Google's proposed California headquarters will be built with robots, according to the most recent planning documents received by the City of Mountain View Council. As the Architects' Journal reported first, the documents detail BIG and Heatherwick Studio's plan to construct the canopy-like structure's interiors with a team of robotic-crane hybrids known as "crabots."
These crabots would, in theory, establish a "'hackable' system for the building of the interior structures," says the documents, that would allow for limitless, easy, and affordable reconfiguration of space throughout the building's life.
The Dubai Design District (d3) has tapped Foster + Partners to design its masterplan's second phase. Spanning one million-square-feet, the new development will be a "Creative Community" that will serve as a "thriving cultural epicenter" within d3, and an "incubator" for emerging designers an artists.
“This is an exciting initiative, which supports young creatives, and allows Dubai’s design scene to flourish from within," says Gerard Evenden, Studio Head at Foster + Partners.
In the architecture world, there are a handful of persistent debates that arise time and time again: the challenges of being a woman in the field of architecture is one of them, for example; the problems of a culture of long hours and hard work is another. But one of the most enduring arguments in architecture - especially in the academic sphere - is the battle between hand drawing and computer aided design. Both schools have their famous proponents: Michael Graves, for example, was known as a huge talent with a pencil and paper, and came to the defense of drawing in articles for the New York Times, among others. Patrik Schumacher, on the other hand, is famous for his commitment to the capabilities of the computer.
To advance this heated conversation, two weeks ago we reached out to our readers to provide their thoughts on this topic in an attempt to get a broad cross-section of opinions from architects from all walks of life. Read some of the best responses after the break.
St. Peter's Square through the lens of a camera. ImagePapal Conclave 2013, Vatican City
In an article for the Washington Post, Philip Kennicott argues that "technology has scrambled the lines between public and private." He questions whether, in an age of "radical individualism" spurred on by our fascination with solitary communication, our collective understanding and appreciation for the public, civic space has been diminished. Kennitott foreshadows that "one thing is certain: We will live in more crowded spaces, and we will increasingly live indoors, cocooned in climate-controlled zones with a few billion of our closest friends" as rapid urbanisation merges with the changing climate.
Janet Echelman's latest aerial sculpture has been suspended 365 feet above Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway. On view through October 2015, the monumental installation spans 600 feet, occupying a void where an elevated highway once divided the city's downtown from its waterfront.
"The sculpture’s form echoes the history of its location," describes Echelman. "The three voids recall the 'Tri-Mountain' which was razed in the 18th-century to create land from the harbor. The colored banding is a nod to the six traffic lanes that once overwhelmed the neighborhood, before the Big Dig buried them and enabled the space to be reclaimed for urban pedestrian life."
Car Talk has written a scathing review on Buckminster Fuller's three-wheeled Dymaxion Car, 81 years after its unveiling. The famed architect and inventor, known best for his geodesic dome, hoped to revolutionize the car industry with a three-wheeled, 20 foot-long, "highly aerodynamic" reinvention of the car.
ArchDaily is in need of a select group of awesome, architecture-obsessed interns to join our team for Summer 2015 (June - August)! If you want to spend your days researching/writing about the best architecture around the globe – and find out what it takes to work for the world’s most visited architecture website – then read on after the break…
https://www.archdaily.com/624657/call-for-archdaily-interns-summer-2015AD Editorial Team
The Listeners Project: four short films in the former BBC Television Centre. Image Courtesy of The Listeners Project
The Listeners Project, a small London-based initiative that works with young filmmakers in unique architectural spaces to develop and create short films, have taken residence in the former BBC Television Centre. The building, designed by Graham Dawbarn of Norman & Dawbarn in the late 1940s, has an iconic plan that resembles a question mark. The centre, which was once the beating heart of the majority of the British Broadcasting Company's television production, was listed in 2009 before it was finally vacated in 2013.
Cloucity / Juerg Burger, Ge Men, Qingchuan Yang, Yin Li, Wei Hou. Image Courtesy of eVolo
In the celebratory spirit of its recent 2015 Skyscraper Competition, eVolo has compiled a list of the contest's most innovative submissions. 20 skyscrapers from 13 countries rose above the rest in terms of their unorthodox forms and imaginative solutions to socio-environmental issues. The avant-garde designs, which range from self-sustaining micro-climates to extensive sky-bound bicycle networks, address the cultural, social, and sustainable contexts of the future through groundbreaking means.
