SO-IL: The Latest Architecture and News

The Chicago Architecture Biennial and it's artistic directors, Johnston Marklee, have revealed a collection of Special Projects designed to harness the curatorial vision of the event—entitled Make New History—and bring it to a number of significant landmarks in the city and in it's surrounding area. Featuring a SO-IL and Ana Prvački collaboration, a Francois Perrin installation, a new performance artwork by Gerard & Kelly at the Farnsworth House, photographs by James Welling, and films by Gerard & Kelly, the projects will inhabit some Chicago's greatest "architectural gems."

CANactions seeks to enhance the creation of places and communities in Ukraine where people love to live and work. CANactions integrates the most relevant world experience in the sphere of architecture and urbanism to educate and inspire responsibility active change makers. For this moment CANactions is a member of Future Architecture Platform.

Cities around the world are facing a shortage of attractive housing options that use resources in a responsible, environmentally-positive manner. Looking to solve this challenge, New York-based firm SO-IL has teamed up with car manufacturer MINI to create MINI LIVING – Breathe, a “ forward-thinking interpretation of resource-conscious, shared city living within a compact footprint.

Now on display at the Milan Salone del Mobile 2017, the prototype structure is constructed of a translucent fabric membrane stretched across a modular metal frame that rises vertically from a previously unused 50-square-meter urban plot. Six rooms and a roof garden provide the space for flexible programmatic arrangements, adhering to the MINI LIVING principles of “Creative use of space” and “Minimal footprint.”

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The Chicago Architecture Biennial has announced the list of participants invited to contribute to the event’s second edition, which will be held from September 16 to January 7, 2018 in Chicago. More than 100 architecture firms and artists have been selected by 2017 artistic directors Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, founders of Los Angeles–based Johnston Marklee, to design exhibitions that will be displayed at the Chicago Cultural Center and throughout the city.

“Our goal for the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial is to continue to build on the themes and ideas presented in the first edition,” explained Johnston and Lee. “We hope to examine, through the work of the chosen participants, the continuous engagement with questions of history and architecture as an evolutionary practice.”

The Architectural Review (AR) has announced the shortlist of 9 female architects in the running for its 2016 Woman Architect of the Year and the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture awards. This year’s candidates come from a wide range of backgrounds, operating in UK, Mexico, France, the USA and Canada, and have been lauded by the AR for their “projects demonstrating exceptional design and awareness of geographical and political contexts.”

What influence do art and space have on the contemporary architectural design process? MoMA's most recent exhibition on architecture and design Conceptions of Space strives to answer this question. Themed under the umbrella of spatial relations, Curator Pedro Gadanho ruminates on the subject in a broad and philosophical sense. The exhibition delves into the topic using an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating research from French philosopher Michel Foucault on the subject of the expanded field. The exhibition aims to explore the relationship between the development of space and its deep-seated roots in the creative arts.

UPDATE: SO-IL has broken ground on UC Davis' new campus art museum. Completion is slated for 2016.

The University of California, Davis has selected emerging New York-based practice SO-IL to design a new campus’ art museum, which is envisioned to be a “regional center of experimentation, participation and learning.” SO-IL, selected from three finalists following an intensive five-month design competition, will collaborate with San Francisco-based Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and national construction firm Whiting-Turner to complete the project.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi believes the winning design has turned the traditional notion of museum design inside out, as SO-IL’s concept will engage visitors with a sequence of interconnected interior and exterior spaces that are defined by curved glass walls and capped with a 50,000 square foot steel canopy. At night, the “Grand Canopy” will illuminate from within, establishing a new focal point for the campus and beckoning drivers along Interstate 80 between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe.

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Four international teams have unveiled their shortlisted proposals in the final leg of a highly anticipated competition to design a new “cultural hotspot” on the edge of the Rhine. ArtA, the “catchy” new name of what was previously known as “The Arts Cluster,” is part of a larger redevelopment project for the City of Arnhem which aims to reconnect the southern district of Rijnboog with its waterfront and establish a new home for the Focus Film Theatre and Museum Arnhem.

A sneak peak of the shortlisted proposals, after the break...

UPDATE: OMA has reportedly withdrawn from the competition.

The city of Arnhem, the Netherlands, has revealed an impressive shortlist of five firms who will compete to design a new cultural building for the city, The Arts Cluster, which will combine the Museum Arnhem and Focus Filmtheater Arnhem. 

The five firms selected from 44 entries are: Architecture Studio HH with SO-IL (United States); ABT with the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG, Denmark) with Allard Architecture; Kengo Kuma & Associates(Japan); NL Architects; and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).

Emerging Voices is an award developed by the Architecture League of New York that annually selects eight practitioners in a juried portfolio selection. Award recipients are selected from the disciplines of architecture, landscape design and urbanism and display the sensibility of the profession in light of the larger issues related to the built environment. This year's selection includes: SO-IL, PRODUCTORA, Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects, MASS Design Group, graciastudio , dland studio, DIGSAU, and cao | perrot Studio.

Details after the break.