2015 marks the 20th Anniversary of Canstruction Boston. The 2015 theme is "Celebrate 20 years in Boston!" Canstruction Boston is a charity event and exhibition in which teams of Boston-area architects, engineers, contractors, designers and students compete to display colossal sculptures made out of canned goods. After the sculptures are dismantled, all the canned goods will be donated to the Merrimack Valley Food Bank in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Following a turnkey competition, NORD Architects was awarded the contract for their design of the new Furesø City Hall in Denmark. The project, consisting of 2,000 square meters of renovation and 3,400 square meters of new space, is set to finish by 2017 and will house 300 employees. Driven by sustainable and democratic design, the new city hall is estimated to reduce annual operating costs by 8 million DKK for the Furesø government. Read more about this upcoming project after the break.
Imagine that Eurasia has been brought to absolute destruction - by wars over religion, ethnicity or countries, or maybe even nuclear destruction. Cities, towns and villages across the super-continent are left in rubble or abandoned; all forms of organization are a fairy tale from a bygone era. Thousands of years of culture and civilization, gone.
What if a new Eurasia could arise from the remnants of this destruction? What artifacts and memories would remain, to seed the creation of a new Eurasia? Imagining New Eurasia, commissioned by Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, South Korea, invites anyone living in, or from Eurasia to submit their ideas, in the form of drawings, sketches, text, artwork, found objects, photographs, maps, memorabilia or any other kind of artifact, on how the future of a New Eurasia may pan out.
With ideas ranging from floating homes to new mega-cities, New London Architecture has revealed 100 proposals to address the housing crisis in London. The ideas will be on display as part of the New Ideas for Housing exhibition at the NLA Galleries in the Building Centre in London. After an open ideas competition announced June 2015, over 200 entries from 16 different countries were received. Of the 100 shortlisted projects 10 finalists will be selected and have the opportunity to work with the Greater London Authority to implement their ideas. Read more about the entries and exhibit after the break.
WVA's “Zhuhai JIANFENG Bridge East Square Landscape Tower” proposal received third place in the Zhuhai Doumen Observation Tower Competition, held in July 2014. Their project began with a rigorous analysis of the surrounding geographical, cultural and socio-political context. Located at the junction of two rivers in Zhuhai, China, the Zhuhai Observation Tower is sited in an intersection of neighbourhoods: a place of destination and circulation for locals and tourists.
UPDATE: The deadline for submissions for the Burnham Prize has been extended to September 7th, 2015 with the announcement of the winning entries to occur on September 30th, 2015. In addition, student entry fees have been reduced to $25.00.
Affiliated with this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Chicago Architectural Club has announced the 2015 Burnham Prize Competition: Currencies of Architecture. This year’s Burnham Prize was inspired by the Chicago Architecture Biennial’s title, “The State of the Art of Architecture,” and explores the question: what is the state of the art of architecture today? Entrants are challenged to create a single image that exemplifies a point of view on the current state of architecture – whether it is a celebration, a challenge, a statement or anything else.
The City of Milan has announced the winners of a competition to redesign the Piazza della Scala, with a bold idea to reconfigure the Piazza similarly to its arrangement in the 19th Century taking third place. Designed by Chilean architect Cristian Undurraga in collaboration with Laura Signorelli, Stefano Rolla, Sebastián Mallea, Soledad Fernandez, Michele Zambetti, Max Daiber and Leonardo Valdés, the proposal begins with the demolition of the medieval block separating the Teatro alla Scala and the Palacio Marino, developing visual continuity to catalyze construction and improve existing spaces. Read more about the proposal after the break.
ARKxSITE has announced the winners of its call for ideas for a hypothetical contemporary Art Centre to be built in the Fortress of Cresmina in Cascais, Portugal. Open to architecture students and architects under 40 years of age, entrants were challenged to preserve the significant cultural, historical and landscape elements of the Fortress of Cresmina, celebrating the existing ruins to create a unique experience for visitors. The jury comprised Alberto Mottola, (demogo studio di architettura, Italy), Felipe Grallert (Felipe Grallert Arquitectos, Chile) and Rasmus Jessing (COBE, Denmark). See the third, second and first place winners after the break.
Online international competition organizer archasm has launched its “Chandigarh Unbuilt: Completing the Capitol” ideas competition, which seeks designs to finalize and complement Le Corbusier’s Capitol Complex in Chandigarh, India.
