Singapore has emerged as a global design center. As a city-state and island country in Southeast Asia, the Lion City is home to a new class of high-rise buildings, gardens and iconic landmarks. While the design world is familiar with structures like the Safdie's Jewel Changi Airport or OMA's Interlace, Singapore has also built a range of new public and civic buildings alongside extensive land reclamation projects.
By now an architectural classic, Safdie’s Habitat ’67 represents a highly influential vision for a community-oriented, nature-infused urban housing model, and at the same time, a critical example of the possibilities of prefabrication. Fifty years after the design of Habitat ’67, Safdie is still exploring this vision of urban living, further developing the concept with projects such as Altair Residences, Qorner Tower and Habitat Qinhuangdao. Rooted in the architect’s motto - “for everyone a garden”, the new projects capitalise on outdoor terraces, natural light and ventilation, as well as communal spaces.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has announced plans for a major expansion by Safdie Architects in Arkansas. The new addition will increase the size of the current facilities by 50 percent, adding nearly 100,000 square feet to the 200,000-square-foot facility. The expansion will showcase the museum's growing collection and provide space for educational and outreach initiatives, cultural programming, and community events.
A new webcast and podcast series, Design Disruption, has been launched by architectural writer Sam Lubell and social entrepreneur Prathima Manohar. In a partnership with ArchDaily, the first episode today at 11 am (EST) on ArchDaily, YouTube and Facebook. This episode explores high density housing with guests Moshe Safdie, founder of Safdie Architects, and Ma Yansong, founder of MAD architects. The goal of the series is to provide an international perspective on disruptive issues with guests from different continents.
Design:ED Podcast is an inside look into the field of architecture told from the perspective of individuals that are leading the industry. This motivational series grants unique insight into the making of a successful design career, from humble beginnings to worldwide recognition. Every week, featured guests share their personal highs and lows on their journey to success, that is sure to inspire audiences at all levels of the industry. Listening to their stories will provide a rare blueprint for anyone seeking to advance their career, and elevate their work to the next level.
In this episode, host Aaron Prinz speaks with Chris Mulvey, Managing Principal of Safdie Architects. Chris provides the podcast with an inside look into the design of Raffles City Chongqing, what it is like to work side-by-side with Moshe Safdie, and the firm’s unique approach to architecture as a global design firm.
Safdie Architects’ entry for the Abrahamic Family House competition located in the Saadiyat Island Cultural District, in Abu Dhabi, brings together a mosque, a synagogue, and a church within a shared public park.
Designed by BIG, in collaboration with Allied and Westbank, KING Toronto portrays architecture’s ability to create a community and meet the challenges faced by society nowadays. Located in Canada’s King Street West neighborhood, the project is a direct response to the context.
Safdie Architects has completed construction of the world's tallest indoor waterfall in Singapore's Jewel Changi Airport. Featuring a lush indoor forest and a green trail of airport amenities, the Jewel Changi Airport was designed to reinvent the concourse as a public attraction. The project was built with a torus-shaped glass dome the includes an oculus at its center. Dubbed the Rain Vortex, the oculus allows water to cascade into the airport.
Safdie Architects have announced an expansion to the Marina Bay Sands Resort in Singapore. Linking to the existing resort and waterfront development, the project takes cues from the original three hotel towers completed in 2011. Safdie Architects will expand the existing resort with a new stand-alone hotel tower with about 1,000 suites and its own sky roof and swimming pool, as well as a 15,000-seat music arena.
Safdie Architects have unveiled details of their proposed corporate headquarters for Surbana Jurong in Singapore. The scheme seeks to reflect the mission of Surbana Jurong (Singapore’s leading architecture, urban design, and infrastructure firm) of characterizing Singapore as the “Garden City.” Located on a previously undeveloped site, the campus will “integrate harmoniously with its natural landscape” while also offering over 740,000 square feet of space for the firm’s 4000 employees. The scheme marks the first initiative for the Safdie Surbana Jurong joint venture, which was established in 2017 to develop innovative and iconic projects in Asia-Pacific.
The scheme manifests as a series of treehouse-like pavilions united by a central pedestrian “street,” all shaped by a careful examination of, and respect for, the site’s existing trees and unique flora. The result is a distinctive network of offices embedded within surrounding parkland, with the glazed pedestrian street interweaving interior and exterior landscapes.
Moshe Safdie has been named the laureate for the 2019 Wolf Prize for Architecture. The award recognizes a winner in either painting, music, sculpture, or architecture. As one of Israel’s most prestigious international awards, the prize is bestowed upon luminaries for their accomplishments in advancing science and art for the benefit of humanity. The jury cited Safdie’s exemplary career motivated by the social concerns of architecture and his formal experimentation.
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the massive production of architecture today. Scroll through ArchDaily for more than a minute and even we'd forgive you for losing track of it all. But what seems like an endless scroll of architectural production doesn't quite fit with the popular movements surrounding resource sharing and community.
Hidden among the mass production that has defined architecture in the last century is a germ - one that seems to be marching to the forefront of practice today. More and more designers seem to be taking on locally-focused and/or adaptive reuse works. Award shortlists today highlight not icons by recognizable names, but sensitive international works that are notable for their process as much as their product.
The common image of the architect may be of one obsessed with ego and newness, but practice today doesn't bear that out as much as it used to. This week's news touched on issues of reduction, reuse, and a radical rethink what architecture is in the 21st century.
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The first Brazilian project by Safdie Architects has broken ground in Sao Paolo's Morumbi neighborhood on November 6. Developed in partnership with Perkins+Will, The Albert Einstein Education and Research Center is part of the Albert Einstein hospital complex.
The new center, named Campus Cecilia and Abram Szajman, will be one of the most advanced institutions in Latin America for medical studies. It will feature innovations in learning methods and technologies, as well as flexible research laboratories capable of adapting to the advancement of hospital techniques.
While Moshe Safdie may be more well known for the bold forms defining his portfolio of built projects—ranging from the National Gallery of Canada and the horizontal Raffles City Chongqing to the iconic Habitat 67—the architect considers his unbuilt works as important, if not more. Safdie ponders the role of these projects and more in PLANE-SITE’s latest addition to the series Time-Space-Existence.
Currently under construction in Chongqing, China, Moshe Safdie's Raffles City Chongqing features an extraordinary engineering feat of erecting a 300 meter long “horizontal skyscraper” above four 250 meter high towers. An extensive urban district set at the meeting point between the Yangtze and Jialing rivers once constructed Raffles City Chongqing will hold the world record of the highest sky bridge linking the towers.
Last week, Boise City Council unanimously approved world-renowned Safdie Architects to lead the local design team for the new cultural and civic center in downtown Boise. The center will expand the main library and bring it into the 21st century as well as becoming the new home for Boise Department of Arts & History that will house a performing arts venue for 400 capacity, gallery, and retail space.
