Reinterpreting the teachings of Buckminster Fuller, North Face have announced the latest tent in their collection; a geodesic dome tent. Thanks to the most spatially efficient shape in architecture, it can withstand winds of up to 60 mph as the force is spread evenly across the structure whilst even providing enough height for a six-foot person to stand comfortably inside.

The extremely efficient design has allowed the tent to weigh not much more than 11kg and comprise of 5 main poles and the equator for fast and easy assembly and storage. The outdoor gear company has also considered a water-resistant dual-layered exterior skin for their incredibly strong and sturdy tent to endure whatever mother nature has to throw at it.