News: The Latest Architecture and News

Designed by Düsseldorf-based interior architecture practice Falkenberg Innenarchitektur, House Rheder II is designed as a serene retreat, shedding inessential features and integrating itself within the natural landscape. Framing views of the idyllic greenery of East Westfalia and gentle waters of the river Nethe, the project aims to dissolve the chaos of modern life.

"In a time of excess we have built a house that makes the essentials tangible," said the client. "It should not be big and important, but small and correct."

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Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, Germany has opened after 16 years of planning and construction, which was held back by financial and legal issues. The grand opening of the concert hall, taking place on January 11 and 12, 2017, features inaugural concerts and a light display on the façade of the building.

As Hamburg’s newest cultural destination, the building was inaugurated by German Federal President Joachim Gauck, Mayor of Hamburg Olaf Scholz, architect Jacques Herzog from Herzog & de Meuron, and General and Artistic Director Christoph Lieben-Seutter.

More than 4,500 guests from Germany and abroad will take part in the opening concerts in the Grand Hall and Recital Hall today and tomorrow, including Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, various high-ranking political and cultural leaders from around the world, and 1,000 visitors who won tickets to the event, out of 220,000 entrants from 73 countries.

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Construction has begun on Foster + Partners’ Varso Tower, which will become Poland’s tallest tower upon completion. As a part of the larger Varso complex, which will include three additional buildings, the 53-story tower will reach 310 meters in height and will span 140,000 square meters.

The tower is expected to become a new hotspot for business, residents, and tourists, as it will house flexible office space, two restaurants, shops, cafés, covered internal streets, and an observation deck, which at 230 meters will become one of the highest in Europe. From here, building users, locals, and tourists will experience views of Warsaw’s skyline and the metropolitan area.

Architect Evgeny Didorenko has released his conceptual proposal, Thames River Museum, which aims to improve connectivity on the North Bank of the Thames River and create an exciting museum space in London.

The Thames Museum is currently a museum concept without permanent accommodation. Though not officially connected to the Thames Museum, Didorenko’s work suggests a location and design for the project that would not only work with the museum’s context, but that would also solve existing issues on the riverbank.

Therefore, the proposal’s site is an underused portion of London’s North Bank—Queen’s Quay. Historically, Queen’s Quay served as a transportation hub to deliver goods to city residents from the sea, but now lies abandoned, and stays dry during periods of low tide, when water levels drop up to eight meters.

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Aedas has released its design for Gmond International Building, a representative regeneration project located in the old town area of Shenzhen, China. The 200-meter super high-rise building is inspired by the traditional form of Chinese totem bamboo, which symbolizes prosperity and moral integrity.

With nearly 60,000 square meters of gross floor area, the building will house the headquarters for Tellus-Gmond, Grade 5A lettable office spaces, and a jewelry-trading center.

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Mecanoo has unveiled its design to transform The Soestdijk Estate into Eden Soestdijk, “an experimental garden for a sustainable society and a paradise destination for all” in The Netherlands. In an effort to become an educational tool for environmental awareness, the project aims to make a significant contribution to meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“The world is facing pressure from increasingly larger and more complex problems when it comes to water, food, climate and energy,” said Anton Valk, chairman of the Eden Soestdijk foundation. “Eden Soestdijk wants to tackle these problems and contribute to a more sustainable society by stimulating and inspiring visitors to change their behaviour in a positive way.”

An architectural greenhouse behind the palace gardens will be the centerpiece of the project, and will house an interactive exhibition focusing on topics like circularity, ecological balance, and social aspects of sustainability.

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Daniel Valle Architects has been awarded first prize in the public competition to design a kindergarten and senior welfare center in Seoul, South Korea, with its project, Maebong Daycare Center.

Located in the neighborhood of Oksu-dong, the 700-square-meter Center is designed around the idea of shifting the scale of the building, so that children feel more comfortable. For example, the massing of the space is broken down into five units that utilize various colors, geometries, and materials to emphasize smaller units within the whole.

“Interior spaces are designed considering both the adult and the children size.  Classrooms and other spaces are provided with smart storage solutions to maximize the usage of space and flexibility. A 'thick wall' will contain most of the items needed in the classroom as well as provide exercise and fun features.”

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Videos

BAD. Built by Associative Data’s Associative Data Research has collaborated with Green Studios to create Kinetic Green Canvas, a prototype Green-Art Installation for building façades.

The Canvas consists of individual modules, each of which is a cube made from steel framework, back paneling, L-shaped jambs, secondary structure, waterproofing board, irrigation piping, Green Studios hydroponic skin, and plants. These layered components are assembled on four sides of the cube module, with a motor and water pipe attachment that circulates water throughout.

