Arch Daily |
- Sony Music Entertainment Amsterdam / Space Encounters BV
- Framed Escape Library / eskaapi
- Zhuhai Opera House / China Reconstruct
- Sunny Side Box / STARSIS
- BMLZ Villa Office / Tsutsumi & Associates
- Bavaria Brewery Tocancipá Headquarters Expansion / Construcciones Planificadas
- AIA Announces 2018 Thomas Jefferson Award and Collaborative Achievement Award Winners
- Southlight / Ultramoderne
- MVRDV Wrap Curving Retail Plinth Around Landmark Office Tower in Lodz
- P4402 Building / Estudio Arqtipo
- Winter Has Arrived at Finland's Game of Thrones-Themed Ice Hotel
- Redwood House / Jeff Svitak
- The Politics of Vacancy: The History, and Future, of Toronto's Condo Euphoria
- La Mira Ra / AUM Pierre Minassian
- Bjarke Ingels: "No Matter How Wonderful a Building Is; If There Is No Client, It Doesn't Get Built"
- Alejandro Aravena Discloses New Details on ELEMENTAL's Cultural Mega-Project in Qatar
| Sony Music Entertainment Amsterdam / Space Encounters BV Posted: 02 Feb 2018 09:00 PM PST  © Peter Tijhuis
 © Peter Tijhuis Text description provided by the architects. A'DAM stands for Amsterdam Dance And Music. The recently renovated 60's icon is located on the banks of the IJ river and is home to several nightclubs and leading international music companies including Massive Music, Wink, ID&T, Gibson and now Sony Music.  © Peter Tijhuis The foor plan places enclosed functions near the core, freeing the views from obstruction and allowing the concrete facade construction to claim the spotlight. Special attention has been given to the lighting system. On top of the grid ceiling, LED strips illuminate the white acoustic spray above it, creating hyper-difuse light below and eliminating shadows. Furthermore, the core resembles the inside of an amplifer, the bar doubles as a stairs and the vinyl boardroom table is also a DJ booth.  Sony's Office Isometric While in the music industry, work and play are very much intertwined, the design seeks to separate the two and give them their own space. This way, one can either be fully focussed at work or fully relaxed at play. The division is emphasized by creating a radical material palette: grey and green, and nothing in between.  © Peter Tijhuis  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Framed Escape Library / eskaapi Posted: 02 Feb 2018 06:00 PM PST  © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos
 © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos Text description provided by the architects. A new school is being built at the entrance of Abetenim's village, in Ghana's Ashanti Region. Its library, built with local materials such as earth and wood, was designed by French architects Maude Cannat and Rachel Méau, first prize winners of the 2016 Earth Architecture Competition.  © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos  © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos With only a 9000-euros fund-raised budget and no electricity on site, innovation and creativity were employed to conserve resources and build cleverly; using environmentally friendly architecture, water-efficient construction, often repurposed local materials, and precious savoir-faire trading.  © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos  Plan  © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos Thick, rammed earth walls pierced with tall, narrow windows insulate the library from the outside without revealing what is hidden inside. As you enter, you discover in a light and cool atmosphere two spaces connected around a landscaped patio, waiting to be used by the school children. The first one, on the same level as the entrance, is ideal for studying and research. The second one, in a hollow space sculpted by terraced steps, invites the visitor to sit for a reading session.  Section The library and its furniture form one whole entity: the wooden bookshelves are directly integrated in the walls, the flared window embrasures can also serve as seating, and a long working table runs along the patio wall. The detached roofing and vertical windows provide ventilation, while the earthen wall structure ensures that coolness circulates through the entire building.  © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos Everything was carefully planned to conserve resources. Thus, the earth extracted for the foundation was compacted with metal panels in the walls, the wood forms were reused for the flooring, and salvage materials were used for the doors and all the wood finishing touches of the library.  © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos The architects in charge of the organization eskaapi gathered a team of thirty international volunteers and a dozen local workers to work together during a four-month period. The library's construction was the first workshop led in the village to support the future school. Since then, three more classrooms were built by three different international teams next to eskaapi's building.  © Maude Cannat, Rachel Méau, Steve Santos  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Zhuhai Opera House / China Reconstruct Posted: 02 Feb 2018 02:00 PM PST  Courtesy of China Reconstruct
