CAAT Studio shared with us their design for a media complex located in the main cultural zone of Tehran. Their goal is to show that the human itself, acts as a media in the project. During the day, the presence of humans can make the project alive by moving towards different parts of it such as amphitheatre on the roof and other spaces. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The headquarters of the Verbund AG is a block perimeter development built around a central courtyard in Vienna’s first district. It was erected between 1952 and 1954 to designs by Carl Appel and is bordered on three sides by public streets or squares. The street facade extends from the square known as Am Hof along Heidenschuss towards Freyung and into Tiefer Graben. The block perimeter development is made up of two volumes, one facing onto Am Hof and the other towards Freyung. In formal terms the building refers back to the architecture of the interwar period. On the other hand the economical use of design and decorative elements, for example the window reveals of real stone, is characteristic of the post-war era. As this facade design had reached the end of its useful life, an invited competition was set up for the redesign of these areas. This competition was won by SOLID Architecture. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Architecture is often considered a social art of function adjustment that seeks an implicit idea of permanence and formal consistency. This usually results in a demand for a creation that sustains the progress of time in an attitude of survival and maturation. However, on this intervention by architecture firms FREE and OODA, the building’s integration and urban landscape was based on the awareness of the direct relationship that the site has with works by internationally renowned architects (SANAA and Alcino Soutinho) and in compliance with the heterogeneity of the surrounding urban fabric. Thus, the building assumes its identity but deliberately quiet and in continuity with the pre-existence. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The plan CHAINREACTION created by a multi-disciplinary team led by Joep van der Veen and Tom Bokkers recently won the bi-annual Ymere Nai prize. CHAINREACTION gives an answer to how the city of Haarlem can develop itself as an essential part of the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam and carefully delineates East Haarlem’s (Haarlem-Oost) role in this scenario. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The “Urban Interventions” civic association, in collaboration with the Vallo Sadovský Architects studio, have prepared an instant urban intervention under a bridge. The situation in regard to quality of the environment at the bus terminal under the New Bridge in Bratislava has been bad for a long time. People have to wait for their bus connections in a totally unsuitable area, and we consider it a disgrace that the city of Bratislava leaves its citizens and tax-payers to function in such an inadequate environment. More images and architects’ description after the break.
NAUTA Architecture & Research, in collaboration with P.B.A. Architectural Design Ltd. shared with us their design for the Yunlong Digital and Technology Park. Sustainability in a fast urbanization calls for simplicity, sobriety, pragmatism and elegance. The most efficient way to emerge in a screaming parade is silence. The design for the business park provides R&D offices and facilities for innovation industry, which focuses on mid-high level of the market. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Within the location from which the project for the sick childcare home is designed, considering the delicate topic, the basic concept of AVP_arhitekti‘s design is site. All other concepts (space, building, construction, physical production, form design) are subject to that basic concept and are obliged to support it. Attention is directed to the welfare of children. Spaces, materials, and organizational schemes are designed to support the general atmosphere of tranquility, security, comfort, safe internal communication, linked external and internal spaces and intimate courtyards.
The project thus possesses a modest significance of the preferred construction system, unusual geometry and coerced approach to plot which at the end are those (heavy, external) factors on which the concept is tested and detailed to a mathematical precision. More images and project description after the break.
Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO – IL), the architectural practice of Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu in New York, was awarded the first prize in an open call by the Flemish Government Architect to design an 500 m2 community center for a small village in Flemish-speaking Belgium. Out of 5 designs, SO – IL’s solution was considered the most appropriate. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Melbourne-based architectural practice Lyons has brought together a panel of leading architects and designers to discuss the central theme of this year’s Melbourne Architecture Annual, What makes a home?
The panel discussion, “Talking Homes”, will take place at Lyons’ Bourke Street office on October 25th from 5-6pm and will feature; Jill Garner, Victoria’s Associate Government Architect; Dr Karen Burns, from the Faculty of Art and Design at Monash University; and Rachael Nolan, of the award winning Melbourne architectural practice Kennedy Nolan. More information on the event after the break.
