Unbuilt: The Latest Architecture and News

While Moshe Safdie may be more well known for the bold forms defining his portfolio of built projects—ranging from the National Gallery of Canada and the horizontal Raffles City Chongqing to the iconic Habitat 67—the architect considers his unbuilt works as important, if not more. Safdie ponders the role of these projects and more in PLANE-SITE’s latest addition to the series Time-Space-Existence.

A speculative project, the “New York Super Slender” created by RB Systems, is a futuristic skyscraper that presents a potential new tower typology. With ever-diminishing land space in major cities and a vastly growing population, the project rises to the challenge of optimizing occupancy in a constrained and dense city center.

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Sou Fujimoto and Coldefy & Associés Architects Urban Planners’ proposal for a pale sweeping canopy enclosing a stacked glazed volume was among the four finalists for the new Palais de justice in Lille, France organized by the Public Agency for Justice’s Real Estate (APIJ). Though the competition drew 139 international proposals, from which OMA was ultimately selected, Fujimoto and Coldefy & Associés' graceful structure was designed to house the high and district courts as well as public spaces within a facility in dialogue with its natural surroundings.

See the full proposal below.

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An international team of young architects based in Copenhagen have won first prize for their proposal ‘Finnskogens Hus’ in a competition for a new Museum of Forest Finn Culture in Svullrya, Norway.

The fourth largest architectural competition in Norway, the new museum aims to inform and educate visitors about the Forest Finns, Finnish migrants who settled in Swedish and Norwegian forests in the late 16th to 17th centuries.

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Videos

The Vietnamese government has approved Chapman Taylor's Mui Dinh Ecopark for the east coast of Vietnam. Covering 1.4 million square meters, the extensive site contains 6 resort hotels and a boutique hotel, 500 ocean-facing villas, a theme park, casino, beach club and mountain clubhouse.

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An adaptive reuse project by P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S is currently under construction in North Hollywood, California. The project transforms an existing warehouse into a dynamic medical campus with Urgent Care, Elderly Daycare, Surgical Centre, Physical Therapy, Imaging Centre, Medical offices, café and a small shop.

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The Kharayeb Archaeological Museum (KAM) was designed by Shiogumo in the agricultural lands of the coastal village Kharayeb, in the south of Lebanon. The site-specific museum was commissioned to preserve and enhance the historical, cultural, and public significance by the directors of the archeological mission and site, Dr. Ida Oggiano (Istituto di Studi sul Mediterraneo Antico of CNR, Italy) and Dr. Wissam Khalil (Lebanese University).

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The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles (AIA|LA) just announced the winners of their 2017 Design Awards honoring Los Angeles based architects and architecture. The ceremony took place Monday, October 30th, at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, recognizing each of the winners.

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EFFEKT's 45 meters above the trees spiraling observation tower, which is being built one hour south of Copenhagen, will offer 360-degree panoramic views across the surrounding forest of Gisselfeld Kloster, Haslev. The preserved forest distinguishes itself by its hilly landscape with lakes, wetlands, and creeks.

EFFEKT's spiraling observation tower, which is being built one hour south of Copenhagen

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C. F. Møller’s design to interconnect and root the campus within the city wins VIA University College in Horsens, Denmark. The proposed 30,000 square meters proposal and 5,000 square meters Innovation House was selected amongst three strong projects, according to the adjudicators’ report in a forward-thinking scheme that develops a strong dialogue between the academic and urban spaces.

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Since the site was acquired in 2016, New York-based architects CetraRuddy, known for the iconic Manhattan tower One Madison, have been working on what is likely to be an icon of its own, 64 Prince Arthur. The point where The Annex and Yorkville neighborhoods meet in Toronto marks Adi Development Group and Forgestone Capital’s newest project, as well as Adi's first in Toronto. The initial renderings of the project show the commitment by the development team and CetraRuddy to making a statement on the skyline, “an iconic legacy project."

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Lendager Group have released drawings and renderings of Stedsans in the Woods, a farming development currently in progress in the deep Swedish wilderness. A collaboration with restaurant owners Mette Helbæk and Flemming Hansen, the project will feature a permaculture farm, restaurant, and lodging. A focus on sustainability and living off the landscape drives both the architecture and the Stedsans brand, who stress the idea of ‘giving more than we take.’ Located in Bohult, Sweden, the development offers visitors an escape from the city with opportunities for fresh dining and connecting with nature.

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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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Ziya Imren Architects has released its plans for Re-Naturing the Kizilirmak in Turkey, a new eight-kilometer-long urban design project around the Kizilirmak River. As the longest inland river in Turkey, the Kizilirmak, also known as the Red River, “has been regarded as a hard edge to the city due to access and safety concerns.” After recent municipal advancements, many areas around the river have been opened to a design competition with the goal of integrating the riverfront into the existing city fabric.

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China-based firm EID Architecture has been selected as the winner of a design competition for a mixed-use development, entitled Longfor Phase IV, in Chongqing, China. Designed as an exploration of vertical urbanism on a high-density scope, the project is composed of a “single tower and associated podium integrated as an assembled massing of stacked box-like volumes.”

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Cannon Design has unveiled its proposal for a mixed-use Cancer Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Originally envisioned as a “private hospital serving patients that can afford a high quality of health care,” the project transformed into a partnership between the public and private sector after preliminary feasibility studies determined the price of the site to be prohibitively high.

Thus, the project expanded to become a mixed-use complex with ownership shared between socially minded city government and private investors.

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SPOL Architects’ First Hotel OSL, a hotel near the newly extended Oslo Airport, has received planning approval after a unanimous vote in the Jessheim City Council. Designed to be a destination in itself, the hotel will be an environmentally friendly oval shape, featuring 300 rooms and a large atrium for sports activities.

Acting as a “meeting place for globe trotters,” the hotel aims to become a shared space for shared experiences for travelers.

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Mecanoo has unveiled the designs for the new Ede Wageningen Train Station in the city of Ede in the Netherlands, after winning the competition for the design of the project in 2014. As a gateway to the Veluwe National Park, the transport hub is designed to support future expansion in response to growth in passenger numbers.

Inspired by the local Veluwe landscape—its topography, typologies, and existing buildings and monuments—the Station building is nestled in the slopes of the moraine between the Veluwe Massif and the Gelderse Valley.

The wooden clock tower and roof of the project serve as the station’s hallmark. Consisting of a series of wooden triangles, the roof cascades over the bicycle parking, retail space, and other station facilities, ending as the overhang of the main entrance and connecting all quadrants of the hub in a uniform manner.

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