The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) has announced the finalists for the European Prize for Urban Public Space 2024. Selected from a total of 297 projects corresponding to 35 European countries, the 2024 edition nominates 5 finalists in the General category, promoting quality public spaces throughout the European territory, and 5 in the Seafronts category, addressing coastal cities' climate vulnerabilities. The European Prize for Urban Public Space is an honorary biennial competition aiming to highlight best practices and innovations in the creation, transformation, and recovery of public spaces in European cities.
As the first edition to include a dedicated category for Seafronts, this year’s awards recognize the importance and particular challenges faced by coastal cities. This is aligned with the Cultural Regatta, a schedule of activities running parallel to the America's Cup sailing competition in Barcelona. For this edition, the International Jury was presided over by the urbanist architect, landscape, and industrial designer Beth Galí, and made up of Sonia Curnier, Fabrizio Gallanti, Žaklina Gligorijević, Beate Hølmebakk, Manon Mollard, Francesco Musco, and Lluís Ortega. The winners of the 12th European Prize for Urban Public Space will be announced during a ceremony at CCCB on October 29, 2024.
Taller Frida Escobedo has unveiled a new residential project to take shape in Brooklyn, New York. The 209,000-square-foot project titled after its location, Boerum Hill – Bergen, aims to become a contextual addition to the neighborhood, adapting its materiality and scale to the surrounding context. The developers, Avdoo & Partners, also enlisted Workstead for interior design, DXA for master planning, and DXA and Patrick Cullina for landscape design. The project is scheduled for completion in 2025.
The satellite practice of Stefano Boeri Architetti in China has won the tender for the Culture CBD Modern Technology Experience Centre in Xi'an, the capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. The new technology-focused museum is set to become a hub for scientific and cultural exchange. The winning project takes inspiration from the area's natural landscape, characterized by a tortuous system of rivers and mountains, as well as the culture of the ancient city of Xi’an.
In collaboration with MassLab, OODA has been awarded first place in the Barrosinha Agricultural Company competition, aimed at creating a 2,000-hectare development seamlessly integrated into the agro-forestry heritage of Alcácer do Sal, Portugal. The master plan, covering a variety of functions for tourism, housing, commerce, and leisure, is designed in harmony with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, striving to transform Herdade da Barrosinha into a model of sustainable renewal.
Rendering of Dia Beacon’s south landscape. Image Courtesy of Studio Zewde, 2024
Dia Art Foundation announced a major landscape project to reimagine the land at Dia Beacon, New York. Commissioned landscape architect Sara Zewde of Studio Zewde aims to go beyond the simple arrangement of attractive plants and integrate ideas of ecology, culture, and people into the design. Taking over the museum’s 32-acre campus, the project will create an expanded outdoor park, free to access for visitors and locals alike, complete with native meadows, sculptural landforms, and winding pathways. The project, which has been recently extended to also include the museum’s eight back acres, is expected to open to the public in 2025.
Contemporary cities and urban settlements manifest as intricate structures that demand deep reflection and a careful approach. The social models and spatial layouts within them are in constant evolution, transforming over time. In this context, a crucial question arises: What is the predominant model for cities today? Many contemporary cities result from a paradigm that reached its apogee in the 19th century, characterized by intensive densification and urbanization in response to needs that weren't always reflective of its inhabitants.
In some cases, due to the transformations experienced by large cities, certain urban sectors have fallen into disuse, becoming residual spaces or moving away from purposes oriented to community development. Recognizing that people are the driving force behind the dynamics of cities and human settlements, it is imperative to reclaim these spaces. To this end, theoretical approaches such as the one proposed by Henri Lefebvre's right to the city and the 15-minute city are presented as alternatives. In these cases, people regain the focus, becoming key elements in the design, and allowing for the re-establishment of a community-person-space bond.
https://www.archdaily.com/1012450/reactivating-residual-public-spaces-with-community-led-designEnrique Tovar
For the Fall/Winter Prada 2024 menswear show, AMO has designed a space that draws inspiration from two contrasting elements of modern life: office interiors and the natural landscape. Transforming yet again the space of the Deposito Hall at Foundation Prada in Milano, the designers have chosen to create a contrasting image of seemingly opposite elements: rows of office chairs illuminated by the white glow of LED lights, standing over a pastoral landscape with meandering creaks and ample foliage. The design aims to highlight this separation between natural instincts and the typical environment of modern life.
As this bloody year draws to a close, at a moment when the message “Peace on Earth” seems altogether mute, one might well ask: What power does architecture have? How can it address violence against innocent people, whose lives have been turned upside down? How does architecture respond to staggering cruelty? What can it say? Can it raise consciousness?
https://www.archdaily.com/1011673/in-warsaw-a-student-designed-architectural-response-to-dark-timesMichael J. Crosbie
Ghisellini Architects, in collaboration with Lucrezia Alemanno and Paolo Beniamino De Vizzi has unveiled the redevelopment and complete redesign project for the new Piazza Francesca Cabrini in Livraga, Italy. Located about 45 kilometers southeast of Milan, the municipality of Livraga set out to transform the currently degraded public space and transform it into an attractive gathering place with site-specific environmental and landscaping features. Construction is expected to begin in August 2023 and is scheduled for competition in 2024.
