The annual Jencks Award, organized by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), is given each year to an architect who has made a major contribution to both the theory and practice of architecture. This year, the award is given to architect, Eric Owen Moss.
Based on the research on spread-in-the-city-domesticity, Andrés Jaque Architects produced their ‘Sweet Parliament Home’ based on the field work they have been doing in the last months in Seoul, South Korea and was presented at the Gwangju Design Biennale 2011. More images and brief description after the break.
Architecture firms AWP and HHF shared with us their first prize winning proposal for the Parc Paysager des bords de Seine in Carrière-Sous-Poissy, France. The project consists of three small buildings and 10 follies for the landscape park on the banks of the river Seine. By working along residential neighborhoods, we are invited by this project to come inhabit a large urban room worthy of Paris’ great terraced boulevards. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Brazilian architecture offices based in São Paulo, Estúdio ARKIZ and MMBB, were invited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Brazilian embassy in London to represent South America in the Cities of Tomorrow Talks event, that will take place in October at 6:30pm the RIBA Headquarters in London, UK. More information on the event after the break.
The Acoustic Pavilion Project, developed by AREA and Electrotexture Lab, is created from evolutionary algorithms that search the optimum form and reflective environment for electronic music within the context of Aalborg’s harbor front. More images and brief project description after the break.
Man transforms the environment, interferes with nature producing spaces that harbor their daily activities. This is done by provoking change,building objects, and inserting devises into the the natural environment. This intervention, a design by Estúdio 41, suggests a reflection on the relationship between nature and artifice, proposing buildings that build: artifacts and landscape, cover and relief, shelter and open space. As the 1st place prize winner, their design creates a place where working means life quality, surrounded by leisure facilities, designed for outdoors experience. A place to exchange experiences, to learn, teach and meet. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Over the last 18 months, Trans_City architecture and urbanism, has developed a comprehensive plan for the reconstruction of Jacmel, Haiti based upon the concept of satellite cities located at the edge of the existing, earthquake-ravaged city center.(A concept developed in accordance with the universal design principals of the Housing Reconstruction Framework of the Haitian Government)
The concept includes an urban masterplan, and a proposal for prefabricated houses, in which the building shell is industrially manufactured in Austria, and finished by local hand workers. In line with the content of the project, the architecture does not attempt to be spectacular. Rather, it is the holistic integration of the many levels of an urban system that makes this project interesting. More images and project description after the break.
Inspired by the existing lattice pylon originally designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield RA in 1927, New Town Studio, who was recently shortlisted for the Pylon Design Competition, uses a lattice steel framework to create a vertical structure which retains the transparent and open qualities of the original in a more modest form to be visually and symbolically appropriate for today. More on the project after the break.
Storefront for Art and Architecture is pleased to present Manifesto Series 06: Finding Formless curated by Julian Rose and Garrett Ricciardi on Friday, September 23rd, 2011 from 6:30 to 9pm.
Impulses toward the formless, alternately understood as struggles to escape form as a manifestation of various norms and constraints, are as old as architecture itself. But the formless is also increasingly in the air today, whether explicitly as in discussions of the “formless” quality of the city, or implicitly in talk of atmospheric buildings, randomized structures, and the dematerialization (or increased mediation) of architecture. No doubt part of its appeal lies in the fact that the formless is frequently found at the intersections between architecture and other fields, those intriguing moments when architecture unravels and can perhaps be woven into other practices, from art to ecology or engineering. Nevertheless, the formless has not yet been theorized rigorously in architecture. More information on the event after the break.
The Polonsky Academy of Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, designed by Chyutin Architects, is part of the Van Leer Institute campus at Jerusalem. Situated on the cliff facing south towards the Jerusalem Theater, its northern side faces the main garden court which will function as the heart of the campus in the new master plan. This court has two levels, with a one storey differential between them which makes it possible to create two entrances to the structure on different levels: main entrance near the Van Leer Institute and secondary entrance near the Council for Higher Education. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Architect Paul Laurendeau shared with us his competition proposal for the Saint-Michel Soccer Stadium in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Playing on the contrast between black exterior and wood interior, the stadium’s simple form makes it stand out from its context. More images and brief project description after the break.
VAUMM architects shared with us their proposal for the Interpretation and Visitors Center of the Technology Development Plant for Co2 Geological Storage. The Energy City Foundation plans to build an Interpretation Center to publicize the project of Geological Storage of CO2, a new project which is one of the main mechanisms in the fight against global climate change. It is intended that after visiting the Center, people have learned how Co2 affects the planet, the solutions that arise, the reasons for storing CO2 and overall operation of the Co2 Storage Plant at Hontomín, Burgos and also has experienced the feeling of having been inside the earth and having watched direct injection of CO2. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The desire to help underprivileged populations along with the concern of how we should manage the planets resources brought two young architecture offices – blaanc borderless architecture and CaeiroCapurso – together to create a non-profit association that could contribute to these causes.
Adobe for Women Association’s goal is to recover and teach vernacular construction skills and at the same time help women in need, women who are often the real family pillar and who bring up children despite the enormous hardships they face. Their first project is inspired by the work of Mexican architect Juan José Santibañez, who, twenty years ago, helped twenty women in difficult living conditions to build their own homes. Two decades later, Adobe for Women has planned the construction of twenty sustainable houses in the indigenous village of San Juan Mixtepec, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. More images and and brief project description after the break.
Yizhuang is a new city in the south-east of Beijing. At the moment, the area is only fields on which the infrastructures’ works have already started. There is a main street that will go throughout the city from north to south. This main street will be crossed by 3 main knots defining 3 main districts: an administrative district, a cultural district and an offices district. The Beijing Yizhuang Mix, designed by Design Crew for Architecture, is located in the offices district and will be the first to be built. A train station stops right in front of the plot and the line will be linking downtown Beijing to the upcoming Yizhuang city. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Bifurcating Ecologies, designed by Kenneth To (under Design Advisor, Wendy W Fok, and Project Team, Dave Cheung, Marco Chan), is a developmental master planning proposal which traces through humanizing the accessibility of the Hong Kong Wanchai District Waterfront through proposing new branching open landscapes and bifurcation of programs, which introduces new innovative topological energy creation that regenerates and reconnects the community. More images and project description after the break.
BNKR Arquitectura started this proposal with a simple but relevant question: How to conceive an icon landmark for Taichung? Their research explored a wide range of conceptual references in order to find an artistic expression that was coherent with the Taiwanese culture and society. Their main goal of this multifunctional landmark is to blend with the city, not in aesthetic terms but in the ideas of appropriation and belonging. More images and architects’ description after the break.
IN&EDIT Architecture shared with us their proposal for the Passenger Terminal Building international competition which included four vehicular bridges across the Shenzhen River. The project aims to emulate how trees are organisms that stand by themselves, so their shape has an inherent, structural rationality. As a result, public flow through the trunk and roots will guide pedestrians from one riverside to the other. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Vert House, a low-cost sustainable house design, has been approved and adopted by Houston Habitat for Humanity. Designed by Yonatan Pressman and Courtney Benzon, graduate architecture students at Rice University, the 1,300 square-foot, 3-bedroom house will be constructed by Rice students and alumni in Spring 2012 as the Rice Centennial House, a student initiative in honor of of the university’s centennial celebrations. The design will also be added to Houston Habitat’s portfolio of home designs for additional builds in the future. More information on the project after the break.