Three buildings at the complex have been built according to Le Corbusier’s plans—the Secretariat, Assembly Hall, and High Court—but the fourth and final building, called the Museum of Knowledge, has yet to be conceptualized.
Archasm is looking for designs that will serve the purpose of a knowledge and connaissance museum in the context of the 21st century, while also considering the “importance of Le Corbusier’s version of modern architecture,” as well as the use of surrounding public space and its affect on the community.
Open-idea competition platform matterbetter has announced the winners of its Concordia Lighthouse Competition, which sought to pay tribute to the Costa Concordia Disaster of 2012 when a cruise ship capsized off the coast of Tuscany, causing 33 deaths. Open to architectural students and young architectural professionals, participants were asked to “redefine contemporary lighthouse typology and take into consideration advances in technology, development of sustainable systems and its metaphorical value which has made it one of the most inspiring structures in the world.”
Out of 282 entries, first place was awarded to Gwizdala Andrzej and Adrien Mans for their Concordia Lightscape design, which disperses the idea of a lighthouse into thin lines that increase in density as they move closer to the sea.
Funded by the Getty Foundation, The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) is offering between 14-16 grants to attend the SAH 2016 International Conference. Application will be open to professionals in the field of the “built environment,” including heritage conservation specialists, academics and museum professionals who work with the history of the built environment.The conference will be taking place in Pasadena/Los Angeles, California from April 6-10.
Social Cooperation Architects (SCoopA) have announced the winners of their competition centered on the theme of the 2015 Expo Milano: Feed the World. The competition collected ideas and solutions from all over the world that addressed problems such as social inequality, population growth and the scarcity of resources. Currently the winners and honorary mentions are on display at the 2015 Expo Milano. Read on for the winning proposals and their accompanying boards after the break.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has announced the winner and finalists of its 2015 Urban Habitat Award. Launched in 2014, the Urban Habitat Award recognizes the contributions of tall buildings to the urban realm. The winners this year were chosen for influencing their environment and cultural context intelligently, adding social sustainability to their immediate site and wider context. See all of the finalists and the winner after the break.
Aiming to make a statement that architecture can no longer be designed with a single “move”, Rome-based firm, Paolo Venturella Architecture has unveiled their proposal titled “Plus is More” for the WHO Headquarters Extension competition. Although not selected as the winning proposal, Plus is More takes on the maxim of its name, investigating the complexity generated by a combination of "moves," circumventing the common tilted, lifted or pushed buildings that rely on a single movement. Read more about the project after the break.
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Aedas has begun construction on their winning entry to design the new Sina Headquarters in China. Located south of the Beijing Zhongguancun Software Park, the building program will include open office area, conference rooms, media rooms, library, entertainment rooms, a canteen and other supporting amenities.
Chilean architects, Guillermo Hevia García and Nicolás Urzúa Soler, have been selected as the winners of the 2015 Young Architects Program (YAP) Constructo in Chile for their installation proposal, “Your Reflection." The installation will be inaugurated in March 2016 in Santiago, and aims “to build an uncertain experience, a situation of estrangement” so that the visitor is waiting to see “what is going to surprise them in the next place."
Along with New York, Istanbul, Rome and Seoul, Yap Contructo (Chile) is one of five versions of the Young Architects Program (YAP), carried out by MoMA and MoMA PS1, which aims to “support research in innovative design and promote emerging talent.”
Learn more about the proposal after the break.
Japanese office, The Shelter Corporation, has announced their 17th international architectural ideas competition, open to undergraduate and post-graduate students (as of September 11, 2015) across the world. The Shelter Corporation, which focuses on timber and wood-framed buildings, hosts this competition annually to generate discussion among students on the future of wood and timber construction. Believing in the importance of a sustainable built environment, the firm hopes that this competition can be the gateway for many young architects-to-be to enter the workplace with new ideas.
CDP Investimenti has selected Studio 015 Paola Viganò as the winner of the Progetto Flaminio International Design Competition to master plan a new district surrounding the City of Science in Rome. After launching the competition in December 2014, CDP Investimenti Sgr and the Municipal Government received over 240 entries. Of those, six teams were shortlisted and given 24,000 euros each to develop and submit their final proposals. Learn more about the winning proposal after the break.
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