Oppenheim Architecture + Design recently won the international competition to design a new hotel in Brooklyn, NY. A third pillar of the Williamsburg Bridge to emerge after 108 years. Their design of the Williamsburg hotel attempts to capture the essence of this vibrant neighborhood. Adjacent to both the Williamsburg Bridge and the historic Williamsburg Savings Bank, the building expresses itself as three dramatically proportioned, rectilinear volumes of varied height and materiality. Soaring high above the neighborhood, the hotel becomes the third pillar of the bridge, while serving as an archetypical tower to the domed basilica of the historical bank.
Sustainability was once again an important issue for Oppenheim Architecture + Design. The hotel will have geothermal, wind, and solar power generation, along with other resource saving strategies, for which they achieved Platinum LEED rating. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The University of Melbourne together with partners including the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development have just announced CMA+U and Team winners of the Sustainability Award ʻFuture Proofing Schools Competitionʼ Australia. The competition explores design ideas for next generation relocatable 21st century learning spaces as part of Australia’s research program for Building the Education Revolution. More images and information on the awarded project after the break.
The Masters of International Cooperation Sustainable Emergency Architecture at the ESARQ-UIC in Barcelona is excited to present this year’s open conference on December 12th titled, Rebuilding Japan: Lessons in architectural response, featuring talks and a roundtable discussion with Japanese architects involved in the reconstruction of Japan during its recent history of devastating earthquakes. How can architects respond in the aftermath of a natural disaster? What lessons can be learned from the last three major earthquakes in Japan? How does the context of a natural disaster affect the role of the architect and the reconstruction process? More information on the conference after the break.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded $97 million dollars to 27 regions and 29 communities across 32 states with the 2011 Sustainable Communities Grants. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan stated, “These grants will be leveraged with local funds more than doubling the investment and, helping to create new visions for how communities and regions plan for housing, transportation, workforce development and the quality of life of their residents for generations to come. When more than half of the average working family’s income is devoted to housing and transportation costs alone, we know that we have a responsibility to fix that and to provide housing and transportation options that can improve their quality of life and economic stability.”
During the 2009 AIA Convention in San Francisco, I had the chance to see a very interesting group of architects, Emerging Voices. That group, in my opinion, represented the new generation of US architects who are advancing the profession with new ideas and innovative projects. Several of those architects have already been interviewed and featured on ArchDaily, but it took me a while to finally meet one of them: Philip G. Freelon. We met during the 2011 AIA Convention in New Orleans, where I had the opportunity to interview him. I really liked this interview, where Philip shares valuable insights on running a firm and his views on the role of the architect.
The Asia Pacific winners of the Holcim Awards for sustainable construction were recently announced in Singapore. The Holcim Awards is an international competition that recognizes innovative projects and future-oriented concepts on regional and global levels. The competition is designed to encourage architects, planners, engineers and project owners to go beyond conventional notions of sustainable construction in their work and to harmonize ecological, social and economic concerns. Projects and concepts in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, civil engineering, mechanical engineering and related fields are eligible for entry in the competition. More images and information on the winning competition proposals after the break.
We are sharing with you an interview of architect Tony Fretton of Tony Fretton Architects conducted by Hugo Oliveira, as seen in Jornal Arquitectos. Prior to founding his firm in 1982, Fretton was Principal Designer at Arup Associates. He is deeply committed to architectural education and has experience teaching worldwide, from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London to Harvard University in Cambridge. He currently serves as a Professor of Architectural Design and Interiors at TU Delft in the Netherlands.
The Economist featured an interview with Michael Pawlyn discussing sustainable architecture inspired by nature. Michael Pawlyn is known for his passionate investigations of the unique, efficient structures of natural organisms and how they may translate through design. Biomimicry has been an important topic amongst the innovators and educators who are learning from the 3.8 billion years invested into the design of our natural world.
The shell of an abalone is “twice as strong as the toughest man-made ceramic.”
The future potential to build and realize the concepts of the human mind lie just there, within the potential of the human mind. For years the architectural world has been struggling to keep up with the ability of pen-to-paper and the recent advents in NURB surface computer modeling, algorithmic and parametric architecture. This in-return has led to the building and technology industry playing catch-up with the recent advances in 3D architectural visualizations. In fact, as computer-aided design invaded these practices in the 1980s, radically transforming their generative foundations and productive capacities, architecture found itself most out-of-step and least alert, immersed in ideological and tautological debates and adrift in a realm of referents severed from material production.
Conceived and promoted by the Ferrara Faculty of Architecture, Italy, with the financial support of the Fassa Bortolo company, the aim of the International Award for Sustainable Architecture, now in its ninth edition, is to contribute to the research of a system of development in the building sector. This represents one of the fields of human activity with the greatest impact on the environment, that is more sustainable than our current model, which has lead to a state of deterioration and pollution, bringing us to the verge of a global crisis of the Earth’s entire ecological system.
At the Second Exhibition Forum on Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Garden Art last week in Moscow, the project Green River Project Brateevo has been awarded with the Russian National Award on Landscape Architecture. The project, designed byOKRA landscape architects, is a joint cooperation between Russia and the Netherlands. Supported by the Dutch Government, the Department for Natural Resource Management and Environmental Protection of Moscow and the Dutch Government Service for Land and Water management (DLG), are working together with the Dutch consultancy OKRA landscape architects, the Russian consultancy Ampir landscape architects and the Research and Design Institute for the Master Plan of Moscow on the development and exchange of ideas for a sustainable cityscape. Objective is to develop a toolkit for sustainable green development as an integral part of urban redevelopment. More images and project description after the break.
We recently had the opportunity to interviewgmp architekten founding partner, Meinhard von Gerkan. Born in 1935 in Riga/Latvia, Gerkan completed his architectural studies in 1964 at the Carolo Wilhelmina Technical University in Braunschweig. In 1965 he co-founded with Volkwin Marg, von Gerkan, Marg and partners. They have completed together over 260 buildings, among them the Berlin-Tegel Airport (competition, 1st place 1965, built in 1970-75), the Berlin Central Station, Villa Guna, Christ Pavilion, and the Lingang New City, been recognized nationally and internationally for their designs and competition proposals.
We are sharing with you an interview of british architect Jonathan Sergison of Sergison Bates architects conducted by Hugo Oliveir, as seen in Jornal Arquitectos. Sergison, prior to the founding of his firm in 1996 with partner Stephen Bates, gained professional experience working for David Chipperfield and Tony Fretton. Currently he serves as a Professor of Architectural Design at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland.
An increasing trend towards sustainable construction within the building industry has resulted in a steady stream of “green” products into the marketplace. It is not uncommon to see products labeled with numerous claims that are certified by previously unheard of governing bodies. Industry leaders recently gathered in Toronto at Greenbuild to focus on avenues to increase the transparency of such claims made in the marketplace, and develop an integrated information source to reduce confusion and increase reliability.
