The Melnikov House, the unusual, cylindrical classic of Constructivism which was Konstantin Melnikov’s residence and studio, is on the brink of collapse.
The Independent reports that nearby construction (which visibly moves the ground the building sits on) has weakened the 83-year-old foundations dangerously. Konstantin Melnikov’s grand-daughter (and current resident of the house), Ekaterina Karinskaya, further told The Independent that, due to broken heating pipes, the wooden house spent more than 50 days without heating in what were often sub-zero temperatures.
Although there have been interests expressed to turn the house into a museum, a tense legal debate between Ms. Karinskaya and a developer has put any plans on stand-still. Meanwhile, time is running out for the architectural icon.
In the virtualized information era, Plan 01 believes the design for the Helsinki Central Library should be more than ever a “physical space”. The project should be a place for sensory experience, a place where culture becomes an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas, a place where the civil forum is recovered from the virtual and returned to the urban world. Their concept becomes a symbol in stone and wood that opens its heart to the city and offers visitors a retreat for body and mind. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Swiss architecture practice, Boltshauser Architekten, recently won an international competition to design a new aquarium in the center of Basel, Switzerland. Their concept, titled ‘Seacliff’, was noted by jury members as being the best match for the public image cultivated by the Basel Zoo. The above-ground building space proposed by Boltshauser was smaller than any of the other competition entries, offering the best solution from an urban development perspective. Beating out such prominent firms as Zaha Hadid Architects, David Chipperfield Architects, and Caruso St John Architects, Boltshauser’s winning project is due for completion in 2019 with an estimated cost of £54 million. More images and information after the break.
Temple University’s Master of Architecture program is now accepting applications for fall of 2013. Located in Philadelphia, a thriving cultural center with a vibrant community of architects and designers, the program connects students with leaders in the profession, including local practitioners and prominent national educators.
The Master of Architecture program of the Tyler School of Art is housed in the new architecture building within Temple University’s Center for the Arts, where students and faculty work alongside colleagues from Fine Arts, Music and Dance, Film and Media Arts, and Theater. The architecture building has state of the art equipment for digital fabrication and studios and labs for all of the department’s programs.
This week we’re going to spotlight one of our greatest contemporary filmmakers, Tim Burton. In the 1989 film Batman, Burton generates a whole gothic environment, full of art deco and art nouveau buildings within Gotham City. Locations were inspired by urban spaces from New York City, Los Angeles, West London, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Tokyo, to Hong Kong (even though Gotham City was a well-known nickname for New York City, before Batman was ever written).
If you didn’t check out our article on Architecture & Batman, do so now – and let us know which Director you think does Gotham best in the comments below…
With produce coming from the Imperial Valley, Central California Valley, neighboring states and other countries the 30,000 plus residents of San Diego’s central urban context consume 21,231,000 pounds of produce each year. Where will we get our food? Transparency in the food industry needs to occur and enlighten blinded consumers. Our city needs to handle this critical issue with an architecture that responds. A new type of residential tower needs to come forth. Utilizing vertical farming, Brandon Martella’s “Live Share Grow’ proposal is a new model of living can be tested and resolved in a dense vertical community. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Miami, Florida is booming with new architectural projects by big names: everything from new condominums by BIG,to the new Miami Beach Convention Center. So why are so many big projects migrating to Miami Beach? The city is turning itself into an American cultural and civic center.
The Helsinki Central Library, designed by FIRM a.d. and OKB Architecture, is a hub of knowledge, where different people, communities and constituencies can come together. With their concept of ‘Geologies of Information’, their design expresses how if libraries were like sedimentary rocks, where layers of knowledge accumulated over time, libraries of the 21st century are like igneous rock in which different mediums of knowledge and learning are fused into a granular heterogeneous whole. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Taking place this Friday from 3:00pm to 5:30pm EST, the Algorithmic Design in Grasshopper webinar by modeLab will focus on creating algorithms using lists and transformations in Grasshopper, iteratively developing geometries inspired by nature. Through a series of short presentations and “live” case studies, learn strategies to discover forms that are defined by simple rules and incremental creation. With two instructors offering guided curriculum and continuous support, their goals is to provide you with an in-depth and personal learning experience. A video of the webinar as well as instructor files will be uploaded after the broadcast – all participants will have unlimited access to the webinar content and this video online. To register and for more information, please visit here.
Sure, you could just go for the old, reliable "black turtleneck" again this year, but where's the fun in that? This year, why not get the Architects in your life a gift we know they'll love? We've culled the "For Architects" page of our Pinterest to bring you the 10 most pinned products - chosen by architects, for architects - that are guaranteed to please.
Australian firm HASSELL Studio, OMA and Populous have been announced as the winners for the redevelopment of Sydney’s new convention, exhibition and entertainment precinct (SICEEP) at Darling Harbour.
The 20-hectare, billion (Australian) dollar project, which will stretch from Cockle Bay to Haymarket and Ultimo, will include Australia's largest convention and exhibition facilities, Sydney’s largest red carpet entertainment venue, a hotel complex with up to 900 rooms, and a new urban neighborhood in Haymarket.
