Arch Daily |
- Spotlight: Alison and Peter Smithson
- Imagining the Future of Suburbia, From “Freedomland” to “McMansion Hell”
- Eden Locke Edinburgh / Grzywinski+Pons
- Győr-Gönyű National Public Port Control Building / sporaarchitects
- Yo House / SO Architecture
- House for 4 Generations / tomomi kito architect & associates
- RIBA Announces 2017 National Award Winners
- New Campus of Taizhou High School / Architectural Design & Research Institute of SCUT
- Ancha House / Augusto Quijano Arquitectos
- João's House / Guilherme Machado Vaz
- 9 Preservation Projects Win 2017 Modernism in America Awards
- Denver Pallet House / Meridian 105 Architecture
- Foster + Partners' New London HQ for Bloomberg Uses Ancient Roman Site Features to Inspire Interaction
- Spotlight: Smiljan Radić
- Willem II Passage / Civic Architects
- In Conversation with 3 Rapidly Emerging Practices: L.E.FT, Point Supreme, and vPPR
- 13 Tragically Demolished Buildings that Depict Our Ever-Changing Attitudes Toward Architecture
- House Spaak / AVARRUS Architects
- Spotlight: Paolo Soleri
- The Norman Foster Foundation's Wing-Shaped Pavilion Provides a Home for Le Corbusier's Car
| Spotlight: Alison and Peter Smithson Posted: 21 Jun 2017 09:30 PM PDT  The Economist Building. Image © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/5426468934/'>Flickr user seier</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/'>CC BY 2.0</a> Wife and husband pair Alison (22 June 1928 – 16 August 1993) and Peter Smithson (18 September 1923 – 3 March 2003) formed a partnership that led British Brutalism through the latter half of the twentieth century. Beginning with a vocabulary of stripped down modernism, the pair were among the first to question and challenge modernist approaches to design and urban planning. Instead, they helped evolve the style into what became Brutalism, becoming proponents of the "streets in the sky" approach to housing.  Born in Stockon-on-Tees, Peter began studying architecture in Newcastle, then part of Durham University, but was interrupted in his studies by the outbreak of the Second World War. Enlisting in the army and fighting as an engineer in India and Burma, he met Alison Gill upon his return to Durham University after the war ended. After the completion of Alison's own architecture degree, the pair married in 1949 and initially joined the architectural department of London County Council, then in charge of a wide range of powers including city planning and council housing.  Garden Building, St Hilda's College, Oxford University. Image © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevecadman/3414623599/'>Flickr user stevecadman</a> licensed under <a href=https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/'>CC BY-SA 2.0</a> The disruption of the war led to huge changes in society that gave the Smithsons their break. A new expansion of education following the passing of the 1944 Butler Education Act created an entirely new form of school; the Secondary Modern. The baby boom and this new schooling system required new, architecturally bold school buildings on a massive scale—winning the commission while still in their early twenties, the Smithsons were able to use the boost to set up their own practice. Hunstanton School, a starkly stripped-down formal building, immediately attracted attention from critics for its resolutely formal plan and for going against the prevailing method of easily replicated modular school buildings. The building was nevertheless pragmatic and a relative success, proving cheap, well planned and popular with staff, although severe problems with glazing and heating emerged over time.  The Economist Building. Image © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/5427505450'>Flickr user seier</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/'>CC BY 2.0</a> Using the cachet provided by Hunstanton to join Team X's challenge to modernism from within the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and form their own design philosophy, the Smithsons helped form the core tenets of Brutalism: low cost modularity, material focus and purity and, most importantly for the Smithsons, buildings that reflected their inhabitants and location, ones that fostered community—Modernism with a Human Face. Ambitious and defiantly avant-garde, the pair's impact on the architectural scene in Britain was enormous.  Robin Hood Gardens. Image © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevecadman/2361183115/'>Flickr user stevecadman</a> licensed under <a href=https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/'>CC BY-SA 2.0</a> Creating sensitively thought-out yet radical schemes for high profile commissions including the headquarters of the Economist, the British Embassy in Brasilia, a new building at St Hilda's College of Oxford University, and a plastic, mass-produced house for the 1956 Ideal Home Exhibition, the pair then moved on to what they hoped would be a beacon of modern housing design: 1972's Robin Hood Gardens. Hoping their "streets in the sky" could combine the community of the Victorian slums with the efficiency and density of Le Corbusier's housing blocks, it instead became known for structural problems and a crippling crime rate, and ended the pair's public career. Despite this, the Smithsons continued working quietly through the 1980s and never stopped defending their designs.  Robin Hood Gardens. Image © <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/98115025@N00/3058342144'>Flickr user stevecadman</a> licensed under <a href=https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/'>CC BY-SA 2.0</a>  Plan for Robin Hood Gardens by Alison and Peter Smithson Find out more about Alison & Peter Smithson's work, and the controversy surrounding their Robin Hood Gardens project, via the links below:
Video: Alison And Peter Smithson On Housing A Six Minute Snapshot of Alison and Peter Smithson's Robin Hood Gardens Learn the Story Behind Alison & Peter Smithson's Brutalist Icon, Economist Plaza Richard Rogers Appeals for Public Support to Save Robin Hood Gardens from Demolition Obelisks by Álvaro Siza and Alison and Peter Smithson Re-Erected in Rural England  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Imagining the Future of Suburbia, From “Freedomland” to “McMansion Hell” Posted: 21 Jun 2017 09:00 PM PDT  Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial This article was originally published on the blog of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America. The blog invites designers, writers and other contributors to independently express their perspectives on the Biennial across a range of formats. The 2017 Biennial, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 6, 2018.  Some works of architectural writing can be taken at face value as stark manifestos for a new aesthetic. Keith Krumwiede's Atlas of Another America is, instead, a constantly unfurling satire that offers layers upon layers of artfully imagined social commentary. Like McMansion Hell, my own long-form satirical project, Krumwiede's "architectural fiction" sends up American ideas about economics, politics, and culture by picking apart our outrageous suburban housing types. The project will be on display at the Chicago Architecture Biennial this fall, delivering a sardonic vision of American architecture that comes out of academic theory, but has a potent message for anyone who has spent time in suburbia. Krumwiede's book parodies the form of an 18th century treatise in order to propose a tongue-in-cheek vision for the suburban landscape of the United States after the 2008 financial crisis. Named Freedomland, this new utopia borrows town planning ideas from Thomas Jefferson's plan for parceling the nation's land in a grid system—the idea that created the patchwork of farms, streets, and small towns recognizable today.  Two plans showing the organization of a typical 6 mile-square township section: the left shows an alternating pattern of town (A) and country (B), the right shows a single town in Freedomland comprised of 128 forty-acre neighborhood farm estates.From Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction (Park Books, 2016). Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial Detached suburban houses are out in this brave new world. Instead, everyone lives together inside sprawling estates based on plans the author borrowed from actual McMansions, then stitched together and mirrored, inverted, or otherwise organized into massive, fractal compounds. The book pairs a collection of these plans with extremely amusing collages in which these Franken-mansions invade the backgrounds of bucolic European paintings.  A Good Shepherd, Freedomland, after Sainte Genevieve by Charles Sprague Pearce, 1887. From Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction (Park Books, 2016). Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial Krumwiede's caricature of unhinged suburbanization may seem far-fetched, but it lays bare a set of very real forces driving inequality across the American landscape. In a simultaneous nod to both manifest destiny and suburban sprawl, for example, the only limits to Freedomland's expansion are "geographical or political obstacles". He calls out America's increasingly hostile attitude toward public education. Freedomland does not allocate land for schools because "the choices in means and methods of education are best left to individual families." Freedomland also takes the the racial and aesthetic homogeny at the heart of American suburbs to new depths. Its gloomy twist on the homeowners' association covenant dictates that each "particular estate [is] one just like the next...ensuring cohesiveness of identity and consistency of character such that property values...and community values are promoted." Just like in the real world that I document through McMansion Hell, the design for each mega-development is "carefully selected from among the best produced by the country's greatest builders" (a.k.a. speculative developers). Krumwiede takes on the failure of architects to provide for the community, finding them to be "disinclined, or perhaps just ill prepared, to deliver designs desired by a majority of the American people…"  Atypical Plans, Section 32 NE Freedomland (left) and Happy Valley, Section 6 NW, Freedomland (right). From Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction (Park Books, 2016). Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial The fake architecture of Freedomland visualizes the neoliberal landscape of the late 20th century taken to its logical extreme. If McMansions and their ilk epitomize what President George W. Bush called "the ownership society," then Freedomland asks what comes next when the market crashes. Its improbable mashup of ideas from across the political spectrum and American history—which forces yeoman farmers into collectivized housing projects—is really a way of asking how Americans will ever resolve the wicked problems firmly entrenched in our built environment. Krumwiede attacks these issues from a theoretical vantage point as a designer and scholar. Whereas he draws on history and fiction, my own perspective is much closer to reality: McMansion Hell draws on listings from online real estate directories like Zillow to critique the terrifying "McMansionization" of American exurbs in real time. But both projects try to glean insights about contemporary society by minutely describing the texture of its monstrous creations: the sadly empty "lawyer foyers," the infinite shades of beige, the standardized ceiling heights, and the inexorable desire for bigger and better status symbols. And both projects package nuanced ideas in ways that general audiences can quickly grasp. Visitors to the Biennial will recognize the quirks and faults of their own communities in each absurd illustration of Freedomland. Like Krumwiede, I've found that these artifacts are easier to talk about than the enormously complex roots of the financial crisis itself. While McMansions didn't cause the crash, for example, they are fitting symbols of the dubious financial products and hyperinflated markets that did. They employ the architectural symbols of wealth without having the substance of actual durability.  McMansion Hell posts poke fun of the architecturally nonsensical designs of enormous suburban houses. Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial They also make surprisingly poignant images for the same reason. It's no surprise that Krumwiede places these alienating domestic spaces in the same category as "greeting card poetry" and "serial television," which provide a repetitive and generic backdrop for modern life. But he also empathizes with the real people who inhabit these surreal spaces. In a way near and dear to my heart, Krumwiede touches on the "non-utilitarian" desires of those who build enormous houses, from "oversized columns" to "coffered ceilings" and "artfully staged furniture".  Critiques are often practical as much as they are aesthetic. Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial One of the original goals of McMansion Hell was to get people interested in understanding how their own built environment turned into this suburban wasteland. I was hoping to start a larger conversation about design, real estate, and inequality by first poking fun at some truly insane houses. I was also interested in breaking down architectural theory, which can be rather dull at first, so that it actually had something meaningful to say about the suburban landscape for an online audience. Using the visual language of memes, McMansionHell introduced a series on "architectural theory for the rest of us" beginning with Vitruvius. McMansion Hell's weekly house roasts frequently allude to works by contemporary theorists like Rem Koolhaas and Greg Lynn, not just by making jokes at their expense, but also by recontextualizing their work using text-based annotation.  McMansion Hell sends up academic discourse as a means of analyzing McMansion architecture. Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial In the eyes of my blog, architectural theory doesn't need to be supercilious and serious all the time. One can find humor in the most academic and dense theoretical ideas—from British Palladianism to deconstructivism—and it's about time we did. Not only should we make theory humorous, but we should also situate it in the context of our daily lives. That includes the most common American landscape: Suburbia. This is the idea that drives both Atlas and McMansion Hell: architectural theory and criticism should be applied to the "non-architecture" of the suburbs outside of the explicit urbanist directive of "fixing" that landscape. Tone is also key: few people enjoy being talked down to by experts, especially when it comes to the places they live. Indeed, the tone of Krumwiede's book is perhaps its greatest achievement. At times it is openly satirical, and its vision of America shifts between utopia and dystopia, humor and serious commentary. The structure of the book as fictional treatise, collection of plans, deconstructed essay, formally constructed essay, and work of fiction make it both a top down and bottom up form of commentary. To one audience it's a winking meditation on architectural theory. To another it's a book of physical memes.  Don Barthelmismo Meets with Workers at The Palace, Freedomland, after Capital and Labour by Henry Stacy Marks, 1874. From Atlas of Another America: An Architectural Fiction (Park Books, 2016). Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial Krumwiede's games with syntax and vocabulary are all unusual in a serious print work, but his creative riffs on established vernaculars and recurring tropes resonate strongly with the mashup culture of memes and online satire. Like a seasoned Redditor, he deconstructs well-known references and reconstructs them in new and absurd ways. Connoisseurs of internet culture will also recognize the mocking self-seriousness of the project's antiquated language. The community surrounding McMansion Hell has also evolved its own vocabulary of internet layman's terms for the architecture of domestic excess. Terms like "nub," which describes the artifacts of poor roofline planning, and "an art," denoting corporate, mass produced wall decorations, are proof that regular people can change the conversation around buildings to suit their own perspectives. I often receive emails describing how these McMansion pseudo-memes Hell somehow find their way into the spoken vocabulary of readers, which shows promise in my one-person campaign to bring architecture to the masses. If you can remember something in such a convenient way, you can use that trope to teach others as well.  McMansion listings often feature a wide range of off-the-shelf luxury trappings. Image Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial Freedomland will certainly resonate with the McMansion-hating crowd as a critique of both late capitalism and American architectural and urban planning heritage going back to Jefferson. These aspects coincide with its proposal of new, if satirical, ideas within that ideological framework. It is a critique of the present as perceived through the lens of the past, executed as a plan for an uncertain future. The project's quirky openness also gives me hope for an expanded conversation about American urbanism, one that makes the complex formulations of theory understandable and accountable to the engagement of a much wider public. Kate Wagner is a freelance writer, sound engineer and creator of the viral blog McMansion Hell, which roasts the world's ugliest houses while teaching about architecture and design. The 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial blog is edited in partnership with Consortia, a creative office developing new frameworks for communication. This article also features embedded content from Are.na, an online platform for connecting ideas and building knowledge.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Eden Locke Edinburgh / Grzywinski+Pons Posted: 21 Jun 2017 08:00 PM PDT  © Nicholas Worley
 © Nicholas Worley From the architect. Eden Locke is a 72 room hotel with a cafe and bar on the ground floor that we designed in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. The project was a complete gut renovation and comprehensive fit out of an existing hybridized structure. We took an 18th Century Georgian mansion and its 20th Century extension down to their respective bones and created the hotel from there.  © Nicholas Worley Edinburgh's New Town (now well over 250 years old and a UNESCO Heritage Site) is a beautiful, if austere, collection of sturdy and uniform ranks of Georgian elevations. Rows of terraces and mansions clad in local grey sandstone were the physical embodiment of the Scottish Reformation. Our building is a classic example of the typology, sheathed in Craigsleith Quarry Ashlar and topped in a row of dormers under a slate roof. While the Georgians didn't offer much in the vein of variation or embellishment, the beauty of the light and the proportional balance in their spaces are, to us, second to none.  © Nicholas Worley  Compilation  © Nicholas Worley With a dash of reverence we sought to embellish the building in our own way, and from the inside out. We celebrated the existing heritage details, in particular the fenestration and their surrounds. We amplified the visual warmth of the long Scottish light with an approach that leaned towards the sophisticatedly tropical. Our intention was that the tension between the severe and stony building fabric and the verdant interior would foster measured incongruity where one exalts the other. We also designed much of the furniture and all of the joinery and employed bent wood, cane, wicker and terra cotta in equal measure with brass, stone, cementitious cladding and steel, all of which sits amongst ample vegetation. At the thresholds into the building we paid special attention as to how to architecturally transition between both the spaces and the eras. Glazed fanlights and wrought iron are framed by glass, timber and stone vestibules. Vignettes of the space within are shown to the street and the exterior ashlar and interior elevations form a studied composition on the facade.  © Nicholas Worley  Compilation  © Nicholas Worley We manipulated the building sectionally so that rooms spanned both the generous Georgian volume and the tighter spaces of the 20th century addition, yielding some dynamic spaces. We capitalized on the larger period fenestration and lofty ceilings in the public areas of the rooms while beds and circulation sit in the more intimate areas of the hybrid spaces. We created internal stairs that encircle a central bathroom and kitchen core while a bespoke wardrobe doubles as a balustrade within rooms where the height changes.  © Nicholas Worley Throughout the building we crafted a palette of warm materials and textures, powdery tones and soft lighting that make the most of the inimitably breathtaking natural light in Scotland. While we were deferential to the heritage and beauty of both historic George Street and our building, our intervention has a decidedly bold perspective all its own. We hope it becomes as much of an asset to its environment as that context has been invaluable for us.  © Nicholas Worley  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Győr-Gönyű National Public Port Control Building / sporaarchitects Posted: 21 Jun 2017 07:00 PM PDT  © Balázs Dany
