Studio Twenty Seven Architecture, along with joint venture partner Leo A Daly, are continuing to develop their design for the District-owned “La Casa” supportive housing project. The project is an important milestone for the District in their efforts to redefine the concept of housing for the homeless community in Washington D.C. More images and architects’ description after the break.
HORIZONTE, a journal for architectural discourse just announced its latest Call for Papers for their 5th issue dealing with the topic “Fetish”. The journal is an interdisciplinary and collaborative effort of students from the School of Architecture, the School of Design and the School of Media Studies and is an independent student organization at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany. For more information, please visit their website here.
Studio Mode / modeLab is pleased to announce the modeLab 2012 Spring Workshop Series. The series starts off with the Agent Forms, a two-day intensive design and programming workshop to be held in Brooklyn during the weekend of February 04-05.
The origin of Songlines can be traced to Australian indigenous systems for navigation and caretaking of land achieved by mapping space through the creation of music based on the topography of land. For 007_Urban_Songline, the artist, Allard van Hoorn, creates a series of Dreaming Tracks utilizing the changing morphology of Storefront’s façade and the sounds that emerge from the urban sonic context of the gallery. The exhibition is the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York taking place at Storefront for Art and Architecture from January 18-February 18. More information on the exhibition after the break.
As part of a season of events celebrating British design, the V&A presents the first major solo exhibition of the work of one of the most inventive and experimental British design studios practicing today.
The vision of Pitupong Chaowakul, Wattikon Kosolkit and Yupadee Sutvisith for the future Thai house is an architecture that is composed of different levels of resilient segments. This includes 100% resistance with facility space that allows water to flood on the entire area without causing damages. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Anemone is an art/architectural installation by Oyler Wu Collaborative aimed at weaving together aesthetic experience and tactile engagement, a combination generally considered off limits within the world of contemporary art. All too often, art installations are considered precious, almost sacred objects; while they are meant to be appreciated for their aesthetic beauty, they offer little in terms of human interaction. In other words, they are meant to be seen, not felt. Recognizing that human engagement is one of the key factors in creating a rich experience, Anemone has been designed with the idea of interaction as one of its key design objectives. More images and project description after the break.
In the island of Lanzarote two ways of volcanic landscape transformation converge: the rhythm of the earth and the rhythm of human life. The project, by CUAC Arquitectura, Serrano y Baquero Arquitectos, and Luis Miguel Ruiz Avilés which was a winning entry in the Europan 11 competition, takes the idea of accumulation and overlapping of layers in the landscape construction. We take the reference of a geological section from a site adjacent to our sector for the development of the proposal, planning a ‘perforated basement’ and an architecture that has the ability of recognizing the strata in which it is inserted. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The south of Warsaw is a chaotic neighborhood with different architecture styles, varying building heights and a big amount of green areas that spread between them without any clearly defined shape and order. At some point, it stopped being a dormitory and more people started to settle there for good. Therefore, a necessity for a new city center with office spaces and retail areas appeared. The proposed form of the design by MJZ | Maciej Jakub Zawadzki organizes all these factors to bring some order into this chaos. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In the design proposal for the Asian Culture Complex, UnSangDong Architects + Kim Woo II constitutes a stage that acts as a new container for the culture and everyday events. If the new stage for the city is creating an empty open space out of penetrations pathways and plazas, making the new ‘city stage’ is the same as to conduct an enormous mapping operation with penetrating programs and landscape. They propose the Asian Culture Complex as the earth in between creation and disappearance. The earth that is transformed into fragmented pieces and become urban landscape filled with memories of the site and historical evolution of various spectrums of relationships. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Now’s your chance to learn all about the wonderful world of Charles and Ray Eames at A+D Museum‘s ARkidECTURE + design workshop at The Eames Office Saturday, January 14th from 10AM – 1PM.
JET Design Group was invited by JCI Architects along with Terraplan Landscape Architects, to joint venture in the design of the Green Leaf project. After winning the commission earlier in 2011, in December, the final negotiations were completed to enable the project to move forward quickly. The team will be working together, helping Bangladesh to design a sustainable community with an innovative green concept. Green Leaf is green landscape architecture and built form which takes full advantages of the local natural resources to create a hybrid habitable space combining architecture and nature. The concept is inspired by adopting current and green innovative technology to make the design construction economic and feasible. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In tribute of the 80th anniversary of the death of Abelardo Lafuente, Polifactory organized and designed ‘An Imprint of Spain in China’ exhibition in Shanghai during this past December which centered around his legacy. The exhibition, featuring the hidden story of Spanish architecture in China, was the result of the research overseen by Alvaro Leonardo, co-founder and director of Polifactory about Abelardo Lafuente (1871-1931), the first Spanish architect in China, who introduced the moorish spanish style in Shanghai, and was responsible for the design of some of the most luxurious ballrooms in Asia and other landmarks of the city. More information on the exhibition after the break.
Ajman University of Science and Technology announced that there will be an architectural workshop by the renowned architect Will Alsop on the theme of ‘Designing a space that will lift the spirit’ to be held at the university itself (AUST), UAE, during the period of January 30-February 2.
From unforeseen endings come dramatic beginnings. Plat 3.0, an independent architectural journal published by students at Rice School of Architecture, invites projects, images, essays, and manifestos, which explore the discursive opportunities that emerge in the wake of collective disruption. In a time characterized by rapidly shifting conditions and perpetual crises, contingencies and opportunities to innovate emerge.
Such moments lay the ground for radical change. Free from the constraints of the established doctrine, architectural and urban practice find new frontiers where experimentation is not only allowed, but demanded—where temporary breakdown establishes new, lasting thresholds for design and research. More information after the break.
The Chamber of Architecture and spatial planning of Slovenia (ZAPS) is currently putting on a competition for public, project, open, anonymous, single-stage, architectural design for the selection of the most appropriate expert solution for the structure and external arrangement of the National and University Library NUK II.
The construction of NUK II on the location of the new building must implement the common objective of urban planning, cultural heritage protection and archaeology, and therefore provide a contemporary urban space of high quality, reflecting recognisable local and historical characteristics. The NUK II project is located in the southern part of Ljubljana city centre, between Slovenska, Zoisova and Emonska ulica and Rimska cesta. More information after the break.
Africa is currently building its urban culture, in a global context of clusterized cities, of insularized space. Urbanism shouldn’t be just about numbers. Although Africa is currently strongly lacking infrastructure, its needs cannot always be quantified. Urbanism should reflect culture, history and create a sense of belonging. Guillaume Sardin‘s Bumbogo Project in Kigali, Rwanda, which won second place in a competition, will be a manifest, a pragmatic utopia. By using the meaning of Rwanda and Kigali as a matrix, this project generates an ultra site-specific master plan setting an example of fair urbanism. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Designed by SWA Group with Ojanen Chiou Architects LLP, the 157 hectare Dongtan Central Business Master Plan is at the heart of Dongtan City: a new urban center located just 30 km south of Seoul in South Korea. The development zone is situated on a former agricultural plain that had been taken over by various industrial uses. Bounded by a river to the west and mountainous terrain to the east, this zone is bisected by a major transportation corridor connecting Seoul with the southern reaches of the country. At the core of the development is a transit center that will accommodate high-speed and metropolitan rail stations connecting with a bi-modal (bus + tram) transit system, and long-distance and city buses, establishing Dongtan City as a major regional transit hub. More images and architects’ description after the break.