Urban Design: The Latest Architecture and News

ZIP & BDX Studio shared with us their proposal for Tianjin Port East Area in China. Their design objective was to underline and continuously take advantage of the duality between nature and architecture, fixed and changing, curve and angle. This is reflected in their chosen geometry as a clearly geometric, mad-made slab floats over the ground, hardly connecting with it. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Department of Unusual Certainties [DoUC] recently completed a submission to the Network Reset, Rethinking the Chicago Emerald Necklace, competition hosted by Mas Studio and the Chicago Architectural Club. Participants were asked to look at the urban scale and propose a framework for the entire boulevard system as well as provide answers and visualize the interventions at a smaller scale that can directly impact its potential users. Through images, diagrams and drawings the work should express what are the soft or hard, big or small, temporary or permanent interventions that can reactivate and reset the Boulevard System of Chicago. DoUC’s proposal focused on filling Chicago’s Emerald Necklace with a framework of posts, beams, ropes and counterweights - to produce a pick-and-choose- method of program management. Images of their entry and a description can be seen after the jump.

The Greek architectural firm StudioDue has shared with us their entry for the city of Campina urban remodeling competition. Additional images and a brief description after the break.

March 8 marked the beginning of voting for the best student architectural project that will revive the Fužine neighborhood in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana. Until March 23, visitors to the competition website can vote for the 30 short-listed projects, selected from among all 363 submitted projects by the international ten-member expert jury. The winning solution will be released on location this summer and announced on March 28. More images and competition description after the break.

Norwegian design team, Eriksen Skajaa Architects has shared with us their urban study for the redevelopment of a former industrial site in Strusshamn, a Norwegian coastal settlement. Follow after the jump for additional images and a brief description by the architects.

+ 3

Landscape Architects: West 8 urban design & landscape architecture and DTAH
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Collaborators: Schollen & Company, Diamond + Schmitt Architects, Arup, Halsall Associates, David Dennis Design, Mulvey + Banani
Client: Waterfront Toronto
Project Area: 3.5 km length
Project Year: 2006–2011
Photographs: Courtesy of West 8

Kate Orff shares her vision of ‘oyster-tecture’ utilizing oysters as an agent for urban change. Focusing on the New York Harbor, Orff, architect and founding principal of Manhattan based studio SCAPE, demonstrates how we can rethink our landscapes, both the green and blue spaces, linking nature and humanity for mutual benefit.

London based architects, mossessian & partners, have shared with us their recent work, Al Barahat Square in the Musheireb development in Doha, Qatar. Additional images and a press release for this new civic space after the jump.

Rotterdam-based office for urban design and landscape architecture West 8, in collaboration with Sener & Gestec, have designed this entry for the Valencia Central Park Competition. Their proposal achieved a place on the competition shortlist. The design presented here is a concept for Parque Central inspired by the Valencian tradition of solid narrative and poetry.

More images and description of the project after the break.

STL Architects shared with us their UNO Master Plan in the Gage Park community on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois. This Master Plan not only offers an opportunity to revitalize the existing neighborhood and make it more vibrant and pedestrian oriented, but it also acts as a catalyst by attracting new business and investments such as educational facilities, a civic center and open green space. More images and architects’ description after the break.

hiddenoffice has submitted their proposal, HyperAlicante, for the Spainish coastal city of Alicante to us here at ArchDaily. Wildly ambitious in scale, see more of this design after the jump as well as a explanatory narrative by the architects.

Woods Bagot Architecture and HOK Planning have worked together to generate the master plan for Langfang Eco-Smart City and shared its announcement with us here at ArchDaily. Additional renderings, watercolors and the official press release after the break.

Fargo 365 was one of three entries into the Downtown Fargo: an Urban In-fill Competition from Philadelphia-based design firm Wallace Roberts and Todd, the design team of David Witham, Douglas Meehan, Anna Ishii, and Hannah Mattheus-Kairy. Their entry was selected as one of two first prize winners. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Site A/S Architects has recently completed a project proposal, Aqua P, which looks to form a solution for the flooding and parking problems in Copenhagen. For more renderings, process diagrams and a description from Site A/S continue after the break.

Earlier in the week, we featured the winning entry for the international architectural competition for the Centre for Promotion of Science. Now, Blok39 Organization has shared with us the remaining winners for the 2010 competition for Belgrade, Serbia. More images and descriptions on the winners after the break.

When we stopped by Steven Holl’s office in New York, Senior Partner Chris McVoy spoke to us about the firm’s latest project in Hangzhou – an International Tourism Complex. The firm has a growing presence in China and, arguably, some of the team’s strongest works (such as their Linked Hybrid and Horizontal Skyscraper) are situated throughout the region. With their most recent win, the firm will redevelop the site of the oxygen and boiler plants in Hangzhou to create a master plan comprised of residential and cultural components.

More about the project, including an video with McVoy, after the break.