Choosing the right lighting for any space can be a complex decision. Considerations need to be made with respect to the purpose, form and function of the lighting application. Design and aesthetics also play a role in the equation. With so many options for lighting on the market, it takes specialized knowledge and understanding to determine the best fit for your space. Even more challenging than finding lighting for a generic space, an art gallery or museum application can be difficult and even overwhelming to light properly. LED lighting has simplified a large chunk of lighting for art display.
Architecture News
OMA + Being Development to Renovate VDMA in Eindhoven
In collaboration with Being development, OMA has won a competition to redevelop Van der Meulen-Ansemsterrein (VDMA) in central Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. The central site will be rehabilitated into “a vibrant urban hub with housing, offices, and public spaces.”
London’s Largest Co-Working Space Set to Open in 2020
London's largest co-working space is officially set to open in the summer of 2020. Designed as part of Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square by LABS Collective, the 150,000 square foot project combines office, retail and leisure space. With access to both the West End and The City, the co-working space will feature a range of rooms and layouts, from small private offices to entire floors.
The New Space Race: 6 Challenges for Extraterrestrial Architecture
Up until now, space architecture has been mainly focused on engineering, centered on projects like orbital space stations or Martian exploration convoys, commissioned by world space agencies such as ESA (Europe) or NASA (USA). But in recent years, an increasingly broader spectrum of professionals (e.g. architects, sociologists) as well as entrepreneurs and investors (not all well intentioned) have joined the challenge of designing extraterrestrial built environments, the new space race of the 21st century.
The fast development of technology, the increase of world population and the climate change crisis create the perfect setting to think about life outside of our planet, and as these trends continue to evolve and converge, new opportunities to explore options beyond our traditional limits appear (NEOM), as well as new organizations which support this research (like SATC, SICSA). Even though no one is currently on Mars, many ongoing projects and simulations (MARS-ONE, Mars City Science) are already exploring how we will design, build and inhabit the new realms of humanity in outer space.
Architecture Became Increasingly Obsessed with the Health of Bodies
In some theoretical books, architecture and the human body are more or less the same, each depending on one another. Oftentimes, however, it is the body that undergoes detrimental adjustments to adapt to the architecture, not the other way around.
In the newly released book X-Ray Architecture, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina argues that health facilities inspired modern architecture's most dominant formal signatures.
Architecture Tips: How to Ace your Job Interview
The Midnight Charette is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by architectural designers David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features a variety of creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions. A wide array of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes provide useful tips for designers, while others are project reviews, interviews, or explorations of everyday life and design. The Midnight Charette is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet discuss strategies for acing your job interview! The two answer questions from callers and discuss preparation, the essential mentalities to have, talking and behavior tactics, what to bring and wear, asking for the right salary, finding out what the interviewers are looking for in the interviewees, and closing the interview. Call or text their Design Companion Hotline to ask your questions or to share your stories at 213-222-6950.
OPEN Architecture's Rhythmic Music Hall Nears Completion
OPEN Architecture’s anticipated project Chapel of Sound has finally topped out on November 15th with the pouring of its broad concrete roof.
The project, which is expected to open in the summer of 2020, includes a semi-outdoor amphitheater, an outdoor stage, and viewing platforms, overlooking the mountainous rural area of the Jinshanling Great Wall.
A New Landscape in Montreal Weaves Together Icons of the City’s Expo 67
Encompassing a Buckminster Fuller–designed geodesic dome and an Alexander Calder sculpture, the intervention shows how the city is rethinking its world’s fair treasures.
The contemporary urban fabric of Montreal, perhaps more than any other Canadian city, was shaped by a single event in its modern history: the 1967 International and Universal Exposition, popularly known as Expo 67. With its record-breaking number of visitors, it was the most successful world’s fair of the 20th century and fueled a construction boom in the city that stretched into the late 1970s.
“Architecture is an Extension of Life”: An Interview with Balkrishna Doshi
India’s uprising from a dependent to an independent governance altered the way it was perceived by the world. The country’s evolution left architects and urban developers with important questions: How can they solve the economic and environmental disparities in India, and how can they implement an understanding in people about the potential of what they can achieve with their country’s culture and resources.
In a new extensive video interview by Louisiana Channel, Indian Pritzker Prize-winner Balkrishna Doshi narrates how he became an award-winning architect, his traditional Hindu beliefs and culture, and India’s juxtaposition of having nothing to keeping up with a world that is creating everything.
The Shenzhen & Hong Kong 2019 Bi-City Biennale Reflects on Technology and Urban Life
Opening in December in Shenzhen, China, the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture (UABB), organized by the cities of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, will discuss the theme of “Urban Interactions”. First to use Facial Recognition and Artificial Intelligence, the public exhibition will test new grounds to reflect on the impact of digital technologies on the urban environment.
