News: The Latest Architecture and News

Over the past few months, Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has been caught in the crossfire between two groups who have very different opinions on the future home of the George Lucas Narrative Art Museum. The site in question is a 1,500-space parking lot situated north of the McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center and just south of Soldier Field. The commission for the museum was won in July of 2014 by MAD Architects. Their design proposes a large, white, sculptural “mountain” which rises up from the site and is topped by a “metallic crown”.

The Pauhu pavilion was constructed as part of Tampere, Finland's 2015 Tampere Architecture Week, an annual event that aims to explore ideas about architecture and urban design by bringing together design students and professionals from the city. The 2015 theme -- interaction -- brought forth a discussion between architects and other citizens of Tampere.

The pavilion functions as an open-stage for performances and public debates, and also aims to promote forward-thinking ideas about the innovative use of wood in architecture. The name “Pauhu” refers to the “distant roar generated by the Tampere rapids, by the city around the pavilion, as well as by the artists and presenters the pavilion is hosting.”

China has become home to some of the world’s most outlandish architectural landmarks of the 21st century. Hangzhou is home to a replica of the Eiffel Tower, located in a luxury real estate development, and Shanghai’s World Financial Center is often referred to as “The World’s Largest Bottle Opener.” However, all of these zany designs may soon come to a halt following a directive issued by the State Council, China’s cabinet, and the Communist Party’s Central Committee on Sunday, reports the New York Times.

The directive says “no” to any architecture considered “oversized, xenocentric, weird, and devoid of cultural tradition.” In their place should be buildings designed as “suitable, economic, green, and pleasing to the eye.”

Detroit Resists has released a statement questioning the ambition of the US Pavilion’s “The Architectural Imagination” exhibition at the 2016 Venice Biennale. The exhibition consists of twelve teams of designers who will present newly speculative projects that can be applied not only to various sites in Detroit, but also to other cities around the world. Yet while the exhibition aims to understand Detroit’s political, social, economic, and environmental context so that “the power of architecture” can be of service to the community of Detroit, Detroit Resists’ statement claims that in the past this “architectural power” has been indifferent to the political context.

“This architectural power has been manifestly apparent in architecture’s recruitments against indigenous, impoverished, marginalized, and precarious communities across the globe, usually in the name of “development” or “modernization” in the second half of the 20th century,” reads the statement.

British Airways i360, in Brighton, England, has been awarded the Guinness World Record for the most slender tower in the world, with an impressive height to width aspect ratio of 41.15 to 1. The tower stands 160.469 meters tall with a diameter of 3.9 meters. The tower was designed by Marks Barfield Architects, the same team who built the famous London Eye, and is set to open to the public this summer.

Gregory Kloehn, an artist, construction contractor, and plumber based in Oakland, California, has created miniature homes for the homeless in his community. Inspired by a book he compiled of pictures of the structures that homeless people had constructed on the streets, Kloehn used his creative skills to build them miniature homes. He told NationSwell, “I really just ripped a page out of the homeless peoples’ book, their own game plan.” His first completed home was given to a couple he had become friendly with while photographing for his book. The home came complete with a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

Jestico + Whiles, in collaboration with developer Carillion, has won planning consent from the Leeds City Council for the Tower Works redevelopment, a competition they won in March of last year. The site is located in the Holbeck Urban Village, which is situated near the Leeds-Liverpool canal. The design incorporates the styles of surrounding buildings, particularly the three Italianate towers, which date back to the industrial revolution.

Moon Hoon, an architect based in Seoul’s Gangnam district, created a series of fantastical, detailed “doodles” for the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Titled Doodle Constructivism, his installation is a powerful display of architectural illustration that merges widely contrasting ideas such as peaceful urbanism with mayhem. In his Shelfish Architecture drawing, he creates a sort of housing structure, which looks like a cross between an apartment building, a mushroom, and an alien.

Fashion and architecture often intersect, with OMA/AMO designing runways for Prada, and architects, such as Zaha Hadid, designing swimwear and shoes. This time, we’ve rounded up four designers who have created jewelry lines inspired by the built world around them. From cityscape and protractor rings to wearable sculptures, check out the collections after the break.

Réinventer.paris has announced the 23 winners chosen to develop architectural projects in Paris, including designs by Sou Fujimoto, David Chipperfield, and DGT Architects. Réinventer.paris is an urban initiative launched to give designers the power to rethink and reshape the way that Parisians live, work, and play. Located on various sites chosen by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, each project successfully creates a sense of liveliness and embodies what the future of Paris might be. The call for submissions was answered with ideas about innovation, cutting edge-solutions to environmental problems, and intelligent design.

DIY wooden pallet creations are an increasingly popular trend, with projects ranging from building pieces of furniture to even making an outdoor pool. In their latest how-to, Interesting Engineering brings the DIY trend to a much larger scale with a video showing how to build a house using wooden pallets. Watch the video above to learn how to make a wooden pallet house and check out some tips from the video after the break.

Strelka KB has announced two Russia-based design teams, Timur Bashkayev Architectural Bureau and BuroMoscow, as the winners of the design competition for two Moscow metro stations. The stations, Nizhniye Mnevnik and Terekhovo, are both located to the northwest of the capital. These two new stations, which include designs for an outdoor pavilion, a street underpass, a ticket booth and a street underpass, will extend the Moscow Metro network and are expected to be fully functioning in 2018.

The Miami Design District, a neighborhood dedicated to innovative art and architecture, has commissioned The Museum Garage to be built as a part of Phase III of development. Curated by Terence Riley of K/R Architects, the garage will feature six different facades each designed by a different firm: Work Architecture Company (WORKac); J. Mayer H.; Clavel Arquitectos; Nicolas Buffe; K/R Architects; and Sagmeister & Walsh.

The facades will include a wall of recycled cars, a wall of traffic barriers repurposed as screens, a mural of cartoon characters mixed in with baroque details, a corner design of interlocking puzzle pieces, façade cutouts that serve as an “ant farm” which expose the activity inside, and a painting of a candle being burned at both ends.

Scheduled for completion this year, the garage will serve as a seven story mixed-use building with ground-floor retail and a garage for 800 vehicles.

Learn more about each of the facade designs after the break.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)’s Future Trends Survey for December 2015 showed a dip in UK architects’ confidence, reflecting the low number of new inquiries received by practices at the end of the year. The Future Trends workload index dropped substantially to +15 in December from +27 in November, showing a decrease in expected new projects. However, all regions in the UK, with the exception of Wales and the West (balance figure -3) and Scotland (balance figure -50), showed positive balance figures, with Scotland’s low numbers possibly related to the impact of oil price changes. The South of England was the most optimistic region with a balance figure of +30.

WoodWorks, an initiative of the Wood Products Council, has announced the winners of the 2016 Wood Design Awards. Honoring projects that “showcase the innovative use of wood as both a structural and finish material,” this year’s awards highlight the many uses and attributes of wood, “from structural performance and design versatility to sustainability and cost effectiveness.”

The Wood Design Awards are both National and Regional, with regional awards being presented at Wood Solutions Fairs across the country starting in late March.

The winners of the Wood Design Awards are:

Sweden based visual artist, Anastasia Savinova, has created a series of collages that seek to capture the spirit of cities. Titled “Genius Loci,” her collages form a big house that is composed of many buildings characteristic of each city, visualizing the way of life, the atmosphere, and the feeling of each place. Photographs of architecture are the foundational components of her art work, representing the feeling as a whole.

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