 Courtesy of China Reconstruct Text description provided by the architects. Inspired by the Asia Moon Scallop and the famous painting The Birth of Venus, Zhuhai Opera House rises out of a 57,680㎡plot of reclaimed land on Yeli Island, facing the city's main seafront. in Zhuhai, China. The design is of two shells – one large one at 90 meters high and one small, at 60 meters high.  Masterplan  Section The larger shell has a concert hall with 1,550 seats, a lobby, an auditorium and a stage. The smaller shell has a theatre with 500 seats, The initial master plan arrangement is conceptually divided into two parts by a corridor running north-south. The western part houses the small auditorium and public areas. The eastern part of the building houses mainly the opera house, the workshop and the service facilities, while the basement is used for parking and serviced area.  Courtesy of China Reconstruct A plaza on the south leads the visitors to the foyer and other public areas. To the west, the foyer opens up to the inner city views across the water. To the east and north is the views of the ocean. The orchestra pit in the main auditorium is flexible and can be adjusted in height. It is designed to take into account of the typhoon, heavy rain and other severe weather conditions. The building is designed to withstand 90 kg/m2 of normal wind load, equivalent to a class 12 typhoon. It also has a seismic intensity of 8 degrees, which is 1 degree higher than the intensity of Zhuhai building fortification.  Courtesy of China Reconstruct The most advanced three-dimensional modeling BIM Technology is used in the construction of the curved surface of the two shells. Outstandingly , the curved surface of exterior wall can only be achieved through segment pouring while using precise positioning to ensure the accuracy of the radian. Because of the unique location, tempered materials are chosen for the exterior wall which has good resistance to moisture and easy to keep clean.  Courtesy of China Reconstruct  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 02 Feb 2018 12:00 PM PST  © Hong Seokgyu
Text description provided by the architects. A House Full of Sun  © Hong Seokgyu  Upper Floor Plan  © Hong Seokgyu  Ground Floor Plan It was a dark and gloomy place with little insulation and light. On the roof, old containers were left neglected that made the atmosphere even more desolate. This place was going to be their home for the rest of their lives, so it needed to be a bright and warm space that would match their characteristics. We repositioned part of the house southerly so that more light could shine in, and also placed the container box at the same angle to maximize natural light. The change in the shape of the windows and the positioning of the container box allowed the house to be non-rectangular and more original.  © Hong Seokgyu  © Hong Seokgyu A while after the house was completed, I visited there again. The sunshiny scene of the owner and grandmother sitting under parasols, sipping tea and engaging in conversation, made my heart warm. During the project, the grandmother would inspect the field every morning and tell me, "This is the last place I'll live in before I die, so you'd better do a good job of it." It was pressure on me at the time, but I also felt the flutter of building the last house for someone. I hope she lives a long and happy life in this space.  © Hong Seokgyu  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| BMLZ Villa Office / Tsutsumi & Associates Posted: 02 Feb 2018 11:00 AM PST  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song
 © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song Text description provided by the architects. This is a building complex for an architectural material company that mainly deals with import carpet and domestic acoustic absorption material. We renovate and expand the existing building which has basement floor and 3 floors above the ground.  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song Due to the difference of ground level, basement floor has open space on its south side, but on its north side it can't get daylight. We need to carefully design the expanded volume so as not to block the daylight into the existing space. We studied a lot of models, like hollow volumes around central courtyard with several separated volumes, and finally decided upon a simple box. As a result, on the one hand its volume is just a simple box with a lot of randomly openings on its walls and roof, on the other hand the four scattered small courts make the plan complex.  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song  Axonometric  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song  1F plan Since the openings of the small courts are restrained so that we feel it "inside", but inside we can see trees and receive enough daylight from skylights so we feel it "outside", of course the existing area also receive enough daylight. That is to say, the inside and outside are reversed, or those are merged.  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song The ceiling of office area on the first floor is designed as sawtooth ceiling, adding the fake beams to hide the existing beam. By putting the lighting at the internal corner of the ceiling, as if the daylight from the sawtooth ceiling adds rhythm to the office place and it is filled with sufficient and homogeneous light.  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song On the second floor, galleries, conference rooms and president's office are required, and each room is separated with glass partitions. Those partition is cranked to unevenness and Ivy is hanged inside glass alcove. Coupled with the black colored glass on the corridor, the uneven glass irregularly reflects the scenery and adds unusual effect to the ordinary life.  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song  Section b-b  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song In the residence on the 3rd floor, the space is design as minimal in which gray is set as base color. Indirect lighting that illuminates the wall and ceiling is arranged in a balanced manner , making it a comfortable space enveloped in warm light.  © Hiromatsu Misa, Yuming Song  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Bavaria Brewery Tocancipá Headquarters Expansion / Construcciones Planificadas Posted: 02 Feb 2018 09:00 AM PST  © Andrés Valbuena