See all 20 innovative skyscrapers after the break.
1st Prize: Ilya Pugachenko, Andrey Sayko, and Alla Aniskova. Image Courtesy of HMMD
The winners of the international design competition "Bangkok: I am Fashion Hub" have been unveiled. Entrants were challenged with the task of unifying the functions of a community center, library, exhibition theater, and public space within a cohesive venue in Bangkok for both the local and international fashion communities.
Of the original entries, three winners were selected by an international jury based on their adherence to several design factors including conceptual clarity, creativity, integration within the existing urban fabric, and feasibility as a center for fashion. The winning designs, from Malaysia, Russia, and France, garnered monetary prizes ranging from $1,000 to $6,000. Check them out, after the break.
For almost a century, one of the largest buildings in the Southeastern United States has maintained a dominating street presence in Atlanta, Georgia. Now the Ponce City Market, the building was originally designed by Nimmons, Carr and Wright Architects and built in 1925 as a Sears, Roebuck & Co. distribution and retail center, operating until 1989. In 1991, the City of Atlanta purchased the building, renamed it City Hall East and housed several public works departments, storing countless items among its 2.1 million square feet of space. As the city’s utilization of the building dwindled, Jamestown Properties stepped in and acquired the building in 2010. Five years later, Ponce City Market is poised to become one of the greatest historic rehabilitation projects in the country.
We will be publishing Nikos Salingaros’ book, Unified Architectural Theory, in a series of installments, making it digitally, freely available for students and architects around the world. In Chapter 11, Salingaros introduces and explains a list of 15 properties theorized by Christopher Alexander which give rise to the phenomenon of “life” in architectural designs. If you missed them, make sure to read the previous installments here.
Alexander’s Fifteen Fundamental Properties
We have come to the point in this course when we need to present the geometric properties responsible for the deep connectivity that I have discussed in previous chapters. Christopher Alexander has derived a set of 15 properties that all structures that we perceive to have “life” possess (Alexander, 2001).
In order to effectively guide and improve the development and construction of the low-carbon pilot zone and to strength its international influence, Shenzhen Public Art Center, under the request from the Planning and Construction Management Office of Shenzhen International Low-carbon City and Shenzhen SEZ Construction and Development Co., Ltd., has organized an international competition for the PINGDI Pilot Zone – the urban design for the zone’s one square kilometer and the architectural design for its 0.1 square kilometer. The number in PINGDI 1.1 is the numerical sum of one and 0.1 square kilometers, and also represents the improvement and exploration of the low-carbon development method.
On display until July 19th, MoMA's exhibition "Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980" is an attempt to bring the architecture of this global region, and this time period, to a greater audience after decades of neglect by the architectural establishment. Curated by Barry Bergdoll, the exhibition effectively follows on from MoMA's last engagement with the topic of Latin American architecture, way back in 1955 with Henry-Russell Hitchcock's exhibition "Latin American Architecture Since 1945." In an intriguing interview, Bergdoll sits down with Metropolis Magazine to talk about why he is revisiting the topic after so many years (or, indeed, why MoMA took so long to do so), and explains his ambitions to elevate the featured works and to frame Latin America itself as "not simply as a place where the pupils of Le Corbusier went to build, but a place of origins of ideas." Read the full interview here.
Italy's global commercial fair, Milan Expo 2015 opened today. The six month event, expected to attract nearly 20 million visitors, is showcasing 54 national pavilions, among a number of corporate and multinational installations, all focused on "Feeding the Planet" and promoting their national cuisine. Pavilions by Foster + Partners, Herzog & de Meuron, SPEECH, Daniel Libeskind and many others will remain on view through October 31.
Take a look at some of the fair's most talked about pavilions on opening day, after the break.
In response to one of their most frequent user requests, browser-based 3D model platform Sketchfab has now partnered with Hubs, the world's largest 3D printer network, to introduce a 3D print ordering feature that works directly from its viewing window. With a globally-distributed network of 15,000 print hubs in their network (250 of which support full-color printing), Sketchfab CEO Alban Denoyel says that 3D Hubs is the "closest to achieving this vision" of locally-based manufacture that bypasses transport costs - which he believes is "one of the most important promises of 3D printing."
