Name: City of Light

Photographer: Sebastian Weiss

Location: Lisbon

Year: March 2019

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Danish firm Dorte Mandrup have designed a new skyscraper to become Western Europe’s tallest tower in Brande, Denmark. Rising over 1000 feet, the project is sited in a rural Danish village of 7,000 people. Dubbed Bestseller Tower, the project will be visible from 37 miles away in every direction. The skyscraper will include offices for the Bestseller fashion company, a hotel, and a “village” of green retail pavilions. The company aims to make the skyscraper "climate positive" as part of their sustainability goals.

Architecture, unlike other aspects of culture (such as fashion or music), can only really be experienced and understood in person. For highly branded companies, designing a new building can be a prime opportunity to signal taste and values - but also creates an interesting architectural conundrum. While the buildings will be inhabited (nearly 24/7) by company employees, they’re also very much populated by the imaginations of people across the globe. What is it like to be in these places?

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Los Angeles based architect and curator Francois Perrin has passed away. Perrin was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer in January, 2019, and passed away on April 1, 2019, in Ventura County, California. As the founder of Air Architecture, the Paris-born architect worked in Southern California while remaining professionally active in France. He is known for his creative and inventive approach to materials, and for his ability to rethink everyday life through his work.

The Foster + Partners-designed Tulip skyscraper in London just took a major step towards realization with an endorsement by planning officials. A report by the City Corporation’s chief planning officer had said that the scheme would give London “a new iconic building” with a “bold and striking” form. The 1000-foot-tall (305-meter-tall) scheme would sit adjacent to The Gherkin: one of Foster’s and London’s most iconic structures.

Officials were particularly convinced by the scheme’s proposed education facility, operated by building owners J. Safra Group giving 20,000 free places per year for London’s state school children, and featuring “an unparalleled vantage point to view London from a height of around 300 meters.” Approving the scheme, the City of London Corporation's planning committee stated their belief that the scheme would boost the area's economy.

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Videos

Airbnb has partnered with the Musée du Louvre to offer a unique experience for one lucky winner to sleep underneath the museum’s iconic Pyramid for one night. On April 30th, the winner will take up residence within I.M Pei’s famous 1989 addition to the Parisian complex, part of an elaborate “night at the museum” experience.

Snøhetta has been commissioned for the design of the Shanghai Grand Opera House in Shanghai, China, following an international design competition. Aiming to attract a broad audience for traditional, classical, and experimental performances, Snøhetta has developed the architectural, landscape, interior, and graphic design for the sweeping complex in collaboration with Shanghai-based architects ECADI.

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Sir David Adjaye's Ruby City art center is set to open to the public this October in San Antonio, Texas. Home to the growing Linda Pace Foundation permanent collection, the building is designed by Adjaye Associates in collaboration with Alamo Architects. Brought to life twelve years after the building was first imagined by Linda Pace, the 14,000 square-foot art center is dedicated to providing a space for the city’s creative community works with works by both local and international artists.

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MIT's Senseable City Lab, led by the architect Carlo Ratti, has launched Escape, an interactive platform for visualizing air travel data. "Escape" serves as a search engine that helps users find the cheapest flights from a particular city, and to make the decision on their next trip faster and easier.

Drawing service Archibnb has begun creating architectural floor plans for Airbnb listings. Trading in rough sketches for professional plans, the team aims to make Airbnb listings more competitive by providing additional clarity on room privacy, layout and amenities. Hosts create a sketch and include any photos or information on the listing, and within three working days the final plan is delivered for $49.00 per property.

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As Paris’ famous Louvre Pyramid, designed by IM Pei, celebrates its 30th anniversary, artist JR has created a giant collaborative piece of art filling up the entire Napoleon Court. “The Secret of the Great Pyramid” was created with the help of 400 volunteers, generating a giant optical illusion of pyramid disappearing into an underground abyss.

The intervention was created by hundreds of volunteers cutting and pasting 2000 strips of paper, on a scale previously unexplored by the artist. Far from a precious fixture, the artwork is intended to be distressed and destroyed by pedestrians walking across the artwork.

CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects has begun construction on the Lahofer Winery in the Czech Republic, seeking to create a space “symbiotic with the surrounding nature of the vineyards.” Encompassing a winemaking facility, visitor center, tasting room, and rooftop amphitheater, the scheme will be a fusion of tradition, nature, and modern winemaking practices.

The scheme’s three interconnected structures vary in height, lying under an undulating roof serving as a public amphitheater, hosting concerts and cultural events for visitors and locals. The scheme responds to the architectural language of the Moravian landscape, with a lightened volume and aesthetic that avoids impacting too heavily on the landscape.

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Hines Architecture + Design and Design Collaborative have been selected to design Jamaica's new Houses of Parliament in Kingston. Joining Christopher Bent and Gregory Lake, the winning team was selected as the People's Choice winner and beat out 23 other submissions. Dubbed “Out of Many, One People,” the winning proposal will be constructed in Kingston’s National Heroes Park.

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Paradigma Ariadné received an honorable mention in the Budapest South Gate Competition for their masterplan project in Hungary. Working with urban planners Spacefor Architect, as well as landscape and traffic designers Lépték Terv and Krisztina Mihálffy, the team's proposal was designed as a new neighborhood in Budapest for university students along the Danube river.