 © Balázs Dany From the architect. In the middle of the path where the North and the Black Sea meet, at the 1,794 km mark of the Danube River and the Mosoni-Danube Estuary between Győr and Gönyű, along highway 1, the Győr-Gönyű National Public Port was constructed, serving as a freight logistics centre.  © Balázs Dany The design of the port control building was inspired by the strict system of port infrastructure and the riverbank overlooking the harbour as well as the vigorous movement of the water on the other side of the river. The service building acts as a multifunctional port inspection unit, including a communication system with the barges in the river, boats for disposing and storing waste and hazardous materials, car storage, offices, water quality test labs, meeting rooms and guest rooms.  Sketch The port also serves as a junction of water, road and rail road transport. The ground floor of the building precisely follows the east-west direction of the railway transport system. The components of the building consistently fits a vertical segmentation. The ground floor is reinforced with a concrete frame, through which the anchoring elements of the cantilever steel staircase can be crossed. There is a glass structure extending over the road to the river side, allowing the user to supervise the work in the harbour, as well as providing a panoramic view of the natural scenery provided by the surrounding area. The ground level office section is where the workers are located, but additional roof top gardens and terraces are provided on the exterior.  © Balázs Dany The building is divided according to the function. On the ground floor, in a wedge perpendicular to the shore, there are offices, guest rooms, executive offices and a meeting room, parallel to the river. All functions are directly accessible from the lobby. The elevated floor is surrounded by a sun-shaded side of the building as well as a south-facing shading system that can be opened on both sides of the meeting room. The shaded galvanised surface of the shade under the changing light conditions puts the building in a different garment.  © Balázs Dany  Floor Plan  © Balázs Dany  Floor Plan Implementation of modern technology in the design makes the building highly efficient in both energy and labour. The heat and electricity of the building is controlled by environment-aware technologies. When filling the partition, the soil was placed and the photovoltaic system makes the building self-maintained as stored rainwater is used to keep the roof garden alive. A communication antenna tower was implemented on the south side of the building, allowing for workers to better cooperate with each other but more specifically making communication between the building and the harbour easier.  © Balázs Dany  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2017 03:00 PM PDT  © Shai Epstein
 © Shai Epstein From the architect. A home within the nature, at the Israeli peaceful municipality of Kiryat Tivon. 160 sqm built on a 500 sqm lot.  Ground Floor Plan The site is sloped to an extent of approximately 30% and is surrounded by a natural oak grove.  © Shai Epstein The starting point for the project was, following the owners's request: to open up and let the surroundings into the residence as much as possible. They wished for the leveling of the house to trace the topography lines and for its geometry to match the natural setting.  Section B-B' The house is built on three spiraling levels that enclose a central patio. The circulation runs around the patio, in a circular spiral motion. Thus, leading from the public areas of the house, through a working space and on into the private bedrooms. From the bedrooms, walking onto the rooftop opens up the view once more.  © Shai Epstein All the functions in the house, including the circulation system, open up to the patio through a continual glass opening.  © Shai Epstein  Section C-C'  © Shai Epstein The living room is open both to the patio on one end and to the grove on the other, inspiring a notion of life within and around nature.  © Shai Epstein A special effort has been made, in order to preserve the existing mature trees on the lot. The planting is keeping the character of the endemic vegetation.  © Shai Epstein  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| House for 4 Generations / tomomi kito architect & associates Posted: 21 Jun 2017 01:00 PM PDT  © Satoshi Shigeta
 © Satoshi Shigeta From the architect. This is an interior renovation project of an existing two-story timber structure house in Tokyo built approximately 40 years ago. The client is a young couple, and the wife's parents were living there before the renovation. The client decided to live with their parents in this house. Soon after, the wife's grandmother who lives alone in the countryside – far from Tokyo – also decided to live together in this house. As such, the client requested to renovate the house suitable for accommodating 4 generations - the grandmother (1st generation), parents (2nd generation), the client (3rd generation), the client's son (4th generation).  Plans While the daily behavior patterns of the each family member is different, creating a space to promote connection between all generations living under one roof became a major focus.  © Satoshi Shigeta Moreover, we found the existing rooms were split into smaller functions and as such, they were not open to the outside environment nor to each other, leading to poor daylight and natural ventilation. Having these issues in mind, we decided that improving the quality of the space, daylighting and ventilation were also essential to the renovation.  © Satoshi Shigeta Firstly, we carefully studied the arrangement of the private rooms to take full advantage of existing windows thus maximizing natural daylight and ventilation. The remaining spaces were designated as "shared space"; spaces open to all family members and planned in each floor with utilities. The private rooms are also exchangeable among the members so as to enhance communication between generations; similar to a share-house lifestyle. The nature of "share" in the shared spaces was consciously enhanced by making the connection with the outside, such as directly connecting the entrance space to the "shared space" and installing a large window in the "shared space". At the same time, we also reviewed the existing structure. Although the columns were densely arranged in accordance with the existing partitions, we found that the existing house was structurally unbalanced and lacked the necessary structural resistance. As such, we decided to add reinforcements through supporting beams and structural plywood whilst optimizing the use of its existing structural components.  © Satoshi Shigeta As a result of such studies, some columns were deemed redundant and thus removable (total 20 columns were removed), providing an opportunity to create open spaces free of columns.  © Satoshi Shigeta The ceiling of the shared space on the second floor is catenary shaped - enhancing a natural connection to the outside and maximizing the diffusion of the natural lighting into the space. The catenary-shaped ceiling gently envelopes all 4 generations of families who ultimately enjoy living in a space abundant of natural lighting and ventilation.  © Satoshi Shigeta  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| RIBA Announces 2017 National Award Winners Posted: 21 Jun 2017 12:01 PM PDT  Courtesy of RIBA The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced 49 exemplary projects as winners of the 2017 RIBA National Awards. This year's list features projects from a wide range of typologies and leading architecture firms including Herzog & de Meuron, Foster + Partners, WilkinsonEyre, and Caruso St John Architects. "Congratulations to the clients and their design teams for the extraordinary talent, ambition and enthusiasm that has led to this year's roll-call of phenomenal buildings," said RIBA President Jane Duncan at today's announcement. "RIBA National Awards provide insight into emerging design trends, as well as showing how well the profession responds to economic drivers. I am delighted to see such confident, innovative and ambitious architecture delivered in such challenging times. Particular trends called out by Duncan include projects aimed at tackling the country's shortage of quality housing developments, the innovative use of architecture to enhance excitement and pleasure in the built environment and the continued preference for brick among the UK's top architects. One negative trend identified by Duncan was the lack of publicly-funded education projects. "I am pleased to award a selection of high-quality new school buildings such as The Laboratory, Dulwich College and new music facilities at Wells Cathedral School, that will benefit generations of children and teachers. However, after a few boom years, which saw a clutch of award winning, cost effective state school buildings, it's disappointing that there are none on this year's list. Well-designed schools support improved student achievement, and staff and student wellbeing and should be part of educational aspirations for all our schools, not just those in the fee-paying sector." Selected from the winners of 12 regional awards programs, the national list will now make up the pool of projects competing for the RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK's best building of the year. The full list of winners includes: Carrowbreck Meadow / Hamson Barron Smith  Carrowbreck Meadow / Hamson Barron Smith © Jefferson Smith The Enterprise Centre, University of East Anglia / Architype  The Enterprise Centre, University of East Anglia / Architype © Nick Caville Peacock House / BHSF Architekten with Studio-P  Peacock House / BHSF Architekten with Studio-P © Benedikt Redmann St Albans Abbey / Richard Griffiths Architects  St Albans Abbey / Richard Griffiths Architects © Richard Griffiths Vajrasana Buddhist Retreat Centre / Walters & Cohen Architects  Vajrasana Buddhist Retreat Centre / Walters & Cohen Architects © Will Scott The Welding Institute / Eric Parry Architects  The Welding Institute / Eric Parry Architects © Dirk Lindner Leicester Cathedral's Richard III Project 'With Dignity and Honour' / van Heyningen and Haward Architects  Leicester Cathedral's Richard III Project 'With Dignity and Honour' / van Heyningen and Haward Architects © Carlo Draisci The Laboratory, Dulwich College / Grimshaw  The Laboratory, Dulwich College / Grimshaw © Daniel Shearing No 49 / 31/44 Architects  No 49 / 31/44 Architects © Anna Stathaki The Loom / Duggan Morris Architects  The Loom / Duggan Morris Architects © Jack Hobhouse 8 Finsbury Circus / WilkinsonEyre  8 Finsbury Circus / WilkinsonEyre © Dirk Lindner 40 Chancery Lane / Bennetts Associates  40 Chancery Lane / Bennetts Associates © Allan Crow King's College School / Allies and Morrison  King's College School / Allies and Morrison © Nick Guttridge New Scotland Yard / Allford Hall Monaghan Morris  New Scotland Yard / Allford Hall Monaghan Morris © Timothy Soar Paradise Gardens / Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands  Paradise Gardens / Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands © Paul Riddle Photography Studio for Juergen Teller / 6a architects  Photography Studio for Juergen Teller / 6a architects © Johan Dehlin Silchester / Haworth Tompkins  Silchester / Haworth Tompkins © Philip Vile Barretts Grove / Amin Taha + Groupwork  Barretts Grove / Amin Taha + Groupwork © Timothy Soar Dujardin Mews / Karakusevic Carson Architects with Maccreanor Lavington  Dujardin Mews / Karakusevic Carson Architects with Maccreanor Lavington © Mark Hadden Tate Modern's Blavatnik Building (Switch House) / Herzog & de Meuron  Tate Modern's Blavatnik Building (Switch House) / Herzog & de Meuron © Iwan Baan The British Museum World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre / Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners  The British Museum World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre / Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners © Joas Souza Walmer Yard / P Salter and Associates with Mole Architects John Comparelli Architects  Walmer Yard / P Salter and Associates with Mole Architects John Comparelli Architects © Hélène Binet Live Works / Flanagan Lawrence with Tench Maddison Ash Architects  Live Works / Flanagan Lawrence with Tench Maddison Ash Architects © Jill Tate Shawm House / MawsonKerr Architects  Shawm House / MawsonKerr Architects © Rob Rhodes The Word / FaulknerBrowns Architects  The Word / FaulknerBrowns Architects © Al Crow Chetham's School of Music - Stoller Hall / stephenson STUDIO  Chetham's School of Music - Stoller Hall / stephenson STUDIO © Daniel Hopkinson Finlays Warehouse / stephenson STUDIO  Finlays Warehouse / stephenson STUDIO © Andrew Wall Liverpool Philharmonic / Caruso St John Architects  Liverpool Philharmonic / Caruso St John Architects © Hélène Binet Maggie's at the Robert Parfett Building / Foster + Partners  Maggie's at the Robert Parfett Building / Foster + Partners © Nigel Young Fallahogey Studio / McGarry-Moon Architects Ltd  Fallahogey Studio / McGarry-Moon Architects Ltd © Adam Currie Bedales School of Art and Design Building / Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios  Bedales School of Art and Design Building / Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios © Hufton + Crow The Berrow Foundation Building and New Garden Building, Lincoln College / Stanton Williams  The Berrow Foundation Building and New Garden Building, Lincoln College / Stanton Williams © Nick Hufton Magdalen College Library / Wright & Wright Architects  Magdalen College Library / Wright & Wright Architects © Dennis Gilbert Warwick Hall Community Centre / Acanthus Clews Architects  Warwick Hall Community Centre / Acanthus Clews Architects © Andy Marshall Caring Wood / Macdonald Wright Architects Rural Office for Architecture  Caring Wood / Macdonald Wright Architects Rural Office for Architecture © James Morris Command of the Oceans / Baynes and Mitchell Architects  Command of the Oceans / Baynes and Mitchell Architects © Hélène Binet Hastings Pier / dRMM Architects  Hastings Pier / dRMM Architects © Alex de Rijke British Airways i360 / Marks Barfield Architects  British Airways i360 / Marks Barfield Architects © Visual Air South Street / Sandy Rendel Architects Ltd.  South Street / Sandy Rendel Architects Ltd. © Richard Chivers Dyson Campus Expansion / WilkinsonEyre  Dyson Campus Expansion / WilkinsonEyre © Limited New Music Facilities for Wells Cathedral School / Eric Parry Architects  New Music Facilities for Wells Cathedral School / Eric Parry Architects © Dirk Lindner Wolfson Tree Management Centre / Invisible Studio  Wolfson Tree Management Centre / Invisible Studio © Andy Marshall Remembrance Centre, National Memorial Arboretum / Glenn Howells Architects  Remembrance Centre, National Memorial Arboretum / Glenn Howells Architects © Rob Parrish Blackburn Meadows Biomass / BDP  Blackburn Meadows Biomass / BDP © Paul Karalius Derwenthorpe Phase One / Studio Partington  Derwenthorpe Phase One / Studio Partington © Tim Crocker Victoria Gate Arcades / ACME  Victoria Gate Arcades / ACME © Jack Hobhouse City of Glasgow College / Reiach and Hall Architects and Michael Laird Architects  City of Glasgow College / Reiach and Hall Architects and Michael Laird Architects © Keith Hunter Newhouse of Auchengee / Ann Nisbet Studio  Newhouse of Auchengee / Ann Nisbet Studio © Susan Castillo Rockvilla / Hoskins Architects  Rockvilla / Hoskins Architects © Dapple Photography Learn more about RIBA's annual awards program, here. News via the Royal Institute of British Architecture.
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| New Campus of Taizhou High School / Architectural Design & Research Institute of SCUT Posted: 21 Jun 2017 12:00 PM PDT  © Li Yao
 © Li Yao Context  © Li Yao Based on the study of the culture and history of Taizhou and Taizhou High School, the design intends to bring back the refreshing and elegant study atmosphere referencing the spaces of traditional "schools and academies" in Taizhou and showcase the profound cultural heritage and regional characteristics of the School on the new campus. In the meantime, the campus planning also employ new design ideas and modern campus features based on the tradition and context of the School to reappear the charm of Anding Academy.  © Li Yao Tasteful yards  © Li Yao Water Charm  © Li Yao Shaping  © Li Yao The traditional cultural elements, including window papercuts and seal characters, are reconstructed to highlight the buildings, injecting cultural spirit and traditional implications into the building. The main façade materials are mainly the grey-toned building materials like stones and tiles which are set off by the partially used wood and other materials of warm tones. The architectural hue is slate grey, creating a quiet and elegant atmosphere of learning; the wooden ornaments render the rustic breath of books. The building form tries to present the traditional implication through modern techniques. The exquisite and elegant style represents an organic combination of modernity and tradition, as well as the culture and modernity of the campus.  © Li Yao  Plan  © Li Yao  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Ancha House / Augusto Quijano Arquitectos Posted: 21 Jun 2017 10:00 AM PDT  © Eduardo Calvo Santisbón
 © Eduardo Calvo Santisbón From the architect. This is response to an architectural program for a couple then that children no longer live at home.  © Eduardo Calvo Santisbón The House arises in reverse. The space itself is the most public. House turns to the side of the street, to the North, with better conditions for this region difficult climate.  © Eduardo Calvo Santisbón  Lower Plan  © Eduardo Calvo Santisbón The House is developed by way of a large terrace, in a series of continuous spaces where a core of services articulates them, and looking for the prevailing winds from the South-East and North-East to flow through all living spaces. These living spaces are continuous, open, with wood mobile walls that allow you to reconfigure the space in multiple ways, either slightly, partially or completely, achieving different spatial configurations, depending on the different accommodations from the walls, either linking two, three or more spaces, or by separating all together. The great Hall continues towards the kitchen, social, at one end, and the master bedroom on the other hand, having a study as a prelude.  © Eduardo Calvo Santisbón  Sections  © Eduardo Calvo Santisbón The services are located, in its entirety, in the central volume, both downstairs and upstairs. The core operates as a "Swiss army knife", where different accessories come out and reconfigured the spatiality in different modes.  © Eduardo Calvo Santisbón  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| João's House / Guilherme Machado Vaz Posted: 21 Jun 2017 08:00 AM PDT  © Luís Ferreira Alves
From the architect. João's House is a renovation project for a small house located in the old part of the city of Porto, close to the Douro River. It is a traditional XIX century ground floor building with walls made with stone, and a wooden roof structure covered with tiles. It was once used as a bakery that served the local population who were mostly fishermen.  © Luís Ferreira Alves The project transforms the bakery into a two floor house distributing the social spaces on the groundfloor and the private spaces on the upperfloor. There is a mid level between the two floors to open a small pátio that brings light to the client’s musical studio.  © Luís Ferreira Alves The social space on the ground floor - living room and kitchen - is fisically divided, and visually United, by a piece of furniture that works simultaneously as a Bookshelf and a cupboard, as it can be accessed through it’s glass sliding frames from both sides. So you can have books in one shelf and ktichen stuff in another. It also filters light in a very subtle way.  © Luís Ferreira Alves  Section  © Luís Ferreira Alves The kitchen is a very extroverted space, and it can extend outdoors to the street, letting you enjoy the neighbourhood spirit and popular life with a glaass of wine in hand while dinner is being cooked.  © Luís Ferreira Alves  Plan - First Floor  © Luís Ferreira Alves The living room is a more introverted space iluminated by the skylight that gives very different kinds of white due to the reflection of natural light in the various wall textures. The upperfloor has two unleveled rooms that share one bathroom with two separate entrance doors. There is also a very nice and quiet varanda that the sun likes to visit. It opens to the neighbours backyards and takes you to a very confortable place. A place about identity, culture and the history of Porto.  © Luís Ferreira Alves  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| 9 Preservation Projects Win 2017 Modernism in America Awards Posted: 21 Jun 2017 07:10 AM PDT  Nine projects have been announced as winners of Docomomo US' 2017 Modernism in America Awards, honoring projects within the United States that highlight and advocate for the restoration of postwar architecture and landscapes. Now in its fourth year, the Modernism in America Awards were founded to celebrate "the people and projects working to preserve, restore and rehabilitate our modern heritage sensitively and productively. The program seeks to advance those preservation efforts; to increase appreciation for the period and to raise awareness of the on-going threats against modern architecture and design." Design Award of Excellence Bell Works: Originally built between 1962 and 1964, Bell Works was designed to foster collaboration, with exterior hallways and an expansive atrium that encouraged people to get out of their offices and see/interact with fellow workers. Somerset Development is recreating Bell Labs with the same philosophy -- to bring together a wide variety of businesses and people that will commingle in an "urban-style" environment amidst suburbia, otherwise known as a "metroburb". Image © Somerset Development Bell Works The Commercial Design Award of Excellence is given for the restoration of the former Bell Laboratories, which has been transformed into Bell Works, the two-million-square-foot mixed-use "metroburb", located in Holmdel, New Jersey. Designed by world-renowned modernist architect Eero Saarinen and constructed in stages between 1959-1982, the enormous mirrored glass-enclosed structure (the first of its kind) was home to Bell Laboratories, later known as AT&T, Lucent, and ultimately Alcatel-Lucent. Within its walls, researchers made a number of monumental discoveries, including the development of the cell phone and fiber optic technology. Rumblings of demolishing the site after Alcatel-Lucent vacated the building sparked concern from architects, historians, and design professionals around the globe. After acquiring the famed building in 2013, Somerset Development, along with Alexander Gorlin Architects - with the aid of public-private collaboration - began a multi-faceted approach of reviving and reinvigorating the space as a "dynamic, collaborative workplace of the future, complete with a blossoming ecosystem of technology, traditional office, retail, dining, and hospitality." Speaking on behalf of the jury, architectural historian Robert Nauman noted, "This is an adaptive reuse project on a grand scale. Instead of merely turning this into office space, Bell Works re-envisions this corporate headquarters building as a mixed use, self-contained town center incorporating retail and shopping and dining options, health and wellness uses, a hotel and conference center, educational facilities, an upscale spa and public facilities." Nauman continues by pointing out, "social gathering areas were established, and the entire project was envisioned and completed with an eye toward sustainability, including a solar roof. This is an ambitious project that has reconfigured what was once the largest vacant commercial building in the country into a dynamic urban center."  Yale British Center for Art: Library Court after building conservation. Image © Richard Caspole, Yale Center for British Art Yale Center for British Art The Civic/Institutional Design Award of Excellence is awarded for the restoration of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. The Yale Center for British Art and its collection are the gift of philanthropist Paul Mellon. After nearly forty years since its opening in 1977, the Yale Center faced escalating conservation pressures. In response, Amy Meyers, the Center's current director, commissioned a detailed conservation plan for the building titled Louis I. Kahn and the Yale Center for British Art: A Conservation Plan and published in association with Yale University Press. This pioneering document, the first of its kind in the United States for a building completed after World War II, identified the Center's most culturally significant attributes, established policies for the future care of the building, and formed the basis for the building conservation project. The project was phased strategically as the majority of construction was completed in a ten-month period in 2015. In selecting the project the jury noted, "The renovation of the Yale Center for British Art is a case study for how to approach the preservation of modern architecture appropriately. The complex, multi-phase project paves the way for future projects through its thoughtful conservation plan and publication of those findings detailing elements of the building that were once hidden and sensitively bringing the building into the 21st century."  Bubeshko Apartments. Image © Grant Mudford The Bubeshko Apartments The Residential Design Award of Excellence is given for the restoration of the Bubeshko Apartments. Located in Los Angeles, California the Bubeshko Apartments is one of the few realized and intact multi-family dwellings designed by Rudolph M. Schindler. Designed for mother-and-daughter Anastasia and Luby Bubeshko, Schindler's vision was that of a "Greek hillside" – a framework for individuated apartments, each with a direct connection to the outdoors, that work collectively. Though the financial viability of the project presented a challenge, the new owners sought to sensitively restore the complex in the original spirit of both the architecture and life of the buildings. Speaking on behalf of the jury, Justin Davidson said, "Restoration of the Bubeshko Apartments is interesting not only because of what was done but because of what was not done. Instead of transforming the complex into luxury condominium pods, the owners and restoration team gave careful consideration to both the original intent of the architect and original owners thus insuring this unique addition to the cultural life of Los Angeles will be admired and enjoyed for years to come."  Heroic. Image © over,under Heroic Project & Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston An Advocacy Award of Excellence for is given to the Heroic Project and subsequent book Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston. The project is an eight-year research initiative into the concrete architecture of Boston from 1960 until 1976. It developed into a wide-reaching advocacy effort that has included exhibitions, design studios and research seminars, lectures and interviews, tours, landmark preservation campaigns, and culminated in the publication of the acclaimed book Heroic (Monacelli Press, 2015). In selecting the project, the Docomomo US Board of Directors commented, "Through carefully crafted public outreach, engagement and a beautifully designed book, the Heroic Project brings awareness and new appreciation to the significance and beauty of a style that is often demonized. By celebrating the artistry and design of concrete architecture in Boston and beyond, the Heroic Project redefines Brutalist architecture locally, nationally and internationally."  Save the Reactor: Advocates at HeartBomb photo event at the Nuclear Reactor Building, February 2015. Image © John Shea Save the Reactor Campaign The Advocacy Award of Excellence is given to the Save the Reactor Campaign. The Docomomo US Board of Directors commented, "The role and impact of nuclear science during the Cold War is starting to be forgotten and thus the sites associated with the period are increasingly threatened as younger generations have little sense of this important period in our nation's history. Though the Nuclear Reactor building on the campus of the University of Washington was ultimately demolished, it is important to recognize Historic Seattle, the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation and Docomomo US/WEWA's collaborative education and advocacy efforts that epitomize issues that Docomomo US and its Chapters and colleagues continue to encounter." Results of the dispute will be precedent-setting as the Washington State Supreme Court is expected to rule on the bearing of local preservation ordinances over state institutions of higher learning who claim exemption. Citations of Merit Winners Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer: View at dusk of the west side of the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, featuring the square geometry of the museum by Edward Durell Stone, centered on the round island and pond designed by Edward Durell Stone Jr.. Image © Tom Kessler Photography, 2016 The Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer The jury awards a Citation of Merit for the conservation of the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer designed by Edward Durell Stone. The open plains provided Stone and his son, landscape architect Edward Durell Stone, Jr., with a blank canvas resulting in a quintessential example of New Formalism that became one of Stone's most unique works in terms of setting and integration between building and landscape. Speaking on behalf of the jury, Barbara Campagna, FAIA, LEED AP BC+C stated, "the project showed sensitivity to the original concept, restoration of significant features and materials while balancing new interventions that were needed to make the building and site more efficient and useful for the present day." Theodore Prudon added, "the museum is an important example of regional modernism and played a significant part in the progressive history of Grand Island, Nebraska."  American Enterprise Group: Entrance Court. Image © Nick Marrick Hedrich Blessing (2015) American Enterprise Group The jury awards a Citation of Merit for the restoration of the American Enterprise Group national headquarters building. The venerable building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft and completed in 1965. Upon opening the building was featured in LIFE magazine and deemed "the talk of the Midwest," The American Enterprise Group received an Honor Award for Architecture from the American Institute of Architects in 1967. In response to aging materials and systems, the owner and restoration team approached the renovation with "the hope that its work would be nearly impossible to detect – a testament to the consideration given to the building's defining features." The jury commented, "A great example of the rich heritage of modern architecture across the United States, this is a loving rehabilitation of a beautiful example of commercial architecture designed by a renowned architect, that is still serves as the home of the original company."  Boston University School of Law: The fully restored east facade with its repaired and patched concrete wall, new windows and painted ventilator panels (in Sert's original palette) has brought back the genius of the 1960 design for all to appreciate. The newly glazed original entry at the tower base adds a vibrancy that was lost for decades. Image © Richard Mandelkorn Boston University School of Law The jury awards a Citation of Merit for the innovative approach to the conservation of the concrete of Boston University's School of Law Tower and thoughtful addition of the Sumner M. Redstone Building. Speaking on behalf of the jury, Mark Pasnik, AIA commented, "This is a powerful example where the architects acted as preservation advocates, successfully changing the University's and public's perception of a building, while bringing significant details back to life in a way that reinvigorates the entire School of Law complex."  Vincent G. Kling Midcentury House: Exterior after renovation. Image © Jeffrey Totaro Vincent G. Kling Mid-Century House The jury awards a Citation of Merit for the restoration of the Smith Residence designed by Vincent G. Kling. Celebrated as one of Philadelphia's most notable architects and better known for his commercial and institutional projects, Kling completed the Smith Residence in 1960, one of the few examples of his residential work. The jury notes, "The project highlights an important and lesser-known dimension to Kling's professional career. The project is sensitively realized and its inclusion in a well-needed future monograph dealing with Kling's work underscores the importance of this house in discussions of midcentury modernism and domestic space in Pennsylvania." The 2017 Modernism in America Awards will be awarded on the night of Friday, October 6, 2017 at the Design Within Reach Third Avenue Studio in New York City. Learn more about the award and this year's winners, here. News and project descriptions via Docomomo US.
