U.S.-based firm Sasaki has won the international competition to redesign Suzhou Creek—also known as the Wusong River—in Shanghai, China, which was historically one of the city’s most vital water routes, but which, in recent decades, suffered severe pollution and neglect. After receiving a grant from the Asian Development Bank, the waterway has been cleaned and is now in the process of becoming a new centerpiece for Shanghai.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects has won an international competition for the design of an urban redevelopment plan and high-rise in Stavanger, Norway. Beating out entries from Snøhetta, UNStudio, Dark Arkitekter and Eder Biesel Arkitekter, the winning proposal, “Breiavatnet Lanterna,” features a dynamic scheme to support the proliferation of sustainable and creative work environments throughout the city.
The project encompasses a new public center, the transformation of an existing park and a new 101 meter (331 foot) tall tower that will contain 18,170 square meters (195,580 square feet) of highly-flexible space for offices, restaurants, conferences and exhibitions. Both the ground and top floors of the high-rise will be publicly accessible, ensuring the building will remain an asset for the entire community.
MVRDV with co-architects morePlatz have won a competition to design the masterplan of the Hamburg Innovation Port, a new 70,000 square meter waterfront development that will add to the high-tech hub of Channel Hamburg in Hanse City, Hamburg. The plan for the mixed-use development uses a fusion of existing port typologies and dynamic architectural interventions to create a network of buildings containing hotels, laboratories, research facilities, offices for start-ups and a conference center.
.jpg?1473780126 "A total surface of 70,000m2 will transform the waterways of the Channel Hamburg development, the southern high-tech hub of Germany’s northern metropolis.. Image Courtesy of MVRDV")
.jpg?1473780195 "The roofs of some buildings are partly green and partly used for terraces and solar cells.. Image Courtesy of MVRDV")
North Korea is one of the few countries still under communist rule, and probably the most isolated and unknown worldwide. This is a result of the philosophy of Juche – a political system based on national self-reliance which was partly influenced by principles of Marxism and Leninism.
In recent years though, the country has loosened its restrictions on tourism, allowing access to a limited number of visitors. With his personal photo series “North Korea – Vintage Socialist Architecture,” French photographer Raphael Olivier reports on Pyongyang’s largely unseen architectural heritage. ArchDaily interviewed Olivier about the project, the architecture he captured, and what he understood of North Korea’s architecture and way of life.
EFFEKT and collaborators karres+brands, WTM Engineers, ARUP and ALECTIA have won a competition to transform an industrial waste site into a new vibrant urban district and infrastructural hub in the historic center of the city of Roskilde, Denmark. Beating out seven other invited teams, the winning design will encompass 100,000 square meters of mixed-use development across existing railroad tracks, reuniting the city and “reinventing the station as an integral part of the city center.”
In 2014, Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni won the Syria category of the UN Habitat Mass Housing Competition for a housing scheme she developed for the city of Homs, her hometown. Now over two years later, Thames and Hudson has published her book Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria. Throughout all of these events, al-Sabouni has remained in Syria. As the Guardian puts it: “As bombs fell around her, Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni stayed in Homs throughout the civil war, making plans to build hope from carnage.”
In this TEDSummit video, Al-Sabouni argues “that while architecture is not the axis around which all of human life rotates... it has the power to... direct human activity” She believes that the Old Islamic cities of Syria were once harmonious urban entities which advocated for co-habitation and tolerance through their intertwining. However, she posits that over the last century, beginning with French colonization, the Ancient towns were seen as un-modern and were gradually “improved” with elements of modernity: “brutal unfinished concrete blocks, aesthetic devastation and divisive communities that zoned communities by class, creed, or affluence.” This urban condition, she argues, is what created the conditions for the uprising-turned-civil war.
