HyBrid Architecture + Assembly‘s building system, coined “Cargotecture”, offers a sustainable, modular and affordable alternative to traditional construction methods. The Seattle-based architecture and general contracting firm recently created the first cargo container buildings for Seattle in the design district of the Georgetown area.
More images and more about the cargo buildings after the break.
Architects: Jorge Hernandez de la Garza Location: Coyoacan, Mexico Design Team: Rodrigo Ambriz, Michael Smith, Erik Cosio Project Year: 2009 Images: Jorge Hernandez de la Garza
Amidst financial buildings and high-rise apartments, Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut has redefined the conventional skyscraper. His 132 story complex for the south edge of Roosevelt Island addresses the pressing need for environmental and ecological sustainability. This conceptual design focuses on creating a completely self-sustaining organism that not only utilizes solar, wind, and water energies, but also addresses the pending food shortage problem.
More after the break.
Dutch practice, Sponge Architects sent us their latest residencial project: Villa Panorama, where you can “enjoy the country life in a home where your dream landscape reveals itself before your own eyes”, as they say.
See some more images and drawings after the break.
Los Angeles is often portrayed as the example of the car-friendly city. The traditional image of the town is an endless pattern of single family dwellings, interconnected by traffic-clogged freeways, where transit is undeveloped and the air is choked with smog.
However, Los Angeles is changing. The city’s Transport Authority has planned in the last years a series of measures aiming to improve quality of life through improving transit and walking and providing alternative to car commuting.
The success of green roofs has driven Landscape Architects and Architects to explore alternative exterior and interior applications of green planting technology, such as green walls, and green screens. Vertical planting presents challenges to proper irrigation and climate control, requiring innovative solutions. This panel of experts will discuss the relevance of green walls and how can we improve their applications.
New York-based architects Perkins Eastman sent us their new project, 303 East 33rd Street, the first green development in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. It’s a 12-story, 165,00 sf building. They worked on the exterior while Studio V Architecture worked on the interior design. They also worked with Archipelago on the landscape of the roof garden.
More images and the architect’s proposal, after the break.
Developed by Toll Brothers, Inc. and The Kibel Companies; 303 East 33rd Street is the first green development in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. Designed by top ranked green architecture and design firm Perkins Eastman, the LEED Certified development is a fresh interpretation of the full- and half-block residential complexes built during the last century, and reflects the mix of architectural diversity in the area.
Daniel R. Brenna Jr. of Capital Real Estate Group and architects RMJM unveiled the design for Vista Center, a new LEED Platinum office tower in Trenton, which will be the city’s largest commercial development in decades.
Vista Center is a 25-story, 700,000-square-foot Class A office building planned directly adjacent to the Trenton Transit Center, the second busiest train station on New Jersey’s Northeast Corridor, which runs from Boston to Washington. The transit-oriented development will include 12,000 square feet of ground-level retail, a parking garage for more than 1,140 cars and two public art components – a plaza with a signature sculpture and lobby with a video art installation.
The project is targeting a LEED Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council – the highest sustainability rating offered – which would make it the first Platinum office tower located directly at a Northeast Corridor Hub.
Images after the break.
Steven Holl Architects‘ winning design from the “4 Tower in 1″ competition calls for a quartet of towers to be built around the brand new Shenzhen Stock Exchange and its surrounding plaza.
Max Wallack, a 12 year old from Natick, has just won WGBH’s Design Squad “Trash to Treasure” design contest with his “Home Dome” invention, which is a shelter for the homeless, built with just plastic, wire and packing peanuts. The structure is in the form of a Mongolian yurt and includes a built-in bed.
For his winning design, Max won $10,000, a Dell laptop and a trip to Boston to see how his design becomes real. The “Home Dome” was selected as the winning innovation out of more than 1,000 contest submissions.
Seen at The Design Blog. Watch a video about the winner, after the break.
Texas Tech University’s College of Architecture in conjunction with the American Institute of Architecture Students will host a symposium and workshop April 15-16 that will focus on making its campus more environmentally friendly.
Our green friends at Inhabitat just featured a stunning new development set to break ground this month that will convert a desolate disused sand mine into a thriving environmental preserve and eco-resort. Replete with living walls and a five acre green roof, the development boasts an impressive list of green design elements and is working towards LEED Platinum certification. Now, saying that you’re the “Greenest Eco Resort” is quite a claim, but if the Resort builds out all that they have promised, it really will be the most environmentally friendly resort in the US, and possibly in the world.
The design for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center at the Faliron Delta area in Athens, Greece. The building is being designed by -in my opinion- the master of sustainable architecture: Renzo Piano.
The SNFCC is not an ordinary building, as it will house a very important program: the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera.
This 187,800 sqm project – a private-public endeavor – will have a cost of € $450m, financed entirely by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and once completed in 2015 it will be turned over the Greek State.
There´s only a few images available at the moment, but from the model and sections we can see how the building integrates into the slope of the park, and it´s connected to the sea through a canal parallel to the existing explanade. On this, Piano says: “The Cultural Center’s proximity to water, and the natural warm breezes and light of Athens were particularly inspiring during the design process. It was immediately clear that we must take advantage of all these elements to ultimately design a zero emissions building that expresses movement and energy”.
The roof consists in a series of interconnected photovoltaic cell panels which will cover the structure’s needs, taking advantage of the pure “green” solar and wind energy, in a similar way to the California Academy of Science.
We´ll keep you posted on the future development of this project. More images -courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop- after the break.
Sketchup is, by far, the easiest tool for modeling. Google acquired this software in order to crowd-source the 3D modeling of the earth, since anyone can use it to model their house, school or favourite building. But being simple and fast doesn’t mean it lacks on features.
