Arch Daily |
- Observatory / Machado Costa
- Abbey for the Production of Mustard, Pickles and Pickled Vegetables / Dhooge & Meganck Architecture
- Outside In House / Jarmund / Vigsnæs Architects
- The Millenium Bridge / IBUKU
- Gateway Theatre / ONG&ONG Pte Ltd
- TAMASA / Naoya Kawabe Architect & Associates
- Shenzhen Sea World Culture and Arts Center / Maki and Associates
- Belay MKE / Johnsen Schmaling Architects
- Herzog & de Meuron Wins Competition for Masterplan Including Basel’s Tallest Residential Towers
- Diego Guerrero Barber Shop / Carol Burton
- Schmidt Hammer Lassen's Overlapping Box Scheme Wins Competition for Sports and Community Center in Aarhus
- Santa Blanca Condominium / Searle Puga Arquitectos
- Apple Reveals Plans for Foster + Partners-Designed Global Flagship Store in Melbourne
- Fundación Casa Wabi Headquarters / Alberto Kalach
- Unpacking Paul Rudolph’s Overlooked Architectural Feats in Southeast Asia
- Roof Prototype for Sports and Public Space / El Equipo Mazzanti
- At the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chinese Firms Look to Tradition to Write a New Chapter in Their Nation's Architectural History
- 15 LEGO Ideas to Build and Inspire
| Posted: 20 Dec 2017 09:00 PM PST  © Vasco Neves Architectural Photography
 © Vasco Neves Architectural Photography Text description provided by the architects. The Observatory rises above a labyrinth of canals, salt marshes and small islands that punctuate the landscape of the lagoon. The building serves as a welcome centre for the Natural Park's visitors, who search for the biodiversity of the Vouga River's estuary.  © Vasco Neves Architectural Photography The building is positioned near the cost line. The up and down of the tides submerges part of the building's base, allowing direct access from its interior to small boats that take the visitors off to the lagoon.  Ground floor plan Inside, one can find an exhibition area and an auditorium, offering a panorama of the surrounding landscape. Through four huge and deep windows, visitors will experience four glimpses over the territory: the serenity of the lagoon's water plan, the rippling vegetation growing at the dikes, the slow movement of the sky and the profile of the city.  © Vasco Neves Architectural Photography  Sections  © Vasco Neves Architectural Photography Former craftsmen of an old deactivated shipyard in Aveiro built the Observatory. Two carpenters shaped the wooden parts of the formworks, and naval locksmiths manufactured the metal elements. The construction of the building lasted for more than a decade.  © Vasco Neves Architectural Photography  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Abbey for the Production of Mustard, Pickles and Pickled Vegetables / Dhooge & Meganck Architecture Posted: 20 Dec 2017 07:00 PM PST  © Frederik Vercruysse
 © Johnny Umans Text description provided by the architects. A production site for mustard, pickles and imposed vegetables according to an innovative, contemporary abbey principle. It does not stand in line but is an island in the industrial development and thus pulls the underlying nature reserve inwards.  Axonometric Due to the low budget, the 'fat' has been cut away, leading to a condensed concept. The 'arena' extends around and is the minimum paving (turning radius) for loading and unloading. The production was commemorated together with the client from horizontal to vertical, with the mustard tower where the silos with mustard seed are located. The central gate reveals itself as a gaping hole in the massive façade that consists of a rhythmic set of concrete panels.  © Frederik Vercruysse The building must comply with the standards of food safety whereby the hygienic and non-hygienic zone must be strictly separated. The central helix staircase cleverly resolves this and shows the functioning and DNA of the building.  © Frederik Vercruysse Design as craftmanship. The mustard tower symbolizes the culmination of two years of design research and the new vertical production. The architectural language is surprisingly simple, sacral and reminiscent: a thought of a phenomenon from the past. The façades literally translate the inside of the building. The front only accommodates storage that is UV sensitive, the back is completely cut-out to the underlying nature in favor of the workspace where it is produced. Not a typical closed food-safe box, but an open space with the central helix that induces mutual encounters.  Exploded Isometric Camp's is a modern abbey: a place where, supported by architecture, you experience the magic of the production process. From the arena you enter another world, where the strict but wondrous surrealism of Ledoux and Boullée is never far away.  © Frederik Vercruysse ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPT, SETTLING IN NATURE AND COMMUNITY FUNCTIONS PUBLIC ARENA The size of the arena is determined by the turning circle of the largest truck. Minimal effort with maximum results. The circle is perfectly round and is bordered with a closure that will also serve as a tribune. This will filter the relationship with the surrounding landscape. The central gate is the only entrance to the site and protects the view from the street. One entrance, one control point, one fence on the edge of the circle defining the protected zone.  © Frederik Vercruysse  © Frederik Vercruysse Outside this perimeter, nature comes knocking at the door: wild shrubs, hedges and trees from the nearby nature reserve are extended to the site, which minimizes the occupancy of the building.  Detail The arena will be publicly opened up in the form of a polyvalent event square for the community. Right from the opening, the building could count on an important public interest from the wider environment.  © Dhooge & Meganck COLLECTIVE MASK FOR THE COMMUNITY At the back of the building a collective vegetable garden will be provided that will serve the community. All kinds of vegetables will be grown here. Experiences on brining and storing vegetables are shared in the building in the form of workshops and courses on a regular basis.  © Dhooge & Meganck  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Outside In House / Jarmund / Vigsnæs Architects Posted: 20 Dec 2017 06:00 PM PST  © Nils Petter Dale
