The design proposal for the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MMAW) by Camilio Rebelo results from the fusion of two themes always present in the history of Art expression: nature’s figurative and abstract representation. The museum demonstrates an amalgam of distinct realities, diverse cultures, and simultaneously a neutral setting as well as hold a unique and magnetic identity: Mutant Nature. More images and architects’ description after the break.
A collaborative work by Studio Zec + ahA + Filter, The Siege of Sarajevo Museum – The Art of Living 1992-1996 project is launching a new way of interacting and learning about the phenomenon of the Siege of Sarajevo. Regarding urban survival, Sarajevo has become a powerful symbol and a lesson for current and future generations. The museum will be a unique depository of human knowledge – where human ingenuity, creativity and intelligence will be captured amidst the urban post-cataclysmic realm. It is a heritage snap-shot of faces and voices that have shaped the longest siege in the modern history of mankind. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Supple Design shared with us their Sydney Architecture Walks, which consists of an ongoing series of public walking and bicycle tours of Sydney that use contemporary architecture to open up conversations political, cultural, economic and environmental. Their premise is that cities are made not found, so architecture becomes the lens to open up other conversations.
The free event that has unveiled secret places in the most beautiful cities all over the world is, for the first time ever, in Rome the weekend of May 5-6. An idea both simple and revolutionary, Open House Rome 2012, which is open to the public, features the most interesting and inaccessible places in a city through completely free of charge guided tours including more than 80 sites from a wide variety of historical periods within the city as well as organized outdoor walking and cycling tours in 4 wide districts of Rome. For more information, please visit their official website here.
Inspired by the theme of Expo 2015 – “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” – the idea behind the design by Ternulomello + Nuno Marcos of recreating a greenhouse for the Service Areas seemed natural and spontaneous This construction method reminded them of the Crystal Palace, designed and built for the 1851 Universal Exhibition in London. The intervention is based on the application of passive technologies, to achieve a complete identification between energetic device and structure. Thermo-hygrometric comfort is achieved through natural ventilation, natural lighting and selective shading. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Founder and principal of Studio Gang Architects, Jeanne Gang, FAIA, LEED AP, will be delivering a lecture at LACMA on May 8th at 7:30pm. Reveal, the first volume on Studio Gang’s projects and processes, was released in 2011 from Princeton Architectural Press. Recent projects include a proposal reimagining the suburb of Cicero, Illinois, as a part of MoMA’sexhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream; Reverse Effect, a book intended to explore and spark a radically greener future for the Chicago River and Great Lakes; Aqua Tower, an Emporis Skyscraper of the Year; and Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo, an educational project demonstrating how nature and city can coexist. The event is presented by LACMA and organized by Francesca Garcia-Marques, with an introduction by Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times architecture critic. For more details and information on the event, please visit here.
72 Hour Urban Action, the world’s first real-time architecture competition, gives selected teams only three days & three nights to design and build interventions in public space in response to local needs. The competition will be the kick-off of a series of major urban interventions around Stuttgart 21, site of the largest urban redevelopment in Europe and the center of a heated 30-year-old public debate. The competition is defined by an extreme deadline, a tight budget and limited space and will challenge participants to rapidly leave a lasting impact on the city’s urban fabric.
MONU – magazine on urbanism is a unique bi-annual international forum for artists, writers and designers that are working on topics of urban culture, development and politics.
Each issue collects essays, projects and photographs from contributors from all over the world to a given topic. Thus MONU examines the rural as a strict counterpart to the urban as it appears to be a condition of the past. At least, this is what Kees Christiaanse posits in an interview with us entitled “The New Rural: Global Agriculture, Desakotas, and Freak Farms”. He points out that, today, non-urban spaces interact so frequently and intensely with urbanity that you can no longer describe something as strictly rural. Therefore, we can no longer separate the city from the countryside as these are not polarized entities and each other’s enemies, but rather the result of each other.
They have just released their latest issue on the topic of “Non-Urbanism”. You can see more about the articles on their official website. Also, you can browse the entire issue (video after the break).
Organized by Graz University of Technology, the ‘Advanced Building Skins’ Conference will take place June 14-15 where creative, innovative professionals and researchers at the forefront of skin design will discuss tasks and issues in research, design and manufacturing of high-performance façades and building envelopes. Participants will gain new perspectives on, and an enhanced insight into, developments and research in design and engineering for tomorrow’s advanced building skins. uilding skins have rarely been as fascinating and challenging as they are today. They are the most interesting field in contemporary architecture. Façades and building envelopes are determining the visual identity, character and expression of architecture. The design of buildings’ skins shapes the urban environment. For more information, please visit here.
