News: The Latest Architecture and News

Architecture and urban design firm, Farrells, in collaboration with AECOM, have won the competitive tender to design the Singapore terminus of the new Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail.

Sited in Singapore’s “futuristic second Central Business District” of Jurong Lake, the design was conceived as a new civic landmark and a part of the district’s new master plan currently in development by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and a team of consultants led by KCAP Architects & Planners.

While the railway station’s platforms are located below ground, the design aims to create an above-ground focal point that will mark the station as a new international gateway to Singapore.

Bee Breeders has announced the winners of its Archhive: Architecture in Virtual Reality competition, which asked participants to design a virtual exhibition gallery to showcase future Bee Breeders competition winners. In this virtual gallery, visitors would be able to “walk” around and explore the work of selected winners and guest contributors.

The three winners of Archhive: Architecture in Virtual Reality are:

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Urban Agency and Aarhus Arkitekterne have unveiled a proposal for the expansion of the MCH Messecenter in Herning, Denmark’s largest exhibition center. According to the architects, the intent was “to create a strategy that will make the complex a more attractive and coherent structure with a new focal point.”

To achieve this, the design converges two circulation routes at the building’s new point of entry, further complimented by usable art displays and foliage, including green walls. The circular form of the roof defines the event square, with ramps serving as outdoor seating and shelter from inclement weather.

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Woods Bagot’s Shenzhen Hazens Longgang Longteng Mixed-Use project has been rated by the Shenzhen Government as one of the city’s most important projects of 2016. Located in Shenzhen’s Longgang District, the 393,000 square meter site will feature 1,500,000 square meters of gross floor area subdivided into office space, retail space, a shopping mall, residential communities and facilities, and over 90,000 square meters of green and public space.

As a part of the design, the development will rejuvenate a river park area running through the existing site, with the northern bank becoming a commercial and leisure focal point, and the southern bank featuring a community of residential towers connected by retail podiums and green spaces.

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Nashville is set to receive its newest and tallest luxury landmark, in the form of the JW Marriott Hotel, designed by esteemed Miami firm Arquitectonica to be completed in 2018. Situated in the center of downtown, the 33-storey undulating tower will offer expansive views of the surrounding cityscape from a height of 386 feet; one of highest points in the city.

A competition for a new social housing complex in Aarhus, Denmark, has been won by WE Architecture, in collaboration with local practice JWH Arkitekter and commissioned by Ringgaarden, a Danish housing organization.

Titled “Saltholmsgade”, the winning proposal is a reinterpretation of Aarhus’ historical housing typologies along Hjortensgade, creating modern and green communal spaces. The complex consists of 38 individual apartments, offering tenants views of the city through the inclusion of rooftop gardens.

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Envisioning the harbor front as an extension of the city center, “Pargas Maritime Limestone Landscape” designed by the young Danish practice Schauman & Nordgren Architects has been named the winning entry of a waterfront masterplan competition by the City of Pargas, Finland.

The proposal was selected for its “thorough analysis of the city, its history, structure, character, potentials and challenge”, in response to the area’s development as a new residential hub and functional harbor. The competition introduced the notion of maintaining Pargas’ dominant maritime identity, while simultaneously strengthening the city’s character with various urban elements, such as hotels, a beach, saunas, and offices.

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Of all its bells and whistles, the focal point of Herzog and de Meuron’s latest successful endeavor, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, is arguably the central auditorium, as explored in this new article by WIRED. An incredible example of the possibilities of parametric design, the hall is comprised of 10,000 individual acoustic panels that line the walls, ceilings, railings and balconies. Each of the panels consists of one million “cells” of varying dimensions, created to help define the sound within the space.

LOHA (Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects) has recently released Amplified Urbanism, a book about its design methodology, which is “rooted in creating fluid interaction between public and private spaces, emphasizing social and civic connections, and harnessing existing ecological and infrastructural patterns.”

