Awarded Competitions: The Latest Architecture and News

Today Amsterdam city planning councilman Maarten van Poelgeest announced the winner of the adaptive reuse design competition for the two former sewage treatment silos in Amsterdam’s Zeeburg district: the Annie MG Schmidt House. Annie MG Schmidt (1911-1995) is Holland’s most famous author of childrens books.

The winning plan is a mutifunctional cultural center, housing a wide range of diverse activities, including a spectacular open rooftop playground on one silo, and restaurant Praq op ‘t daq built on the rooftop of the other. The doors to the exhibition spaces and media center, movie theater and theater hall, tower room and shops, as well as those of the restaurant, are open seven days a week the whole year through, welcoming visitors and locals alike. The project breathes new life into the silos, transforming them into an inspiring and lively place which will help shape the character of the new Zeeburgereiland housing district.

The plan is the result of the inspired cooperation between the development companies AM and De Alliantie, the Annie MG Schmidt Huis foundation, restaurant Praq, Arons en Gelauff architects, landscape architect Rob Aben, and Janneke Hooymans (This is Jane-interior design).

The Annie MG Schmidt House is expected to be completed in 2011. Images by Arons en Gelauff architects / Pixel Pool, after the break.

A couple of days ago we featured the winning proposal for the new Arts and Culture House in Beirut from Alberto Catalano.

Today, we bring you the proposal from portuguese architects Kaputt!, who received an honorable mention in the international competition.

Images and architect’s description after the break.

Last week, ProMéxico announced the winning projects for the national competition to design the Mexico Pavillion in Shangai 2010.

First place was given to SLOT, Mónica Orozco, Moritz Melchert, Juan Carlos Vidal, Israel Álvarez, Mariana Tello, and Édgar Ramírez, from Mexico City.

Second place was given to the proposal by Salvador Macías, Alejandro Guerrero, Margarita Peredo, Iván Orozco, Christian Delgado, and Alejandro Arias from Guadalajara.

And third place to the proposal by Juan Carlos Seijo, Xavier Abreu, and Alejandra Abreu, from Mérida.

Unfortunately, we do not have more images for the winning projects. For more information, click here (in Spanish). Images after the break.

One of the entries, Artwave, by Tadao Ando

We’ve just featured the winners for the Munch Museum and Deichman Library competitions in Oslo. See all the entries for the competition after the break.

Yesterday we featured the results of the international competition of the urban development for Split, Croatia. The jury did not declare winners for the 1st and 2nd Prize, but three equal 3rd Prizes and 6 Purchase Prizes were given.

Seen at bustler. More images on the proposals after the break.

The American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter (AIA San Francisco) announces the winners of the 2009 AIA San Francisco Design Awards program.

At the gala, winners were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the built environment in the categories of Architecture and Interior Architecture, Energy + Sustainability, Integrated Practice, Young Architects and Associates, Unbuilt Design, and Urban Design in the Bay Area. Each of these award categories was divided into three subcategories-Honor, Merit, and Citation. In addition, awards for Special Achievement were also presented.

Each of the winning projects is featured in the March/April issue of California Home + Design magazine. All the winners, after the break.

Our friends from 3LHD architects shared with us their latest project for a private medical center with additional facilities in Split, Croatia, which won the first prize on a private competition.

Architect’s description and more images after the break.

Close surrounding and historical site of Firule area are one of the most enjoyable Split’s living, working and recreation environments. Extraordinary location for the polyclinic is one of its greatest advantages. Placed near existing hospital complex on Firule, close to the sea and fresh air gives it even more importance and value.

drdharchitects has won first place in the international competition to design a new library and concert hall in Bodø, Norway.

The Bodø Kulturhus and Library will consist of two public buildings; a new city library (5,500m²) and a three-auditorium concert hall (7,350m²), creating a new cultural centre for the Norwegian coastal city.

The results of the competition were announced in Bodø, Norway on 27 February. drdharchitects beat five other practices to win the invited competition, including CF Moller, Medplan, General Architecture, Langdon Reis Zahn and Lundgaard & Tranberg.

On winning the competition, practice director Daniel Rosbottom said, “These are the last two sites left in the urban centre of Bodø, following the WWII bombing which devastated the city. We are, in effect, completing the reconstruction through the building of a new cultural heart. It is a great honour to be given such a responsibility.”