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| Denver Pallet House / Meridian 105 Architecture Posted: 21 Jun 2017 06:00 AM PDT  © Astula Inc
 © Astula Inc From the architect. The Denver Pallet House is a single-family residence located in the Sloan's Lake neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. The house is clad in a module of wood shipping pallets, creating a screening, and light-filtering element for the interior spaces and front porch. Operable panels of the screen allow for customization of privacy on the master bedroom deck, giving a dynamic appearance to the street facing façade. White Venetian plaster coats the remainder of the home, giving a smooth, glossy, and tactile material that is cool and unique to the touch.  © Astula Inc While the square footage of the residence is not characteristically large compared to other homes in the neighborhood, the design benefits from an interior atrium delivering light and vertical volume to the home.  First Floor Plan  Second Floor Plan The centrally located kitchen on the 1 st level of the home looks up through the atrium to the sky, and circulation at both levels wraps this core element on all four sides. On the second floor, the master suite abuts this feature with glass walls, bringing light into the bathroom and bedroom spaces. A dramatic stairway to level 2 changes with the filtering light, and looks down into the kitchen below.  © Astula Inc  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2017 05:10 AM PDT  © Foster + Partners Foster + Partners has revealed new renderings of their designs for Bloomberg's new London headquarters as the project races toward anticipated completion this autumn. The first building worldwide to be wholly owned and constructed by Bloomberg, the design of the London HQ has been guided by principles of collaboration, innovation and productivity, resulting in a structure that enhance both the workplace environment and the public realm.  © Foster + Partners Explaining the impetus for the building's construction, Bloomberg founder and former Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg said: "Our people are our most important asset. I wanted to create a unique, sustainable building where our 4,000 London employees would come to work every morning inspired to connect, collaborate and innovate. I believe in openness. This building takes that to a new level – there's nothing like it in the world." The new Bloomberg campus will be situated on a 3.2-acre site located between the Bank of England and St Paul's Cathedral, employing the traditional materials of stone and bronze on its facade to respond to its historic context. The base of the nine-story structure will allow for pedestrian circulation throughout, including two new public plazas featuring site-commissioned artworks and a restaurant arcade placed along the reinstated path of an ancient Roman road. Further responding to the site's history, a new cultural hub will occupy the footprint of the ancient Roman Temple of Mithras.  © Foster + Partners  © Foster + Partners Inside, seven floors of open-concept floor plates will provide 500,000 square feet of sustainable office space, connected by a wide spiral ramp designed to encourage interactions between employees as they travel from floor to floor. On the sixth floor, a skylight-lit, double-height 'pantry' featuring views of St. Paul's will serve as a space for impromptu meetings. Custom-designed desks developed with Bloomberg take the form of circular pods centered around a central table, allowing employees to easily rotate and collaborate. Each individual desk also has the ability to transform into a standing work station, or a 2-person desk by pulling out an upholstered pedestal.  © Foster + Partners "This project has been an exemplar of collaboration – made possible by the extraordinary vision and personal involvement of Mike Bloomberg, who has been an inspiration every step of the way," explains Norman Foster, Founder and Executive Chairman, Foster + Partners adds. "The scale and materiality of the building is respectful to its surroundings, and its design brings life to the civic domain by reviving the ancient Watling Street as a public arcade of restaurants. The deep plan interior spaces are naturally ventilated through a 'breathing' façade combined with a top lit atrium edged with a spiralling ramp at the heart of the building that ensures a connected, healthy and productive environment. "The design is a highly specific response to Bloomberg's needs, it is an embodiment of the organisation and its core values, embracing the latest principles of sustainable design, and will be a magnet for global talent to the City of London." Learn more about this project, here. News via Foster + Partners.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2017 04:30 AM PDT  The Winery at VIK. Image © Cristobal Palma / Estudio Palma Mainly known outside of his home country for his design of the 2014 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, architect Smiljan Radić (born June 21, 1965) is one of the most prominent figures in current Chilean architecture. With a distinctive approach to form, materials, and natural settings, Radić mostly builds small- to medium-sized projects that flirt with the notion of fragility.  © Hisao Suzuki Born in Santiago de Chile, Radić graduated from the School of Architecture at the Universidad Católica de Chile, and opened his practice in 1995. He mostly built in his native country, where he was named the best architect under 35 by the Chilean College of Architects in 2001. His work mainly focuses on small-scale projects – houses, restaurants, and installations – that allow him to use artisanal production techniques and avoid mass production. Radić also developed some larger projects in the past few years, notably the VIK Winery and renovation of the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art in Santiago. In 2014, he was commissioned for the 14th edition of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion and was among the seven internationally well-known architects selected to build bus stop shelters in the Austrian village of Krumbach.  2014 Serpentine Pavilion. Image © Iwan Baan  Zwing Bus Stop. Image © Yuri Palmin His best-known work, the Serpentine Pavilion, demonstrated several themes essential to his architectural discourse. The installation consisted of a translucent fiberglass shell suspended on large quarry stones that curator Julia Peyton-Jones described as "an alien space pod that has come to rest on a neolithic site," while Radić himself highlighted the project's "handmade" and "crude" aesthetic. Radić uses materials of different weight and density to contrast what is alterable from what is permanent, and questions matters of time and history. He sees this fragility of material as an experiential quality that exposes the relationship between individuals and their context.  Copper House 2. Image Courtesy of Smiljan Radic Beyond the formal appearance of fragile structures, working within the Chilean tradition of self-construction requires flexibility to alter the project and change its materials or construction techniques. Projects are in constant evolution and not set in some permanent state: a necessity that Copper House 2 and House for the Poem of the Right Angle clearly exemplify.  Mestizo Restaurant. Image Courtesy of Smiljan Radic His work also questions the ephemeral character of architecture in relation to landscape. At the Mestizo Restaurant, heavy stones work as pillars to hold the roof structure and merge with the landscape as garden elements. Similarly, his project for Santiago's Antenna Tower, with its light and fragile structure, minimizes damage to the landscape. The tower disappears like a ghost on cloudy days, giving it an unstable character. Radić's VIK Winery couldn't be more different to the tower – being mostly underground rather than reaching to the sky – but its architecture retains a sense of fragility; while the entrance to the winery is covered by an alterable stretched fabric roof, stones dispatched across an open plaza take part in the Andes' timeless scenery.  Santiago Antenna Tower / Smiljan Radic + Gabriela Medrano + Ricardo Serpell . Image Courtesy of Smiljan Radic, Gabriela Medrano, and Ricardo Serpell Check out the thumbnails below to see Smiljan Radić's work featured on ArchDaily, and further coverage of Radić after those: AD Round-Up: The Best of Contemporary Chilean Architecture Video: selgascano, Sou Fujimoto and Smiljan Radic on the 15 Year History of the Serpentine Pavilion Translating Smiljan Radić's Serpentine Pavilion from Fantasy to Fabrication Japanese and Chilean Architects Collaborate to Design Houses for the Ochoalcubo Project  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Willem II Passage / Civic Architects Posted: 21 Jun 2017 04:00 AM PDT  © Stijn Bollaert
 © Stijn Bollaert From the architect. The Willem II-shopping arcade is a new public space which connects the inner city of Tilburg with De Spoorzone, a transformation area to the north. CIVIC Architects and Bright produced a design which unites architecture, public spaces, heritage and room for circulation. The Willem II-shopping arcade is a major public connection under the railway track running through a former NS Dutch Railways workshop complex.  Concept Diagram Flow The route, which is an extension of Willem II-street, is an inviting gateway to the previously inaccessible city area to the north of the railway track. The combination of the pull factor and use of the shopping arcade for cultural events acts as a catalyst for development of De Spoorzone. The Willem II-shopping arcade is dynamically lit and socially safe.  © Richard Boerop  Plan and Section  © Stijn Bollaert Together with Van Tetterode Glass Studio and Philips Lighting a glass brick façade which combines strength with elegant sophistication was developed. Approximately thirty thousand LED lights are integrated in the wall. LUSTlab created a unique algorithm for this application, which controls the LED lighting at pixel level: the light colour and intensity adapt to the time of day, weather conditions and the flow of pedestrian traffic.  © Stijn Bollaert  © Pieter de Ruijter  © Kees Hummel Committee statement: This project intelligently and attractively connects two separate neighbourhoods. It is well frequented, people seem to feel at home in the newly created environment and both sides of the shopping arcade are attracting more and more businesses. The architecture leaves a lasting impression and has been designed to look just as innovative and interesting in thirty years' time as it does today; a form of sustainability which the committee appreciates.