Featured: The Latest Architecture and News

Check out Junya Ishigami and Associates‘ amazing studio + workspace where students of the Kanagawa Institute of Technology get to spend their days designing. The studio is about the closest you can get to the feeling of working outside while being indoors. The floor-to-ceiling glass makes the building appear weightless and elegant, and the open plan preserves the building’s sense of transparency as the viewer’s eye can shoot directly across the uninterrupted space. 305 columns of various sizes support the stripped roof of skylights, yet their white color keeps the focus on the space and the view, not the structure. The columns, although seemingly random, as specifically placed to create the sensation of zoned spaces, but their nonrestrictive quality provides a flexible layout to suit the changing needs of students.

Inspiring place to design in, wouldn’t you agree?

“The house is a machine for living in.”

- Le Corbusier

With this statement, Le Corbusier acknowledges the relation between technology/mass production and the new ways of living that the modern movement tried to materialize. For him the house was a static car, a designed functional object that could be mass produced. When the Villa Savoye was completed in 1929, 5.3 million cars were produced in Detroit.

From this point forward, architecture and car started a long lasting relation, with examples such as Albert Kahn’s buildings for Ford, Giacomo Matte-Trucco’s FIat Factory in Turin, Archigram’s Drive-In House concept, the Mecedes Benz Museum by UN Studio and the recent Lincoln Rd 1111 parking by Herzog & de Meuron.

Along this line we find the new Nanjing Automobile Museum by 3Gatti Architecture Studio, which was awarded with the first prize on an international invited competition. The project not only shows the car in an unusual way, but it also lets you to experience the museum by car:

We are sure that SO-IL‘s PS1 installation, Pole Dance, will be a hit this summer. On Friday we had a preview by Alan R Tansey and today, we found at Iwan Baan’s website another view on the installation. We hope you’ll be able to visit the project in person sometime.

Complete photoset at Iwan’s website, some photos after the break:

A few weeks ago we introduced you one of the latest built projects by Frank Gehry, the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. The center is supported by Keep Memory Alive, and it is planned to become a national resource for the most current research and scientific information for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington ‘s Diseases, and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) as well as focusing on prevention, early detection and education.

On our previous feature we got a glimpse of the project, which at first sight might look like just another Gehry project. And now, thanks to these new photos by Matthew Carbone, we can get a better look at it.

The center features three main spaces:

London’s skyline is about to get a complete makeover. While in the past, almost every tower proposed was stalled due to financial shortcomings, or workers just leaving the job site, now, London is dusting off their old building plans and getting ready to move into a construction frenzy. Thanks to Kieran Long’s article at the Evening Standard we get to know more details about this process:

Ousting 17 other companies from Europe, USA and Africa, SHoP Architects was awarded first prize for their design of the Botswana Innovation Hub. The 270,000 sqf office and research building will be a testament to Botswana’s support of research, as well as her promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship.

More about the winning design after the break.

As workers labor over the newest development at Ground Zero,  moving, bolting and welding the 46,074 tons of steel can be tiresome and, well, make a person hungry.  With an allotted 30-minute lunch break, workers wait anxiously for the hoist that descends dozens of stories, making their 30 minutes often times extend to 60.  The solution – bring the lunch to the workers. The new sandwich shop, built by DCM Erectors (the same company that is putting up the steel girders and beams), is a movable pod made of stacked cargo containers which sit on either side of two tower cranes.

More images and more about the new restaurant after the break.

Dutch NL Architects’ newest bridge is part of their proposal to connect Hong Kong with the mainland of China. The bridge’s dynamic twisted form is a great resolution to the differences in driving styles, namely that in Hong Kong, people drive on the left side of the road and in the mainland China, they drive on the right side.

ArchDaily had the privilege of attending the Pritzker Prize ceremony last night on historic Ellis Island as Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa were honored. Regarded as the highest honor bestowed upon an architect, the Pritzker Prize’s newest laureates were continually praised throughout the evening for their keen ability to teach us that what is not present can be as important as what is present.

As past laureates, such as Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Richard Meier, Jean Nouvel, and Rafael Moneo looked on, Lord Palumbo, chairman of the jury, discussed Sejima’s and Nishizawa’s work style; an intensively collaborative design process which is so balanced between the two minds that it is impossible to say which one of the pair is responsible for which architectural decision within a given project.