In conjunction with the release of the results of their "Design Competition Survey", the Van Alen Institute have put forward 10 propositions for the improvement of design competitions. Accompanied by a series of vibrant graphics, the propositions can be read after the break.
Pop Brixton (entrance). Image Courtesy of RIBA London
The London branch of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have unveiled a series of events themed along the lines of 'Work In Progress' for the 2015 London Festival of Architecture. The festival, which is a month-long celebration of architectural experimentation, thinking and practice taking place at venues across the capital, will open in next month. The RIBA London's chosen theme "will explore the changing nature of work, and workspace, as well as its impact on, and role in, the continued evolution of London."
He may have risen to prominence for his disaster relief architecture and deft use of recyclable materials, but Shigeru Ban describes his idiosyncratic use of material as an "accident." Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the 2014 Pritzker Prize Laureate recalls turning to cardboard tubes as a matter of necessity. "I had to create a design for an exhibition," Ban told the newspaper, "But I couldn't afford wood. Instead, I used the many paper tubes from rolls of drafting paper that were lying around. The tubes turned out to be quite strong." The most prominent of Ban's cardboard tube structures is Christchurch'sCardboard Cathedral, built in the aftermath of an earthquake that devastated the city in early 2011. Read WSJ's full interview with Ban here.
A new sculpture has risen in the desert of Qatar: “East-West/West-East,” Richard Serra's second public commission by the Gulf nation. Sited in a barren landscape that was suggested by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the former Emir, the installation is comprised of four steel plates incrementally placed and standing perpendicular to the ground.
Much like Serra's first Qatari sculpture - "7" in Doha - the German rolled steel structure will oxidize, changing from gray to orange and eventually a dark amber, much like the Seagram Building in midtown, said Serra in an interview with The New Yorker. The artist hopes it will become a landmark within the country.
A selection of images from architecture photographer Nelson Garrido, after the break.
The Singapore Building and Construction Authority (BCA), together with Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) and Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) are jointly organizing the International Tropical Architecture Design Competition 2015 for Institutes of Higher Learning (ITAD Competition) for the fifth run this year. Themed “Urban Smart Green Office,” this year’s competition seeks for innovative and sustainable design entries that demonstrates the essentials and key constituents of a Smart Green Office Building in an urban city of participant's choice. The competition is open to tertiary students worldwide. Read on to learn more.
180 Creative Camp is back! The 5th edition of the event will take place from July 5-12 in the Portuguese city of Abrantes. One of the leading creative gatherings worldwide, 180 Creative Camp unites some of the world's most inspiring creators from different areas of artistic expression for a week of creative intersections. Developed by Canal180, the camp combines video, music, photography, design, architecture and urban art. For a second consecutive year, and in partnership with the Municipality of Abrantes, 180 Creative Camp is seeking proposals for an Urban Intervention Project to be displayed in Abrantes' historic center, as well as 15 “Stores Art Attack" project interventions. Proposals need to be submitted by May 31. Learn more after the break.
https://www.archdaily.com/625957/apply-to-have-your-urban-intervention-realized-in-abrantes-portugalAD Editorial Team
World Expos have long been important in advancing architectural innovation and discourse. Many of our most beloved monuments were designed and constructed specifically for world’s fairs, only to remain as iconic fixtures in the cities that host them. But what is it about Expos that seem to create such lasting architectural landmarks, and is this still the case today? Throughout history, each new Expo offered architects an opportunity to present radical ideas and use these events as a creative laboratory for testing bold innovations in design and building technology. World’s fairs inevitably encourage competition, with every country striving to put their best foot forward at almost any cost. This carte blanche of sorts allows architects to eschew many of the programmatic constraints of everyday commissions and concentrate on expressing ideas in their purest form. Many masterworks such as Mies van der Rohe’s German Pavilion (better known as the Barcelona Pavilion) for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition are so wholeheartedly devoted to their conceptual approach that they could only be possible in the context of an Exposition pavilion.
To celebrate the opening of Expo Milano 2015 tomorrow, we’ve rounded up a few of history’s most noteworthy World Expositions to take a closer look at their impact on architectural development.
.jpg?1430423256 "“East-West/West-East” / Richard Serra. Image © Nelson Garrido")