Through this publication, LOHA aims to present projects it has developed based on these principles, as well as to provoke discussion about issues in Los Angeles and the wider architectural field.

In order to highlight the book “as a creative process that begins in the studio, and when implemented in the built environment, catalyzes positive connections,” LOHA has collaborated with filmmakers Spirit of Space on a short film.

via GIPHY

After its opening in September last year, the now completed Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture can be seen in full swing, thanks to this new photoset taken by photographer Brad Feinknopf. Designed by Freelon Adjaye Bond / SmithGroup JJR (a collaboration which included Perkins + Will's Phil Freelon, David Adjaye from Adjaye Associates, Davis Brody Bond, and SmithGroup JJR), the 420,000 square foot building houses numerous galleries and collections, as well as a theater. Maintaining a strong connection to America’s engrained African history and roots through its bronze filigree envelope, the museum asserts a subtle presence in the landscape, coexisting alongside the Washington Monument and National Museum of American History.

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Aedas has unveiled its plans for Nansha Kingboard Free Trade Zone Mixed-Use Project, a new building sited at the starting point of the ancient Maritime Silk Road in Guangzhou, China.

Located on an irregularly shaped plot with views of the Jiaoman River and Phoenix Lake, the 80,762-square-meter building will be composed of a series of stacked geometric blocks in order to create varied silhouettes and capitalize on surrounding views.

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WXY architecture + urban design has unveiled its design for The Peninsula, a five-acre mixed use development for New York City that aims to “create [an] instant [community] with jobs, training, education, and hundreds of affordable apartments.”

Created in conjunction with Body Lawson Associates (BLA) for the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and the Department of Housing and Preservation Development (HPD), the project will feature retail, light industrial, recreational, and residential space—all of which will be affordable—in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx.

Tadao Ando’s first residential building in New York City—152 Elizabeth—has topped out in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood. A collaboration with architect and designer Michael Gabellini of Gabellini Sheppard Associates, as well as developer Sumaida + Khurana, the project will feature Ando’s hallmarks, poured-in-place concrete, burnished, metal, voluminous glass, and a living green wall.

Conceived as an inner sanctuary within downtown Manhattan, the building highlights acoustics as a key consideration, with a façade system and exterior glass enabling a high OITC rating to “ensure a tranquil home environment in the center of this vibrant neighborhood.”

HHF Architects, in collaboration with landscape architects from Westpol, have won a competition with their design for Jardin Métropole, a 30-meter-tall apartment tower and neighboring green space. Located in Biel, Switzerland, the project is expected to become the symbol of the city and contribute to the area’s general enhancement through its angled cube massing and public element.

Based on the theme of a “city garden,” the building will constitute the beginning of a new, park-like passage to Rue du Moulin, and will feature access to gardens with private planting beds, a shared roof terrace, and landscaped loggains.

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Researchers at Princeton University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have discovered that hydroxyapatite, the primary compound found in human teeth and bones, can be used to help preserve the condition of marble, which is prone to cracking and deteriorating as a result of the effects of pollution and the weather.

With ever-increasing rates of chronic and veteran homelessness amongst low-income households, Los Angeles’ pressing demand for affordable social housing is being addressed by Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects, with their design of MLK1101 Supportive Housing, which has just begun construction.

Working in collaboration with non-profit Clifford Beers Housing, LOHA’s intention is to focus on health and community within a comfortable environment. This is achieved through a number of strategies, including exposing the building towards the street to integrate the building into the neighborhood creating strong community ties.

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BAD. Built by Associative Data, in collaboration with MARZ Studio, has released the plans for its newest project, No. 5, a mixed-use space in the heart of Jonah in Beirut City, Lebanon. Designed with parametric studies in mind, the project takes into account view orientations, solar radiation, wind infiltration, and program through its various levels of massing.

Sited next to the prominent Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium on one of the busiest corners in the area, the building is “very present and visible from the street level, hence the proposal’s pixelated massing.”

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