Felipe Correa’s latest book “Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America” takes us to a region that architects and urban designers typically have neglected—the hinterland. The South American hinterland provides a unique subject of analysis as it has typically been urbanized for its natural resources, which are tethered back to the coastal cities where these resources are either consumed or distributed to global markets. Within this context, the hinterland is viewed as a frontier whose wilderness is to be tamed, put to work, and territorialized through infrastructure and urban design. Beyond the City provides an insightful look into these processes and the unique urban experiments that emerged in South America. Organized by five case studies, Beyond the City is tied together by what Correa has termed “resource extraction urbanism,” which he links to “new and experimental urban identities in the context of government-sponsored resource extraction frontiers.” Written as a lucid historical account that anchors the discussion within the political, economic, and social context, as well as within global design discourse, the book is also projective—setting the table for a series of questions on how design can act in these landscapes.
As Seoul’s population boomed, apartment blocks became commonplace. Photographer Manuel Alvarez Diestro spent 6 months exploring the city’s new towns, aiming to “reveal in visual terms the expansive nature of urbanization and the transformation of the landscape through the construction of these new housing developments of massive scale.”
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has released plans for a new mixed-use urban district for Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station Precinct. In response to projections showing significant increases in transit activity in the coming decades, the project calls for a transformation of the existing Beaux Arts train station and surrounding neighborhood of University City. The design will improve transportation throughout the city, and will activate the area with new shops, restaurants and public plazas.
KCAP Architects & Planners has won the competition for the design of “Punt de Sniep,” an urban planning project in Diemen, a city in the agglomeration of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Overall, the project will consist of 165 apartments, a marina, and commercial and gastronomy functions over a total of 16,000 square meters.
Broadway Malyan has been appointed to design eight towers for the CIBIS Business Park, a 12-hectare development in Jakarta, Indonesia. Previously, the firm developed the site’s original masterplan, as well as the design for Tower 9, and has since then been asked to additionally deliver Towers 1 through 8.
The goal of the overall project is to create a business village that reflects Indonesian culture, as well as international characteristics in order to bring people together in shared and mixed-use spaces.
The additional appointments for the other towers will help us to ensure continuity and integrity of the design approach and further the high quality office space in the area, noted Ed Baker, Director of Broadway Malyan.
Planning and landscape firm SLA Architects and engineering office Ramboll have won an international competition to redesign Hans Tavsens Park and its surrounding area in the central Copenhagen borough of Nørrebro. The competition tasked architects with envisioning a park and streetscape that would benefit the hydrological, biological and social ecosystems of the neighborhood. The winning proposal, titled The Soul of Nørrebro, tackles the challenge by creating a system of drainage areas and an adaptable park designed to redirect runoff and contain and purify water during flood conditions.
ArchDaily is continuing our partnership with The Architectural Review, bringing you short introductions to the themes of the magazine’s monthly editions. In this introduction to the June 2016 issue on what the AR has provocatively named "Notopia," Editor Christine Murray outlines the defining characteristics of this "selfish city," the "pandemic of generic buildings have no connection to each other" - stating that their issue-long tirade against Notopia "is less a warning than a prophecy of doom."
If what is called the development of our cities is allowed to multiply at the present rate, then by the end of the century our world will consist of isolated oases of glassy monuments surrounded by a limbo of shacks and beige constructions, and we will be unable to distinguish any one global city from another.
This pandemic of generic buildings have no connection to each other, let alone to the climate and culture of their location.
With apologies to our forebear Ian Nairn, upon this scourge The Architectural Review bestows a name in the hope that it will stick – NOTOPIA. Its symptom (which one can observe without even leaving London) is that the edge of Mumbai will look like the beginning of Shenzhen, and the center of Singapore will look like downtown Dallas.
Architecture and planning firm Sabri Pasayigit Design Office has released its new master plan for the Municipality of Kayseri in the Sahabiye neighborhood of Kayseri, Turkey.
The project balances historic and modern architecture elements, with a focus on the historic castle of Kayseri as the city center point. Cultural and public buildings will be placed near this historic center, with taller buildings set farther out of the city.
