The shortlist for a new landmark project in Melbourne has been announced, comprising award-winning global architects such as Bjarke Ingels Group, MVRDV, and OMA. For the “Southbank by Beulah” mixed-use development, the shortlisted architects will engage in a design competition working in collaboration with local Australian firms, each producing a design proposal for Melbourne’s BMW Southbank site.
With an end value in excess of $2 billion, Southbank by Beulah will be the first large-scale private project adhering to the Australian Institute of Architecture guidelines, while the design competition will be chaired by a jury of seven regarded individuals from academic, architectural, property and government sectors.
https://www.archdaily.com/893437/big-oma-and-mvrdv-among-shortlisted-firms-for-melbourne-landmark-competitionNiall Patrick Walsh
View into the exhibition (1988). Photographer unknown. Image via MoMA
When Philip Johnson curated the Museum of Modern Arts’ (MoMA) 1932 “International Exhibition of Modern Architecture,” he did so with the explicit intention of defining the International Style. As a guest curator at the same institution in 1988 alongside Mark Wigley (now Dean Emeritus of the Columbia GSAPP), Johnson took the opposite approach: rather than present architecture derived from a rigidly uniform set of design principles, he gathered a collection of work by architects whose similar (but not identical) approaches had yielded similar results. The designers he selected—Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, and the firm Coop Himmelblau (led by Wolf Prix)—would prove to be some of the most influential architects of the late 20th Century to the present day.[1,2]
This reconstruction is primarily of language. The architects draw from archives—mental, digital or printed on paper—distant from the typical parametric and highly schematic rationales that characterized the last thirty years of design in architecture. Within the theoretical system that drives architectural composition, these archives inevitably become homages, references, and quotes.
In response to a conservative and sometimes fragmented building industry, some architects believe that improving and automating the construction process calls for a two-front war: first, using experimental materials and components, and second, assembling them in experimental ways. Extra-innovative examples include self-directed insect-like robots that huddle together to form the shape of a building and materials that snap into place in response to temperature or kinetic energy.
The automation battle has already been fought (and won) in other industries. With whirring gears and hissing pneumatics, rows and rows of Ford-ist mechanical robot arms make cars, aircraft, and submarines in a cascade of soldering sparks. So why shouldn’t robotic construction become commonplace for buildings, too?
"If you only think in architectural terms, only architecture will come out." - Wolf Prix
Inspired by space suits, Formula One circuits, and many other "mind expanding machines," Wolf D. Prix of Coop Himmelb(l)au explains the thought process that went behind their design of the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France. With spiraling ramps and bridges throughout, the museum allows visitors to explore the space "freely," despite the constraints of gravity, and, in a sense, "conquer space." Read on for Spirit of Space's full interview with Prix.
In It’s A Wonderful Life the film’s protagonist George Bailey, facing a crisis of faith, is visited by his guardian angel, and shown an alternate reality where he doesn’t exist. The experience gives meaning to George’s life, showing him his own importance to others. With the increasing scale of design competitions these days, architectural “could-have-beens” are piling up in record numbers, and just as George Bailey's sense of self was restored by seeing his alternate reality, hypothesizing about alternative outcomes in architecture is a chance to reflect on our current architectural moment.
Today marks the one-year-anniversary of the opening of Phase 3 of the High Line. While New Yorkers and urbanists the world over have lauded the success of this industrial-utility-turned-urban-oasis, the park and the slew of other urban improvements it has inspired almost happened very differently. Although we have come to know and love the High Line of Diller Scofidio + Renfro and James Corner Field Operations, in the original ideas competition four finalists were chosen and the alternatives show stark contrasts in how things might have shaped up.
On this key date for one of the most crucial designs of this generation, we decided to look back at some of the most important competitions of the last century to see how things might have been different.
One of the best acoustically responsive concert halls in the world, Coop Himmelb(l)au's House of Music in Aalborg has been a lively center for music and creative exchange since its opening in 2014. Based off of the simple, yet powerful courtyard typology and inspired by Le Corbusier’s La Tourette, the 1,300-seat concert hall is embraced by a U-shaped education center and enhanced by a careful overlapping of public and performance areas. This has allowed the building to live up to its name, becoming an animated House of Music where music is not only heard, but seen.