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Videos

SEArch+ and Apis Cor have won first place in the Virtual Construction level of NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Centennial Challenge, seeking to create sustainable shelters suitable for the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Using resources available on-site in these locations, the female-led, New York-based space research and design practice proposed the MARS X HOUSE, offering a robust, durable 3D-printed habitat using autonomous robotics.

Led by SEArch+ co-founder Melodie Yashar, the scheme employs evidence-based design for the form and constructability of the future habitat, intended for a crew of four to live and work on Mars for one Earth year. The habitat is designed to exceed radiation standards in order to ensure human health while connecting the crew with natural light and views of the Martian landscape.

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Mexican architect Michel Rojkind has been named the senior vice president of architecture at WeWork. A native of Mexico City, Rojkind founded the Rojkind Arquitectos office in 2002 focusing on design, tactical and experiential innovation, maintaining an architectural vision that will shape integral experiences, connecting the complexities of each project to a deeper level to positively impact society and the environment. This vision was what led him to connect perfectly with the WeWork approach.

Agustín Ferrer Casas has published an illustrated comic book charting the life and work of the renowned architect Mies van der Rohe. Featuring texts by Anatxu Zabalbeascoa and Norman Foster, MIES is a biopic inspired by Ferrer Casas’ reading of Mies van der Rohe: Menos es más by Anatxu Zabalbeascoa.

The presentation of the graphic novel is part of the Fundacio Mies van der Rohe's efforts to support new languages for the dissemination of knowledge of architecture that will be of interest to both professionals and those who want to learn about modern architecture through a rich, visual medium.

John Wardle Architects' Ian Potter Southbank Centre for the University of Melbourne's Conservatorium of Music has opened to faculty and students. The $109 million project was designed as part of the larger Southbank campus transformation in Australia. Made to house more than 1,000 music students, the project includes a series of performance areas, studios and rehearsal spaces. The Southbank Centre also features one of the world's largest oculus windows.

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Under heavy bombing, buildings seem to have only one fate: destruction. Severely damaged during the Spanish Civil War, the 13th-century Gothic Church of Vilanova de la Barca (Lleida, Spain) remained abandoned since 1936.

It was only almost 80 years later that the remnants of the structure – parts of the naves, the west façade and the apse towards the east– went through a restoration and refurbishment process. This time, however, the building was not meant to be used as a church but as a multi-purpose hall.

With the aim of generating an architecture that incubates the wellbeing, self-realization, and fulfillment of its inhabitants to become the best version of themselves, CEBRA has launched an ambitious Research and Development Program (R&D) called WISE (Work, Innovation, Space and Education).

As explained by its creators, the purpose of WISE is "to bridge the ongoing and rapid change in the sectors of workspace and education to inform the design of buildings that stimulate learning and innovation. We are connecting ideas of the foremost thinkers of education and entrepreneurship, research and studies in sensory stimuli, cognitive psychology, and behaviorism with architecture."

We spoke with Carsten Primdahl, founding partner of CEBRA, and Klaudio Muca, R&D Architect at CEBRA, to better understand the approach and expected results of the program.

It is the end of May 2016, Alejandro Aravena’s “Reporting from the Front” Biennale is about to kick off the next day and I just landed at Venice airport. Vaporetto waterbuses are no longer running at this late hour, so I am heading for a water taxi, thinking that it will cost me a bundle to get to the city. But maybe not! I see a lonely figure, “Are you going to Venice? Would you like to share a taxi?” A young Chinese woman agrees without hesitation. As soon as the boat leaves I keep pressing my luck, “Are you an architect, by any chance?” Yes! The next hour flew unnoticed, as we discussed our discipline and common friends. Two years passed, and I am back to Venice Biennale. At the opening of the Chinese Pavilion, I am hopping from conversation to conversation until I am introduced to Xu Tiantian, “China’s most promising female architect.” We looked at each other and said in unison, “The taxi girl/guy!” We finally exchanged contacts and on my next trip to Beijing we met at Xu’s DnA Design and Architecture studio. What follows, after a brief introduction, is an excerpt from that conversation.

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I Am Interested in Seeing the Future is an architectural exhibition, that, contrary to what you might expect, includes no models and no drawings. Instead, as soon as visitors arrive, they find themselves surrounded by text. The wall facing the entrance is covered by an installation of single words on posters, interview transcripts on colored paper, and mirrors that reflect the sentences on flimsy scrolls arcing down from the ceiling. 

Magic lies in architectural ruins. Beneath the dirt and mold, fractured walls and deserted rooms still stand, preserving the remains that have lingered long after their owners' departure.

During his explorations of abandoned places across Europe, photographer Romain Veillon stumbled upon enchanting frescoes and paintings that were left to fade in the parlors of the aristocrats. Veillon became keen on finding more of these imaginary museums across the continent, and to his chance, managed to discover many in France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Portugal.

Before their art is forgotten and their houses quietly rust away, Veillon captured the murals found in these haute bourgeoisie family houses, which illustrate stories of the cities they lay in and the people they once belonged to.

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“Hudson Yards’ Large Honeycomb… Hudson Yards’ New Shawarma Sculpture…”
Call it what you want, but the Vessel has created quite a buzz over the past couple of weeks, and it is not just because of its impressive architecture, or the panoramic view at the top (to which some claimed that getting there was an uncalled for work-out).

After coming across different nicknames of Hudson Yards’ now-famous point of attraction, architectural designer and illustrator Chanel Dehond selected some of the most amusing ones and transformed them into sketches.

Tell us, ArchDaily readers, what do you call the Vessel?

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