 © Andrés Valbuena Text description provided by the architects. The expansion of the headquarters through several buildings is an acupuncture of functional and architectural commissions, in order to expand the production capacity of the main brewery plant in the country.  Perspective The designed industrial and administrative buildings span 25,000 m2 and house: brewhouse, Distribution, Laboratory, Cap Factory and Bottling Plant.  © Andrés Valbuena  Caps Building - Sections  © Andrés Valbuena The simple and rotund volumes are defined with two layers that interpret the horizontality of the landscape, one dark that settles on the ground plane and another white one, these are the determinants of the design that allow a formal and similar language to all buildings despite their particular character, giving special emphasis to brewing as the start of the process and reference in the landscape.  © Andrés Valbuena  PET Line - Sections  © Andrés Valbuena The design included sustainability strategies creating favorable environments for work and production, as a contribution to minimize the environmental impact generated by the buildings; double facades, natural overhead lighting, cross ventilation, saving devices, louvers and eaves, are some of the strategies.  © Andrés Valbuena  Distribution Building - Sections A and B  © Andrés Valbuena The materials minimize maintenance activities in addition to their industrial character. The challenge was the operation within a plant with a strong tradition, existing and running, but acupuncture allowed the functional link and language between the new and the existing.  © Andrés Valbuena  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| AIA Announces 2018 Thomas Jefferson Award and Collaborative Achievement Award Winners Posted: 02 Feb 2018 08:30 AM PST  © Thomas McConnell Photography The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the winners of the 2018 Thomas Jefferson Award for service to public architecture and the 2018 Collaborative Achievement Award for distinguished achievements of those who have had a beneficial influence on or advanced the architectural profession. The 2018 Thomas Jefferson Award recipient is Stephen Ayers, FAIA, Architect of the Capitol. Since appointed as the 11th Architect of the Capitol by President Barack Obama in 2010, Ayers has overseen the continued maintenance and restoration of the more than 570 acres of grounds and 17.4 million square feet of government buildings. His major projects thus far have included the restoration of the bronze Ulysses S. Grant Memorial and the first major restoration of the U.S. Capitol Dome in 50 years, bringing the cast iron structure back to its original glory. The Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture honors "architects in the public and private sectors, public officials, or other individuals who design distinguished public facilities and/or who advocate for design excellence." Read more about Stephen Ayers and the 2018 Thomas Jefferson Award, here.  © Michael Walmsley The 2018 Collaborative Achievement Award – which "recognizes and encourages distinguished achievements of allied professionals, clients, organizations, architect teams, knowledge communities, and others who have had a beneficial influence on or advanced the architectural profession" – has been given to the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute and Klyde Warren Park. "For nearly a decade, the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute (AHDLI) funded by Enterprise Community Partners, has been a quiet but powerful force shaping social impact design," explain the AIA. "Modeled on the Mayors' Institute on City Design, it assembles development and design leaders to focus on the ways in which architecture can produce more livable and sustainable housing for low- and middle-income people across the United States." Read more about the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute, here.  © Dillon Diers Photography Designed by The Office of James Burnett and completed in 2012, Klyde Warren Park reunited two areas of downtown Dallas previously separated by a freeway through a tremendous feat of engineering. Built from 300 concrete beams and slabs, the park is LEED Gold certified and is home to more than 300 trees and 37 native plant species. "Klyde Warren Park healed a rift in Dallas where a freeway once divided two vital sections of the city, overcoming an obstacle that many residents feared was permanent," the AIA explain. "The park, completed in 2012, required significant funding and buy-in from the public and private sectors, but the efforts resulted in 5 acres of activated, world-class green space that has redefined the city and its self-image." Read more about Klyde Warren Park, here. News via the AIA.