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| In Conversation with 3 Rapidly Emerging Practices: L.E.FT, Point Supreme, and vPPR Posted: 21 Jun 2017 03:30 AM PDT  Courtesy of Point Supreme. Image © GSAPP Conversations In these three episodes of GSAPP Conversations, a podcast series designed to offer a window onto the expanding field of contemporary architectural practice, three globally-operating emerging practices are pressed and interviewed by students and staff from the New York-based school.  © GSAPP Conversations Ziad Jamaleddine (L.E.FT) with Selva GürdoğanIn this episode of GSAPP Conversations, Selva Gürdoğan (director of Columbia GSAPP's Studio-X Istanbul) speaks with Ziad Jamaleddine about the exhibition Praygrounds, which was on view at Studio-X Istanbul in Spring 2017. Alongside Makram El Kadi, Jamaleddine has designed residential and cultural projects in New York, Dubai, Turkey, and Beirut. The recently completed Amir Shakib Arslan mosque, located in the remote village of Moukhtara, Lebanon, is the subject of Praygrounds.  Courtesy of L.E.FT Architects. Image © GSAPP Conversations  Courtesy of L.E.FT Architects. Image © GSAPP Conversations Konstantinos Pantazis and Marianna Rentzou (Point Supreme) with Stella IoannidouHere, third-year GSAPP M.Arch student Stella Ioannidou speaks with Point Supreme co-founders Konstantinos Pantazis and Marianna Rentzou on the occasion of their lecture at Columbia GSAPP. Point Supreme was founded in Athens in 2008, one year before the Greek economic crisis. Pantazis and Rentzou discuss their use of collage as a visualization tool, the relationship between small and urban scale projects, what it meant to launch a practice during an economic crisis, and the importance of addressing local issues in their work.  Courtesy of Point Supreme. Image © GSAPP Conversations  Courtesy of Point Supreme. Image © GSAPP Conversations Tatiana von Preussen, Catherine Pease and Jessica Reynolds (vPPR) with James BrillonIn this episode James Brillon, a second-year Columbia GSAPP M.Arch student, speaks with the founders of London-based vPPR Architects. They met at Avery Hall prior to the trio's lecture at GSAPP, and proceed to discuss how the firm uses precision, geometry, light, and communal space to overcome the extreme constraints of developing housing on infill sites in dense London neighborhoods.  Courtesy of VPPR. Image © GSAPP Conversations  Courtesy of VPPR. Image © GSAPP Conversations GSAPP Conversations is a podcast series designed to offer a window onto the expanding field of contemporary architectural practice. Each episode pivots around discussions on current projects, research, and obsessions of a diverse group of invited guests at Columbia, from both emerging and well-established practices. Usually hosted by the Dean of the GSAPP, Amale Andraos, the conversations also feature the school's influential faculty and alumni and give students the opportunity to engage architects on issues of concern to the next generation.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| 13 Tragically Demolished Buildings that Depict Our Ever-Changing Attitudes Toward Architecture Posted: 21 Jun 2017 02:30 AM PDT  Courtesy of The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (in public domain) Immortalized through photographs, drawings, and stories, buildings that have been demolished or completely renovated exist in the realm known as "lost architecture." Either for economic or aesthetic reasons, the old gets torn down for the new, often to the disdain of community members and architects. But demolished buildings tell a story about the ever-changing politics of preservation—and often, they tell it far better than buildings that were actually preserved ever could. As the architectural landscape continues to change around us, it is important to recognize our past, even if its traces have been eliminated from the physical world. Pennsylvania Station (1910 – 1963) Image <a href='http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.ny0411/photos.119990p'>via Library of Congress</a> The 1963 demolition of New York City's Pennsylvania Station was one of the most contested in history. The Beaux Arts building, designed in 1910 by McKim, Mead, and White, was the railroad station that provided the first point of entry into the international city for many visitors. It featured high ceilings, classical columns, and pink granite. Though parts of the underground infrastructure were preserved, the exterior was torn down to make way for Madison Square Garden and Two Penn Plaza. The unprecedented international outrage spurred by the demolition energized architectural preservation efforts in the city. Just two years later, the New York Landmarks Law passed, saving many buildings from a similar fate. New York World Building (1890 – 1955) Image <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(King1893NYC)_pg627_THE_WORLD_BUILDING._PARK_ROW_AND_FRANKFORT_STREET.jpg'>via Wikimedia</a> (public domain) At the height of the influence of the newspaper, the New York World building was erected in 1890 to house the publication of the same name. Designed by George B. Post and commissioned by newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer, the building became the tallest in the city by surpassing the spire of the Trinity Church. But the building was demolished in 1955 to accommodate the expanded car ramp entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. The most iconic remnant from the building is a stained glass window designed by Otto Heinigke that currently hangs in the Columbia University School of Journalism. Netherlands Dance Theater (1987 – 2015) © Hans Werlemann via Metropolis Magazine As the first major project built by Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA in 1987, the Netherlands Dance Theater in The Hague was a testament to his imaginative design approach. Most notable was the structural innovation of the curved roof and the acoustics of the auditorium. Built for 8 million dollars, the project was also lauded for its frugality—though the qualities that allowed it to be so cheap ultimately led to public dissatisfaction and demolition in 2015. The site where the postmodern building once stood will soon be home to a new cultural center with a performing arts complex. The Call Building (1898–) Image <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Detroit_Photographic_Company_(0041).jpg'>via Wikimedia</a> (public domain) Though not completely demolished, San Francisco's 1898 Call Building underwent massive facade renovations in the 1930s that left it unrecognizable. Its distinguishing ornamentation such as decoratives friezes and arched windows was replaced in favor of an unadorned concrete tower. Even the dome at the top of the building was removed. The remodeling of the building, originally designed by James and Merritt Reid, was done in an effort to modernize the building for the twentieth century. Jorba Laboratories (1970 – 1999) via La Gaceta Oftentimes referred to as "The Pagoda" because of its visual similarities to the classic Asian building form, the Jorba Laboratories were an example of Miguel Fisac's rationalist design principles. Designed in 1970 and located outside of Madrid, the campus was most known for its tower that featured offset, square shaped floors. The overlapping created a building that had multiple readings depending on the quality of light. In 1999, developers decided it would be in their best economic interest to erect a larger building on the site and the original was demolished. The public overwhelmingly came out in defense of the building, which was remarkable for such a contemporary work, but unfortunately this was not enough to change its fate. Vanderbilt Houses (1870s – 1920s) Image <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:W_H_Vanderbilt_House.jpg'>via Wikimedia</a> (public domain) Some of the most superior examples of Beaux-Arts architecture were the residences of the famous Vanderbilt family located on New York's Fifth Avenue. In the late 1870s the family commissioned architects such as Richard Morris Hunt to design their massive mansions. As the Gilded Age came and went, many of the houses were demolished to make room for the commercial buildings and skyscrapers seen on Fifth Avenue today. Prentice Women's Hospital (1975 – 2013) © <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prentice_Hospital_1.jpg'>Wikimedia user Umbugbene</a> licensed under <a href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en'>CC BY-SA 3.0</a> Bertrand Goldberg's 1975 Prentice Women's Hospital was an innovative moment in both structural technology and the architecture of patient care. The nine-story concrete tower cantilevered on top of a five-story rectangular base that held the research and surgical programs of the building. The hospital's four-sided cloverleaf tower responded to Goldberg's sociologically-inspired plan to have a central nursing station that provided easy access to the radiating patient rooms. However, after Northwestern University's request for a new biomedical lab on the site and a lengthy public debate, it was torn down in 2013. Garrick Theater (1891 – 1961) Image <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schiller_Theater_building_1900.jpg'>via Wikimedia</a> (public domain) Lauded as one of the greatest works by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, the 1891 Garrick Theater Building (originally known as the Schiller Theater), featured a 1300-seat performance space that hosted some of Chicago's most important cultural events. One of the tallest buildings in the city at the time, the theater was also adorned with the unique style of ornamentation Sullivan pioneered. As live theater lost popularity, the building was reincarnated as a movie theater and later a television studio. Despite substantial public efforts to preserve the building, it was torn down and replaced with a parking lot in 1961. Sutro Baths (1894 – 1964) Image <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_-_Sutro_Baths_-_DSC03484.JPG'>via Wikimedia</a> (public domain) Located by the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco, the 1894 Sutro Baths offered a massive swimming facility to city inhabitants. The glass enclosure that held the public bathhouse featured seven pools at different temperatures. Due to financial woes from the Great Depression, the owners sought other options for the site such as an ice-skating rink and high-rise apartments, but in 1964 the building was destroyed and the site was left barren. The ruins of the Sutro Baths are included as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Imperial Institute (1893 – 1957) Image <a href='https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial_Institute.jpg'>via