A huge creative and technical challenge was recently undertaken by Moment Factory. They were invited by the City of Barcelona and the City of Montreal to create the first sound and light spectacle to be projected on the complex façade of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. This 15 minute-long multimedia show, using video mapping techniques and their X-Agora playback system, was presented within La Mercè Festival in Barcelona this weekend. The inspiration: to realize Antonio Gaudi’s dream. The architect wished for the façade to be full of colors.
In architecture we talk about space and form. We talk about experience and meaning. All of these qualities are inextricably the sensory experience of light, touch, smell and sound. Sound expert Julian Treasure asks architects to consider designing for our ears, citing that the quality of the acoustics of a space affect us physiologically, socially, psychologically and behaviorally.
We interviewed Winnipeg- based 5468796 Architecture (Johanna Hurme + Sasa Radulovic) and Jae-Sung Chon (Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba), the team that curated the “Migrating Landscapes” exhibit at the Canadian Pavilion for the 13th Venice Biennale. The Migrating Landscapes Oganizer (MLO) invited, through a national competition, young Canadian architects and designers from a wide range of cultural and educational backgrounds to create scale models of ‘dwellings’ and accompanying videos that draw on cultural memories.
Since it’s founding in 1986, Reiser + Umemoto, RUR Architecture P.C. has become a widely published, internationally recognized practice with a diverse collection of projects ranging in scale. On multiple occasions, the firm has been awarded for their contributions to architectural practice and theory – the most recent being The Cooper Union’s 2008 Presidential Citation and the 2011 John Hejduk Award – as they treat “each project as the continuation of an ongoing inquiry, delving into relationships among architecture, territory and systems of distribution.”
With last year’s opening of the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero and the near-completion of the World Trade Center One, Daniel Libeskind’s vision for the World Trade Center site is close to presenting the future of NYC’s downtown financial center, 11 years after the attacks. Studio Daniel Libeskind was selected to develop the master plan for the site in 2003, and since has been coordinating with NYC’s numerous agencies and individual architects to rebuild the site. The project, in Libeskind’s words, is a “healing of New York”, a “site of memory” and “a space to witness the resilience of America”.
Follow us after the break for more on the elements and progress of the master plan.
3-D Printing technology is developing at quickening pace as both engineers and architects experiment with its technological and social potential. Consider Enrico Dini’s D-Shape printer that prints large scale stone structures out of sand and an inorganic binder or Neri Oxman’s research at MIT which involves a 3-D printing arm and nozzles that can print with a variety of different materials, from concrete to recycled plastic.
Dutch firm DUS Architects, in collaboration with Ultimaker Ltd, Fablab Protospace, and Open Coop, have added another 3-D printing machine to the list known as KamerMaker, the room builder. KamerMaker is the world’s first mobile 3d printer and has the ability to print “rooms” that are up to 11 feet high and 7 feet wide. The machine was unveiled at OFF PICNIC, a precursor to Amsterdam’s annual PICNIC technology festival.
Created by media artist group : J o n p a s a n g, the Hyper-Matrix is an exhibition pavilion gathering which plays with the walls of the structure to create three-dimensional effects to the viewers. Designed to showcase Hyundai Motor Group, this represents how there are various applications of mechatronic solutions. Comprised of thousands of 30x30cm cubes that make up the facade of the structure, the blocks extrude from the surface of the walls to create a variety of patterns and configurations. Also entertaining are the viewers’ reactions which reveal the excitement surrounding the pavilion.
Last April, we announced the opening of Pedro E. Guerrero: Photographs of Modern Life – a retrospective exhibition organized by the Julius Shulman Institute (JSI) at Woodbury University that honored the incredible life and career of the great 20th century architectural photographer, Pedro E. Guerrero (1917-2012). JSI was thankful to have Guerrero join the exhibition’s opening night, where he entertained the crowd with his charismatic personality as he shared fascinating stories from his life.
Sadly, the world is still in mourning over Guerrero’s passing last week, as he died at the age of 95 on Thursday, September 13, 2012, at his home in Florence, Arizona.
Woodbury University and the Julius Shulman Institute would like to share a few words from JSI director Emily Bills:
“The Julius Shulman Institute is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Pedro E. Guerrero. We were honored to host a retrospective of his work last April, which included the lively, and often hilarious, conversation he shared with Hunter Drohojowska-Philp. Guerrero will be remembered as one of the great architectural photographers of the twentieth century, capturing the essence of work by Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Durell Stone, Marcel Breuer, Joseph P. Salerno, and many others. He will be dearly missed.”
Read Guerrero’s obituary in the New York Times and the LA Times to learn more about his epic life and career. Continue after the break to view some of his best photographs that were featured at the exhibition.
Created by Carniolus, the video above very elegantly gives you a pretty good description of the Baroque Court Apartments, designed by OFIS Architects. A residential block in the historic city center of Ljubljana, Slovenia, the project is positioned to feature an internal courtyard and open-air contemporary glass light well. The inward-facing transparent enclosure was revitalized to create opportunities for communication between apartments at different levels.
During the opening of the Venice Biennale, we had the chance to sit down and talk with the curator and participants of the Japan Pavilion, awarded with the Gold Lion.
In the following videos you can see Toyo Ito, curator of “Architecture. Possible Here? Home-for-all”, along with collaborators Akihisa Hirata and Sou Fujimoto, discussing what Architecture means to them, the role of architects in our society, and how they approached the Biennale’s theme “Common Ground” on this particular exhibition, which reunites Japanese architects and an architectural photographer collaborating on the design of houses for those affected by the 2011 tsunami.
