The proposal for the New Taipei City Museum of Art by OTA+ challenges the traditional definition of a museum and the conventional relationship between building and site. By freeing the ground plane of enclosed semi-public space, the interface between the museum and the site offers a new experience of a museum; one that is open, friendly, and welcoming. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The 2011 Architecture and the City Festival, being held from September 1st to September 30th, is a month long celebration featuring over 40 behind the scenes tours, workshops, exhibitions, lectures, dining adventures, films and more that explore the best of San Francisco architecture and design.
Hosted by AIA San Francisco, the 2011 festival theme is ‘Architecture of Consequence.’ By selecting this theme, the festival hopes to demonstrate how progressive design and creative problem solving can address society’s current challenges and lead to a more sustainable future. More information on the event after the break.
The goal of ISA and NEAR Design for the Kaohsiung Port Station, serving the largest harbor in Taiwan, is to revitalize the Port station area into a Transitional Park (Trans-Park) where daily life and events, past and future, landscape and city, land and water coexists. With the city’s cultural production and tourism in mind, the site will become an icon of Kaohsiung. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The proposal for the New Taipei Museum of Art, by Meter architects, is predicated on exploring and celebrating the interrelationship between commerce and the display of art. This approach involved distributing the museum and commercial programs so as to heighten the drama of the encounter between them. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Busan Opera House proposal, by Pelletier de Fontenay, echoes a unique island condition. Here, they imagined an island experience where everything, from water to building, is in contrast with the usual city landscape. It resembles more abstract matter carved from underneath than a building. It stands there, anchored to the shore, like a century old wreckage, darkened by time, creating complex and unexpected relationships with the water, the island, the city and it’s inhabitants. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Inspired by varied and complex geographical environment of Taipei city and in order to fit to playful topography and landscape of the provided site, the design by Pikasch Architecture Studio proposes a land form architecture where the building with its striking form not only blends into the existing landscape and paths, but also works as an attractive centre point and organizes the site with optimal consideration of given parameters. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University will host a reception on Tuesday, September 13, 5-7 p.m. to celebrate the new exhibition, An Architect’s Vision: Paul Rudolph and Colgate’s Creative Arts Center and the concurrent exhibition, After You Left, They Took It Apart, photographs by Chris Mottalini. Both open on August 30th and remain on view through October 7th
In 2007 Mottalini photographed three homes by the late Modernist architect Paul Rudolph (1918-1997), just days prior to their demolitions. The resulting images capture a state of Modernist architecture few people have witnessed, revealing the grace of these homes as they stood in defiance of severe neglect and ‘progress’. Mottalini’s photographs are the final portraits of these destroyed homes. More information and images on the exhibition after the break.
All interested architects are invited to partake in an open international competition for a new 4 star hotel in Jurmala, Latvia. The resort city, located on the coast of the Baltic Sea, is well known for its musical heritage, and the hotel will express elements related to music in its design concept.
The history of Jurmala has long been tied together with the musical character of the Baltic Sea – the sound of waves crashing on the beach, the whistling of old pine trees in the wind, the shrieking seagulls in the sky, the shifting sand under your feet, and even the distant chime of the leaving train – all of this and more creates a whole symphony in the memories of everyone who has ever been here. More competition information after the break.
STUDIO_KICK shared with us their proposal for the New Taipei City Art Museum competition. Their main goal is not to design an iconic form for the museum, but an iconic field activated by the museum, with events and interactions for the people. Rich in culture and natural scenery, Yingge, a western district in New Taipei City is an energetic city full of ongoing events. Therefore, the solution for a Modern Art Museum lies far from the traditional modern museum typology. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The new Busan Opera House, designed by Nabito Arquitectura, will put the city on the international map, allowing it to become part of the network of world renowned opera houses. As another node in the network, the I-Opera, the title of their project, will not only be integrated on an international level, but it will also serve as a landmark on the local level. It will be present in the collective memory of the people of Busan and also be a part of their daily life experience. More images and architects’ description after the break.
With exhibitions, venue-specific installations, theme specials, talks, and of course plenty of opportunities to party and network, Vienna Design Week is an attraction not only for the international design scene. It most explicitly aims to appeal to a wide public audience in Vienna, including international guests: in cooperation with many partners – museums, institutions and companies – the whole city becomes a platform and a showcase for design. The Vienna Design Week does not have the character of a trade fair, but instead offers a variety of venues and approaches specific to Vienna. More information on the event after the break.
Based in Egypt, young architecture firm Task Architects shared with us their proposal for the Busan Opera House competition. With the largest port in the country, Busan makes for one of the most important cities in Korea as the project is located in the newly developed area of the north port. Therefore, they wanted to create an Icon. A monument that would shift the vision of the locals and international visitors alike. The design would create new experiences for each visitor in order to be welcoming and inviting to become the city’s vision of future development. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Among the exhibition highlights this coming fall at the CCA (Canadian Centre for Architecture) is Imperfect Health, which premieres on October 25th, 2011 and will be on view until April 1st, 2012.
Imperfect Health, the latest in a series of thematic investigations produced by the CCA, examines how architects, urban and landscape designers are critically responding to society’s increasing concern with health issues. Presented in the main galleries of the CCA, the exhibition is curated by Giovanna Borasi, CCA Curator of Contemporary Architecture and Mirko Zardini, CCA Director and Chief Curator. More information on the events after the break.
The design by DRA&U, which is meant to accommodate cultural activities, comes from the study of shells, their real geometry, neither ideal, nor platonic. The x-ray analysis of these slender bodies gave them the ability to perceive the deficiencies, deviations, and a set of slight imperfections due to environmental disturbances during development, which makes them so fascinating. Each shell contains history and a body that evolves with sublime patience, where the beauty, usefulness, functionality and aesthetics are linked to each other, because the amazing beauty lies not only in the outer (what you see usually), but also lurks in intimacy than hidden. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Board of Education for the School of Architecture in Lund, Sweden, has together with guest Professor Sir Peter Cook, prepared the small Celebrating Architecture Symposium, on September 9, 2011.
The aim of this symposium is to create a dynamic dialogue where architecture, design and education are the main focus. With the help of merited guests, they are hoping to achieve a broad spectrum of dialogue and an innovative approach to progressive architectural education.
The theme this year is ‘What is the main focus in architecture today?’ More information on the event after the break.
OODA shared with us their proposal for the New Taipei City Museum of Art which won the Merit Award in the international competition. The competition intention was to create a pioneering and innovative design concept which will stand as a new-age landmark and a symbolic voice to the world of Taipei City new spirit. OODA’s concept emerges from a big volumetric cube in confrontation with a smaller inner structure cube – hypercube which is an applied mathematical form that relates both. Then the big outer bisects the clamp (as structural elements) and sucks the in between surfaces to a central point creating a hypercube as the core. More images and architects’ description after the break.
This exhibition space design by dEEP Architects is for an art exhibition titled ‘Heaven’ that is being held in Shanghai’s trend setting shopping destination Xin Tian Di Shopping Mall. The form of a rabbit was chosen because in the Chinese culture this year is the Year of the Rabbit. More images and architects’ description after the break.
UPDATE: New renderings of the project have been released as the building approaches completion. They can be viewed here.
The design for the new Taipei Nangang High-tech District Office Tower, by Aedas, draws inspiration from the shape of the river pebbles, developing a unique aesthetic that conveys the idea of softness and elegance as well as strength and character.
Located in close proximity to the Jilong River and a major overpass highway in Taipei, the surrounding environment provided the opportunity to propose a building that will redefine the skyline of this rapidly developing area of Taipei. More images and architects’ description after the break.