 © Nils Petter Dale Text description provided by the architects. The site is located close to the sea on the south coast of Norway. The house is placed in a clearing of a surrounding forest where the terrain is calmly sloping towards the water. Due to public access to the site the house is quite enclosed, mainly orientated around a courtyard which is shielded from wind, but still allows for views both towards the sea and the forest.  © Nils Petter Dale The rhythm of the plan and section around this courtyard breaks down the scale of the large building volume and allows for views towards the sea from most rooms in the house. The geometry, scale and use of water within this space reflect the character of the many small clefts within the surrounding rocky and coastal landscape.  © Nils Petter Dale  Floor Plan 1  © Nils Petter Dale The Cedar cladding is highly durable in the harsh seaside climate and is used both indoor and on outdoor to strengthen the intention of connecting the internal spaces with the courtyard. The external claddings zig-zagged geometry is intended to define a smaller scale within the long facade, and relate to the geometry of the outdoor, inside space of the house.  © Nils Petter Dale  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 20 Dec 2017 04:00 PM PST  Courtesy of IBUKU
"Millenium Bridge" is one of the longest bamboo bridge in Asia, with a length of 23 meters and an impressive roof inspired by the Minangkabau architecture, following the shape of a buffalo horn. It is built in a mix of blond and black bamboo species.  Courtesy of IBUKU
 Courtesy of IBUKU  Section / Details  Courtesy of IBUKU The bridge is intended for pedestrian traffic and connects the east and west part of the Green School, becoming a fundamental part of the main circulation within the campus. .jpg?1511988207 "Courtesy of IBUKU") Courtesy of IBUKU  © José Tomás Franco  © José Tomás Franco  © José Tomás Franco  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Gateway Theatre / ONG&ONG Pte Ltd Posted: 20 Dec 2017 02:00 PM PST  Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd
 Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd Text description provided by the architects. Nested in the heart of Bukit Merah, Gateway Theatre is a multi-performance venue where user' experience and social participation are priorities. The front façade of the theatre opens up to the streets of Bukit Merah allowing passers-by and residents to peer into the building, giving it a sense of porosity and openness.  Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd  Section  Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd As the building houses several performance spaces, crowd and traffic control were both important considerations. Breaking away from the traditional procession of formal and informal spaces, the emphasis for Gateway Theatre was placed on the composition of spatial relationships between the performance and community spaces. Every floor was made unique and non-repetitive, each individually encoded to provide experiences that encourage interest and participation.  Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd Pockets of interwoven landscaped sky gardens that cascade down to the ground level help to mitigate the large scale of the block. Gateway Theatre also features a garden on the sixth floor, where greenery further melds and integrates the building with the surrounding urbanscape. Composed of varying planes, it is an extension of the performance arena and can house several performances simultaneously. Functionally, the landscaped sections act as seamless 'breakout' spaces, catering for moments of community interaction.  Courtesy of ONG&ONG Pte Ltd  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| TAMASA / Naoya Kawabe Architect & Associates Posted: 20 Dec 2017 12:00 PM PST  © Akinobu Kawabe
 © Akinobu Kawabe Text description provided by the architects. This serviced apartment and hotel in the suburbs of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, sits between Phnom Penh International Airport and the city's downtown, in an area frequented primarily by foreign tourists and business travelers. In typical service apartments, shared spaces are fully separated from private living spaces, but in this project the client anticipated that people of many different nationalities would be using the facility, and therefore requested that the living spaces be as open as possible to the public spaces in order to create an environment that encourages casual interactions within the course of everyday life.  © Akinobu Kawabe The structural frame that comprises the building's skeleton is strongly constructed and intentionally contrasts with the scale of the interior spaces, creating the sensation that one is lost in backstreets even while inside the building. This helps to actively connect private and public zones. The generous common space delineated by the frame blocks direct sunlight while letting breezes pass through, providing a comfortable place to escape the hot, humid Southeast Asian climate. The private rooms are linked to the common areas by large windows and doors that open up the space and gently connect residents who would ordinarily tend to be disconnected from one another.  Section 01 To encourage use by non-residents, the building allows for the simultaneous operation of a hotel and includes a restaurant with an open-air café on the first floor and a pool on the top floor. Collaboration with the adjacent sports club further helps to attract customers and enhance the project's contribution to local employment and economic development.  © Akinobu Kawabe  © Akinobu Kawabe With regard to construction, we found that the precision of local general contractors was still developing, but by separating structural elements such as posts and beams from interior features, we were able to eliminate the need to rely on precision construction. The quality of the design also improved as a result.  © Akinobu Kawabe  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Shenzhen Sea World Culture and Arts Center / Maki and Associates Posted: 20 Dec 2017 11:00 AM PST  Courtesy of Maki and Associates