 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 02 Feb 2018 07:00 AM PST  © Naho Kubota
 © Naho Kubota Text description provided by the architects. Much urban architecture is framed in terms of solid and void: how to maintain the semblance of a historic city in the face of the automobile, regardless of shifting patterns of growth and inhabitation. This project for a new public garden and performance venue sees the voids opened up in the city by the planning decisions of the 1960s as an opportunity both for public space and for a new form of East-coast urbanism: the urbanism of the extended boundary.  © Naho Kubota  Plan  © Naho Kubota A new public space is conceived as a green band cutting through the vast asphalt parking lot behind an existing cultural center, which as part of recent zoning changes has sharply reduced parking requirements. The strip serves as a soft boundary between the parking lot, the surrounding city, and the existing cultural center, reconnecting adjacent streets and marking the lot as an integral piece of the public realm. The large lawn serves as a generous gathering space bookended by native perennials at either end.  Use Diagram The centerpiece of the green band is a three-season performance venue that expands the capacity of local performance groups. Built from a modified catalog greenhouse, the performance space serves as an intensification of the landscape and the programming activities of the cultural center. The monumental doors attached at every column form a new order that, when open, extend the pavilion from discrete, minimal object out into the city. Simultaneously, timed lighting elements integrated into pavilion, fence, and landscape, allow the project to serve as a beacon within the neighborhood as it transitions from day into night.  © Naho Kubota  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| MVRDV Wrap Curving Retail Plinth Around Landmark Office Tower in Lodz Posted: 02 Feb 2018 06:30 AM PST  © MVRDV MVRDV has revealed their design for Fabryczna Offices, a new mixed-use office and retail complex to be located in the heart of Łódź, Poland. Fitting into the city's master plan for development around the new central station, Fabryczna Offices "connects past to present" with its distinct, rhythmic facade and gently curving forms. A 4-story plinth wraps around the perimeter of the site to create an inner courtyard, from which a 60-meter-tall office tower will rise. This orientation allows daylight to reach all levels of the building, while maximizing the space for the publicly-accessible courtyard area.  © MVRDV "The rounded plinth and tower are curved to create a series of smaller volumes which makes the project more human scale and also provides a more individual identity to future tenants," explain MVRDV. "The courtyard has an opening towards the culture centre and a passage towards Kilinskiego Street with the intention to introduce a new walking route through the area with retail in the courtyard."  © MVRDV  © MVRDV Two main entrances provide access into the courtyard: one facing the station that tunnels through the building, and a second at the base of the tower that opens up toward the new master plan. Greenery will feature throughout the project, including in the courtyard and on the private green roofs. As the master plan progresses, the building will eventually connect to the Central Station and other key parts of the city through a series of underground tunnels. News via MVRDV.  © MVRDV
 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| P4402 Building / Estudio Arqtipo Posted: 02 Feb 2018 05:00 AM PST  © Federico Kulekdjian
Text description provided by the architects. Context / Location  © Federico Kulekdjian P 4402 is a collective housing building that is located in the neighborhood of Saavedra at the exit of Av. Donado, more precisely, at the intersection of Av. Gral. Paz and Panamericana. It has six habitat units in a small corner lot of 8x14 meters. located in an atypical block with the limitations of the R2 B1 zoning of a middle residential fabric and that also has the possibility of building in the whole property.  © Federico Kulekdjian The building tries to complete the maximum buildable volume proposing a forceful block of concrete formed by a series of perforated planes that reconstructs an exterior volumetry, generating permeable expansions towards the perimeter of the facade, including the terrace that allows the entrance of light inside the common spaces of the building.  © Federico Kulekdjian  Exploded Axonometric  © Federico Kulekdjian Configuration / Consistency The block has four levels of height and is proposed to the exterior as a synthetic configuration from a mono-material envelope, which allows to investigate through a morphological experimentation with a series of operations of undermining, perforations, additions and splits of the volume . These operations generate diverse situations that provide calibrated spatial qualities that allow to diversify the habitat units.  © Federico Kulekdjian
