Studio Gang has been selected to design next year’s installation of the Summer Block Party at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. The temporary exhibition will be the latest in the Museum’s annual series, after this year’s ICEBERGS by James Corner Field Operations, and previous installations like Snarkitecture’s The BEACH in 2015, and Bjarke Ingels Group’s BIG Maze in 2014.
Maison Edouard François, in partnership with ABC Architectes, has won the competition for the requalification of the former Ray Stadium into housing, landscaped gardens, shops, sports facilities, and parking, beating other competing firms like Herzog & de Meuron and Rudy Riciotti.
Located in Nice, France, the project aims to provide its swiftly growing neighborhood with a “new green lung” by mimicking the form of a vegetated hill and incorporating elements of classic Niçois architecture like white stone and wood. The reinvented stadium becomes a bridge between the urban and natural landscapes, linking new constructions of the Boulevard Gorbella with the new Ray Park.
TREDJE NATUR, AART Architects, and Arup have teamed up for a competition proposal to redesign Kronløbsøen, an island development marking the transition between port and city in Nordhavn, Copenhagen. Composed of 30,000 square meters of housing, six water-rooms, a houseboat colony, harbor bath, and multi-story underwater parking, the project aims to create an island celebrating all aspects of harbor life.
Taking into account the local port’s spirit, scale, material palette, and history, Kronløbsøen is “composed of eight porous monoliths shaped by physical connections, visibility, and microclimate, creating the optimal conditions for housing and urban life.”
New-York-based Big Foot Developers have unveiled speculative designs for The Floating Restaurant, a glass cube restaurant that could hang between two smokestacks at the historic Glenwood power plant over the Hudson River in the Yonkers neighborhood of New York City.
With forest on the riverbank, the water below, and green space inside the restaurant, the project aims to blend architecture and nature while having a minimal impact on the view of the site.
From the skyline of the Financial District, to the Flatiron Building, Grand Central Station, the Brooklyn Bridge, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Kyoung Sop Choi from Jansoli Photography has captured New York City in spectacular 8K high-definition resolution. During a winter trip to the City, Choi filmed streets, buildings, and pedestrians in a series of time-lapses to express the colors of New York. Experience the bustle and vibrancy of the city by watching the video, above.
The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has released the 2016 edition of its NCARB by the Numbers, an annual publication that provides insights into the number of U.S. architects, the pools of professionals working towards licensure, and diversity within the profession.
With recent streamlining and increased flexibility of architectural licensing programs, the time it takes to earn a license has decreased for the seventh year in a row, and the average age of licensure has concurrently dropped. On average, it takes just over 13 years to become an architect, from the time a student enrolls in school to the date they receive a license.
From architectural lectures to coverage of local projects and events, The Architectural League of New York presents a wide range of topics through its video series to further its goal of advancing the art of architecture. Through this presentation of some of the world’s most interesting and influential architects, designers, and works, The Architectural League draws international audiences to help shape the future of the build environment by stimulating discussion and provoking design-based thinking.
Watch some of The Architectural League’s videos—like a lecture by Annabelle Selldorf or Bjarke Ingels, documentation of a miniature library installation, or a musical heart sculpture in Times Square—after the break.
Form4 Architecture has won first place at the International Design Awards for its project, Sea Song, which additionally was honored by the Green Good Design Awards presented by The European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design, and Urban Studies, in collaboration with The Chicago Athenaeum’s Museum for Architecture and Design.
Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter and Dualchas Architects have unveiled their plans for the St Kilda Visitor Center, which will be located on a cliff-top site at Geodha Sgoilt in the Uig area of the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Through the project, visitors will be able to experience the drama of St Kilda without physically visiting the famous archipelago, which lies over 50 miles to the southwest.
A triple world heritage site, St Kilda is famous not only for its sea cliffs and marine life but more for the story of how a community survived at the remote location before being evacuated in 1930.
By telling the story of this abandoned community, the current community of Uig hopes to catalyze economic development and reverse the population decline they have been suffering.
Aedas has unveiled the plans for its Chongqing Xinhua Bookstore Group Jiefangbei Book City mixed-use project, a complex of retail, residential, office, and hotel space with a Xinhua Bookstore at its core. Based on an ancient Chinese prose that states “knowledge brings wealth,” the project aims to integrate the concept of a book with the cultural elements of Chongqing to create an interactive commercial space.
Visiting Wortham Fellow at the Rice School of Architecture Michelle Chang has created A,B 1:2, a twisted “half house” installation in the university’s jury room. Built at a half scale, the project superimposes and bisects two simple cubes, playing with light and shade through skewed windows in order to demonstrate how architects and artists think about space, as well as how drawings and renderings translate into physical constructions.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has reported that the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) has remained positive in July for the sixth consecutive month, and tenth out of the last twelve months as demand across all project types has continued to increase. The July ABI score was 51.5, down from 52.6 in June, but nonetheless still reflects an increase in design services, as any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings. The new projects inquiry index was 57.5, down from a mark of 58.6 the previous month.
Beatriz Colomina, Professor of Architecture at Princeton, recently gave an interview to Architect Magazine on the current exhibition of her thesis—“Playboy Architecture 1953-1979”—at the Elmhurst Museum in Chicago. Her interest in the correlation between Playboy and architecture began nearly thirty years ago with her exploration on the role of gender and architecture in the work of Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier. From there, she began to observe numerous parallels between Playboy and the world of design.
Earlier this year, we reported that 2016 Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena announced that his practice, ELEMENTAL, released four of their social housing designs available to the public for open source use. A recent article published by Urbanisms in beta discusses what exactly “open source use” means to the architecture world, and how we may see these designs applied to projects in the future.
France-based Tetrarc Architects has revealed their design for the new Conservatory of Rennes in France. Intended to be the cornerstone of a new urban project, the fifty-meter long cubic volume is intersected by “cuts and curves that give it an elegant, sculptural presence.” This cultural facility will bring five programs under one roof, including spaces for musical activities, an auditorium, dance theaters, administration spaces, and an area for the Pont Supérieur Music Department.
LIAG Architects has unveiled their design for a new art storage building. Commissioned by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the aim of the project was to create a large open space, while simultaneously meeting other needs such as protecting art that can't be exposed to daylight, controlling the temperature in certain zones, and using minimum amounts of energy to operate the building.
The American Institute of Architects has launched the second annual I Look Up Film Challenge, which invites architects to produce short documentaries about the impact of architecture. The 2016 Challenge kicked off with a short film on Auburn University’s design-build program known as Rural Studio. The documentary shows how the small town of Newbern, Alabama has been impacted through the program’s design and construction of a new library and fire station. Through a series of short interviews, the film shows the team's design process from early schematic design discussions through the end of construction.
New York-based architecture firm Leong Leong has created an installation for the third annual Sight Unseen OFFSITE exhibition as a part of the citywide NYCxDESIGN festival.
Titled TOPO, the installation was a scaleless environment composed of more than one thousand foam rollers. Collectively, they form a landscape “that is both an intimate sanctuary and an expansive horizon.” The installation was situated in a room of mirrors, giving the effect that it extends indefinitely.
