UNStudio has won the competition to design the world's first cross-border cable car to carry passengers across the Amur River connecting Russia and China. The Cable Car Terminal is designed as an expression of the historic connection between the two cities of Blagoveshchensk and Heihe. The new cable car line aims to become an engine for creating social connections between the two cultures and will connect the cities in less than 10 minutes.
Architecture News
Socially-Organized Housing: the Geometry of Control
Having explored the design that establishes 'emotional ownership' and the antipatrons of social housing, Nikos A. Salingaros, David Brain, Andrés M. Duany, Michael W. Mehaffy and Ernesto Philibert-Petit continue their series of articles on social housing in Latin America. This time, the proposal studies how control influences the urban form and the form of housing.
AECOM Reveals Basketball Net-Inspired Arena for Los Angeles
AECOM has unveiled a new design for a "basketball net-inspired" 900,000-square-foot arena for the LA Clippers in Inglewood. Working with Anderson Barker Architects, the City Design Studio of Los Angeles, and Hood Studios, the team's proposal includes a solar panel tile cladding system around the building and sunken basketball court. The project's facade was designed to symbolize the diamond shapes in a basketball net.
Herzog & de Meuron Propose New Urban Plan for the West of Munich
Herzog & De Meuron presented this week to the public their new vision for the cityscape and the urban life of Munich. The plan revolves around a former postal railway hub, the Paketposthalle, an impressive concrete structure built in the 60’s, used lately as a sorting office for general mail. The 87,000 square meters site was recently acquired by Büschl, a private group of developers, who commissioned Herzog & de Meuron to create a new urban study for the area.
Cement Sinks: Color and Texture of Pigmented Concrete in Bathroom Space
British company Kast has launched a new version of its traditional pigmented concrete sinks. Since concrete is an extremely versatile material, which combines the characteristics of natural stone with the ability to be molded in different forms, the products show carved surfaces with highly defined textures. The exploration of their linear patterns ranges from smooth horizontal ripples to diagonal folds or 'sharp' and vertical grooves. The organic variations in the colors and textures of the surfaces create a different aesthetic that comes directly from the character of the material.
ASAP Creates "Large Rock" Hotel Tower for Downtown Los Angeles
Adam Sokol Architecture Practice (ASAP) have revealed the design for a hotel tower made to be a piece of urban geology in downtown Los Angeles. Called the Spring Street Hotel, the project is designed to capitalize on the accelerating growth and development of the downtown LA area. Situated in the core historic district of downtown, the tower aims to build on its distinctive location and cultural context to create a landmark destination for the city.
ArchDaily's Sustainability Glossary : J-K-L
It is expected that within the next few of decades, Earth will have absolutely nothing left to offer whoever/whatever is capable of surviving on it. Although the human race is solely responsible for the damages done to the planet, a thin silver lining can still be seen if radical changes were to be done to the way we live on Earth and how we sustain it.
Since architects and designers carry a responsibility of building a substantial future, we have put together an A-Z list of every sustainability term that you might come across. Every week, a new set of letters will be published, helping you stay well-rounded on everything related to sustainable architecture and design. Here are the terms that start with letters J, K, and L.
Christophe Benichou Architecture Designs Minimalist Desert Residence
Christophe Benichou Architecture's recent project Sesame is solitary and monolithic. Located in a desert, its facades are split open and fragmented, leaving parts of the walls slightly ajar. In each of these cavities sit icons of domesticity, including a bed, table, bathtub, sink, and toilet.
Spotlight: Santiago Calatrava
Known for his daring neo-futurist sculptural buildings and over 50 bridges worldwide, Santiago Calatrava (born July 28, 1951) is one of the most celebrated and controversial architects working today. Trained as both an architect and structural engineer, Calatrava has been lauded throughout his career for his work that seems to defy physical laws and imbues a sense of motion into still objects.
ANU Design Group Creates a Three-Dimensional Landscape for the Chungnam Sports Center
The importance of nature and sustaining it has become a crucial feature in most contemporary projects. While some architects sustain nature by constructing with environmental-friendly material, others make way for the greenery to intervene with the structure, blurring the boundaries between man-made and Earth.
For the Chungnam Sports Center design competition, ANU Design Group created "Edgeless Sports Park", a series of oval-shaped structures that complement the hilly landscape and merge its greenery with the architecture.
Retrofuturism Gives Traditional Iranian Architecture a Modern Twist
Villages and cities in Iran have always had a fixed low-rise horizontal skyline due to the lack of beam and column technology. Although some cities have already adopted contemporary styles and have constructed soaring skyscrapers, but the majority of towns remain committed to traditional building techniques.