The project developed by RTA-Office belongs to a large masterplan that includes three different museum buildings surrounded by a big green area. The Anhui Provincial Paleontological Fossils Museum and the Anhui Provincial New Museum are already built. RTA-Office was involved in the design of the third one, the Anhui Provincial Art Museum. Located in a new politic and cultural district in Heifei, China, the new building will occupy the southwest corner of the park. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Sponsored by Cannon Design, the ‘(un) Made in China’ Exhibition will be taking place April 20 – June 20 at the ide@s gallery in Shanghai, China.Thirty years of unprecedented growth have transformed China’s built environment and given it the reputation as a land of opportunity for architects today. While much attention – and some criticism – has been focused on major completed works, little is known of those projects that disappear, fizzle out, or sit abandoned in spite of the rich tradition within architecture of both celebrating and criticizing unbuilt work. “(un) Made in China” seeks to bring light to these could-have-been-transformative projects and the experiences they produced. At its heart is a series of interviews conducted with 12 international architecture practices, which generate a wealth of interesting, insightful, and often humorous accounts and accompanying these are architectural models and images of the unrealized projects. For more information, please visit here.
The proposal for the New Building for the Nantes’ Conservatory & the Pole of Higher Learning Performing Arts by RAUM + l’Escaut proposes to open the different practices to the city. Dance studios and music classrooms create a perception of artistic practices from the outside and make it readable within this new cultural center of the Nantes Island. Beyond the shared nature of the equipment, transdisciplinary practices will be offered by a set of situations that offer the linking of different disciplines and will thus create a direct link between the building and operation of contemporary pedagogies relating to higher education. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Drawing from creative minds of Guillermo Bernal, Eric Ameres, Zackery Belanger, and Seth Edwards, and with the support of Smartgeometry, Grimshaw Architects, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute‘s Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Manta represents the potential of multidisciplinary design. that required expertise in architecture, fabrication, interactive technology, and acoustics. This combination drove the assembly of the design team, who came together for the first time from disparate careers and backgrounds. The result could only be achieved with a holistic design approach: all team members worked together on all aspects of Manta. More images and the team’s description after the break.
Taking place at the Center for Architecture in New York April 16 from 6-8pm, the ‘Documenting Your Work in a Digital Age: An Interactive Discussion’ will be an informal panel discussion put on by AIA New York focused on the range of digital tools currently in use to describe and define architecture. The discussion will range from architectural photography to other forms of digital communication, 3D display, and user experience design. Presenters, including Peter Aaron, Sam Travis Ewen, and Matthew Bannister, will integrate ideas about how to optimize digital content so that it can be easily found and viewed online by target audiences. To register and for more information, please visit here.
Coinciding with the exhibition Alturas de Macchu Picchu: Martín Chambi – Álvaro Siza at work on view at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) for an extended run until 29 April 2012, Pritzker prize-winning architect Álvaro Siza will give a not-to-be-missed lecture on Thursday 26 April 2012 at 7 pm at the CCA. The event is a rare opportunity to hear the preeminent architect speak in person. Siza’s lecture discusses his design development of the Iberê Camargo Museum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, completed in 2008 and noted for its sculptural volumes and tight integration with a coastal escarpment. As with all of Siza’s projects, hand sketches play a key role in the design process, from massing studies to fine-tuning details. For more information, please visit here.
The MAS (Museum by the river), a must seen building itself, is currently exhibiting the Founder Pavilions, which give curious spectators a look at the here and now and into the future. In close cooperation with the Founders, Crepain Binst Architecture carefully designed a sophisticated setting symbolizing the unique character and essence of each Founder. Still, every pavilion is an added value to the whole MAS-experience. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The proposal for the Kyiv Urban Wildlife Park by Katya Larina, Yevgeniya Pozigun, Irina Klixbull, and Roman Pomazan responds to what the place means for the thousands of people who cross the area which is nestled between two fast developing banks. Therefore, the design becomes a development of a decision-making instrument which is intended to guide the future development of Kyiv Islands. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) is launching the 2012 program to stimulate curatorial opportunities for students and young professionals: the Young Curator Program and the Power Corporation of Canada Curatorial Internships Program. The Young Curator Program offers the opportunity to propose and curate a project on the contemporary debate in architecture, urbanism, and landscape design, from exhibition in the octagonal gallery or online, publications, seminar, series of events and more, during a residency of 3 months at the CCA. The Power Corporation of Canada Curatorial Internships Program encourages students and recent graduates in design disciplines, arts and humanities to become acquainted with the CCA’s collection, exhibition, and research programs through an internship of 6 to 9 months in Montréal.