From the people who brought you Masdar, an airport in the Thames Estuary.
Flights will be able to operate 24 hours a day at the planned site on the Isle of Grain, by the Medway in north Kent. London mayor Boris Johnson, previous champion of proposals to build an airport on two artificial islands on the Thames estuary, described the Foster proposal as ‘exciting’.
Foster + Partners previously designed Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport, built on an island reclaimed from the sea.
Last September, we shared the news of Louis Kahn’s memorial park for the southernmost tip of Roosevelt Island. Kahn had designed the park in the 70s, but after his sudden death, the plan was forgotten until 1992 when the MoMA featured the scheme in an exhibition. Upon learning of Kahn’s thoughtful and architecturally compelling ideas to commemorate FDR and his Four Freedoms speech, the public quickly advocated its completion. As we reported earlier, at the end of Kahn’s axial tree-lined triangular “Garden”, a 72 sqf “Room” will contain excerpts from the text of President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech. This room, contained by 12 foot high granite columns, is meant for contemplation and remembrance as Kahn’s stoic material palette, clear formal attitude, and forced perspective of the skyline will create, what we imagine will be, a quiet and peaceful atmosphere. With Kahn’s simple gestures, the memorial will preserve a time in American history where FDR’s leadership inspired hope to endure the Great Depression and the second World War. We’re excited for the memorial to be completed and we’ll keep you up to date with its progress.
A great sample of construction photos and renderings after the break.
Just announced last night, the INDEX: Award winners for 2011 were unveiled highlighting five categories: Body, Home, Work, Play and Community. The award ceremony was held in the Copenhagen Opera with a diverse audience from 48 countries.
The winners of the awards propose designs that focus on vastly improving the lives of people all over the world. The non-profit Danish design organization received nearly 1,000 nominations from 78 countries, which were narrowed down to 60 finalist designs with the five award winners announced last evening.
Receiving the INDEX: Award HOME Category was Chilean architecture firm ELEMENTAL for their project Monterrey, a revolutionary new model for social housing in Mexico. ELEMENTAL’s social housing design for Mexican citizens, provides residents with the opportunity to construct part of the home themselves. By only building half the house residents, when time, effort and resources permit, personalize the home reflecting the needs and wishes of each individual family.
The Gowanus Canal is one of America’s most polluted waterways, and its location in the New York Harbor made it one of the many places that were effected by flooding as a result of Hurricane Irene. If that isn’t enough to think about, last year the EPA declared the Gowanus Canal as a Superfund site, “As a result of years of discharges, storm water runoff, sewer outflows and industrial pollutants, the Gowanus Canal has become one of the nation’s most extensively contaminated water bodies. Contaminants include PCBs, coal tar wastes, heavy metals and volatile organics. The contamination poses a threat to the nearby residents who use the canal for fishing and recreation.”
Rising Currents, an exhibit that was featured at the MoMA just last year, was a cohesive showcase of five projects tackling the lingering truth that within a few years, the waterfront of the New York harbor will drastically change. We highlighted Zone 0 earlier this week, comprised of ARO and dlandstudio, they specifically took a look at the lower Manhattan landscape, proposing to develop a new soft and hard infrastructure solution paved with a mesh of cast concrete and engineered soil and salt tolerant plants.
Zone 4, or Oyster-Tecture by Kate Orff, dealt directly with the highly polluted Gowanus Canal. We shared with you Orff’s TEDTalk on Oyster-Tecture back in Februrary, and feel like it is a subject worth revisiting. Eastern oysters being her focus, she shares how the oyster can improve water quality as a natural bio filter. Blending urbanism and ecology she proposes an oyster reef for the Gowanus Canal and Governors Island, an accessible idea that can be implemented immediately. A further description about Zone 4 Oyster-Tecture following the break.
Gia Wolff’s latest architectural installation features a 25 ft diameter portal suspended above 2 Avenue between 36 and 35 Street in Industry City, Brooklyn. As part of Superfront Public Summer, the site specific piece is a reaction to the existing typological conditions and explores potential scenarios for the future of Industry City. Finnish for ‘portal’, Portaali refers to the Scandinavian dock workers who used to occupy the buildings in the late 1900s.
More about the installation, including a video, after the break.
Forrest Jessee has recently unveiled his Sleep Suit inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s practice of Dymaxion Sleeping – 30-minute naps over 24 hours – while simultaneously exploring the materiality requirements to accommodate such a function. Interaction between the human body and the suit is the form generator as well as the threshold medium between the internalized occupant and their immediate surroundings.
Architectural Digest has compiled a list of college campuses throughout the United States which have the most remarkable architectural traditions, which broadcast their innovative philosophy through design. A number of colleges have fully incorporated modern architecture into their campus schemes, for example MIT; while others have preserved their historical edifices through the course of the years, like the University of Virginia. The list involves some prestigious institutions, in addition to some surprises, all possessing their individual architectural languages.
See the 10 College Campuses with the Best Architecture after the break.
Richard Meier & Partners Architects has been awarded the American Architecture Award 2011 for Coffee Plaza in Hamburg, Germany. The American Architectural Awards is one of the most prestigious building awards program in the United States that honors “new and cutting-edge design”. This annual program is organized by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies to promote the best of new architecture and urban design.