This video is the first of a series by Spirit of Space. You can watch Coop Himmelb(l)au's Wolf Prix talk about his intentions behind the House of Music, after the break.
Edmund Sumner has shared with us images from his recent visit to Lyon, France, where he photographed Coop Himmelb(l)au’s newly completed Musée des Confluences. Perched on a century-old artificial peninsula at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers, the “museum of knowledge,” as Coop Himmelb(l)au affectionately refers to it, is distinct for its “iconic gateway” - an openly traversable “Crystal” that provides multi-level access to the museum’s exhibition spaces and views of the building's unique context. Step inside, after the break.
With a recently released animation entitled “We Start the Future of Construction,” Coop Himmelb(l)au announced their intention to take digital fabrication to a radical new scale, demonstrating how technology is impacting almost every aspect of the architectural profession. The advent of building information modeling and other modeling software has transformed how architects and engineers navigate the construction process, allowing us to achieve increasingly complex forms that can be modeled with the aid of CNC machining and 3D Printing, but still there remains a wide gap between the technologies available to architects and those employed by builders. When it comes to a building’s actual construction we have been limited by the great costs associated with non-standard components and labor - but now, the automated practices that transformed manufacturing industries could revolutionize how we make buildings.
Last week, ArchDaily sat down with co-founder, Design Principal and CEO of Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wolf D. Prix for his thoughts on the future of construction and the role of the architect in an increasingly technological practice. Read on after the break to find out how robots could impact architectural design, construction, and the future of the profession.
The Austrian firm Coop Himmelb(l)au has designed a wacky quilted coat that blocks electronic surveillance. With pockets to protect your collection of phones and tablets, the Jammer Coat was commissioned for the Workwear exhibition at the Triennale in Milan.
Parliament, “the place where the power of the people has found its home,” will be the focus of Austria’s contribution to the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. With over 200 national parliament buildings from around the world modeled at a scale of 1:500, the exhibition, “Plenum. Places of Power.” will explore how the architecture of parliament connects to the public, influences national identify, and more.
“The idea of democratic legitimation of power is so widespread today that no nation can do without building such a place, at least in name, for a representative popular assembly,” described commissioner Dr. Christian Kühn. “What do these places look like? And how are they connected to a public whose trust in democratic formation of will seems to be dwindling around the globe?”
Highly regarded as both an academician and practitioner, Wolf Prix is an architect’s architect. And he’s a Guinness World Record holder! (The Busan Cinema Center boasts the world’s longest cantilever roof). We sat down with the Austrian architect and learned that not only does he welcome the unforeseeable results of rule-breaking, but he also borrows models of strategy and organization from soccer:
"Of course nowadays the architect as a single genius is over. I think we have to learn how to communicate and work in a team. Therefore, I just rearranged the organization of our office along the idea of the football team, FC Barcelona. Barcelona plays a beautiful game, very clever and very intelligent—they always play in a triangle system and then Messi or Xavi breaks the rules and plays street football with unforeseeable rules. This is the way we work in our office and this is the way that we design."
The construction of the BusanCinema Center by architecture firm COOP HIMMELB(L)AUis nearing completion. Slated to be the new home of the Busan International Film Festival, the complex will house cinemas, restaurants, a 1000 seat multifunctional theater, and numerous public spaces. More details after the break.
This summer Coop Himmelb(l)au recieved two awards for two different buildings in Europe. The Dedalo Minosse International Prize was awarded for the firm’s design of BMW Welt in Munich on June 24, 2011 in Vicenza, Italy. According to the president of the Italian Association ALA, Bruno Gabbiani, who presented the award, the prize boosts “the quality of architecture looking at final result, analysing and focusing on project and constructive plan process and giving special attention to people who determine the success of the work: the architect and the client”. The awarded works, with Coop Himmelb(l)au among them, will be presented at the CISA, Cento Studi di Architecttura Palladio in Vicenza until September 18, 2011. Read more on this project here: BMW Welt / Coop Himmelb(l)au
With the exhibition “COOP HIMMELB(L)AU: Beyond the Blue” being recently closed at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, USA another single exhibition will be opened on September 18, 2009 at NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, Japan.
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.