 Aerial. Image Courtesy of Maki and Associates Text description provided by the architects. In 2011, Maki and Associates was invited by China Merchants Property Development (CMPD), one of the most revered Chinese real estate companies, to undertake our first project in China. Our mission was to design the first cultural facility within the Sea World's multi-use development that serves as a dignified house of art and culture for Shenzhen and greater China.  Courtesy of Maki and Associates  Public Spaces Diagram  Approach. Image Courtesy of Maki and Associates The building form follows a two-part composition: a podium and a pavilion. The sculptural podium, clad in white and green granite, houses the museum and retail functions. The pavilion consists of three cantilevered volumes protruding to the surrounding city/mountain, park, and the sea. The three volumes house a theater, restaurant, and multi-purpose hall. The theater is enclosed by a double-skin with exterior louvers, allowing views of the city and mountain from inside.  Detail Waterfront The restaurant is marked by a V-shaped aluminum element, while the multi-purpose hall is glazed with spider-point double skin overlooking the sea. The folded aluminum roofs of the volumes create a sharp profile that yields different shades depending on the angle of the sun. The result is a dynamic building silhouette that symbolizes SWCAC's role in disseminating culture and information―a large white ship in the harbor. Another important design concept was to enhance the SWCAC's public nature by designing an open landscape. To the east of the building is a large "green plate", composed of a series of folded grass planes that gradually lead visitors from the city to the waterfront. Two grand stairs at each end of the podium connect the city and Shekou bay bypassing the roof garden that is open to public access, creating a serene refuge from the surrounding traffic. The result is an integrated project site experienced as one large park, where visitors can freely walk around in a continuous circuit.  Axonometric The interior program demand of one-to-one culture and retail floor area ratio is resolved by two shifting grids that represent the museum and retail zones. Two grids merge to create three public plazas in between: the Culture Plaza, the Central Plaza, and the Waterfront Plaza.16m-tall glazed Culture Plaza serves as the main entry from Wanghai Road to the museum sector, workshop spaces, and the 330-seat theater. The museum sector, advised by the Victoria and Albert Museum, consists of a connecting entry zone and five galleries; the largest is the 9.5m-tall Main Gallery lit by a symbolic skylight.  Culture Plaza. Image Courtesy of Maki and Associates  Plans  Exhibit Park View. Image Courtesy of Maki and Associates The Central Plaza is a dynamic atrium consisting of retail spaces and a courtyard. The Waterfront Plaza with open views of the sea consists of spiraling stairs leading to the 800 square-meter multi-purpose hall. The plazas are designated a distinct material - Culture Plaza with red Indian sandstone, Central Plaza with white Sivec marble, and Waterfront Plaza with blue Azul Bahia granite. The plazas not only provide spatial breaks to the large facility, but also vertically connect the building and offer a variety of sightlines to spaces above and below.  © Studio Onsite By China Merchant's enduring support, Maki team has been fortunate to participate from the early design phase up until construction supervision. It is hoped that the design of the SWCAC enhances the interplay of activities in and around the facility and helps to nurture the cultural interests of Shenzhen and beyond.  Park. Image Courtesy of Maki and Associates  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Belay MKE / Johnsen Schmaling Architects Posted: 20 Dec 2017 09:00 AM PST  © John J. Macaulay
 © John J. Macaulay Text description provided by the architects. Belay MKE is a mixed-use development at the northern edge of downtown Milwaukee, a formally restrained building that combines an 18,000-square-foot indoor rock-climbing gym with 46 small apartment units. The project occupies an urban brownfield site known as Humboldt Yards, where the repair shops of the now-defunct "Milwaukee Road" Railway were located until the early 1970s. After sitting idle for decades, Humboldt Yard has seen sporadic construction activity in recent years to absorb some of the pressure from the city's rapidly growing downtown population.  © John J. Macaulay Contrasting the typical developer fare slowly pervading the area – uninspired, bromidic buildings, each plastered with a myriad of cladding materials – Belay MKE was conceived as an intentionally solid, monolithic block, a defiantly raw building designed to reverberate the physical scale and muscular presence of the unpretentious industrial structures that used to define the fabric of Humboldt Yards.  © John J. Macaulay  Floor Plans  © John J. Macaulay The building's restrained exterior palette – weathering steel, accentuated by fiber concrete panels, aluminum, and glass – reflects the inherent contradiction between a site profoundly shaped by Milwaukee's historic role as the "Workshop of the World" and the aspirations of a swiftly transforming city attracting white-collar jobs and young people interested in an engaging urban environment: A slowly transforming skin of oxidizing corrugated steel panels wraps almost the entire building volume, its weathering skin in a carefully edited dialogue with the crisp, precise lines of aluminum extrusions and concrete panels.  Sections The hybrid building program was organized as a simple 4-story rectangular volume. Lining the south and east edges of the building, the modular apartments take advantage of expansive views of the adjacent community greenspace and into the recently re-naturalized Milwaukee River basin. The 60-foot high long-span gym space itself projects out to the north to accommodate a pair of vertical glass walls at the end of the building – tall apertures that expose and effectively advertise the climbing activities on the inside to the passers-by on North Avenue, a busy east-west thoroughfare connecting Lake Michigan to Milwaukee's western suburbs.  © John J. Macaulay The gym's north wall, required to be windowless to maximize the usable climbing surface inside, transforms into a highly articulated, cadenced plane organized by a series of oblique aluminium fins. The fins' gradually shifting shapes create an animated vertical texture that changes depending on light conditions and the angle from which they are viewed, an abstract echo of the undulating climbing surfaces inside. The fins are spaced by horizontal light strips, their green acrylic lenses adding an unexpected splash of colour that further activates the wall after darkness. As it reaches the top, the north wall folds into a horizontal roof plane floating five feet above the top of the main building volume to accommodate a continuous clerestory that provides the gym with an abundance of natural light throughout the day. At night, the clerestory gives the building an iconic presence, transforming it into a softly glowing neighbourhood beacon illuminating Humboldt Yard's sombre urban sky.  Model Section  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Herzog & de Meuron Wins Competition for Masterplan Including Basel’s Tallest Residential Towers Posted: 20 Dec 2017 07:45 AM PST  © Herzog & de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron has been selected as the winners of a competition to design the new master plan of the Nordspitze community in the northermost part Basel's Dreispitz district. Organized around two large public green spaces, the mixed-use community will feature three residential skyscrapers that will become the three tallest residential buildings in the city.  © Herzog & de Meuron The development will surround the existing MParc shopping center, which will be augmented with a new pedestrianized green roof. The three residential towers – 2 at 135-meters-tall and the third at 160-meters-tall – will offer 800 apartments of a variety of sizes. In total, the development is expected to create 400 new jobs and provide homes for 1,400 people.  © Herzog & de Meuron  © Herzog & de Meuron "The chance to work on this project is of particular significance for us," commented Herzog & de Meuron on the announcement. "It will give us a chance to further manifest the ideas we generated together with Rémy Zaugg in "Eine Stadt im Werden?" in 1991, and our investigations in "Vision Dreispitz" in 2001." The project will now continue through the planning stage, with plans expected to be finalized and submitted for approval in 2020.  © Herzog & de Meuron  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Diego Guerrero Barber Shop / Carol Burton Posted: 20 Dec 2017 07:00 AM PST  © Gonzalo Viramonte
 © Gonzalo Viramonte Text description provided by the architects. The project is located in a historic area of Cordoba city. The customer asked us for a novel design in keeping with the traditional style of this area. The premises are a traditional mansion that has been remodelled as a mall. The store was meant to reflect the latest trends, providing a contemporary setting inviting relaxation, with adjustable furniture arrangements and a cosy atmosphere, all done within the limitations of a low budget and other constraints.  Floor Plan The indoor décor was intentionally opened to view through a display window so that all activities should be visible from the outside. This provided a direct contact between the customer and surroundings. The arrangement of the furniture and displays within the store followed simple lines, using warm-type materials. The basic requirements were functionality and roominess, This is why small roller chairs and small fixed tables were chosen.  © Gonzalo Viramonte  Section 2 This enabled hairdressing seating arrangements to be changed to meet varying needs. The long dark room used as an ancillary hairdressing salon was given a warmer look through the use of colour and brighter illumination. Soft textures and neutral colours were chosen to go with the furnishing. For this purpose, pinks and yellows provided a gently muted background.  © Gonzalo Viramonte  Section 4  © Gonzalo Viramonte  Section 3  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 20 Dec 2017 06:30 AM PST  Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects The team led by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects has been selected as the winners of a competition to design a significant new Sports and Culture Campus in the Gellerup neighborhood of Aarhus, Denmark. Covering an area of 10,000 square meters (107,640 square feet), the new complex will contain a wide variety of athletic and leisure facilities aimed at becoming "an inspiring, welcoming and open destination for city residents and visitors."  Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects As the city's most culturally diverse district, Gellerup has seen an influx of new residents relocating from all around the world. To cater to the needs of these new residents, the city has developed an ambitious redevelopment master plan that will add numerous new civic centers to neighborhood, including the Gellerup Sports and Culture Campus. Containing a library, gymnasium, swimming pool, "playful activity house" and community meeting spaces and facilities, the complex is expected to see more than 600,000 per year. Responding to these needs, the winning team, consisting of SHL with MASU Planning ApS, Loop Architects and COWI A/S, have designed the facility to be as welcoming and familiar as possible.  Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects  Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects "When designing the campus, our intention was to create a welcoming place that is open and relevant for the local community, while also appealing to residents from across Aarhus and the world," said Trine Berthold, Associate Partner at Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects. "We hope to draw people into the campus's various elements with architecture that is rooted in the local environment, but also speaks to an international audience."  Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects The proposal aims to break up the rigid grid of the district with an open layout of shifting and rotating structures, articulated to strengthen community connections and a sense of democracy. The building overlap in intuitive ways to create spaces for casual meeting and interaction. "In a community as diverse as Gellerup, it is important that the new campus be a democratic place that is friendly, unpretentious and easy to move through so that it encourages use by every member of the district and interaction between people of all walks of life," added Berthold.  Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects The winning proposal was selected by the Aarhus Kommune and housing association Brabrand Boligforening from a pool of teams that included Danish firms 3XN and CEBRA. The project will now continue into the development phase, with construction planned to begin in early 2018 and complete in 2021.
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| Santa Blanca Condominium / Searle Puga Arquitectos Posted: 20 Dec 2017 05:00 AM PST  © Sabino Aguad
 © Sabino Aguad Text description provided by the architects. The commission consisted in making a family condominium of two independent houses on a common land of approximately 2,570 m2. The land is located in the southern hemisphere where the sunlight comes from the north. With this in mind for a good use of the orientation, we opted the use of the northern area of the land for the development of housing, leaving the south for vehicular circulation.  © Sabino Aguad  Lower Floor Plan  © Sabino Aguad The residential area was divided into two lots locating the houses at the end of each. In this way, an alternate garden-construction relationship was achieved, which makes the houses independent from each other and also from the street. The houses were developed around interior green yards, which give north light to the main rooms. In the first floor the public rooms and the secondary bedrooms were located, meanwhile, the second floors were destined exclusively for the master bedrooms and their support program.  © Sabino Aguad There are three predominant materials in the construction. All the perimeter walls were covered with EIFS thermal system and then painted in black. The slabs and the beams of the terraces were left in exposed concrete. The second floors were projected as independent and lighter volumes than the first floors. These volumes were coated with Quadroline panels also painted in black. The roofs of these bodies are irregular and inclined, which gives to the rooms of the second-floor skies of different heights according to the hierarchy of the room.  © Sabino Aguad  Elevations and Sections  © Sabino Aguad  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Apple Reveals Plans for Foster + Partners-Designed Global Flagship Store in Melbourne Posted: 20 Dec 2017 03:40 AM PST  "Apple Federation Square complements the original vision for the precinct, increases public space and provides a daily program of activity to inspire and educate the community," says Apple. Image Courtesy of Apple Apple has unveiled plans for their latest global flagship town square retail concept, to be located in Melbourne's Federation Square. A product of a partnership between Apple, Federation Square and the Victorian Government, the store is envisioned as a shared resource that will increase the amount of public space in the square and will offer daily programs to "inspire and educate the community." To design the structure, Apple has again gone to Foster + Partners, architects of many of the tech company's most innovative structures of the past few years, including Apple Michigan Avenue in Chicago (Apple's first town square concept), Apple Dubai Mall, upcoming retail stores in Milan and Washington D.C., and the company's new corporate headquarters, Apple Park.  Apple will increase the public space within Federation Square and improve access to the Yarra River. Image Courtesy of Apple Located on the south border of the site along the Yarra River, Apple Federation Square will be a two-story structure featuring the brand's signature all-glass walls, stone flooring and stainless steel columns. A wraparound balcony of the second floor will offer up views of the city and the plaza, while terraced landscaping around the building will connect the pavilion to its site and the river. The store will also be powered entirely by renewable energy. Billed by Apple as the company's "most significant store in the Southern Hemisphere," the store is part of a wider government strategy to reinvigorate Federation Square, which was completed in 2002 by Lab Architecture Studio, Karres en Brands Landscape Architects and Bates Smart.  A photo of Federation Square as it appears today. Image © Flickr user vincentq. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Early reactions to the project have been mixed, with some expressing concern of introducing a commercial program into an otherwise public space. However, thanks to its partnership with the city, the project has already passed the first stage of planning approval. "We're thrilled to move forward in the planning process for our new home in Melbourne's Federation Square and would be honoured to call the world-class galleries and museums of Melbourne our neighbours," said Angela Ahrendts, Apple's senior vice president, Retail. "Apple Federation Square respects the original vision for the plaza, with a bespoke design concept and extensive landscaping bringing increased opportunities for the community to enjoy this renowned cultural hub." Construction on the store is expected to begin in 2019, with a grand opening slated for 2020. News via Apple, The Guardian  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Fundación Casa Wabi Headquarters / Alberto Kalach Posted: 20 Dec 2017 03:00 AM PST  © Yoshi Koitani
 © Yoshi Koitani The new headquarters of Fundación Casa Wabi in Mexico City opens with the purpose of functioning as a space for art. The project it is a restoration of a large house and consists -on the ground floor- of a furniture store with access to Amado Nervo Street, as well as a gallery that connects with Dr. Atl Street, both living with two interior courtyards that gives natural light and ventilation to the building.  © Yoshi Koitani  Lower Floor Plan  © Yoshi Koitani On the top floor there is a workshop, a meeting room and seven offices arranged longitudinally along a corridor that ends with a terrace that, in turn, opens onto the street Amado Nervo. On the roof, in addition to Alberto Kalach's botanical design, there is a covered workshop with wooden beams and steel profiles.  © Yoshi Koitani As it is a restoration, most of the walls and floors were left with the previous finishes revealing the time passed.  © Yoshi Koitani  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Unpacking Paul Rudolph’s Overlooked Architectural Feats in Southeast Asia Posted: 20 Dec 2017 01:30 AM PST  Intiland Tower. Image © Darren Soh To speak of Paul Rudolph's illustrious career is to trace a grand arc stretching from the 1940s to the 1990s. More often than not, the popular narrative begins with his student days at Harvard under the tutelage of Walter Gropius, touches upon his earliest, much-loved Florida beach houses, circles around his eventual break from the rigidity of both the Sarasota School and the International Style, and finally races towards the apex: his chairmanship of the Yale School of Architecture, and the concurrent shift to a Brutalist architectural style characterized by monumental forms, rugged concrete, and interwoven, multilevelled spaces awash with a remarkable interplay of light. Then comes the fall from grace: the beloved Yale Art and Architecture Building went up in flames just as the architecture profession began to question modernist ideals, and eventually Postmodernism was ushered in. Flickering, sputtering, Rudolph's grand narrative arc lurched towards Southeast Asia, bearing away the "martyred saint." Save for several scattered commissions in the United States, Rudolph spent the last two decades of his life building abroad, mostly across Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Singapore, until his death in 1997. But of course, time and again, historians have sought to challenge the myth of the failed architect by rereading his understudied work from the late years. Adding to this growing corpus of fresh research and alternate perspectives is architectural photographer Darren Soh's ongoing project documenting—so far—three of Rudolph's major works in Southeast Asia: The Colonnade (1986) and The Concourse (1994) in Singapore, and the Intiland Tower (1997) in Surabaya, Indonesia.  The Concourse. Image © Darren Soh Soh's photographs, while remarkable as standalone pieces, do not function as provocations or statements; they are, nonetheless, a befitting reminder of what Robert Bruegmann noted earlier in a two-part essay: "The 1970s, the period in which Rudolph apparently disappeared, actually marked a transitional period in his career... a series of new commissions from Southeast Asia appeared that would make the early years of the 1980s as crucial in his late career as the mid-1960s were in his early career."  The Colonnade. Image © Darren Soh In fact, it was in Southeast Asia that Rudolph was really able to explore some of his key ideas fully through his designs for several large-scale projects commissioned by wealthy clients. Quite unlike the West, clients here were quick to embrace his modernist vision, partly due—as Joseph Giovannini wrote in The New York Times—to "a particular aversion to the historical classicism espoused by the postmodernists because it echoed the styles imported by colonial powers." The towering megastructures that Rudolph built would eventually become important as symbols of growth and progress in the rapidly developing skylines of Singapore and Indonesia.  Intiland Tower. Image © Darren Soh What is most striking at first glance is Rudolph's bold experimentation with the "brick of the twentieth century," prefabricated units. Although the prefab dream was only partly realized at this time due to technical and financial difficulties, he explored the spatial, formal and aesthetic potential of the modular unit using conventional building methods. It is perhaps this peculiar aspect that renders these buildings at once dramatic and dynamic amid an army of rigid glass towers.  The Concourse. Image © Darren Soh  Intiland Tower. Image © Darren Soh Through layered and stacked units, extrusions, shifted floorplates, and interconnected spaces, he created powerful forms with well-lit interiors, airy, double-height spaces, and carefully planned views.  The Colonnade. Image © Darren Soh Interestingly, while all of this catered to Rudolph's architectural ideals, it was also designed with a consideration for the hot, humid climate of these countries. The masterful layering of solids and voids in The Colonnade allowed respite from the harsh summer sun, with the cantilevered units shading the spaces below.  The Colonnade. Image © Darren Soh Stepped volumes and offset floor plates also found their way into the design for The Concourse, but this time, with the outer, octagonal walls of each floor sloped outwards to minimize heat gain.  The Concourse. Image © Darren Soh Similarly, The Intiland Tower (formerly Wisma Dharmala) also made use of terraced floors with generous overhangs.  Intiland Tower. Image © Darren Soh More importantly though, as Bruegmann argues, when one speaks particularly of Rudolph's late work, it is imperative to consider "his concern for architecture as an urban art." Large-scale projects called for greater site specificity, and Rudolph sought to connect his buildings with the users and the immediate context, as well as the larger city.  The Concourse. Image © Darren Soh  The Colonnade. Image © Darren Soh  Intiland Tower. Image © Darren Soh It was with this in mind that he designed structures lifted off the ground on columns, thereby creating generous, open space below. While these public or semi-public spaces catered to the scale of the everyday pedestrian or the automobile user, the structure in its entirety assimilated itself into the surrounding built fabric.  The Colonnade. Image © Darren Soh  The Colonnade. Image © Darren Soh From Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Bangladesh in Southeast Asia, to as far as Japan, Israel, Lebanon, Spain, France and Switzerland, Rudolph left behind numerous built and unbuilt designs for projects as diverse as bungalows, stadiums, universities, high-rises, apartment complexes and master plans. So how is it that this vast body of work came to be treated as a feeble postscript to his oeuvre? Apparently, the toppling of Modernism in America was not the only reason for this. As noted in the book Paul Rudolph: The Late Work, delays in construction timelines, distance from the West, and Rudolph's insouciance toward self-promotion through the media all contributed to dim the brilliance of these late years.  The Concourse. Image © Darren Soh  The Concourse. Image © Darren Soh This, in turn, probes one to think further—about the importance (or perhaps otherwise) of utilizing the architectural media for self-promotion, what the word "failure" really means in the light of creative professions, and more generally, how history is always multipronged, forever open to multiple ways of reading.  The Concourse. Image © Darren Soh  Intiland Tower. Image © Darren Soh For more on Rudolph, browse through Robert de Alba's Paul Rudolph: The Late Works, Robert Bruegmann's The Architect as Urbanist: Part I and Part II, or check out our earlier articles here.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Roof Prototype for Sports and Public Space / El Equipo Mazzanti Posted: 20 Dec 2017 01:00 AM PST  © Alejandro Arango - Pequeño Robot
