To be held August 10-12, the 12th international Alvar Aalto Symposium, entitled “CRAFTED – The Ingredients of Architecture”, will discuss how architecture can rise above the ordinary. The symposium will feature 14 top experts and thinkers in their fields, offering their takes on this year’s theme. The latest addition to the list of speakers is Mohsen Mostafavi, a renowned architect who is dean and professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The goal of the ARCHIVE’s CONSTRUIRE LA PRÉVENTION DU PALUDISME: Building Malaria Prevention competition is to retrofit 24 housing units in the community of Minkoaméyos in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The design of the housing units should combine the use of common sense principles and innovative ideas to minimize the transmission of malaria. Our campaign is unique in that we not only seek design excellence, but design that truly integrates architectural construction with community health improvements. ARCHIVE hopes that this campaign will raise awareness about the role of housing and environmental design by changing the way that communities deal with global health issues. While the ideas generated here will initially be locally specific, they should seek to be globally transferrable. For more information, please visit here.
The architectural design for the U27 Office building, by Park Associati, is based on an analytical approach to the articulated system of access to the Milanofiori Nord area in Assago, Italy. The pedestrian walkways and roads, climatic factors relating to the context and the goal of properly integrating the building into the overall masterplan are the main elements they focused on. Its position as a link to an area of forest towards the north led to the development of a complex that while being based on a closed courtyard layout, enables a visual permeability to be maintained in terms of the routes that surround the building. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The volume composition of the NUK II University Library is formed as a group of three volumes set on top of an elevated plateau hovering above the excavations. Designed by SANGRAD Architects, AVP Arhitekti, and Biro Arhitekti, this unity of forms also means a unity of space, function and organization. Within the existing roman structure (which is understood as geometrical and spatial order, urban definition and direction), the archaeological grid becomes the base of the library functional scheme and the excavations are actively transferred to the future architectural assembly. More images and architects’ description after the break.
On view now until September 9, the ‘Très Grande Bibliothèque (Very Big Library)’ Exhibition at the Canadian Center for Architecture (CCA) presents materials produced by OMA, in response to an international competition launched by France’s then president, Francois Mitterrand, in 1989 to design the new bibliotheque nationale de France. Curated by Rem Koolhaas and Clement Blanchet of OMA, the concept of their proposal resided in the notion of the library spaces being excavated as voids from a ‘solid cube’ containing the archives. The concept offered great architectural freedom, with the public spaces (or voids) being liberated from the constraints of a predeterminded structure or form. More information on the exhibition after the break.
José Neves recenlty won the first prize in the competition for the project of the Centro de Artes do Carnaval in the city of Torres Vedras, Portugal. The jury noted that the design organizes the spaces for public use in an optimal way, allowing for a visitor’s path which is logical, organized and consequential. The proposal suggests the building as a unifying idea for the site starting from a balance between the contest specifications and the site characteristics, an innovative approach to the Slaughter House building, a relevant interpretation of the existing urban language and the consequent formulation of an architectural language which reinvents the site. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Broadway Malyan recently secured a brief to provide a full range of design services for the delivery of a global headquarter, research and development, hospitality and visitor centrer in China. They will provide masterplanning, architectural and landscape design services for the project, from concept to detailed design and onsite delivery, with the center set to become a global center for hybrid rice research, a showcase for sustainable development and an international leisure destination in the Qixianling area of Hainan, China’s southernmost province. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Located in a privileged area in the city of Lima with views towards the golf course, DCPP Arquitectos sought to create an icon for the future in their design for a new luxury housing concept in Latin America. They do so by combining the idea of incorporating the exterior space to the interior life of the apartments and creating a new relation between public and private areas. More images and architects’ description after the break.