Although the two share similar philosophies when it comes to light, form and space, their differences create “all the possibilities”. Sejima explained that within SANAA, there are actually three firms: each has his/her own individual practice, yet come together to discuss and critique their work under the international firm SANAA. While some criticize this process as inefficient and confusing, Sejima replied, with a laugh, that the organization is simply how they like to work.

Expo 2010 Shanghai is the first World Fair to adopt sustainable urban development as its theme. As consequence concepts which legitimise the extensive resource use and major investment of a World Fair must be promoted. The basic concept of “Norway Powered by Nature”, designed by Helen & Hard, directly engages this challenge, placing emphasis and awareness on multiple aspects of sustainability.

More images and architect’s description after the break.

Architects: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA Client: Zollverein School Location: Essen, Germany Construction start: March 2005 Completed: July 2006 Project architect: Nicole Berganski Associate architects: Böll & Krabel Built area: 5.000sqm Masterplan: Rem Koolhaas, OMA Landscape: Agence Ter Photos: Iwan Baan

We all remember how spectacular was Alex Roman’s CG Shortfilm about Louis Kahn’s Phillips Exteter Academy Library. Now, you can see Roman’s latest animated video called “The Third & The Seventh”. The video was created with 3dsmax, Vray, After Effects, and Premiere. You can also enjoy the making of after the break.

Work AC, in collaboration with Edible Schoolyard NY and the Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation, is designing a new schoolyard for PS216 that will offer the young New Yorkers a different learning experience. The Edible Schoolyard is designed as a series of interlinked sustainable systems where the building will produce energy and heat, collect rainwater, process compost and sort waste with an off-grid infrastructure.

More images and more about the school after the break.

In my opinion, Portugal has been producing a constant amount of high quality architecture, very well executed. Unlike countries in which there are a few “gems” and the rest doesn´t matter, the average level is very good as you can see on our Portugal section at ArchDaily, ranging from small houses to public projects.

And thanks to photographer Fernando Guerra, and his brother Sergio (FG+SG), we’ve had the chance to see it on ArchDaily with very good photos.

His website Ultimas Reportagens has become the most extensive archive on Portuguese contemporary architecture (385 projects, 20,000 images), and has been recently redesigned in order to improve the browsing experience. Also, as you can see on the interview, Fernando has worked very close with Alvaro Siza, documenting 51 of his projects so far. Most of this work can be see at the recent book “Álvaro Siza: The Function of Beauty“.

Fernando and Sergio are also into the publishing business, you can buy their books directly from their store.

Now, to the interview:

1. When and how did you start photographing architecture?

With its final height kept as a secret until the last minute, we witnessed the incredible opening of the tallest building in the world.

LRA‘s competition entry for a new 321,000sf, $140m Museum of Polish History campus, Sixpoints, includes extensive permanent & temporary galleries, academic & lecture mini-tower, bookstore & gift shop, indoor/outdoor cafes, and administrative/observation tower overlooking the dramatic Warszawska Scarp greenbelt.

The site is situated adjacent to the historic Ujazdow Castle in central Warsaw, and LRA articulated the six major program elements in discrete architectural elements that reduce the visible massing of the project and that each have a specific character and access. These pavilions radiate out from and define an indoor/outdoor public Forum, creating a vibrant, active museum center – a new hub of cultural and educational activity and a common point that connects all parts of the MHP. More images and full architect’s description after the break.

Bark Design Architects, a small Australian practice, have designed a studio for themselves that showcases their philosophy of design and provides a great space to work. The “workhouse”, an elevated steel, glass and plywood studio, “explores the notion of a mixed work / house typology.” The architects intended for the project to expresses lightness in its modular structural form, transparency, texture, and a seamless indoor to outdoor connection.

More about the studio after the break.

Every year, the Greenway Group led by James Cramer (chief executive of the AIA from 1988 to 1994) assembles the architecture-schools rankings. The rankings include the top 10 undergraduate architecture schools and the top 10 graduate schools.

Also, there are different skills rankings, like “analysis and planning”, “communication”, “computer applications”, “construction methods and materials”, “design”, “research and theory” and “sustainable design practices and principles”. This may be a great tool for architecture students when looking for a school and useful also for architecture firms when deciding on who to employ.

Read the complete rankings after the break. Seen at Architectural Record.