Taking place at the Architectural Association (AA) on May 11, the ‘Translate the Intangible’ symposium addresses the challenges of communicating dynamic aspects of contemporary design methodologies through static mediums such as text and images. As current design-oriented fields have amplified the implementation of computational and generative tools for various motives, the process of documentation and representation of the design process has become more difficult to express.
The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to present “Yevrus 1, Negative Impression,” an installation designed for the SCI-Arc Gallery by alumni Benjamin Ball (B.Arch ‘03) and Gaston Nogues (B.Arch ‘94) of Los Angeles-based Ball-Nogues Studio, opening June 1 and running until July 8 at SCI-Arc.
Constructed from non-architectural artifacts, Yevrus 1, Negative Impression is a disposable architecture of literal references that calls into question the contemporary architectural vogue for digital complexity and abstraction. The cast impressions of 1973 Volkswagen Beetles and speedboats unite to form a strong structural whole that serves as a lookout tower in the SCI-Arc Gallery. More information after the break.
CULBURB’s Shaping Cities Symposium + Workshop, which takes place at the Centre for Central European Architecture May 22-23, asks what the nonprofit organizations are today and questions their role in the creation of city space. Are they non-elected groups of interest promoting their own interpretation of public good? Or do they represent a litmus paper of the level of democracy in the society? who can shape the life and form of the city? How and why? a unifying web database of such organizations from whole Europe will take place on the ground of the event. For more information, please visit here.
This new issue of MONU will explore how cities of the “Next Eleven” countries are already different and will be different in the future, from the cities of the “BRICs”, but also from the ones of the “MEDCs”- the more economically developed countries – in terms of their politics, their economies, their geographies, their cultures, their social aspects, their technology, their ecology and in the relation to their physical structures, such as their architecture. To investigate what kind of urbanism the cities of the “Next Eleven” countries might develop, this call for submissions for MONU texts, comparative analysis, critical surveys, scientific studies, photo essays, and data-based infographics and research on the topic of “Next Urbanism”. Submissions are due before June 30. More information after the break.
RIBA Competitions recently announced the launch of a new Invited Design Competition on behalf of King’s College London. Expressions of Interest are sought from architects or architectural practices for the redevelopment of the Quadrangle and its associated buildings at the College’s historic Strand Campus in London WC2. This £20 million project to design and redevelop the Quad site will provide an additional 3,700 square meters of teaching space and student facilities. King’s is committed to appointing an architect based on their ability to bring innovative thinking to a significant historical site in order to revitalize a learning community. The deadline for receipt of Expressions of Interest is June 1. More information on the competition after the break.
Zagreb Society of Architects just launched the new Think Space 2012 cycle of competitions with its annual theme, Past Forward. Devised by this year’s guest curator Adrian Lahoud, a former winner in the 2011 Borders Cycle, this programme cycle aims to repeat three competitions that radically transformed architectural culture The Peak (1982), Yokohama Port Terminal (1995), and Blur Building (1999), with participating architects in the original competition acting as jurors in the current one: Zaha Hadid & Patrik Schumacher (jurors for The Peak), Alejandro Zaera-Polo (juror for Yokohama Port Terminal) and Ricardo Scofidio & Charles Renfro (juror for the Blur Building). Each competition starts and ends on the same date, so competitors may make their choice and decide on participating in a single or more competitions. More information after the break.
The PUC Building on 525 Golden Gate Ave, home of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, could have been just another government administrative building. But, the City and County of San Francisco, along with KMD Architects, embraced the design challenge of achieving LEED Silver status. Now nearing completion, the building is expected to exceed LEED Platinum requirements and has been dubbed the greenest building of its kind. The architects had humble goals for the architecture as well, which included creating an “urban room” among the civic buildings in the area, creating a healthy and pleasant environment in the interior workplace to promote performance, efficiency and comfort, and represent the best value possible for the city and county of San Francisco.
Taking place May 3, the “Consumed” Architecture + Urbanism Symposium, put on my the University of Manchester’s School of Architecture, the event looks to explore the theme of consumption in the urban built environment through a selection of invited speakers from a variety of locations and professions. Current speakers include; Joseph Grima Editor of Domus Magazine, Mario Minale of Mario Minale Designers, Berndt Jespersen and Mette Skobjerg of Kalundborg Symbiosis, and Gavin Elliott of BDP is to Chair. More speakers are to be confirmed in coming weeks. The event is taking place in Manchester, at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation. For more information, please visit their website here.