Imaginative Italian illustrator and architect Federico Babina has unveiled his latest series, ARCHITALE, “a tribute to the fairytale universe where the architectures are reinvented to accommodate the protagonists of the story.”

Through his illustrations, Babina imagines 17 structures that dance between reality and fantasy, with each architectural detail revealing information about the characters and story of the respective fairytale.

Santa-Monica-based Steven Christensen Architecture has won the 2016 AAP American Architecture Prize for Recreational Architecture, with its design for the Liepāja Thermal Bath and Hotel in Latvia.

In an exploration of the role of the dome throughout the architectural history of public baths, the project utilizes dome shapes—both upright and inverted “as a rhizomatic formal and organizational embodiment of a contemporary public that is democratic, horizontally empowered, and increasingly networked” explained the architects. 

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In somewhat of a departure from its usual parametric, experimental work, Margot Krasojević Architects has created a recycled, 3D printed LED light, in an investigation of the importance of reappropriating plastics. The project—Lace LED—however, aligns with the firm’s exploration of renewable energy and environmental issues within architecture and product design.

Printed with post-consumer plastics like synthetic polymer packaging from takeout food containers and 3D printer off-cuts, Lace LED is a light diffuser with fractal pattern configurations resembling a piece of woven lace.

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Sinan Günay and Nurhayat Oz of Superspace have won second prize in the MetsäWood competition, The City Above the City, which called for architects to design wooden extensions to city centers. With their project, Colliding Lines and Lives, the team designed a series wooden housing modules to be appended to a fourth-century Roman aqueduct archway in Istanbul.

Built by the Roman emperor Valens, the archway was an important water supply for the Romans and Ottomans but later lost its significance and functionality with technological and infrastructural advancements, leaving it an unutilized landmark in the city.

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As he ends his years of service at the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), Iñaki Ábalos has given a Walter Gropius Lecture, customary for departing chairs.

Entitled “Architecture for the Search for Knowledge,” the lecture is named for Ábalos’ mantra by the same words, which is an aphorism written by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Throughout the event, Ábalos delved into various mixed-use typologies, each of which is in some way related to the basic typology of the medieval monastery.

Highlights of the lecture include:

PIARENA has won the Archchel-2020 competition to create a Congress Hall for BRICS and SCO events in central Chelyabinsk, Russia along the Miass River. Separated into two parts by the river, the site will additionally host business meetings, public events, and exhibitions.

In order to emphasize the curve of the river, the new congress hall building will be a solid volume spanning across the river, rectangular in footprint, but curved in a sail shape above.

Rising up to 61 and 150 meters, the building is hoped to become a new urban landmark, as well as a pedestrian crossing over the river.

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BAD.Built by Associative Data has released its designs for BARCELONA, a new mixed-use development on the Mediterranean coast of Beirut, Lebanon at the Ramlet El Bayda waterfront.

Spanning 18,000 square meters, the project will serve as “a new gastronomic experience, embracing the Mediterranean from a remarkable vantage point,” through a clustered development featuring restaurants, coffee shops, lounges, and event spaces.

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Morphosis Architects’ Hanking Center Tower in Shenzhen, China has recently topped out, with the 62^nd floor now in place. Defined by its detached core configuration, the building positions its primary core 9 meters outside its main body, connected by a series of sky bridges and braces, in order to increase flexibility and light penetration into the floor plate.

Two secondary cores in the body of the building provide structural reinforcement and house private elevators for VIP users, as well as freight elevators and mechanical services.

In an effort to serve global professionals and bring density to the suburb of Nanshan, the tower will feature flexible office space on its open floor plate, anchored by high-end retail and dining.

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London’s Foster + Partners will likely design a flagship Apple store for the historic Carnegie Library at Mount Vernon Square in Washington, D.C., reports The Architect’s Newspaper. According to Events DC, Apple will lease a portion of the 63,000-square-foot building’s ground floor and basement levels in a ten-year lease, sharing the space with its existing tenant, The Historical Society of Washington.

Iran-based BMDesign Studios has unveiled Concave Roof, a double-roof system with steep slopes resembling a bowl for the purpose of rainwater collection in arid climates like Iran, where a lack of water could lead to mass displacement in the future.

Because precipitation in this area is less than one-third of that of the world average, and evaporation is more than three times higher than the world average, the concave roof system is designed to “help [make] even the smallest quantities of rain [flow down] the roof and eventually coalesce into bigger drops, just right for harvesting before they evaporate” explained the architects. 

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