 © Federico Kulekdjian These procedures, in conjunction with the search for a material and sensitive experimentation, try to provide a vital interior spatiality, filtering light into both private and semi-public spaces, at different times of the day. Tectonic / Materiality The exterior structure and envelope was executed in in-situ concrete, forming a skin with certain degrees of permeability, which was materialized with horizontally arranged timber formwork. The undercut operations were executed in a variable manner allowing alternations and gradients of luminosity and opacity.  © Federico Kulekdjian The dividing walls, the common interiors and the service lintels were executed with selected common bricks, which are visible with flush joints, proposing an interior of textures very different from the exterior.  © Federico Kulekdjian In the project we set out to develop a material investigation, in which the user experiences an unconventional atmosphere, something like a continuous filtering of light, spatial relationships of the building and its material qualities.  © Federico Kulekdjian Organizational / Disposition As an organizational synthesis, the proposal is organized in relation to a series of concentric lifts. The exterior lift is the one that contains the uses of spaces for cooking, storage, and covered or semi-covered expansions. The intermediate lifeline is where the uses of living, sleeping and studying are developed, which is the least determined of them. Finally, the interior lift is the one that is intended to solve the services, private and cleaning.  © Federico Kulekdjian The exterior lift is the one that promotes a morphological diversity, when moving according to the levels, and generates a particular façade causing a thickening in the thickness in the facade that accentuates the strength of the mono-material concrete block.  © Federico Kulekdjian All the habitat units have their places of expansion (balconies and terraces) relevant, which are arranged around the living spaces, leaving a nucleus in the center of the property destined to the means of exit and services, which are illuminated from the top of holes on the roof.  © Federico Kulekdjian Proposals / Result The particularity of projecting in a small lot in the corner and the possibility of exacerbating the volume allowed by the Building Code of the city of Buenos Aires, allows us to investigate certain logics from operations with vacuum, resulting in an interesting manipulation of the architectural object.  © Federico Kulekdjian The project pursues a dialectic between its volumetric configuration, the material resolution and the proposed spatial arrangement, leaving room for a certain proactive tension as a search to produce knowledge at the project level.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Winter Has Arrived at Finland's Game of Thrones-Themed Ice Hotel Posted: 02 Feb 2018 04:00 AM PST  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage For all those Game of Thrones fans looking to go face to face with a White Walker (or snuggle up like Jon and Dany), here's your chance: Lapland Hotels Snowvillage in northern Finland has opened its very own Game of Thrones-themed ice hotel, complete with ice-carvings of the show's best settings and sigils.  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage Located in the resort town Kittilä, 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle, the Snowvillage is constructed each year once temperatures reach below -10C in late October or early November. Featuring a hotel, restaurant, bar and chapel, all carved from ice, the Snowvillage is a verifiable winter wonderland, covering an area of 215,000 square feet (20,000 square meters). For the 2017-2018 season, the hotel teamed up with HBO Nordic to create the Game of Thrones theme, bringing in ice sculptors from around the world to design and construct rooms based around the places and characters from the show, including Braavos' Hall of Faces and a full-sized replica of the Iron Throne. As temperatures can drop to -5C at night, each room is outfitted with thermal sleeping bags and warm beverages each morning.  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage  via Lapland Hotels Snowvillage Learn more about the hotel, here.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 02 Feb 2018 03:00 AM PST  © Onnis Luque
 © Onnis Luque Text description provided by the architects. A house and studio nestled into a unique canyon running through the city of San Diego. The canyon created an essence for the house to work around and integrate with. The concept was to diffuse the division between canyon and house, so that the two flow together seamlessly. Instead of a blunt massing object between the street and the canyon, the house is divided into separate massing elements, which allow the canyon to enter into the spaces of the house and studio through a slim courtyard element.  © Onnis Luque The house is accessed across a floating steel bridge, and through a sliding cedar door that begins the reveal moments and windows into the canyon setting beyond, although limited and controlled. From there the user travels through the various spaces of the house as the canyon unveils itself if full form. The living room space is a cantilevered room floating within the natural elements of the canyon, which opens up completely to the life outside. The circulation flows inside and out, access to the bedrooms is through an outdoor vestibule and then into a soft wood box where trees are the only visual element. The basement has another outdoor private access and is utilized as the architect's office and studio.  © Onnis Luque  First floor plan  © Onnis Luque The architectural footprint, while small, is vertically integrated to offer a wide array of living opportunities by complex yet refined geometry and spatial layouts.  © Onnis Luque  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Politics of Vacancy: The History, and Future, of Toronto's Condo Euphoria Posted: 02 Feb 2018 01:30 AM PST  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro The City of Toronto has a long, fraught relationship with development and vacancy. The map of the initial Toronto Purchase of 1787 between the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation and the British Crown, which would later establish the colonial territory that became Toronto, conceives of the landscape as a single, clearly defined vacant lot anxious for development. Or, as artist Luis Jacob better described it, "signifying nothing but an empty page waiting to be inscribed at will." Over two-hundred years later, as housing availability, prices, and rental shortages drive vertical condominium developments in the city, the politics of the vacant lot have never felt so palpable. The first condominiums appeared in Toronto during the late 1960s as a solution to a crisis of affordable housing. By 1981, the newspaper The Globe and Mail would prophetically report that "vacant lots all over downtown Toronto are sprouting condominiums of late." The Globe would further lament that "no sooner has one of the glamorous edifices begun to climb the Toronto skyline than the sold out sign is posted, and the next development announced." After a 30% drop in prices during the 1990s, the early 2000s saw the expansion of Toronto's "condo euphoria" with sites zoned across the Greater Toronto Area from CityPlace to College Park. Now, these towering edifices—captured here by photographer Manuel Alvarez Diestro—have become icons of both the city's downtown identity as well as capital-driven development.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro In the last decade, there has been a visible shift in the investments shaping the city's urban fabric. Where architects like Daniel Libeskind and Frank Gehry once designed extensions to cultural infrastructure, in Toronto they now turn to luxury residential development. Libeskind's filleted 8 Esplanade and Gehry's controversial concept for the Mirvish towers only foreground colossal infrastructure like Foster + Partners The One, which broke ground in September 2017 and is marketed as "Canada's Tallest Building." Massive expansions like Sidewalk Labs' Smart City will occupy vacant industrial space in the Port Lands and radically transform the city's waterfront. It is difficult to walk down the street without stumbling across another massive hole filled with burgeoning foundations.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro Beyond these luxury developments, the sea of monotonous glass towers defining the skyline have been the go-to for supporting the needs of a growing population of middle-class residents and renters. As city planners estimate Toronto's population will expand by approximately 25% in the next three decades, the fallout from increased development and the waning quality of construction has not gone unnoticed. "In 50 years these buildings may well become an urban slum," argued professor of building science at the University of Toronto Ted Kesik while speaking to the CBC. Glass panels have tumbled from projects like the Trump Tower, Shangri-La, and many other multi-level residential structures, prompting revisions to allowable materials in the Ontario Building Code, while black mold found in structures barely in their second decade has tenants worried.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro Diestro's photographs catalog this existing infrastructure, specifically the sleek towers in developer Concord Adex's CityPlace neighborhood, as well as the current expansion referred to as Block 31. Housing primarily young families and working professionals, the middle-class neighborhood occupies the former Spadina Street Yards, once part of the Canadian National Railway built atop an artificial shoreline fabricated for industrial expansion in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The projected two-billion-dollar development officially secured the vacant land in 1997 to redevelop a key piece of the city's real estate after the ownership of the site transferred to the City of Toronto in 1992. Beginning with two towers aspirationally titled Matrix and Matrix two, completed in 2002, the site was soon populated by the additional structures Apex, Harbourview Estates, and the cylindrical and rectangular Parade towers joined by an OMA-esque skybridge (among many others) between Spadina Avenue and Bathurst Street.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro Flanked by the tracks of the GO Train line—offering commuter services to surrounding communities—along with the Gardiner Expressway and Lakeshore Boulevard West, CityPlace is less an active thriving community than a field of towering glass and steel. As half-finished concrete skeletons partially skinned in a ubiquitous glazing litter the skyline, comparisons to Le Corbusier's Radiant City or the utopian dreams of Pruitt Igoe are not far off.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro With the promise of schools, libraries, galleries, and other cultural amenities, young families flocked to the glazed CityPlace developments captured by Diestro. Almost two decades later, this promise has yet to be entirely fulfilled. The 8-acre Canoe Landing Park was inaugurated in 2009, followed 5 years later by the Fort York branch of the Toronto Public Library, designed by Toronto-based KPMB Architects, at the base of Bathurst Street near the western-most portion of the development. ZAS Architects' Canoe Landing Centre, as well as Bishop Macdonell Catholic and Jean Lumb Public Schools, are slated to open in fall 2019, providing space for 550 students alongside much-needed public programs. While the area has matured in recent years as additional amenities, retailers, and community organizations have moved in, the sites of much of the proposed infrastructure remain all but vacant aside from rumble, rebar, heavy machinery, and the few plant and animal species that have managed to appropriate the site.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro However, a lack of public life is far from the only challenge facing vertical residential developments like CityPlace. As was true in the 1960s, the city is still struggling to provide affordable housing for those outside of the 1%. Small-scale developments have begun to occupy former parking lots and vacant spaces in areas largely populated with single-family dwellings, but not without controversy. An 8-story, 16-unit condominium in Toronto's Annex neighborhood was met with resistance by the area's elite residents—from Handmaid's Tale author Margaret Atwood to grocery mogul Galen Weston Jr.