OPEN Architecture recently created a new kind of school system that provides a balanced and joyful learning environment integrated with farms and gardens. Drawing inspiration from the ancient Chinese philosophy which had always centered on the harmony between people and nature, the architects feel it is urgent to bring the ancient philosophy back to the core of our education, and put it in the context of new challenges ahead. If there is one thing that we have to put above all other issues for the 21st century, it is probably the vulnerability of nature, especially in the decades to come, and amidst all the looming environmental crisis. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The winning proposal for the design of a stadium for Russia’s 2018 World Cup was created by the design institute “Mosproject-4″ from Russia and HKS Architects from the United States. The main characteristics of the stadium include an innovative constructive decision, increased comfort for both the audience and athletes, and sustainability strategies. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Terreform ONE is now accepting submissions for the 2012 ONE Prize Competition: BLIGHT TO MIGHT. The competition is a call to put design in the service of disenfranchised communities, to reinvigorate deindustrialized and depressed urban areas, and to repurpose spaces for economic growth and job creation. Situated in the context of a struggling U.S. economy and the tension of stagnant unemployment, ONE Prize 2012 aims to explore the socially, economically, and ecologically regenerative possibilities of urban transformation and design. The competition is powered by the idea that social, ecological, and economic struggles can simultaneously be addressed through collaborative action and innovative planning. Deadlines for submissions is June 30. For more information, please visit their official website here.
Nader Tehrani, a principal and founder of NADAAA, a practice dedicated to the advancement of design innovation, inter-disciplinary collaboration, and an intensive dialogue with the construction industry, will be delivering a lecture at the ASA Forum in Bangkok on April 29. He also is a professor and the head of the Department of Architecture at MIT School of Architecture and Planning. As the founding principal of Office dA, Nader Tehrani’s work received many prestigious awards, including the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, the United States Artists Architecture and Design Award, and thirteen Progressive Architecture Awards. More information on the event can be found here.
The American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles Chapter recently announced their 10th Annual 2×8 Student Exhibition which features a display of 16 of the major architectural school programs in California. Although based in LA, they have extended their invitations to the region and are opening the door to more schools. Taking place at the A+D Museum, each of the participating academic programs selects two projects that exemplify its core vision. The students’ design work will be judged by a noteworthy panel of architects and designers. The panel will then announce the winners at the exhibition opening and convene in a forum to discuss the award-winning projects. The exhibition will be on view from June 5 till June 30. For more information, please visit here. More images of past exhibitions can be viewed after the break.
The 2012 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship has been awarded to Thomas Aquilina of Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, part of the University of Edinburgh. He will be granted £6,000 to develop his proposal, ‘Material Economies: recycling practices in informal settlements along African longitude 30ºE’ , which takes the scholarship’s theme of resources and addresses recycling in informal African settlements. More information on the award after the break.
Located in Polk County, Florida, on a 16,000 acre property between Orlando and Tampa, the Streamsong Resort and Conference Center, designed by Alfonso Architects, is a celebration of reclamation, of both land and spirit. The site is formerly mined phosphate land owned and developed by The Mosaic Company, the world’s leading producer and marketer of phosphate-based crop nutrients. The 300,000 sq. ft resort includes 216 rooms in the main lodge, 12 rooms in the golf clubhouse, a full service spa , three restaurants, and 18,500 sq. ft of conference center space. More images and architects’ description after the break.
With the aim of the Green Architecture competition to stimulate and collect innovative proposals on how architecture, urban design & planning, and landscape architecture could contribute to maintain and improve our biodiversity, Lijbers Architect looked at the decline of natural biodiversity from the perspective of complex human dynamics. By investigating the organized but fundamentally unpredictable behavior of human systems and its consequences for the natural environment, they find that the highly dynamic reallocation and changing of the earth’s habitat by human action falls short in providing vulnerable species of plants and animals with sufficient time to recover. More images and architects’ description after the break.
With the support of Habitat for Humanity and the YMCA, Building Trust International seeks to find well designed homes for the elderly or homeless within some of the World’s richest countries though their ‘HOME’ competition. The growing rate in single occupancy households has led to increased numbers of young and elderly people affected by poverty being forced to live in substandard living conditions and in the worst cases sleeping rough. They are asking designers, engineers, architects and house builders to provide a solution to the housing crisis by offering sustainable, affordable small homes that give those that are alienated or marginalized within society a safe place to live. ask contestants to site their proposals in an urban area of a developed country, develop single occupant designs that are sensitive to the local context and keep to a budget of £20,000 ($30,000). Proposals are due no later than July 31. For more details on the competition and how to register, please visit here.
Presented by the Department of Architecture at Portland State University, the MeasuringUP symposium is dedicated to advancing regional knowledge and efforts for environmentally responsive architecture. Taking place May 10-11 on the Portland State University campus, the event sets out to discuss the following questions: Are green buildings in use measuring up to their targets? What role do building occupants play in the discussion of performance? How can research in buildings inform and improve design practice? And how can successful strategies be replicated at a larger scale? More information on the event after the break.