HENN has been selected to design a 160-meter, mixed-use tower for a new Central Business District in the eastern China metropolis of Wenzhou. Located in close proximity to the Ou Jiang river, on the district’s southern edge, the Wenzhou Tower hopes to serve as the gateway to the new city development.
Fifteen of 100 hopeful practices have been chosen to move forward in the second stage of the international “Russian Character” competition. Challenged to design a multi-functional Culture & Education Center for the newly developed Butovo Park residential district, the applicants will now begin to envision their proposals for the new venue. Once complete, the center will provide space for lectures, film screenings, indoor (and outdoor) concerts and master classes, as well as various outdoor sports activities and a museum that will showcase exhibitions on the the area’s history. The 15 shortlisted practices are...
As we announced earlier, David Chipperfield Architects’ modest proposal for the Nobel Center’s new home in Stockholm has been announced as the winning submission of the Nobel Foundation’s prestigious international competition. Lauded by the jury for its “lightness and openness,” Chipperfield envisioned the glass and stone proposal to “convey dignity” and embody the ideals of the Nobel Prize so it may serve as inspiration for generations to come.
Detailed drawings, images and quotes from the architect, after the break...
Herzog & de Meuron and Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects have been announced as winners of an international competition to design one of Denmark’s largest hospitals: Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland. Selected ahead of six other practices, including BIG and C.F. Møller, Herzog & de Meuron’s nature-inspired proposal will provide the New North Zealand Hospital with a 124,000 square meter facility that serves 24 medical departments and provides over 660 beds.
“The hospital organically reaches out into the wide landscape. Simultaneously its soft, flowing form binds the many components of the hospital,” described the architects. “It is a low building that fosters exchange between staff and patients, and it has a human scale despite its very large size.”
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected ten recipients for their 14th annual Housing Awards. Considered to be the year's most impressive works, the awards are designed to "recognize the best in U.S. housing design" and "promote the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit and a valuable national resource." The winners, after the break...
Developers Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) and Greenland Group have decided to realize SHoP Architects’ original plan to top Brooklyn’s Barclays Center with a 130,000 square foot green roof. Though the design was first disregarded due to budget cuts, the developers have deemed it necessary to enhance the marketability the Atlantic Yards’ three residential towers - the first is currently underway - and dampen the noise from loud concerts. Little details have been released about the green roof’s design, however rumor has it that it might not be open to the public as it was originally intended.
Architect Raymond Moriyama, founder of Toronto-based Moriyama and Teshima Architects, has collaborated with the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) to launch an international CAD $100,000 prize open to architects with “outstanding” work or non-architects who have had an “exceptional contribution to architecture.”
With an aim to raise the stature of the RAIC and “inspire all Canadians and Canadian architects to aspire higher,” as Moriyama stated, the biennial Moriyama RAIC International Prize has the potential to rival the Pritzker as one of the world’s largest, and expectantly most “prestigious” cash prizes in architecture.
However, based on the ideals of “Moriyama’s passion for humanistic architecture that transforms society through an emphasis on values such as social justice, equality and inclusivity,” the Prize is expected to set itself apart from Pritzker's focus on lifetime achievement.
Brooks + Scarpa has won a competition to design a new park-and-ride plaza for the future Angle Lake light rail station in Seattle. As part of the 1.6-mile South 200th Link Extension, which will connect Angle Lake to the airport and downtown area by 2016, the $30 million complex will provide the station’s anticipated 5,400 passengers with a pedestrianized plaza, drop-off and retail area, as well as a 1,050-stall parking garage and 35,000 square feet of reserved space for future transit-oriented development.
As phase three of London’s Battersea Power Station regeneration, Foster + Partners has collaborated with Gehry Partners to design the 42-acre development’s primary entrance. Together, the duo has envisioned “The Electric Boulevard” - a massive gateway connecting the Northern Line Extension station to the Power Station, which will be formed by an undulating Foster-designed tower known as “The Skyline” and Gehry’s five-building “Prospect Place.”
Housing more than 1,300 homes and over 350,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, the boulevard is expected to become one of London’s most distinguished high streets.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has been chosen to design a new teaching and learning facility for Barnard College - Columbia University’s world-renowned liberal arts college for women. The selection committee chose SOM after deeming them the best candidate in three categories: “a history of creative and innovative architecture,” a proven recorded on similar academic projects, and “an internal commitment to woman’s leadership reflected by women holding key roles in the firm.”
The Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|DC) has announced the 2014 Unbuilt Award competition winners. The annual award, now in its sixth edition, was created as a response to the global economic crisis that brought many architectural projects to a halt. Thus the awards are designed to recognize both delayed and theoretical projects that are deemed imaginative and thought-provoking.
The 2014 winners are...
The American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced the recipients of its 2014 architecture awards. Recognized as an architect who has made a significant contribution to architecture as an art, Massimo Scolari was awarded the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture - a $20,000 award whose laureates include Peter Zumthor and this year’s Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban.
Jeffrey Durkin, director of Breadtruck Films, has shared with us this insightful short film on Jonathan Segal’s new concrete and glass house in La Jolla: The Cresta. According to Durkin, “The film explores the relationship between nature and architecture, father and son, and how clean minimal design can save us from the suburbs.”
WoodWorks, an initiative of the Wood Products Council, has announced the winners of its 2014 National Wood Design Awards. Recognizing “outstanding projects that bring to life wood’s natural beauty and versatility in building design,” 13 projects have been selected from over 140 submissions for demonstrating “ingenuity in design or engineering.”
The 2014 National Wood Design Award Winners are...
Global firm Woods Bagot has unveiled designs for the Italian Serie A soccer club AS Roma’s new stadium: Stadio della Roma. Planned for completion by the 2016-17 season on the outskirts of Rome, the colosseum-inspired stadium will be capable of hosting more than 52,000 fans and designed to be easily configured to accommodate multiple sporting and entertainment events.
“The design draws visual cues from the world’s most historic spectator venue, the Roman Colosseum,” says Woods Bagot Sport Design Leader, Dan Meis. “The design features a state-of-the-art steel and concrete seating bowl wrapped in a ‘floating’ stone scrim, evocative of the rhythmic facade of the famous arena; with polycarbonate clad roof is reminiscent in form of the historic retractable fabric canopy that once covered the upper tiers of the Colosseum.”
Fast Company has announced who they believe to be the most innovative practices in architecture for 2014. Topping this list is New York’s SHoP Architects who has gone from “boutique to big commissions in only a few years.” See who made the list after the break and let us know who you believe is the world’s most innovative firms in the comment section below.
Foster + Partners, with Heller Manus Architects, has been commissioned to design a two tower, two million square foot mixed-use development in San Francisco. The expansive “First and Mission” will be marked by a 605-foot “world class condominium” tower - which will be the tallest residential project on the West Coast - and a 850-foot “large floor plate office tower.” Together they will add more than a million square feet of flexible office and commercial space, as well as 650,000 square feet of residential units to the Transbay Area.
Robert A.M. Stern’s luxury 520 Park Avenue condominium tower, which is set to take its place on Manhattan skyline by 2017, will be topped with a 12,400 square foot triplex priced at $100 million - the city’s priciest unit. The penthouse will be one of 31 expansive residences offered in the limestone-clad building which, according to the a recent press release, will be “evocative of the great New York apartment buildings of the 1920's and 1930's.” Developers William and Arthur Zeckendorf gained approval for the 51-story skyscraper by purchasing $30.4 million in air rights from the neighboring Christ Church.