The Research and Documentation Centre in Technology, Architecture and City in Developing Countries (CRD-PVS) at the Politecnico di Torino (Italy) has launched an international Student Design Competition tur(i)ntogreen – Farms in A Town. Sponsored by the UN-HABITAT within the “I’m a City Changer” campaign, participants are invited to apply their creative talents in developing new multidisciplinary solutions for a sustainable and inclusive city reflecting new forms of urban management and regeneration through agro-housing and urban-farming models.
Designer: Morag Myerscough of Studio Myerscough Customized ice cream bicycle: Luke Morgan Furniture: Morag Myerscough and Luke Morgan Location: Waller Way, Greenwich, London Se10 8JA, UKProject Year: 2012 Project Area: 140 sqm Client: Cathedral Group
During the opening of the Venice Biennale, we had the chance to sit down and talk with the curator and participants of the Japan Pavilion, awarded with the Gold Lion.
In the following videos you can see Toyo Ito, curator of “Architecture. Possible Here? Home-for-all”, along with collaborators Akihisa Hirata and Sou Fujimoto, discussing what Architecture means to them, the role of architects in our society, and how they approached the Biennale’s theme “Common Ground” on this particular exhibition, which reunites Japanese architects and an architectural photographer collaborating on the design of houses for those affected by the 2011 tsunami.
Jean Nouvel and Mia Hägg presented “Meetings Lines” at the Venice Biennale. For ‘Common Ground’ they decided to show their finalist project for the Slussen Masterplan competition, an ambitious urban design project that seeks to replace much of the degenerated water and transportation infrastructure in the heart of Stockholm. The project proposes three different public spaces, designed as living links for the city, inspired by infrastructure such as the Rialto Bridge in Venice.
“Forty years ago the public cause proved a powerful source of inspiration. Given the numbers of architects that chose to serve it, one might even speak of a common ground. In the age of the ‘starchitect’, the idea of suspending the pursuit of a private practice in favor of a shared ideology seems remote and untenable. In the context of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, this exhibition hopes to provide a small contribution towards finding that common ground once more…” – OMA Partner Reinier de Graaf, August 2012
Throughout Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s, large public works departments employed architects to design a multitude of public buildings in an effort to serve the public cause. Reinier de Graaf describes this “heyday of public architecture” as “a short-lived, fragile period of naïve optimism – before the brutal rule of the market economy became the common denominator.”
A quick glimpse at the upcoming weather for Abu Dhabi will show a week of intense sunshine, temperatures steadily above 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 0% chance of rain. In such extreme weather conditions, even architects listing environmental design as their top priority are up against a tough battle. Never mind that the sand can compromise the structural integrity of the building, the intense heat and glare can render a comfortable indoor environment relatively impossible if not properly addressed. For Abu Dhabi’s newest pair of towers, Aedas Architectshave designed a responsive facade which takes cultural cues from the “mashrabiya”, a traditional Islamic lattice shading device.
More about the towers’ shading system after the break.
This year, the American Institute of Architects conferred its highest honor – the AIA Gold Medal – upon Steven Holl. I had the opportunity to talk with Steven about his sources of inspiration, a mid-career enlightenment, and his recent recognition as one of the most celebrated “American” architects.
Andrew Caruso: Balancing your practice with teaching and art is clearly a part of the designer we know you to be. How do these explorations shape your design point of view?
Steven Holl: Every project is unique: a site and a circumstance, a culture, a climate, a program. All of these forces are unique and you need a concept to hold the manifold pieces together, an idea that makes the project significant in its place and for its purpose. That is always the way I begin projects.
Copenhagen based architecture firm Tredje Natur recently presented their plans to develop Denmark’s first climate adapted neighborhood, which transforms Saint Kjeld’s Quarter into Copenhagen’s greenest neighborhood. The comprehensive urban development project seeks to demonstrate how the city can be arranged so rainwater can be managed in the streets in a more natural and effective way. Their project offers a wide range of pragmatic strategies to meet the many expectations in the area. As a key principle the architects reclaim 20% of the street area by optimizing the infrastructure and parking lots according to current standard. More images and architects’ description after the break.
A few months ago, Deborah Sheehan, a Principal and Healthcare Leader at Cannon Design, was given the task of designing a prototype healthcare facility in Afghanistan, a country averaging about one hospital bed for every 2,400 people.
The challenges that Sheehan and her colleagues faced were considerable: limited construction materials, few skilled tradesmen, political corruption, tribal rivalries. But the resultant design solutions were smart, low-cost, and high-quality – they had to be, after all.
To a certain extent, Sheehan was expecting her team to come up with an innovative design; what she didn’t consider, however, was how applicable the design strategies would be to our own troubled system. In her article for HealthCare Design, “Beautiful, Broken, and Broke,” Sheehan outlines the 4 things the Afghanistan healthcare system does well, frankly better than the American, and what we could gain by applying them here…
Read after the break to find out the 4 design strategies employed in Afghanistan that could help our Healthcare System…
Focusing on the relationship between tall buildings and sustainability, the ‘Beyond Green! – Tall Buildings in a Sustainable Future’ international symposium will take place October 10-12 at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Due to urbanization and land being a fixed commodity, metropolitan areas become denser and can only respond with the typology of tall buildings to satisfy the demand for space. However, with respect to the provision of infrastructure, use of energy, shortage of resources and the demand for ecological compatibility there is the inevitable need to design green and sustainable cities. This seemingly contradicts the typology of tall buildings. The aim of the symposium, hosted by the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design at the university, is to evaluate and investigate in detail the green and sustainable credentials of tall buildings regarding their economy, ecology and functionality. More information on the event after the break.
At a time when sustainability is high on the agenda and construction costs continue to soar, many Cambridge residents are questioning a proposal to demolish a sound and respected school building to replace it with a new school one that will strive to be a “green facility”. The Martin Luther King Elementary School (1968-1971) was designed by Catalan architect Josep Lluis Sert (Sert, Jackson and Associate). As it stands today, the school compliments the many other buildings in Cambridge that Sert worked on while also teaching at Harvard University, including the Peabody Terrace Graduate Housing complex just across the street.
Read on to find out what the community is doing to save the building from demolition and why it can prove to be a more sustainable option for the city.
The Hegeman, designed by Cook + Fox Architects, is a residential community in Brownsville, Brooklyn that provides housing for low-income and formerly homeless individuals. Developed by Common Ground Community – an innovative non-profit whose mission is to end homelessness – the Hegeman Residence will also provide a range of on-site social services in a model known as supportive housing. For a little bit of context, Brownsville has the highest concentration of NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) developments in New York City. A wave of arson in the 1970s destroyed most of the residential structures; Brownsville is just one of the many neighborhoods that were affected. The urban renewal that followed rebuilt many homes and designated them as low-income housing. The community has had many problems since associated with poverty, including crime and drug addiction, as well as low test scores and high truancy rates in the education system.
Phototropia is part of an ongoing series on the application of smart materials in an architectural context and was realized in April 2012 by the Master of Advanced Studies class at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD). The project combines self-made electro-active polymers, screen-printed electroluminescent displays, eco-friendly bioplastics and thin-film dye-sensitized solar cells into an autonomous installation that produces its required energy from sunlight and – when charged – responds to user presence through moving and illuminating elements.
OMA has released their 60-hectare master plan proposal for Floriade 2022 – the next occurrence of Europe’s largest horticultural expo that attracts an average of two million international visitors every ten years since it was established in 1960, which is currently open in Venlo. As part of a team that includes the province of South Holland, eight local municipalities and ARCADIS, OMA is helping Holland Central compete against three other cities within the Netherlands to become the next Floriade host.