The Coffee Plaza in Hamburg’s HafenCity is planned as a unique center for international coffee commerce and related lines of business. The project encompasses the design of the headquarters for one of the largest coffee trading companies worldwide and two office buildings with rentable areas as well as a public plaza and underground parking. The site is part of the ambitious new Master plan to redevelop Hamburg’s post-industrial port into a viable business, commercial and cultural center and is currently the largest urban development project in Europe. More after the break.
A minor transatlantic controversy erupted last month after UK “architecture minister” aka Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with responsibility for architecture and the built environment John Penrose apparently compared architects with other negatively-stereotyped groups, noting architects are “just one of those groups people love to mock.” The comments were part of a longer blog post about Rowan Atkinson, Dreamland, and VisitEngland’s new Smartphone-based marketing campaign.
For years, we’ve kept a watchful eye on the entries of the Solar Decathlon competition -an amazing student collaborative effort which showcases the latest in sustainable design. Today, we’re bringing you a sneak peak of the 19 houses for the 2011 competition. The form and materiality may be different from one team to the next, yet the projects’ attitudes toward optimizing solar gain and having the design serve an educational example of clean energy is all the same. While the winner of the competition best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency, we enjoy seeing each team’s proposal and learning about their process. Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing more information about some of the projects of the 2011 competition (check out our in-depth look at Team New Jersey’s eNJoy House). Which would you like to learn more about?
Check out a sampling of the teams’ models and renderings after the break and let us know which you’d like to learn more about.
Facing an abbreviated schedule for the information-gathering phase of the Surrey City Centre Libary, Bing Thom Architects (BTA) turned to social media for real-time public input. The result was spectacular!
In the wake of Hurricane Irene it only seemed appropriate to take a second look at Rising Current, an exhibit that was featured at the MoMA just last year. To give you a refresher, the exhibit was a cohesive showcase of five projects tackling the lingering truth that within a few years, the waterfront of the New York harbor will drastically change.
Team Zero, comprised of ARO and dlandstudio, specifically took a look at the lower Manhattan landscape, proposing to develop a new soft and hard infrastructure solution paved with a mesh of cast concrete and engineered soil and salt tolerant plants. This would create greenways that act as absorptive sponges for rainwater. The porous green streets address daily tidal flows and storm surges with 3 interrelated high performance systems (network of parks, wetlands and tidal salt marshes). These systems stop sewage overflow, block higher sea levels and mitigate storm surge.
Rising Current provided an emphasis on how to re-think the city, relevant before, and even more pressing now after the flooding from the hurricane. Let’s hope that the ideas for solutions that were generated from the exhibit can now be considered for implementation. More about Rising Currents and Team Zero’s solution following the break.
Check out a preview we spotted on PublicInterestDesign of Tulane University’s School of Architecture URBANbuild program, a total collaborative effort of “individuals, organizations, and businesses committed to revitalizing New Orleans’ rich cultural and architectural heritage.” Working with Professor Byron Mouton, Make It Right and Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans, students have designed and built several LEED-certified homes such as URBANbuild 04 featured in the clip. This particular residence is situated in Central City of New Orleans and completely breaks with the traditional “shotgun homes” that line the streets. The young homeowner, Tami, appreciates the students’ talents and abilities to go beyond what the neighborhood, and even the city, is comfortable with to create a new urban identity. Challenged by Mouton to introduce new ideas, the students have created a beautiful residence that they can certainly be proud of and one that Tami loves View her story and a bit of the project’s journey in the video.
For the passing fan or the honorary Jedi that knows ever detail of the series, Star Wars: The Blueprints offers an amazing (in fact never before seen!) opportunity to discover how an entire galaxy was engineered.
Compiling over 200 of the original production, highly detailed architectural drawings created for all six films of the STAR WARS Saga, the book provides an in-depth look into the universe that was painstakingly pieced together down to the most minute detail. Complimenting the blueprints are over 500 photographs (which even highlight the construction process) and illustrations.
Stay tuned as ArchDaily will have an exclusive surprise about Star Wars: The Blueprints in the coming days. Take note that only a total of 5,000 English language collector’s volumes will be printed. For more about this exciting new book follow the break.
Local New York architect Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects recently gave a speech at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’s Teachers Seminar 2011. He addresses numerous issues that are currently being debated within the profession where the theme of the three-day seminar was “Performative Practices.” The roles of the architect and builder, the architect and engineer, etc. The roles of architects as instruction makers who outsource to specialists in façade or fabrication may not be as clear as in previous generations. His own firm is prime example of the shifting of roles. SHoP has branched off with its own SHoP Construction subsidiary that is managing the fabrication of their design for the new Barclays Center rusted steel skin. More details after the break.
At ArchDaily, we’ve always supported the WIAfund and how they support women to become professionals and leaders in Architecture in America. That’s why we’re very happy to share this news with all our readers. Today is the day the WIAfund has been waiting for.
The U.S. Green Building Council has recently announced that Harvard University has achieved a worldwide first – the construction and completion of 50 LEED certified buildings. It is also a great feat for an institution as large as Harvard. They were able to successfully coordinate a decentralized campus with separate buildings that each have their own organizational structures. Read more about the five lessons they learned along the way after the break.
Venice is commonly regarded as one of the wonders of the world, attracting over 17 million tourists each year. However, the city of Venice faces ongoing problems that threaten its ability to stay above water. The city’s flooding issues are notorious around the world. Every year water surges through its legendary labyrinth of streets wreaking havoc on architectural gems such as the Palazzo San Marco. With its architecture under threat, and dwindling population as many young people flock to the mainland, it is appropriate to think of Venice as a dying relic.
