As 2019 winds down, we're taking a look ahead to the projects we're most looking forward to in 2020. With a mix of cultural and commercial programs, the designs are located across five continents, with many under construction for multiple years. Designed across a wide range of scales, they represent a mix of interconnected landscapes, museums, and the world's newest skyscrapers.
The City of Sydney has chosen Adjaye Associates and contemporary Aboriginal artist Daniel Boyd to design a new public square, plaza building, and public artwork. The project attempts to uncover the lost history of the site, reconcile cultures and define identities.
Adjaye Associates have been selected as the winners of The Abrahamic Family House competition, in Abu Dhabi. The landmark project, on Saadiyat Island, is a space where 3 religions will come together with the implementation of a mosque, a synagogue, and a church.
The Adjaye Associates-designed 130 William has topped out in Lower Manhattan at 800 feet. The first residential skyscraper in the USA designed by the firm, the iconic exterior architecture features a custom hand-cast façade with rhythmic large-scale arched windows and bronze detailing. Made to recall New York City’s historic fabric from the 19th and early 20th centuries, the tower will include 242 new luxury condominiums in the Financial District over 66 stories.
Adjaye Associates, Buzzo Spinelli Architecture, Hardel le Bihan and Youssef Tohme Architects have collaborated on a winning design for a new urban district along the River Seine in south-east Paris. The soaring scheme, developed by the “Nouvel R” team, features a 100-meter-tall residential block named “Tour Seine” and seven other buildings across a 100,000-square-meter site.
Sir David Adjaye's Ruby City art center is set to open to the public this October in San Antonio, Texas. Home to the growing Linda Pace Foundation permanent collection, the building is designed by Adjaye Associates in collaboration with Alamo Architects. Brought to life twelve years after the building was first imagined by Linda Pace, the 14,000 square-foot art center is dedicated to providing a space for the city’s creative community works with works by both local and international artists.
The UK's new Holocaust Memorial by Adjaye Associates and Ron Arad Architects is facing criticism for the location of the project from local residents and the Royal Parks. An application for the memorial and learning center is being considered by Westminster City Council, and a petition calling for the protection of the green space is already signed by more than 11,000 members of the public. Planned for Victoria Tower Gardens alongside the River Thames close to the Houses of Parliament, the project is made to be dedicated to the 6 million Jewish men, women and children and other victims murdered by the Nazis.
The American Institute of Architects has selected nine projects for its 2019 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture. The award program celebrates the best contemporary architecture and highlights the many ways buildings and spaces can improve lives. AIA’s five-member jury selects submissions that demonstrate design achievement, including a sense of place and purpose, ecology, environmental sustainability and history.
Sir David Adjaye has been selected as design architect for the new Princeton University Art Museum. Working in collaboration with executive architect Cooper Robertson, Adjaye will engage with the design of a “cultural gateway” located on the museum’s current site at the center of Princeton’s campus.
The new museum will present “dramatically enlarged space” to exhibit and showcase the institution’s extensive collections, as well as classrooms and office space for 100 staff.
The New York City Public Design Commission and Mayor Bill de Blasio have announced the 11 projects selected as winners of their 2018 Awards for Excellence in Design. Established in 1983, the award has been bestowed annually to projects from the city’s five boroughs that “exemplify how innovative and thoughtful design can provide New Yorkers with the best possible public spaces and services and engender a sense of civic pride.”
The 2018 awards recognized projects which responded to the de Blasio Administration’s commitment to providing an “equitable, resilient, and diverse city for all New Yorkers.” All five New York boroughs feature in the awards, with schemes encompassing education, culture, art, and recreation.
Arts South Australia has unveiled 6 designs shortlisted in a competition for the Adelaide Contemporary, a new cultural destination in Australia's fifth-most populous city. The shortlist, which was announced in January, features a star-studded list of international practices, pairing some of Australia's most famous firms such as Woods Bagot, HASSELL, and Durbach Block Jaggers with international names such as Adjaye Associates, BIG, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, David Chipperfield Architects, and Ryue Nishizawa.
The Adelaide Contemporary is planned to transform the site of the former Royal Adelaide Hospital (oRAH), and will feature exhibition, research, and education spaces situated in a public sculpture park and community meeting place. The museum will also notably host the Gallery of Time, a first-of-its-kind space to exhibit Aboriginal art alongside art from Europe and Asia, inviting visitors to see Australian art in a global context. The six designs are now being displayed in an online gallery created by competition organizer Malcolm Reading Consultants, and in a public exhibition being held in Adelaide at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
A new property startup named Cube Haus is looking to alter the existing housing market, offering high-value homes at reasonable prices "that can be configured to fit small and awkward urban sites." To do this, Cube Haus is commissioning a team of Britain's top architects and designers: Adjaye Associates, Faye Toogood, Carl Turner Architects and Skene Catling de la Peña. The team will create a series of customizable modular homes with a focus on outstanding design.
Adjaye Associates has unveiled images of its proposed reconceptualization of the protective façade of an electrical switching station into an engaging “Art Wall” in Newark, New Jersey. The 30-foot-high walls of the Fairmount Heights switching station will be transformed into a canvas for original works of 14 local and international artists, exploring themes of youth, education, and community, while a canopied passageway will house a market, art installations, and gathering space.
British architect Sir David Adjaye, Founding Principal of Adjaye Associates, will be honored as this year’s recipient of the Louis I. Kahn Memorial Award by the Center for Architecture and Design in Philadelphia. The annual award celebrates the achievements of an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field of architecture, while also celebrating the achievements of influential Philadelphia-based architect Louis Kahn.
Past recipients of the award have included Bjarke Ingels, Norman Foster, Peter Bohlin, Daniel Libeskind, Robert A.M. Stern, Rafael Viñoly and César Pelli.
Adjaye Associates is among a team of high-profile architects tasked with generating ideas for the overhaul of Lancaster West Estate, an area of London containing the ruined Grenfell Tower, tragically destroyed by fire in 2017.
The team, comprising Adjaye Associates, Cullinan Studio, Levitt Bernstein, Maccreanor Lavington, Murray John Architects and Penoyre & Prasad, will work with the local community for the housing estate’s refurbishment to produce “resident-led” ideas for the area.
On the 61st anniversary of Ghana’s independence, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has unveiled plans for a New National Cathedral of Ghana to be built in the capital city of Accra. Led by British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates, the design is envisioned as a “physical embodiment of unity, harmony and spirituality” where people of all faiths will be welcome to gather and practice their faith.
SPYSCAPE, a new interactive spy museum dedicated to immersing visitors into the world of espionage, has opened in New York City. Designed by Adjaye Associates, the 60,000-square-foot museum features a range of interactive exhibitions housed within a moody material palette of glowing lights, smoked glass, fiber cement and corten steel.
Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup’s Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. has been selected as the winner of the Beazley Design of the Year for 2017.
Presented by the Design Museum in London, the award is given to the project that best meets the criteria of design that “promotes or delivers change, enables access, extends design practice or captures the spirit of the year.”
See more from the overall winner and each of the category winners, below.
