Eighteen years after its original publication, Paul Oliver’s Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World will be updated, revised, and expanded to include over 30% of new material. With around 3,000 entries, the new version of the encyclopedia is set to be published in 2018, and will reflect the considerable growth and changes in the architectural field.
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MAD Architects has topped out on Chaoyang Park Plaza, a 120-meter-high mixed use development rising in the central business district (CBD) of Beijing on the southern edge of Chaoyang Park, one of the city's largest parks. A product of Ma Yansong’s “Shanshui City” concept, which aims reintroduce nature into the urban realm, the building is designed to "push the boundary of the urbanization process in modern cosmopolitan life by creating a dialogue between artificial scenery and natural landscapes."
MAD Architects has unveiled what will be their first US residential project, 8600 Wilshire. Planned to be built in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, the 18-unit "hillside village" will be perched atop commercial space and united by a water-efficient "living wall" that was inspired by the local flora.
As MAD says, the project "demonstrates founder Ma Yansong’s core design philosophy: to coalesce nature and community into a living environment among high-density cities." It is expected to break ground this October, and complete in 2016.
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The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) is pleased to announce TIMBER IN THE CITY: Urban Habitats Competition for the 2015-2016 academic year. The student competition is a partnership between the Binational Softwood Lumber Council (BSLC), the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the School of Constructed Environments at Parsons The New School for Design (SCE).
The purpose of the Competition is to engage students to imagine the repurposing of our existing cities with sustainable buildings from renewable resources, offering expedient affordable construction, innovating with new and old wooden materials, and designing healthy living and working environments.
Steven Holl Architects (SHA) has broken ground on London's newest Maggie's Centre across from the large courtyard of St. Bartholomew’s (Barts) Hospital, the city's oldest hospital. The structure, a branching concrete frame lined with perforated bamboo and matte white glass, was inspired by its historic site, which also neighbors the St. Bartholomew the Great Church. It was envisioned as a "vessel within a vessel within a vessel" embellished with colored glass fragments that recall "neume notation" of Medieval music in the 13th century.
"The word neume originates from the Greek pnevma, which means 'vital force.' It suggests a 'breath of life' that fills oneself with inspiration like a stream of air, the blowing of the wind. The outer glass layer is organized in horizontal bands like a musical staff while the concrete structure branches like the hand," describes SHA.
A video of Steven Holl detailing the center's design, after the break.
The Bordeaux Wine Museum’s wooden structure has been completed, the first step in an ambitious project slated to open in 2016. Designed by XTU Architects, and situated along the coast of the river Garonne in Bordeaux, France, the museum aims to stand as a beacon and “guardian angel” against the skyline of the riverbank. Inspired by the timeless spirit of French wine, the building forms flow in a continuous space without corners, evoking the circular motion that awakens a wine before tasting.
The College of Charleston is now accepting abstracts for its upcoming symposium Suffragette City: Gender, Politics, and the Built Environment. Exploring the convergence of these topics throughout history, the interdisciplinary event aims to inspire new research that examines how both past and present efforts have challenged customary gender roles and impacted the physical, social, and conceptual identities of cities. The deadline for paper proposals, which must be 300 words or fewer, is July 1, 2015. For more information or to submit a topic, visit arthistory.cofc.edu.
China-based firm PWD Architecture will soon break ground on Dali Creative Area, a mixed-use development in Dali City, in Yunnan province. The project took home first place in a 2014 design competition, and takes significant direction from the area’s landscape, employing a minimalist stepped-form that celebrates its setting. The development will include a hotel, restaurants, offices, retail and exhibition space. It is slated for completion in 2016.
Construction is due to commence later this year on "Antalya Tower," the winning entry of "The Expo 2016 Antalya Tower" competition. Situated on Antalya on Turkey's southwest coast, the tower was designed by local firm NITA (Nitelikli Tasarımlar Atölyesi), and will cater for the city's 10 million annual visitors. The completion of the tower will coincide with the "World Botanic Expo 2016," to be held in Antalya and marking Turkey's first international Expo.
Construction is underway on a striking new tower by Morphosis Architects in Shenzhen. "A departure from conventional towers," as the practice describes, the "Hanking Center Tower" merges commercial retail with private office space through the folding of its steel structure. Beyond that, tenants are connected via a series communal sky gardens and a massive sun-lit atrium that occupies the building's core.
London-based design group Urban Systems Office has developed a work-flow system employed in their 180-meter "Bundle Tower" to redefine the office typology of the Bank of China. Informed by its specific site features, the mixed-use Bundle Tower creates an open floor plan that responds precisely to its surrounding conditions and unique site requirements.
Marc Koehler Architects (MKA) has taken first-place in the Open Oproep 28 design competition to design a leisure center, dubbed "The Missing Link." The competition challenged them to develop a community center, art center, and library for a municipality in Belgium. Located in suburban Edegem, the design strives to become the region's cultural hub and form a cohesive connection between its established public spaces.
The first phase of Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Renzo Piano Building Workshop's (RPBW) expansive Manhattanville Campus plan for Columbia University is making significant progress; completion is nearing on a highly-anticipated portion of the project - RPBW's LEED platinum Jerome L. Greene Science Center, which is scheduled to open in Fall of 2016 just six miles North of the practice's soon-to-open Whitney Museum.
More on the mixed-use structure after the break.
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The Brønshøj Parish Centre by NORD Architects provides a space for community congregation informed by the surrounding religious architecture. With warm materials, a multi-functional program, and a form that physically opens up to the city, the Parish Centre presents an inviting social and reverent space for Copenhagen.
The first-place competition winner from KM 429 architecture, this proposal for the Isola Garibaldi Civic Center draws inspiration from Milan’s historic architectural tradition superimposed within the modern urban context. Through its refusal to be monumentalized, the Civic Center generates a new language within its neighborhood and looks to the city's past to create a vital civic architecture to serve present, and future, needs.
Nearly four years after the start of its construction, South America’s first Bahá’í temple is beginning to take shape. Designed by Canadian firm Hariri Pontarini Architects, the temple is being constructed at the foothills of the Andes in Santiago, Chile. The building is comprised of “nine translucent wings, rising directly from the ground, and giving the impression of floating over a large reflecting water pool,” describes the project’s website. Each wing is designed like a leaf, with a steel “main stem” and “secondary veins of steel” supporting its cast glass exterior. During the day, the cast glass will filter sunlight into the temple, while at night the temple’s interior lighting will produce a soft glow on the outside.
The structure’s steel columns are now fully self-supported on its concrete foundation, and the steel frames and interior marble panels of each of the nine wings have been completed. In October, the project reached an important milestone as the installation of the cast glass cladding began on the outside of the wings.
MVRDV has been announced as winner of a two-stage, BAI-backed competition for a new “spatially-flexible” tower with a twisting “hourglass figure” near Vienna’s world famous Gasometers. The 110-meter “Turm mit Taille” (Tower with Waist) was shaped to minimize the effect of the building’s shadow cast onto neighboring buildings and an adjacent metro station.