Wikimedia</a> (public domain) Opened in 1893 by Queen Victoria in London, the Imperial Institute was designed to house the assets from across the Empire. Completed in the late Victorian style, architect Thomas Collcutt aimed to create a building that would represent the influence of the country. Over the years, the use of the building proved inefficient and it was demolished in 1965 to be replaced by the Commonwealth Institute building (which is now home to the Design Museum) located elsewhere in London. Today, the Imperial Institute's main tower still survives as part of the campus of Imperial College London. Erie County Savings Bank (1893 – 1968) Courtesy of United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division (in public domain) The Erie County Savings Bank was an 1893 Romanesque Revival building located in Buffalo, New York. The bank, designed by George B. Post, was finished in a red and pink granite facade. Most notable about the building was Thomas Edison's involvement in its electrical installation. As part of an urban renewal project in 1968, the building was demolished and replaced by the Main Place Tower. The Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel (1902 – 1978) Image <a href='http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/det.4a23069/'>via Library of Congress</a> (public domain) Located in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel is remembered as one of the first hotels to be built using the Hennebique system of reinforced concrete in 1902. The architect Will Price took Spanish and Moorish references for the hotel's design and ornamentation. Though its rotunda portion that protrudes onto the boardwalk was saved through preservation efforts, the rest was torn down in 1978. Pruitt-Igoe (1954 – 1972) Courtesy of Detroit Publishing Co. collection at the Library of Congress (in public domain) First occupied in 1954, Pruitt-Igoe was a 33-building social housing complex designed to accommodate a large amount of low-income families in a healthy environment. The 11-story buildings included features designed to promote community interaction such as elevators that only stopped at every third floor. Soon after its inhabitation, it became synonymous with social degradation, racial tension, and crime. Though many point to its architecture as the origin of its failures, others blame larger systemic issues, creating a touchpoint for a debate that has defined architecture for decades. The destruction of these buildings in 1972, infamously labeled the day that "Modern architecture died" by historian Charles Jencks, represented a shift in cultural attitudes to social housing and architecture.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| House Spaak / AVARRUS Architects Posted: 21 Jun 2017 02:00 AM PDT  © Ville Vappula Photography
 © Ville Vappula Photography From the architect. House Spaak is an exceptional building project where historical and modern wooden architecture combines. New terraced house comprises an idyllic entirety with Konstaapeli Spaak's log house which was erected around 1730. Designed by AVARRUS Architects, these terraced apartments have a solid wood frame and natural ventilation. Whereas Spaak's log-frame house was renovated with piety into sauna and workshops for the residents.  © Ville Vappula Photography  © Ville Vappula Photography These ecological terraced apartments made of solid wood were built by combining modern style with traditional values in a historic park where Helsinki was founded in 16th century. The old and the new building comprises a natural pair in the middle of the preserved park. Between the buildings, there is a shared garden.  © Ville Vappula Photography Both gable roof timber houses are painted with red ochre. The new building has also parts painted with yellow ochre. The frame of this modern building consists of logs and CLT-elements. In addition, the technology inside of the building is made in traditional and simple way; both houses have nowadays in Finland very rare natural ventilation. Every apartment is built around a heat-saving brick wall, which also hides inside exhaust ventilation ducts, as well as chimneys of the fireplaces. Basic heating for both houses is provided by properties own ground heating system.  Ground Floor Plan The new building has three nearly 100 sqm 1,5-storied three-bedroom family apartments. Downstairs from the entrance opens a luminous view towards the airy living room with an open plan kitchen. In addition there is a bedroom and bathroom downstairs.  © Ville Vappula Photography Between the kitchen and the living room is a heat-saving fireplace, which creates warmth and ambience to the space. From the living room you can also enter to the terrace through sliding doors. On the contrary, the upstairs is where two pitched roof bedrooms and a bathroom are placed, light and width is achieved with French doors  Section The atmosphere of the interior consists of strong materials; CLT-boards and the surfaces of massive logs bring warmth, polished concrete floor brings elegance, while brick walls create the feeling of fortitude.  © Ville Vappula Photography Every apartment has an own additional space with fireplace which can be used for instance as a workshop or a guest room. In addition to this, there is a common bathroom with a wood burning sauna, as well as a living space with a fireplace.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 21 Jun 2017 01:00 AM PDT  Arcosanti. Image © Tomiaki Tamura Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri (21 June 1919 – 9 April 2013) made his name as a countercultural icon and urban visionary, best known for his theory of "arcology"—a combination of architecture and ecology—and for Arcosanti, the prototype town in the Arizona desert which embodied his ideals and became his life's work, which he founded in 1970 and continued to work on right up until his death in 2013.  screenshot from David Licata's documentary "A Life's Work"  Panoramic view of Arcosanti. Image © Ken Howie Born in Turin, Italy, Soleri gained his master's degree from the Politecnico di Torino in 1946, traveling to the USA shortly afterward to study under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin. In 1948, Soleri gained international attention after his design for the "Beast Bridge" was included in Elizabeth Mock's book "The Architecture of Bridges," published by the Museum of Modern Art.  Soleri with a model of his "Beast Bridge" design. Image © Cosanti Foundation Soleri moved his family to Arizona in 1956, and in 1970 he began construction on his life's work, Arcosanti. For four decades, Soleri oversaw the construction of his experimental city, with construction almost entirely carried out by over 6,000 volunteers who have, at some point over the project's forty-years, lived at the city and learned from Soleri. Much of the construction was created using "earth casting," a process developed by Soleri in which concrete elements are cast using the ground as formwork.  <a href='https://arcosanti.org/'>via arcosanti.org</a>. ImageArcosanti Today, Arcosanti consists of 13 buildings and, at any one time, houses around 100 people—far short of Soleri's vision of 5,000 citizens. However, despite his death the Arcosanti project continues, funded by the Cosanti Foundation which Soleri established in 1965—which is in turn funded in part by the sale of Soleri-designed ceramic and bronze wind-bells.  <a href='https://arcosanti.org/'>via arcosanti.org</a>. ImageSectional view of Soleri's 2001 design for a completed version of Arcosanti, entitled "Arcosanti 5000" Soleri's affinity with Frank Lloyd Wright is clear from his ecologically-focused countercultural ideology; however, whereas Wright's utopian design for Broadacre City proposed urban sprawl, Arcosanti is a proposal for the opposite: an "urban implosion" where cities are incredibly dense and rural areas are left untouched. This is the materialization of Soleri's theories of arcology.  <a href='https://arcosanti.org/'>via arcosanti.org</a>. ImageArcosanti Soleri is remembered not just for his remarkable designs but also for his proposals of an alternative way of life. Find out more about him via the links below: Remembering Paolo Soleri 1919-2013 Paolo Soleri's Arcosanti : The City in the Image of Man Paolo Soleri's Bridge Design Collection: Connecting Metaphor  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Norman Foster Foundation's Wing-Shaped Pavilion Provides a Home for Le Corbusier's Car Posted: 21 Jun 2017 12:00 AM PDT  © Guillermo Rodríguez Earlier this month, the Norman Foster Foundation opened its doors in central Madrid. Inhabiting in an old residential palace, and having undergone extensive renovation works since, the Foundation have also constructed their own contemporary courtyard pavilion. Housing a treasure trove of artefacts from Lord Foster's personal collection, the structure—which is shaped like the wing of an aircraft—also exhibits a newly restored 1927 Avions Voisin C7 originally owned by Le Corbusier.  © Guillermo Rodríguez The pavilion—the design of which was led by Lord Foster, David Delgado, Raúl Gómez and Jorge López—is tucked between the palace and an adjacent neighbour. With a portion of the façade (a wide glass door weighing 2.7 tons and measuring 6 metres in length) opening onto a sun-drenched, shaded courtyard, the intention is that this pavilion—alongside its primary function as an exhibition space—will also host talks, discussion groups, and events.  © Guillermo Rodríguez  © Guillermo Rodríguez By collaborating closely with (primarily) Spanish craftspeople in metal and glass, the design team have been able to develop a combination of slim, beat-blasted stainless steel sections welded together and mirror-polished edges that "dematerialize the bulk of supporting structures."  © Guillermo Rodríguez  © Guillermo Rodríguez  © Guillermo Rodríguez
The pavilion is filled with an "eclectic selection" of objects, models, photography and sculpture from the worlds of art, architecture and design. These include a range of Lord Foster's formative inspirations: aircraft, cars, and locomotives. The display also acknowledges the importance of other architects, engineers and mentors from the past and present that have influenced Foster's practice.  © Guillermo Rodríguez The Avions Voisin C7 was advanced for its time, employing aviation technology pioneered by Voisin for his flying machines. Because of its large expanse of glass, echoed in the new architecture of its age, it was called the Lumineuse. Gabriel Voisin was also a patron of Le Corbusier, who named his radical proposal for Paris The Voisin Plan.  © Guillermo Rodríguez
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