Berlin: The Latest Architecture and News

“(Driver)less is more”, BIG’s proposal for the Audi Urban Future Award was one of the five finalists of the competition won by J. Mayer H. More images and architect’s description after the break.

No other city has been as enthusiastic as Berlin in experimenting with modes of living. From mass housing to highly individualistic visions of living and extreme communal regimes, Berlin has long pushed the boundaries of what it means to live together. New organisational forms of dwelling, combined with alternative implementation methods, are currently challenging the roles of both architect and local authority in the process of delivering dwellings for the city.

An installation designed by Raurouw (Arnd-Benedikt Willert-Klasing, Filippo Lodi, Jörg Petri, and Kyriakos Chatziparaskevas), a group of young architects experimenting with ideas of a continuously changing atmosphere, has just opened at the Program Gallery in Berlin. Entitled ‘Shock Control Regression Adaptation’, the laser-installation developed by Raurouw transforms the exhibition space into a place of continuously changing atmospheric conditions.

More about the installation, including more images after the break.

In the center of Berlin, an amazing institution known as the Temporäre Kunsthalle is a great venue for contemporary art as exhibits are housed not only within Adolf Krischanitz’s free plan interior, but also on the exterior. As each new artist brings his own personality to the building’s exterior, the 11 meter high building, which covers a ground surface of 20 by 56.25 meters, becomes the artist’s blank canvas, patiently waiting for its new treatment. The most recent exterior exhibition, autoR by Carsten Nicolai, is the third project to be realized on the façade.

More images and more about the exhibit after the break.

Each year UdK Berlin organizes a small competition among the students for the concept of a Bookshop inside the School. This year’s winning proposal for the shop was designed by Dalia Butvidaite, Leonard Steidle, Johannes Drechsler and the all participating students then helped manufacturing the structure.

Cardboard as the main material was chosen because of its flexibility in shape, stability, cheapness, temporary feeling, lightness, mobility and last but not least its recyclability.

The RE.FLECKS exhibition presents panels J. MAYER H. has derived from data-protection patterns. Developed by chance in print shops around 1900, the patterns were used as an envelope lining to protect the confidential content inside.

The Schindler Award has the goal of improving access and overall mobility for all city dwellers, irrespective of their age, status or physical capabilities. To that end, it challenges young architects to think beyond form, light and materials and to focus on the needs of the people who will eventually inhabit the structures and spaces that they design.

The Jewish Museum Berlin held a press conference yesterday to reveal the design by Daniel Libeskind for the Jewish Museum Berlin Academy. Mr. Libeskind designed both the Jewish Museum Berlin (completed 2001) and the Glass Courtyard (completed 2007) which is an extension to the original building.

More images and complete press release after the break.

Property development group Euroboden is building a unique apartment house at Johannisstraße in Mitte, Berlin’s downtown district. J. MAYER H. Architects’ design for the building, which will soon neighbor both Museum Island and Friedrichstrasse, reinterprets the classic Berliner Wohnhaus with its multi-unit structure and green interior courtyard.

More images and description after the break.

German firm Mila Architecture (directed by Jakob Tigges) has projected a new and visionary landmark in Berlin. He plans to build a mountain of 1,000 meters high called “The Berg”, which would become a never-before-seen tourist destination in the German capital city. Seen at Plataforma Arquitectura. More images and description after the break.

The Royal Palace at Scholssplatz, located in the german city of Berlin, was destroyed by the German Democratic Republic in 1962 and in its place, they built the Palace of the Republic which was also demolished in 2005.

Since then many proposals have come, till in 2007, the Bundestag (German Parliament), decided on a reconstruction plan. Three façades of the palace will be rebuilt, and the interior will be renewed. One of the proposals came from Graft Architects who designed an art heaven in the form of a kunsthall for the young and vital international art scene in Berlin. The design is envisioned as an art cloud a temporary light structure of exhibition space, seemingly floating and resting for a moment above the topography of soft mounds.

Seen at designboom. More images after the break.