Videos: The Latest Architecture and News

The Green Wall at The Green Building in Louisville, Kentucky is a painting of plants that also cleans the air. “Painted” by Tracey Williams, the Garden Designer that collaborated with (fer) studio, The Green Wall gives visitors a different perspective of plants and their wonderful details.

The Green Building, designed by (fer) studio, reached a LEED Platinum status through a series of innovative processes. As the first LEED adaptive re-use project in the state of Kentucky they reclaimed much of the building. This video post details the process of re-milling the original building’s structural wood into finished flooring and furniture.

Chef Fre Peneau’s new restaurant, Le Dauphin is an 80 sqm ‘obsession in white’. OMA‘s Rem Koolhaas and associate Clement Blanchet received the Fooding 2010 award for their interior design of the restaurant that opened December 2010. Predominant materials of marble, mirrors and wood enlarge the space through reflection, and blur the boundary between interior and exterior.

Founded by Eugene Kohn, William Pedersen, and Sheldon Fox, on July 4th 1976, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) has a reputation as one of the world’s preeminent architecture practices. Focusing on design excellence coupled with collaboration and dialogue, KPF encourages an open exchange of ideas throughout the creative process both within the firm and between clients.

Bjarke Ingels recently appeared on CNN’s series Big Idea, very fitting for his architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group or BIG. Utilizing the firm’s website, Ingels turns it into a presentation tool, and with ease discusses the design process, sharing diagrams and photographs for four of their projects: Mountain Dwellings, their submission to the Shanghai Expo complete with video of Ingels himself riding through the Danish Pavilion, the recently unveiled designs for West 57th in New York City, and the winning design for a new Waste-to-Energy plan in Denmark. The quick, straightforward, and stylish presentation beckons the question, is there still a place for powerpoint?

Kate Orff shares her vision of ‘oyster-tecture’ utilizing oysters as an agent for urban change. Focusing on the New York Harbor, Orff, architect and founding principal of Manhattan based studio SCAPE, demonstrates how we can rethink our landscapes, both the green and blue spaces, linking nature and humanity for mutual benefit.

A while ago we visited Stephan Jaklitsch and Mark Gardner in New York. Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects, formerly Stephan Jaklitsch Architects, have made a name for themselves by designing buildings that engage their users and respond to their cultures. The conceptual framework of each project derives from the context, time and place of each project.

Steven Holl shared with us his winning entry for the Hangzhou Normal University Performing Arts Center, Art Museum and Art Quadrangle in Hangzhou, China. The pair of buildings, situated on either side of the canal, are the heart of the new campus. Holl’s concept early on was two balanced forms, one additive as seen in the design of the Performing Arts Center, and one subtractive displayed in the design of the Art Museum. This dialogue between these two buildings, the utilization of local materials, and the carbon neutral section of the new university provides for a special moment within the campus.

Follow the break for sketches and renderings of this project.

Architects: Steven Holl Architects Location: Hanzghou, China Design Architect: Steven Holl, Li Hu, Chris McVoy Project Architect: Garrick Ambrose, Yichen Lu, Roberto Bannura Project Team: Human Wu, Guanlan Cao, Francesco Bartolozzi, Michael Rusch, Johanna Muszbek, Maxim Kolbowski Frampton, Nathalie Frankowski, Scott Fredricks, Garrett Ricciardi, Jose Carlos Quelhas, Wenny Hsu Structural Engineer: China Academy of Building Research (CABR) Acoustics Consultant: Kirkegaard Associates Sustainability Consultant: Mathias Schuler (Transsolar)

Richard Meier, the architect who landed ‘the commission of the century’ and one of the New York Five, has a portfolio of pristine structures that range in scale from the Douglas House on Lake Michigan to the sprawling Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Recently, we visited Thomas Phifer’s office in New York – a working floor that embodies the same spirit as his architecture with its pristine furnishings and axial organization. Phifer (who is also an avid Arch Daily reader) began his firm back in the 1990s and, as his office has grown and developed, his projects have been honored with several AIA Honor Awards and American Architecture Awards.