3XN just shared with us their winning entry for the Randers Museum of Art, a “sculpture sitting in a sculpture garden” according to the architects, a sinuous building both open to both the town and the landscape. The red-tile façade of the exterior becomes the roof, and similarly on the inside, the floor becomes a wall, and then the wall a ceiling.

From the architects:

Our green friends from Inhabitat just shared this with us: Morris Architects, a Houston-based architecture and design firm, recently took top honors for two of their submissions in the Radical Innovation in Hospitality design competition. The grand prize winner, the Oil Rig Platform Resort and Spa makes use of one of 4,000 oil rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico and transforms it into a luxurious eco-resort and spa.

More details on the project, here.

More images after the break.

International architectural firm Coop Himmelb(l)au have received the first prize in the competition to design the new ‘Headquarter of China Insurance Group’ in Shenzen, China. It will be part of a lively business quarter in the heart of the central district of Shenzhen made up of a carefully composed ensemble of individual towers creating a landmark silhouette.

Seen at designboom, here.

More images after the break.

The masterplan will transform a site of a former slaughterhouse in the city of Horsens, Western Denmark into a mixed-use commercial, office and cultural complex that will include residential areas. Shla’s masterplan received particular praise for its dynamic design which will create a sense of cohesion between the city’s existing urban identity and the new retail and recreational areas.

More details, after the break.

The results of the 2009 Skyscraper Competition have just been announced by eVolo. The winners are, in first place, Kyu Ho Chun, Kenta Fukunishi, and Jae Young Lee. In second place, Nicola Marchi and Adelaide Marchi. And in third place, Eric Vergne. They were also 15 special mentions. 40 projects will be published in eVolo Magazine.

We just got the news that MOS Architects won the competition to build a temporary installation at MoMA´s P.S.1 during this summer.

For this competition the P.S.1 invites each year a group of emerging architects to experiment with new shapes and materials, as Work AC did last year with their PF1 project.

MOS project is entitled Afterparty, a design that Micheal Meredith and Hilary Sample (MOS partners) say is meant  to honor and reflect current economic realities, by using basic materials. The main structure is a lightweight aluminum frame using recyclable parts which require minimal assembly, which will become a landmark for the neigborhood – all this on a USD$70,000 budget.

I spoke with Michael a few minutes ago and he refered to the name of the project: One thing about the “Afterparty,” as we’re calling it, is the need to look for new promiscuities after the party of a sort of high-formalism which has dominated academic discourse, and in our case it’s with the basic structural arch geometries, rough almost singular materiality and the production and interaction of “environment,” (literally cooling down the courtyard through stack effect) looking towards a more primitive state of architecture. – (See afterparty definition on Wikipedia).

The project is still under development, and we´ll keep you posted on further updates. We´ll try to do a good coverage on this as we did last year.

You can see other works from MOS previously featured on AD: Floating House and their ORDOS 100 villa.

More images of Afterparty after the break.

In my opinion Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG, is one of the best architects when it comes to give shape to the interests of an “unspoken” client on public buildings,either representing the values of a country or a culture. All with exceptional syntax and presentation skills.

And BIG‘s latest project (in collaboration with Arup and 2+1), the Danish Pavilion for the Shanghai 2010 Expo, does it again, by taking the best of living in Copenhagen and placing it on China for visitors to experience.

Basically, the pavilion is a big loop on which visitors ride around on one of the 1,500 bikes available at the entrance, a chance to experience the Danish urban way. At the center of the pavilion there’s a big pool with fresh water from Copenhagen’s harbor, on which visitors can even swim.

The La Defense is a 160 ha business district in the west of Paris, currently under a renewal plan to strengthen its place among the great international business districts. The plan is managed by the EPAD (The Public Establishment for Installation of La Défense), an organization formed by local authorities, government and neighbors focused on developing the La Defense for the best interests of its 20.000 residents and 150.000 inhabitants in floating population.

The renewal includes several high rise sustainable towers. One of this towers, the Tour Signal, entered an international closed competition for teams of architects/investors/developers, on which EPAD didn’t impose a site. The candidates were thus able to choose their sites either from among the entrances to the business district (South Gate and West Gate), either from sites subject to demolition operations. The Tour Signal will thus endow the business district with a new landmark in 2013.

The finalists for this project were Jacques Ferrier Architectures, Foster + Partners Ltd, Studio Libeskind Architect, Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Wilmotte et Associes SA.

And a few days ago, the winner was announced: Ateliers Jean Nouvel, project shown on the video above.

More pictures of the Jean Nouvel proposal, and the rest of the candidates/finalists after the jump.