— much to the chagrin of authors and critics alike.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro But this NIMBYism has real consequences for urban centers like Toronto—less affordable cities that are poorly equipped to handle growth and which thus physically manifest economic divides. Where critics like Jane Jacobs once stopped massive infrastructural projects to preserve the city's enclaves, this current mantra of "not in my backyard" only fuels the city's ambiguous planning standards and consolidation of new residential development to downtown vertical neighborhoods like CityPlace. As The Globe and Mail architecture critic Alex Bozikovic argues, the new homes that will support the city's projected population will be infill additions to existing neighborhoods—ultimately, in someone's backyard or, as zoning regulations potentially shift, someone's laneway: the last reserves of vacant space.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro When vacant lots are unavailable or proposals are pushed out of residential neighborhoods, developers have taken to transforming existing sites into empty vessels for expansion. Black-and-white "Development Proposal" signs are as pervasive as the towers they illustrate, seemingly emerging along neighborhood blocks across the city daily. From urban leftovers to historic buildings all but decimated to preserve a "heritage" element in a blatant act of facadism, these contextless expansions have unsurprisingly been met with pessimism. In fall 2016, a collective began installing fake "Development Proposal" signs to mock the city's condo mania: a multi-story appendage to the CN Tower and a stacked residence on Will Alsop's Sharp Centre for Design at OCAD University, among others. One proposal, potentially the most sarcastic of all, imagines populating the empty airspace above Viljo Revell's Toronto City Hall with a 50-story tower of 402 dwelling units.  © Manuel Alvarez Diestro While condo-ization has become a prominent aspect of Toronto's cultural and architectural identity, the politics of the plots on which they rest is equally important, if not more, to the city's imaginary. But absence is only relative. And, as the long history of Indigenous presence and the burgeoning ecosystems in Block 31 both attest: No lot is truly vacant. What remains across two centuries of development—the thread connecting artificial shorelines and buried rivers and shining vertical cities—is an almost mythical drive to render the world a vacant lot.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| La Mira Ra / AUM Pierre Minassian Posted: 02 Feb 2018 01:00 AM PST (1).jpg?1517459954 "© Erick Saillet") © Erick Saillet
.jpg?1517460084 "© Erick Saillet") © Erick Saillet Text description provided by the architects. La Mira Ra house, located in the South of France, is the fruit of a long reflection about the marriage of the wild nature of the Mediterranean and the minimalist purity of contemporary architecture - a marriage resulting in a unique architectural project. Realized between 2015 and 2017 by Pierre Minassian and his team of architects, today the house offers its inhabitants an intimate opening towards the sea. The integration of the project in its environment and their cohabitation were the two key elements in the design of the project. Located on a classified site, this private domain is under the obligation to include the use of the local stone in all its constructions. This requirement coupled with the love of the architect for the peacefulness of the raw concrete give birth to a poetic embrace of the two materials. The stone finds its place by wrapping the house from the outside so as to melt it in its rocky environment. .jpg?1517460033 "© Erick Saillet") © Erick Saillet This is done so not only thanks to the rocks' palette of colors close to that of the soil it lays upon but also by reflecting the sun's rays with a warm glow. The inner shell is made of raw concrete aiming to create a sober and calm atmosphere. At the same time, its' smooth skin reflects perfectly the light rays penetrating into the house at sunset. By leaving the walls and ceiling naked the architect lets the raw concrete reveal its quirks - each surface proudly carries its own peculiarities and irregularities. The project distributes the program in two levels following the natural slope of the site so as not to hide the view for the villagers and at the same time to completely turn the house towards the breathtaking view. For this reason, the upper volume, including the bedrooms, protrudes only by half a level from the ground. It splits up in the middle so that a discreet flight of stairs can descend and arrive in a patio marking the entrance of the house. .jpg?1517460000 "© Erick Saillet") © Erick Saillet The positioning of the latter - below eye level, ensures a first filtration of the gaze of the passerby and a first step towards the intimacy of the house. The lower volume, including the master and the living room and kitchen, is completely hidden from the outside eye. Its simple box shape made out of raw concrete opens to the sea with its fully glazed facade. The floor of the box is pulled outward to extend the interior space towards the view - the living room and kitchen can be opened entirely to the terrace thanks to the sliding glass panes. The living spaces thus transform into a summer living room - away from the burning sun but at the same time in the open air. Coupled with the openings of the entrance patio and resulting in a series