 © Alejandro Arango - Pequeño Robot Text description provided by the architects. This projects aim is to create an open space that gives true relevance to the role of the community in the construction of a city. A modular system is composed from an elongated rhombus type piece that multiplies and unites in a base module or a complementary module, making an adaptable and progressively growing and transforming structure.  © Alejandro Arango - Pequeño Robot A vast generative ceiling emerges from a series of connected and raised pieces that allow existing and unique realities of its location to infiltrate within its interiors. A sequence of physical perceptions based on natural factors such as humidity, heat, cold or luminosity accompanied by controlled elements like light filtration, fans and aspersers, or sound and water implementations, create a spontaneous atmosphere that make people sensible to their own bodies relationship with nature.  © Alejandro Arango - Pequeño Robot  Roof Section  © Alejandro Arango - Pequeño Robot The structure acts as a tool for promoting any sort of activities ranging from sportive, ludic, economic, academic and cultural, to social, taking advantage of its open kind that suggests interactions between people and with nature. The design is defined by the trees' and bushes' shape, which determine if the structure bends, expands or wraps around them.  Ground Floor Plan  © Alejandro Arango - Pequeño Robot  Roof Plan  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 20 Dec 2017 12:00 AM PST  Five Dragons Temple in Shanxi Province, designed by URBANUS. Image by Yang Chaoying This article was originally published on the blog of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America. The 2017 Biennial, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 6, 2018. When we think of contemporary architecture in China, we often refer to the megaprojects by international architecture studios that tend to get covered most in the design media. From OMA's CCTV Headquarters and Shenzhen Stock Exchange to the recently completed Tianjin Binhai Library by MVRDV and Poly International Plaza by SOM, these projects dominate urban skylines at a singular scale that suggests they were built to impress. Beyond individual buildings, China's mega-architecture boom is rapidly developing entirely new cities, a process designed to relieve the country's principal metropolitan areas of their high density, while offering new prototypes for urban life. These highly branded environments are prompting displacement – as a form of rural exodus – and social stress throughout the country, while also ignoring the legacy of traditional Chinese architecture in urban centers. .jpg?1513724004) At this year's Chicago Architecture Biennial, three architecture studios - Archi Union, ZAO/Standardarchitecture and URBANUS - took the stage to represent a lesser-known and more deliberate generation of Chinese design. All three presented research into the long-standing textures of Chinese urbanism and projects that "make new history" by reinventing traditional sites of living: temple complexes, historical districts, and hutongs. Using building materials that have constituted the fabric of Chinese architecture since the very beginning of city building, the architects evolve specific building types into modern prototypes, proposing forward-thinking visions for social gathering and collaboration.  Chi She exhibition space in Shanghai, designed by Archi-Union. Images by Yuchen Hu (left) and Shengliang Su (right) Together, URBANUS, Archi-Union and ZAO/Standardarchitecture represent the misrepresented architects of China. Their work couldn't be further from the globalized urbanism of iconic skyscrapers and instant cities. Instead, it hews closer to the Pritzker-winning work of Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, whose designs embed the swinging rooflines and intricate plans of historic Chinese structures into far more daring compositions. Chinese architects of this generation also work wonders with humble bricks, tiles and slabs, layering and casting them directly onto structures which might be thousands of years older. Basing their work on these classic types and materials, which have their own extraordinary long histories, they produce architecture that is deeply ingrained within Chinese tradition, society and culture. By bringing these three firms to Chicago, Johnston and Marklee have shone a light on local architectural practices which continue to persist in China and included them in a cross-cultural dialogue on the reuse and reinvention of the architectural past.  Installation view of Archi-Union projects at the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Image by Steve Hall © Hall Merrick Photographers Archi Union's installation, "Robotic Craftsmanship: Making New History with Traditional Materials," is composed of three meticulously-made wooden models of recently completed projects by the firm, each standing atop a base inspired by the signature architectural form for the building, and facing a photographic backdrop of the built work itself. The three projects from left to right are the Chi She exhibition space in Shanghai, the Fab-Union art and cultural center in Shanghai, and the In Bamboo cultural exchange center for the rural community of Daoming in the Sichuan Province of China. In the first, the existing building was renovated and reinforced with an undulating façade built piece by piece by robotic bricklayers. In the second, the central element of the Fab-Union space is a hyperbolic paraboloid wall cast from poured concrete, which twists through the center of the building to break out the space into more intimate, engaging pockets. Finally, the In Bamboo center is a new structure built on a light, prefabricated steel frame, and topped with a ring-shaped tiled roof supported by a bamboo structure.  Fab-Union in Shanghai's West Bund neighborhood, designed by Archi-Union. Images by Hao Chen (left) and Shengliang Su (right) "The beauty of the materials belongs to the local culture and the traditional environment," explained firm principal Philip F. Huan in a video realized by ArchDaily. But here the timeless qualities of those materials are shaped into new forms using new technologies, which the practice is embracing as a means to seamlessly integrate past and future . Archi Union's work anchors itself in traditional, readily available materials, and imbues them with new meaning thanks to robotic fabrication and cutting-edge technology. Architectural Digest Fred A. Bernstein describes it as "produc[ing] new buildings with old souls." In "Make New Hutong Metabolism," ZAO/Standardarchitecture zeroes in on the revitalization, and thus the preservation, of hutongs - the inhabited alleyways in central Beijing which make up the city's historic urban fabric, but are being demolished in to make way for the contemporary city. The exhibition features three different projects that delicately insert new pockets of community life into these dwelling compounds: the Micro Yuan'er Children's Library and Art Centre, Micro Hutong and Co-living Courtyard. The Beijing-based studio – founded by Zhang Ke in 2001 – proposes alternative perspectives, studying infrastructure at all scale so as to explore the potential of "old hutongs and courtyards as generators of communal spaces and catalyst of social interaction."  Micro Yuan'er Children's Library and Art Centre in the Dashilar neighborhood of Beijing, designed by ZAO/standardarchitecture. Image by Shengliang Su At the Biennial, models and photographs give the visitor a sense of the intimate scale and spatial organization of these contemporary hutongs. Stepped brick additions and glassed-in porches turn the simple courtyard into a stepped landscape where children might explore and neighbors can gather.  Micro Hutong by ZAO/Standardarchitecture in Beijing. Image by Chen Su (left) and Shengliang Su (right) URBANUS' Biennial installation examines the effects of restoration, rehabilitation and preservation of Chinese historic monuments. URBANUS was founded in 1999 under the leadership of partners Xiaodu Liu, Yan Meng and Hui Wang and now has offices in both Shenzhen and Beijing. More than an architecture practice, the firm describes itself as a think tank which aims to formulate architectural strategies for building a coherent urbanism in the midst of massive changes reordering the built environment of China's cities. For the Chicago Biennial, URBANUS examines two recent projects. The first is the environmental design for the Five Dragons Temple, the oldest Taoist temple in China, which remained unmaintained for over a thousand years until it was restored as a spiritual center and museum dedicated to ancient Chinese architecture. The second is the rehabilitation plan for Nantou Old Town, aiming to revitalize a historic quarter of Shenzhen. In the context of Shenzhen, a staggering example of rapid urbanization taking over an urban village, URBANUS addressed the complexity of balancing preservation and development.  Five Dragons Temple by URBANUS. Image by Yang Chaoying In any discussion of contemporary architecture in China, this current generation of Chinese architects deserves more attention than it has received compared to work by Western "starchitects." New architecture in China is more than megacities and curvaceous opera houses. In fact, local practices like these are building a new vocabulary that extends centuries of history and site-specific building traditions. The three firms exhibited at the Chicago Biennial represent just a subset of China's emerging architecture scene. Arch Studio in Beijing, More Design Office in Shanghai, Rural Urban Framework and Li Xiaodong Atelier also work in a similar register, which is demonstratively engrained in and inspired by Chinese local sensibility and tradition. By giving the firms who work at a local level a place to discuss their research, international exhibitions like the Biennial can support them in reaching a global audience and building appreciation for an architectural heritage well worth preserving. Explore more contemporary Chinese architecture and add your own examples by clicking in the Are.na channel below.
The 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial blog is edited by Consortia, a creative office that develops new frameworks for communication around design and culture. 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 |
| 15 LEGO Ideas to Build and Inspire Posted: 19 Dec 2017 10:00 PM PST  © LEGO Thinking about resting for a few days during the holidays? We have selected a number of LEGO® sets that are sure to relax you and inspire you so that you too can enjoy these amazing, colorful, minimalist blocks by exploring the wonderful world of architecture, engineering, and construction. With great inspirations from Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe in the Architecture Series, and some of the world's most iconic works such as the Eiffel Tower, the White House, the Empire State Building, the Big Ben or the Lincoln Memorial in Monumental Series, we invite you to test your skills and be inspired by the following LEGO® Architecture guide. Check out below! Architecture Series Imperial Hotel / Frank Lloyd Wright  © LEGO Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright Villa Savoye / Le Corbusier  © LEGO Architects: Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret Sydney Opera House / Jørn Utzon  © LEGO Architect: Jørn Utzon Farnsworth House / Mies van der Rohe  © LEGO Architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Fallingwater® / Frank Lloyd Wright  © LEGO Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright Monumental Series  © LEGO Location: West End of the National Mall, Washington, D.C.  © LEGO Location: Rome (Italy)  © LEGO Developer: Gustave Eiffel; engineers: Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier  © LEGO Architects: International team led by Wallace K. Harrison, which included Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer  © LEGO Location: Pisa, Italy  © LEGO Arquitectos: Charles Barry y Augustus Pugin  © LEGO Architect: Carl Gotthard Langhans  © LEGO Location: 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. (USA)  © LEGO Architect: John Graham & Associates  © LEGO Architects: Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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