Once again, Vítor Gabriel shared with us this beautiful video of the Musealization of the Archaeological Site of Praça Nova of São Jorge Castle designed by portuguese architect João Luís Carrilho da Graça to preserve some archaeological discoveries – Iron Age settlement, Mediaeval Muslim occupation and a Fifteenth Century Palace – found in 1996. You can check the complete project material on our previous article, over here.

Some time ago we visited New York City based Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, to interview founding principals Marion Wesis and Michael Manfredi. The multidisciplinary firm has distinguished themselves with their holistic design approach, successfully integrating the disciplines of architecture, art, infrastructure, and landscape design.

During the AIA Convention we had the opportunity to talk with Peter Bohlin (FAIA), founding principal of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and one of the most renowned architects in the US.

Back in 2009, over 150 firms across the world entered the Glasgow School of Art competition which was seeking an architect-led team to create a building opposite Mackintosh’s masterpiece. Steven Holl, in collaboration with Glasgow-based JM Architects, proposed a submission that capitalized on the changing quality of light throughout the spaces. Holl’s vision responds to Mackintosh’s sectional emphasis by implementing large voids of light – the “circuit of connection ” – that slice through the spaces to “encourage the creative contact central to the workings of the school.”

When we visited Holl’s office, we talked Senior Partner Chris McVoy about the importance of the section for this particular project (we also chatted about their latest Shan-Shui master plan). One hundred years have passed since Mackintosh’s building opened for the School of Art, yet, as McVoy explains, although the structures represent completely different times, their attention to architectural elements, such as light, materiality and proportion, will create a relationship between the two.

Enjoy the video! Credits after the break.

In a video by Studio Banana, Copenhagen-based BIG's founder Bjarke Ingels speaks to the firm’s design ethos and development. Known for their experimentation with bold and playful forms, the firm has produced some of the most recognizable works of the last decade including the 8 House complex in Denmark and Via 57 West in New York. In the video, Ingels points to communication as the key to success in the field, calling its power analogous to an artist's hammer and chisel. He also draws comparison to Darwinian concepts of evolution, noting that BIG's migration of ideas and iterative design development reflects a similar selection process. He applies this notion, along with another important principle to the firm--sustainability, to discuss works such as their Danish Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Design Expo that examines sustainability and experiential architecture.

Taking inspiration from the behavior and volume of an idealized cloud, Dan Goods, Nik Hafermaas, and Aaron Koblin created eCloud an interactive sculpture for the San Jose International Airport. The dynamic liquid crystal scultpure hangs from the ceiling displaying weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. eCloud is constructed from polycarbonate tiles appearing as transparent and opaque depending on the pattern which is in constant motion transforming every 20 seconds.

During the 2010 AIA Convention in Miami we had the opportunity to interview Todd Walker (FAIA) and Barry Alan Yoakum (FAIA), founders of the architecture/design collective Archimania.

Founded in 1995, Archimania has won over 100 awards, including national, regional and local recognition. More importantly though is how the firm has distinguished themselves by their collaborative design approach, no project to big or to small, relationship with their clients, and innovative solutions to creating real value in their architecture.

Featuring a diverse portfolio that pushes the envelope, Archimania is known for their unique client architect relationship. The firm truly emphases teamwork, focusing on an active listening role with clients, resulting in their Visioning Charrette, a design process that is collaborative – creating places that reflect vision.

Archimania is dedicated to their home state of Tennessee, often utilizing local materials in their designs. Setting themselves apart from the crowd, the firm sees each project as a way of further expanding the community’s ideas about the built environment, recognizing the role of an architect within the community not as a passive one, but rather one as a local leader.

Archimania projects at ArchDaily:

• SkyCottage
• House in the Woods
• Tabor Orthopedics
• Orange House
• Wurzburg Retreat
• DOGone House

More info on their projects after the break:

No vertical farm has been built yet, but there are already several discussions involving the farms of the future. At ArchDaily, we’ve published Vincent Callebaut’s design and Plantagon’s design. In this video, four architects describe their designs for the vertical farms.