Cooper Union Launches Digital Archive of Student Work
The Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture has created a new digital archive of student work in a comprehensive online database. As one of the few online collections of a school of architecture's student work, the database represents over eight decades of work, dating from the 1930’s through the present.
How BIM Can Make Building Renovations and Retrofits More Efficient
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an increasingly common acronym among architects. Most offices and professionals are already migrating or planning to switch to this system, which represents digitally the physical and functional characteristics of a building, integrating various information about all components present in a project. Through BIM software it is possible to digitally create one or more accurate virtual models of a building, which provides greater cost control and efficiency in the work. It is also possible to simulate the building, understanding its behavior before the start of construction and supporting the project throughout its phases, including after construction or dismantling and demolition.
SNKH Studio to Design Garage Museum's 2020 Summer Cinema
SNKH studio from Yerevan has been selected to design the Garage Screen summer cinema for the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Russia. The museum invited promising architecture firms to present their vision of temporary architecture and expanded the geographical reach of the competition to include Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kirgizstan.
WERK + Snøhetta Win Competition to Design a New Maritime Center in Denmark
WERK and Snøhetta have been selected as the winners of the maritime center competition on the harbor of Esbjerg, in Denmark. The proposal puts in place a glowing building entitled Lanternen or the Lantern, a new addition that will gather communal activities.
9 Innovative Practices Redefining What Architects Can Be
Wherever there is a center, there is by necessity a periphery. This in itself should not generate any headlines; we live in a world of centers, and peripheries that continually stretch those centers, whether it be politics, countries, or societal norms. It also applies to architectural practice. In a complex, interconnected world, members of the architectural profession around the world are constantly expanding into new peripheries, generating new visions for how practice should operate, influenced by technological, political, cultural, and environmental changes.
Heatherwick Reveals Latest Images of Nearly Completed 1,000 Trees Development
Heatherwick Studio has released their latest images for the 1,000 Trees Development in Shanghai. Dating back to August 2019, the images showcase the construction progress of the 300,000-square-meter project, with the near completion of one of two mountains, set to open in 2020.
Brutalist Beirut: Showcasing a Forgotten Modern Heritage
In recent years, people started to regain interest in a movement that dates back to the last century; a movement, first introduced during the 1940s and 1950s, through the works of Le Corbusier and Alison and Peter Smithson. With monolithic structures, modular shapes, and impressive massing, Brutalism highlights architectural integrity. This movement is highly characterized by rough, raw, and pure surfaces that underline the essence of the substances in question. Spread across the globe, architects have adopted and developed their own vision of this modern movement, creating contextual variations.
In the midst of all the chaos currently taking place in the city of Beirut, we look back on the Lebanese capital’s hidden Brutalist gems. To shed the light on a movement that's often neglected and forgotten, Architect Hadi Mroue created a series of images that highlight the Lebanese Brutalism movement as well as its evolution as an important part of the Lebanese modern heritage.
BIG Unveils New Gateway for Milan's CityLife District
Bjarke Ingels Group have unveiled their design for The Portico, a 53,500-square-meter development on the last two remaining plots of the CityLife masterplan in Milan, Italy. CityLife presented the proposal with two individual buildings connected by a 140m long hanging roof structure to form a generous urban-scale entrance to the city.
SOM Reveals Design for Walt Disney's New Headquarters in New York
4 Hudson Square is Walt Disney’s new headquarters in the Big Apple, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM). Located in the Lower Manhattan district, in the neighborhood of Hudson Square, the project will create a space for the company’s New York operations.
Future Architecture Platform Announces 2020 Call for Ideas
The Future Architecture Platform has issued its 5th Call for Ideas asking multi-disciplinary creatives who work on transformative projects and ideas for the future of architecture to apply for participation in the 2020 European Architecture Program. The Future Architecture Platform acts as a platform for exchange and networking for European architecture and integrates some of Europe’s most important architectural events.
Highest Outdoor Sky Deck in the Western Hemisphere Set to Open in 2020
The highest outdoor observation deck in the western hemisphere is set to open in March of 2020 in New York City. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), the Edge cantilevers 80 feet from the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards. At a record-setting height of 1,131 feet, Edge will reveal never-before-seen views of The City, Western New Jersey and New York State spanning up to 80 miles.
What is Glued Laminated Wood (Glulam)?
Glued Laminated Wood (Glulam) is a structural material manufactured through the union of individual wood segments. When glued with industrial adhesives (usually Melamine or Polyurethane resin adhesives), this type of wood is highly durable and moisture resistant, capable of generating large pieces and unique shapes.