Iranian architect Mohammad Hassan Forouzanfar decided to give traditional Iranian architecture a structural upgrade but kept its main features intact. In his conceptual creations titled "Retrofuturism", the architect used traditionally-designed houses as a starting point, but introduced them to the modern world of skyscrapers and surreal forms, mixing both styles together.
Brian MacKay-Lyons on Designers' Integrity and the Foundation of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple
Design:ED Podcast is an inside look into the field of architecture told from the perspective of individuals that are leading the industry. This motivational series grants unique insight into the making of a successful design career, from humble beginnings to worldwide recognition. Every week, featured guests share their personal highs and lows on their journey to success, that is sure to inspire audiences at all levels of the industry. Listening to their stories will provide a rare blueprint for anyone seeking to advance their career, and elevate their work to the next level.
In this episode, Brian MacKay-Lyons discusses the importance of maintaining your integrity as a designer, the lessons he learned from working closely with Charles Moore, and how he began his own firm MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple in Nova Scotia.
Kengo Kuma Builds Upon Historic Facade in New Seattle Skyscraper
Kengo Kuma & Associates have proposed a new 40-story mixed-use skyscraper incorporating a historic Gothic Revival facade in Seattle. Located in the Belltown neighborhood, the project would reuse the ornate five-story Bebb & Gould’s Terminal Sales Annex facade. Made in collaboration with Ankrom Moisan Architects and the landscape architecture firm Berger Partnership, the project aims to reinforce the Gothic and Art Deco heritage of Seattle’s downtown.
Utrecht Creates 300 Bee-Friendly Bus Stops
The City of Utrecht Council, in collaboration with advertising agency Clear Channel, has transformed 316 bus stops across the city into “bee stops.” The adaption involved installing green roofs onto the bus stops, creating bee-friendly spaces for the endangered species.
RIBA Reveals Shortlist for Neave Brown Award for Housing
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has revealed the shortlist for the first Neave Brown Award for Housing, named in honor of architect Neave Brown who passed away in January 2018. The four housing developments span London, Cambridge, and Norwich, and were all winners of a 2019 RIBA Regional Award.
Makr Shakr Opens Robotic Bars in Milan and London
Bar producer Makr Shakr has unveiled new rooftop robotic bars in Milan and London. Founded by MIT professor Carlo Ratti, the company's new projects are made to engage with the city and explore the potential of technology. In Milan, the project is the city's first robotic bar, while the London bar is on display at the Barbican as part of its AI: More than Human exhibition. Makr Shakr's bars aim to combine barman roots with food tech around the future of human-machine collaboration.
How to Write an Architectural Manifesto
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
Architecture lost itself in an identity crisis not long ago. The discipline wandered in self-reflection, reexamining how practitioners go about their work, how the built environment should appear, and why. Movements came and went. Promising paths dead-ended. Eventually, the profession gave up looking for ways out of its uncertainty, leaving us where we are today.
In premodern eras, new construction techniques, evolving opinions on art, and shifting societal beliefs drove styles. Advances were slow, but once established, became long-lived norms. The Gothic period lasted four centuries, the Renaissance three. From the nineteenth century on, though, more than a hundred aesthetic and philosophical movements lived quickly and died. As historian Charles Jencks notes, there were “a plurality of live architectural traditions” even during the International Style’s forty-year hegemonic heyday.
Spotlight: Glenn Murcutt
As an architect, critic and winner of the 2002 Pritzker Prize, Glenn Murcutt, (born 25 July 1936) has designed some of Australia's most innovative and environmentally sensitive buildings over a long career—and yet he still remains a one man office. Despite working on his own, primarily on private residences and exclusively in Australia, his buildings have had a huge influence across the world and his motto of "touch the earth lightly" is internationally recognized as a way to foster harmonious, adaptable structures that work with the surrounding landscape instead of competing with it.
Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation Unveil Experimental Madrid School
Andres Jacque / Office for Political Innovation has released their design for the Reggio School in Encinar de los Reyes, Madrid. Promoted by the Reggio Center for Pedagogical Research and Innovation, the project is based on the idea that architectural environments can evoke in children the desire for exploration and inquiry.
The Temperature Rise of 520 Cities by 2050 (is Grim)
The climate in Madrid in 2050 will look more like the climate in Marrakesh, Morocco today. Stockholm will feel more like Budapest, London like Barcelona, Moscow like Sofia, Seattle like San Francisco, and Tokyo like Changsa in China.
The research "Understanding Climate Change Starting with an Analysis of Similar Cities" published in the scientific magazine PLOS ONE by The Crowther Lab of ETH Zurich, paints a grim picture of the future for the world's urban centers.