Landscape architecture is having a moment. The latest proof: last week, the US Department of Homeland Security decided to accredit the field with its prestigious STEM designation. As part of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational disciplines that fall under this category, landscape architecture students can now spend an additional 24 months seeking employment and training post-graduation in the United States after an initial period of a year granted to all graduates. The title also promises more prestige, higher entry salaries, and additional career flexibility. Torey Carter-Conneen, CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), calls the development a significant advancement for 'landscape architecture education and practice, and that is great for America and the global community.'
The news corresponds to a growing emphasis on landscape architecture as a pivotal practice around the globe in recent years – one that is closely connected to notions of public health, environmental design, biophilia, sustainability, and re-wilding. It also underlines the intimate relationship between technology and the discipline. Landscape proposals increasingly rely on advanced science and technology to predict how ecological interventions might alter an existing terrain and determine what measures will yield the highest benefit for both humans and nature. The contemporary ideal of wild meadows and biodiverse forests may exist free from external influence, but the path to get there requires assistance.
A healthy environment that is also visually appealing in our homes has become increasingly sought when it comes to designing houses and residential spaces, especially during the world’s current context. One of the most successful ways of achieving this is through a thoughtful design of the landscape that complements the built project. The art of landscaping is the arrangement of nature’s raw material elements, like vegetation and planting, combined with nonliving elements, such as exterior structures, paving, and decking, in order to create site-specific solutions that enhance the exterior spaces of a project.
Domesticity, curatorial Keyword of Taiwan Pavilion at Venice Biennale Architecture 2023. Image Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art
The 18th annual Architecture Exhibition La Biennale Di Venezia is taking place from May to November under the theme of “The Laboratory of the Future”. This year, the Taiwanese Pavilion, organized by the Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, announced that it will explore the intelligence embedded in surrounding landscapes. “Diachronic Apparatuses of Taiwan” displays how locals throughout Taiwanese history have used their intuition to shape their environment. Furthermore, the project also opens a dialogue about artificial and natural terrain to rediscover what we may learn from nature.
The Athens International Airport was decommissioned in 2001, leading to two decades of work for the local government to establish funding and a governance mechanism to transform the 600 acres of unused space into Europe's largest coastal park. The site has a layered history, from prehistoric settlements to the construction of the airport in the 20th century and the site being used for as an Olympic venue in 2004. Architecture office Sasaki is leading the design to transform the site again and create the Ellinikon Metropolitan Park, a restorative landscape and climate-positive design that will serve as a park, playground, and cultural center for the city of Athens. Developers are planning to break ground early next year.
Ennead Architects has revealed the design for the Wuxi Art Museum in the historic port city of Wuxi, China. The competition-winning design proposes a new center for art and culture that builds upon the tradition of the Chinese gardens, a practice with a long legacy in the region. The complex is located in the Shangxianhe Wetland Park, a natural environment that informs and influences the museum experience. According to the designers, the architecture behind the Wuzi Art Museum is conceived as a Taihu Scholar Stone, a contemplative spatial structure sitting quietly in the broader natural context and inviting visitors to pause.
Scheduled to open in 2025, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park, reveals the latest details in the construction and addition of artwork. The first of its kind, the Lucas Museum, founded by filmmaker George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, will be devoted to all forms of visual storytelling, including painting, photography, sculpture, illustration, comic art, performance, and video. Designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects with Michael Siegel of Stantec, the five-story and 27900 square-meter building will feature a gallery space, two state-of-the-art theaters, and dedicated spaces for learning and engagement, dining, retail, and events.
In parallel with the restoration works underway at the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, the city of Paris has launched a design competition to redevelop the cathedral’s surroundings. On June 27, the jury announced the team led by landscape designer Bas Smets as the winner of the competition. The project, planned to start in 2024, will reimagine the square and the underground parking spaces beneath it, including the archeological crypt, the Jean XXIII square located behind the cathedral, the Seine riverbanks, and the adjacent streets. This extensive project aims to bring Parisians back to the heart of Paris and welcome the 12 million visitors coming each year in better conditions.
The history and culture of the Philippines are reflected in its architectural heritage, with numerous influences from other nations paving the way for the contemporary designs we see today, a mixité of cultural influences amongst Western-style buildings. Philippine architecture has grown along with the progress of the nation and its people, but memories of a glorious past are still embedded within the nation’s history.
_Frans_Parthesius__-_02_Villa_Fifty-Fifty_Design_Studioninedots_Photography_Frans_Parthesius.jpg?1620679031 "© Frans Parthesius")
_Jeremias_Thomas_MeMo_House_IMG_2037_01.jpg?1620678960 "© Jeremias Thomas")
_Peter_Eckert_01_-_04_Hood_River_Residence.jpg?1620679227 "© Peter Eckert")