In recent years Downtown Brooklyn has become somewhat of a hub of cultural activity. Just past the triangular intersection of Flatbush Ave and Fulton Street, a high density of cultural buildings, expansive retail, and entertainment exists. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC announced in late November that the city and private companies will be partnering to produce three new projects in this area that will bring affordable housing and additional cultural and community spaces to Downtown Brooklyn. This last city-owned parcel will be developed into mixed use facilities: a 515,000 square foot building at Fulton St, Rockwell Place and Ashland Place; a 32-story mixed use building on Flatbush and Lafayette to be designed by Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos and a third building currently in the RFP stage of development at Ashland Place and Lafayette.
Designed by Onat Öktem and Ziya Imren, the proposal for the Çanakkale Municipality “Green” Cultural Center & Municipality Building, which won an honorable mention, aims to create a new focal point located at the intersection of two busy pedestrian and vehicle axes, that strengthens the urban identity. The project intends to achieve a sharing/networking space that supports the everyday life of urban dwellers with social and cultural activities/facilities/uses, and a human-centered urban space that is also respectful to environmental values. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The power and destruction of Hurricane Sandy made New Yorkers acknowledge just how vulnerable the city is to natural disaster. The storm pummeled Queens’ and Brooklyn’s shores, destroyed and flooded homes while Manhattan’s lower half was submerged and plunged into darkness for a week. But arguably, Staten Island, New York City’s Forgotten Borough, received the brunt of the storm and the slowest level of recovery. In the midst of the controversial clean-up, the New York City Economic Development Corporation decided to plow through the tragedy with pursuant talks of the planned developments on the St. George waterfront in Staten Island. While some residents may be offended that the subject of the talks was not of the EDC’s recovery programs, the real controversy is the way in which the EDC is planning to go forward with its proposal. It is planning to build the world’s largest ferris wheel along a vulnerable coast line that just saw damage from one of the worst storms to hit NYC in recent history.
The Dortoir Familial, designed by NADAAA, focuses on merging with the landscape as the slipped court provides simultaneous interiority and exteriority—protected and private as well as extroverted and engaged. The most significant result of this integration of landscape and house is the production of a monumental vaulted threshold to a central courtyard. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The proposal for the Casablanca Sustainable Market Square competition by Nikolova/Aarsø (N/A) brings together the economic, ecological, cultural, and social aspects of sustainability together. The architects do so with the interplay of medieval Islamic design tradition and contemporary advanced building technology. The architectural concept is developed through the use of the girih tiles as a constantly present design method that elevates its purpose from pure ornamentation to a method of developing architectural composition, spatial organization, structural elements, integration of environmental sustainable technology and strategies, to the planning of flow of people. More images and architects’ description after the break.
ArchDaily is in need of a select group of awesome, architecture-obsessed Interns to join our team for Spring 2013 (January 14th - May 14th)! 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...
The WKCDA (West Kowloon Cultural District Authority) has made two big announcements today: (1) the winners of the competition to design the Xiqu Center, what will be the District's first landmark building; and (2) the shortlist of six architects who will compete to design the M+ Museum for Visual Culture. The Museum and Center are part of a Masterplan, designed by Foster + Partners, to transform Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District into a world-class destination for arts and culture.
Hong-Kong born architects Bing Thom and Ronald Lu (of Bing Thom Architects and Ronald Lu & Partners) beat out the Master-planners themselves, Foster + Partners, to design the Xiqu Center, the "gateway of access" to the district, scheduled for commissioning in 2016.
The designer for the M+ Museum has yet to be determined, however, and, judging by the 6 world-famous architectural firms shortlisted, the competition is sure to be fierce.
Find out the complete list of architects, including Herzog & de Meuron and SNOHETTA, who will compete to design the M+ Museum, after the break...
The Hong-Kong born pair, who have significant experience designing Chinese cultural centers, won out the Master-planners of the District themselves, Foster + Partners, with a design that embraces traditional Chinese motifs. As the District's first landmark building, the Xiqu Center, scheduled for commissioning in 2016, will also be the “gateway of access” to the district.
Mrs Carrie Lam, Chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) Board, noted that the Center's unique positioning ("Occupying a prime site of 13,800 square metres at the eastern edge of the District on the corner of Canton Road and Austin Road West") "will enable multi-disciplinary dialogue and interaction between Xiqu and other performing arts. By building this cultural hub, we are investing both in our future and our heritage, to celebrate Hong Kong's unique cultural identity."
Check out more info and images of the winning Xiqu Center design, after the break...
Located on the edge of Cerklje, an alpine town in Slovenia, the Hayrack Apartments have beautiful views due to the courtyard opening onto a view of the surrounding mountains. Designed by OFIS Arhitekti, their video highlights the character of the social apartments as they were sold to the Slovenian Housing Fund for young families at a price of 900 EUR/m2 which is extremely cheap. he concept of the façade is taken from the hayrack system – wooden beams following traditional details and patterns. Traditionally farmers use the beams to store grass and corn, on the housing one can store flowers or other balcony decoration. Apartments are of different sizes – from 30m2 studio flats up to four room apartments of 80m2.
Architects: MUDAARQUITECTURA Location: Malpartida de Plasencia, Cáceres, Spain Design Team: Pablo Rey Medrano, Federico Rodriguez Cerro, Mª José Selgas Cáceres, Jorge E. Ramos Jular Technical Architect: Miguel Ángel Tierno de Dios Client: Dirección General de la Policía y la Guardia Civil Area: 2,946.65 sqm Project Year: 2011 Photography: Juan Carlos Quindós