of natural drafts, a natural cooling system takes place. The solar protection of the house is ensured by the way the openings are treated. Full-height wooden louvers that adapt to their location and orientation are installed. .jpg?1517459985 "© Erick Saillet") © Erick Saillet  Ground Floor Plan (1).jpg?1517459991 "© Erick Saillet") © Erick Saillet In the upper volume, along with the corridor overlooking the forecourt oriented south, the louvers are fixed so as to provide permanent filtration not only of sunlight but also of the strangers' gaze. As for the rooms, oriented towards the view and therefore to the northeast, the protection is assured by the sliding shutters. Same idea for the lower volume - the louvers can also be hidden away in order to disappear from view. What's more, the green roof allows a complementary thermal insulation and simultaneously contributes to the integration of the house in its natural site looking below from the top of the site. The outdoor spaces of the project push further the insertion of the construction of its site by creating a walk that begins at the forecourt and then develops around the house and the pool facing towards the sea. This walk finally disperses in the desert garden exposing with great pride a beautiful collection of different species characterizing the floral diversity of the place. .jpg?1517460057 "© Erick Saillet") © Erick Saillet .jpg?1517459379 "Longitudinal Sections") Longitudinal Sections .jpg?1517460105 "© Erick Saillet") © Erick Saillet  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Bjarke Ingels: "No Matter How Wonderful a Building Is; If There Is No Client, It Doesn't Get Built" Posted: 02 Feb 2018 12:00 AM PST  Bjarke Ingels en la pasada edición del Congreso Internacional de Arte, Arquitectura y Diseño UDESIGN 2017. Image Cortesía de UDEM In just 13 years since its inception, Danish firm BIG has earned world renown for its inventive architecture and its founder, Bjarke Ingels, has become one of the most popular names in the architectural world. However, with success comes criticism; BIG has been called out by some critics for what they believe is the "infantilization of architecture," referring to their designs as isolated, self-admiring and solely photogenic. On her most recent visit to Spain, Spanish journalist Anatxu Zabalbeascoa spoke with Ingels about the impact of the Danish office on architecture and how their work wavers on a tightrope between "breakthrough projects for the world of the powerful" and "a face for people who are not happy with existing architectural models."  BIG design of WTC2 in New York. Image © DBOX, courtesy of BIG The conversation addresses the impact of IT giants such as Google on urban planning, Ingels' relationship with Rem Koolhaas – at whose firm, OMA, Ingels worked for a year and a half – his personal life and the hectic world of architecture, specifically regarding the commission for 2 World Trade Center, for which BIG was hired to replace an original design by Foster + Partners. Speaking on the relationship between client and architect, Ingels explains:
 VIA 57 West (spotlight) in Manhattan. Image © Nic Lehoux The office is behind iconic projects in its native Denmark such as the Mountain Dwellings and 8 House in its early years, to the new Google headquarters in London and San Francisco, and projects in Manhattan such as VIA 57 West. All can be reduced to their key architectural move or symbol – which is in fact how BIG's website is organized, as a library of symbols. When Zabalbeascoa wonders if "different has to be photogenic," Ingels defends his vision:
You can read the full interview in Spanish in El País Semanal.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Alejandro Aravena Discloses New Details on ELEMENTAL's Cultural Mega-Project in Qatar Posted: 01 Feb 2018 10:00 PM PST _Malcolm_Reading_Consultants_and_Elemental.jpg?1517319937 "ELEMENTAL proposal for the Art Mill in Qatar. Image © ELEMENTAL / Malcolm Reading Consultants") ELEMENTAL proposal for the Art Mill in Qatar. Image © ELEMENTAL / Malcolm Reading Consultants In May 2017, the Chilean firm ELEMENTAL was chosen to design the Art Mill, a cultural center that will be one of the largest in Qatar and will share a neighborhood with the Museum of Islamic Art (by I.M. Pei) and the National Museum of Qatar (by Jean Nouvel). After making a trip to Doha (Qatar), Alejandro Aravena spoke with Chilean newspaper El Mercurio and shared details about this project. "One of the things we set out to do is to make this endure for the next 1,000 years," explains the 2016 Pritzker Prize winner. "When you look at industrial facilities, especially silos, archaeological ruins are the kind of things that remain," he adds. _Malcolm_Reading_Consultants_and_Elemental.jpg?1517323171 "ELEMENTAL proposal for the Art Mill in Qatar. Image © ELEMENTAL / Malcolm Reading Consultants") ELEMENTAL proposal for the Art Mill in Qatar. Image © ELEMENTAL / Malcolm Reading Consultants At the time, the jury described the winning proposal as "serene and austere". In this regard, Aravena comments:
On the other hand, institutions like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have shown concern about the working conditions of migrant workers in Qatar, with the construction of the stadiums that will host the 2022 World Cup as an example of this. In this regard, Aravena clarifies:
Art Mill will have a total area of 85,000 square meters and ELEMENTAL leads a consortium that integrates SBP (structural engineering), Transsolar (geoengineering) and the Canadian consultants Stantec. So far, Art Mill's budget and construction deadlines have not been disclosed. News via: El Mercurio.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from ArchDaily. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar