10 Design architects has recently been awarded a 93 ha Masterplan for a CBD in Pingtan, a New Cross-Strait District for China and It’s Trading Partner, Taiwan. Pingtan is planned as a new commercial hub to drive communication and commercial trade between China and Taiwan. Part of the competition included the design of a new Cross Straits Forum including theatre, convention, exhibition and auxiliary commercial and cultural facilities. More images and project description after the break.
The new Indore School design by STL Architects aims to radically rethink both the traditional classroom learning environment as well as the physical arrangement of those spaces. With a prototype designed for mid, mass and premium markets, the Indore School educational experience will never differ, only the materials used to build each school. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Located in the Xiaguan District in Nanjing, China, W2Y2L was required to design a high rise complex which included entertaining, sport, commercial and official parts. Hence the major concern of the design was how to merge this “huge complex” into the existing circumstances and get a brilliantly transitional connection with the landscape there. The distribution of architectural volumes in this design follows the idea of traditional Chinese Gardens, which transforms the elements of water, stones, hills, bridges and flowers into significant urban shapes animating and vitalizing the daily life of the entire district. More images and architects’ description after the break.
How can you condense more than ten thousand years of civilization into a single project that faithfully tells the story of a great nation? The answer is in the winning design of a prestigious architectural competition, to design the new compound for the General Secretariat for the Council of Ministers in Baghdad. Zaha Hadid and more than 30 other international architects participated in this competition, won by the architecture firm CAP.
Open to architects, designers, engineers and students from November 22-27, this workshop put on my LaN (Live Architecture Network), in collaboration with SOLIDO, is intended to suit a range of levels- those with no Rhinoceros modeling or CNC machining experience will gain experience working with between modeled geometries and designing tool-paths for production. Those with previous experience will have hands-on access to taking their understanding further. Sessions are co-instructed by Solido Founder Filippo Moroni & LaN Co-director Monika Wittig.
The SEED Network recently launched the 2nd Annual SEED Awards for excellence in Public Interest Design to showcase and promote projects that help create socially, economically, and environmentally healthy communities. The projects will be judged using “SEED”: Social Economic Environmental Design”® a standard evaluation to measure the positive impact of design projects.
Sixwinners will be announced January 27, 2012. Each winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to present at Structures for Inclusion conference at the University of Austin in Austin, Texas March 24-25, and a $1,000 cash prize. Each winning project will also be included in a documentary series by The UpTake. More competition information after the break.
The detailed master plan for the Jordan Development Zones Company (JDZ) by Sasaki Associates encompasses 40 square kilometers of land along the north and east coast of the historic Dead Sea. Over the past 15 years, the Kingdom of Jordan has focused on a balanced approach towards development and preservation in order to capitalize on increased tourism and to provide improvements to local existing communities. In 2008, a development authority was created to establish a detailed master plan as a sustainable framework for existing committed lands, future development parcels, infrastructure provisions, and natural resources protection. The resulting master plan establishes a comprehensive and site specific approach to the social, economic and environmental sustainability issues facing this stunning setting. More images and project description after the break.
The first prize winning proposal for the Nursing & Retiree Home, designed by Firma d.o.o., was directly influenced by the characteristics of the immediate surroundings of the plot. Through detailed site analysis, they concluded that the most important aspects of the context are the landscape and the extreme impact of the rural environment. Therefore, the proposed residence for the elderly, apart from fulfilling all functional prerequisites, must be consistent with those surrounding features. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The winning proposal for the new Panama City Hospital, designed by TASH, is based on the design of ecological protections and passive bioclimatic strategies. The project is configured as a city, it is in no way a single building but a complex, keeping the capacity of total intercommunication between different buildings in a way that benefits from the different synergies, general systems, logistics, production systems, waste disposal, etc, avoiding element duplicities and improving the general performance of the complex, thus giving sense to the concept of a hospital city that is at the core of the project. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Visual Workshop shared with us their proposal for the Hotel Liesma competition. The aim of their concept is to make a new landmark of the surrounding neighborhood as a contemporary, sustainable and functional hotel. More images and brief description after the break.
Australian studio INDEX Architecture has completed a proposal for a new hotel on the beach side of a resort in Jurmala, Latvia. The design is located a short walk from the beachfront and includes 130 rooms, a restaurant, conference and health club facilities. The brief called for a design based around the theme of music that reused an existing tower on the site. The ground floor is to be constructed from a curved timber LVL framed roof structure, which was drawn from the waveforms of Handel’s ‘Water Music.’ The tower reuses the existing concrete structure with a new curtain wall featuring a white ceramic interlayer pattern. More images and architects’ description after the break.
GROUND UP is a new journal print and web publication intended to stimulate thought, discussion, visual exploration and substantive speculation about emerging landscape issues affecting contemporary praxis. Edited and produced by the students of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at University of California Berkeley, along with an advisory board of noted landscape architects and urban theorists and critics, each edition will examine a critical theme arising from the tension between contemporary landscape architecture, ecology and pressing cultural issues. They are announcing an open call for submissions for their inaugural issue, ‘Landscapes of Uncertainty’, which examines the impact of recent radical economic, political and ecological shifts on the landscape. All submittals are to be sent in no later than January 13th. More information on the competition after the break.
The design of the Two Towers, by MA2 in collaboration with CZ Visual Architecture, is a series of manipulated manifolds that construct a dual vertical lattice with angled surfaces. The towers radiate vertically deriving from a multi-sided body, diamond shaped, molded, intended for diversity, complexity, and robustness in form. Elongated diamond bodies functions as a poly-operational structure that addresses flows of energy, circulation, dynamic composites, both aesthetically and material make up. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Organized by The Cultural Landscape Foundation and co-sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, all are invited at attend the Second Wave of Modernism conference on Friday, November 18th at the Museum of Modern Art. The conference will examine modernism at the residential, urban and metropolitan scales, ranging from Richard Neutra’s Kun 2 in LA to the High Line. Participants include James Corner, Charles Renfro, Kathryn Gustafson, Michael Van Valkenburgh and many others. More information about the event and how to register, please visit here.
Anchoring at the end of the proposed Hongqiao primary retail axis in Shanghai, and with a canal meandering through the northern edge of the site, the Linkong Block 10-1 Development is the destination for the public within the Linkong Business Park. The program for the development, ‘The Urban Crossing’, calls for a boutique urban mixed-use project with office, retail, gallery, conference center, and water promenade plaza. This concept by Aedas is to create a brand new landmark, which further establishes a strong civic presence through its iconic form and vibrant program mix. Portrayed as the Gateway of Hongqiao Airport Transportation Hub, the project is deemed to generate synergy from public and commercial activities. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Museum of Architecture and Design has published the first film from the series of six Small and Smart – Expressions of Contemporary Slovenian Architecture in Film: Biotechnical Faculty, ARK arhitektura Krušec (Ljubljana, 2009-2010). Small and Smart consists of six short films, one of each of six built architectural projects. Each employs a simple story – a development, an exchange – to move through and relate the experience of the architecture. As the films move through and document the spaces and exchanges, certain key features of the architectures are revealed and emphasized. All architectures here are recent builds (2006 and later) and are of varied types, programs and scales: private house, row house, industrial facility, sacred, educational/institutional, public/sports. Together they reflect representative currents, developments and practices in the best of Slovenian architecture today.
The winners of the 2011 International “Barbara Cappochin” Prize for Architecture are two young emerging talents in the field of contemporary architecture, the Italian architect Fabrizio Barozzi and the Spanish architect Alberto Veiga: it is their project, a Promotional Centre for the D.O.C. wine: “Ribera del Duero” in Roa, Spain, which was unanimously chosen by the judges “because it merges the qualities of aesthetics, functionality and sustainability for which the Prize is awarded”. More information on the award after the break.
The winning design of a large international architectural competition, ‘The Two Towers’, was recently announced in Shenzhen, China. The team selected to design this new Shenzhen landmark – comprising 100.000 square meters in total – is a constellation of ADEPT (DK) and Urbanus (CHN) with VSA (HK), Max Fordham LLP (GB) and Beijing CCI Architectural Design Co, LTD (CHN). The jury meeting was hosted at the Shenzhen Municipal Planning Building with Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne as chairman of the jury. More information on the competition winners after the break.