Bystrup’s innovative T-Pylon design has been unanimously agreed by the judging panel as the winner of the Pylon Design competition run by the Department of Energy & Climate Change, National Grid, and the Royal Institute of British Architects.
An Open Call for five temporary urban interventions has just been launched for Guimarães 2012 – European Capital of Culture. Performance Architecture is an international ideas competition curated by Pedro Gadanho. It will offer kick-start prizes of 12.000€ to promote the appropriation of controversial public spaces by city inhabitants. The competition invites multidisciplinary teams of artists, architects, designers, and others to reactivate performance art strategies and participative architectures within the urban realm. Members of the juri include Santiago Cirugeda, Didier Fiuza Faustino, A77, Raumlabor, and Office for Subversive Architecture. Proposals may be submitted online until the 6th January 2012. More info and regulation available here.
The New Taipei City Museum of Art proposal by Volkan Alkanoglu | DESIGN seeks to educate and motivate lifestyles through art and culture; thus promoting artistic creations as a moment in a time greater than none. The design incorporates a well planned program distribution emphasizing the important relationship of art as lifestyle and lifestyle as art. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In the end who will save mankind from the Zombie Apocalypse? It is our belief that artists, designers, and architects will need to weigh in heavily to provide Safe Houses that can stand an assault on civilization. Don’t be caught unprepared, now is our chance to vote from over 12 countries, 700 registers, and 200 entries. This may be our last hope! You can vote for as many as you like here until October 20th!
Recently announced were the winners of the New Taipei City Museum of Art competition. The main objective of this competition was to build a world-class museum of art through a conceptual design. It was to be creative and its visionary schemes are sought in order to give the New Taipei City Museum of Art a fresh look and versatile art exhibition space. The design teams from all over the world were invited to challenge their imagination, pursue new possibilities for modern art museums and help New Taipei City create an artistic icon for the new century! The team of Peter Boronski and Jean-Loup Baldacci was named the first prize winners while Kengo Kuma & Associatesand Federico Soriano Pelaez followed with the second and third place awards. More information on the award winning designs after the break.
The project proposal for the new Terme Olimia wellness spa, designed by Enota, is located in the very center of a well-known ski resort, Kranjska Gora in Slovenia. With rethinking the local building characteristics completely, the new spa building exhibits attractive design and despite its distinctive and extensive program maintains the town’s unified look. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The arbor, designed by Shamsudin Kerimov Architects, is a living space project meant to accommodate a family of about 15 people. The design’s floor plan consists of a semantic differentiation on three zones which they conditionally named “kitchen-furnace”, “dining room-drawing room” and “terrace-scene”. More images and architects’ description after the break.
On view until Marcg 25th and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the installation for California Design, 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way” Exhibition is created by the Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture Studio, which is also responsible for a number of Los Angeles landmarks, including the renovated Hollywood Bowl and Egyptian Theater. The design for the exhibition is inspired by California’s unique style, with lithe, sensuous lines carried throughout the installation, including the display cases and a helical construction that soars through the center of the space. Hodgetts + Fung also collaborated with curators Wendy Kaplan and Bobbye Tigerman to bring the re-creation of the Eames living room to life. More information on the design and exhibition after the break.
C+S Associati shared with us their first prize winning proposal in the competition for Area Parolini in Bassano Del Grappa, Italy. The project was done in association with landscape architects Land Srl. Every project needs to cope with the characteristics and values which are deposited in the specific site: particularly each project needs to look at these values as potentialities to be brought into the contemporary. In this way the park they designed has a strategic value, both in environmental terms and in terms of potentiality: the park is, in fact, conceived as part of a larger system ‘the green ring’, originated by the historic void spaces of the three beautiful squares of Bassano city centre. More images and architects’ description after the break.