An outstanding group of buildings in Shropshire recently won development funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for the regeneration of a former flax mill and maltings. FCB (Feilden Clegg Bradley) Studios have been acting as strategic advisors and architects to English Heritage and Shropshire Council since 2003 and have advised them through all stages of the project to date. In November 2010, they gained full planning and listed building consent for a £20m phase of works which includes a heritage-led mixed-use development with the potential to create 120 new homes on the site. The total development value is estimated at £52m. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Skandinavia’s largest architecture prize, Nykredit’s Architecture Prize of DKK 500,000, is this year awarded to the architectural practice COBE based in Copenhagen represented by architect, Dan Stubbergaard. In its choice the jury emphasised the fact that COBE spans the full professional spectrum from minor construction and urban space design to strategic planning and research. Currently, COBE is most renowned for the design and realisation of the new Nørreport Train Station and is currently detailing the development of the Nordhavn harbour area – one of Scandinavia’s largest and most ambitious metropolitan development projects, says the chairman of the prize jury, Mette Kynne Frandsen, Architect and CEO.
The competition winning proposal for the Terrace 9 Housing Complex in Nanterre, France by Atelier Zündel Cristea aims to restore the human scale and legibility necessary for creating large and enjoyable public spaces, capable of attracting people from beyond the city and the Hauts de Seine region. They do this by taking into account the urban project’s varying relief, both natural and artificial, with the coexistence of road and rail transportation networks and the structures of colossal scale such networks required. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Defined by a continuous volume snaking around two semipublic courtyards, the Connecting Riads residential complex by AQSO Arquitectos adapts to the different conditions of the plot to combine a domestic and urban appearance. Its simple gesture is defined by the particular context of each side of the site in a way that the different heights of the elevations become a contemporary and expressive form to which the roof is formed by staircase shaped green terraces. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The project “Living in the City in the City” by the team composed by Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi (architecture), Margherita Del Grosso (architecture), Openfabric (landscape), Marco Manzitti (urban marketing), Buro Happold (energy and environmental strategies), D’Appolonia (infrastructures), and Doro Dietz (visualization) recenlty won the international design competition organized by the Municipality of Genoa for the enhancement of Via XX Settembre. The idea of the project promotes a strong sense of self-identification by the Genoese, recovering the essential meaning of living seen as taking care of their city. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE) recently announced that it will honor architect I.M. Pei with the fourth annual Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts. The award will be presented at a dinner at the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Reception Rooms today, May 15, 2012. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host FAPE’s members at the event, and FAPE Chairman Jo Carole Lauder, will present the award to Mr. Pei. The award was established to recognize American individuals who have demonstrated long-term excellence and creative innovation, and recent past honorees include: Agnes Gund, and Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. More information on the award after the break.
The new extension for the Crossroad Offices by OFIS Arhitekti acts as a crossroad regulator between the existing villa and its approach from the street on the south side and the underground parking on the east side. The actual form derives from the main logical directions on the site to the main destinations as the new volume is positioned behind the existing villa with individual cut outs, ‘green bays’, in function of the extended external park coming into the pavilion. Inside they form divisions between internal spaces and create dynamic, light and calming atmosphere. More images and architects’ description after the break.
‘SHIFTS: The Economic Crisis and its Consequences for Architecture’ is an exhibition currently on display until June 9 at The Architecture Foundation in London. Presented by Rotterdam/Copenhagen-based Powerhouse Company and critic and architectural historian Hans Ibelings (the Architecture Observer), the exhibit illustrates the far-reaching impacts of new economic circumstances on architecture’s recent past, troubled present and unknown future acknowledging the onset of an imminent housing crisis in London, and the continuing shrinkage of the architectural profession in the UK. More information on the exhibition after the break.
The APPLIED Research Through Fabrication competition is seeking proposals that actively connect academia, the profession and the fabrication industry in the Continuing Research category and in the Speculative Proposal category new start-up projects. Through a panel of experts we propose to identify projects that warrant a higher degree of realization and exhibit them to foster a discussion that engages an audience in our region and beyond. From this selection a final project will be selected and optimized with a team of experts for the purpose of full-scale production. The deadline for submissions is June 2. To register and for more information, please visit here.
RIBA recently launched a new photography competition open to entries from all RIBA members in any category. With the theme, Architecture 2012, the RIBA invites images that capture any interpretation of architecture in whatever form – the inspiring, the beautiful, the intriguing or even the bizarre. Ten winning images will be selected by judges including Morley von Sternberg, architectural and portrait photographer and Angela Brady, RIBA President. The closing date for entries is June 6 at 12pm. For more information, please visit here.