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Turning an element synonymous with security in Iraq into a method for constructing affordable housing, New World Design LLC has shared with us their T-Wall Housing proposal for Al Qurnah, Basrah, Iraq. Follow after the jump for further images and a description from the architects.
The Warming Huts competition called for a collaboration between artists, architects and designers to put forward ideas for shelter and to be constructed along the Assiniboine River in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Noa Biran and Roy Talman submitted the Woodpile, an interactive and practical shelter, that responds to both the needs required by the climate and its users.
More on this project after the break.
Architects GilBartolome ADW won the first prize in the competition Smart Future Minds Award with the project Lighting Device which aimed at anticipating technological and environmental aspects for the future of the city. Jurors selected this project for its viability, its vision for the future and the exclusive use of renewable energies and its potential as a social activator in the urban realm.
Read on after the break for more images and information.
Peaking above some contemporary New York favorites – such as Gehry’s IAC Building and Field Operations + DS+R’s High Line – Jean Nouvel’s 100 Eleventh Avenue adds yet another touch of character to Manhattan’s West Side. ArchRecord‘s great pieces on curtains walls gave us a better look at Nouvel’s textured glass curtain wall.
More about the curtain wall after the break.
And while large scale initiatives have driven the green building movement here in North America and abroad, some issues have an easier time emerging as hot topics than others (think renewables). There’s no doubt that advances in those areas will, in fact, have positive impacts on the built environment, but there is an emerging group of products, technologies, materials, and design principles that seems to be taking shape in a growing number of buildings scattered across the globe.
Each year UdK Berlin organizes a small competition among the students for the concept of a Bookshop inside the School. This year’s winning proposal for the shop was designed by Dalia Butvidaite, Leonard Steidle, Johannes Drechsler and the all participating students then helped manufacturing the structure.
Cardboard as the main material was chosen because of its flexibility in shape, stability, cheapness, temporary feeling, lightness, mobility and last but not least its recyclability.
Our friends at Abitare published several works by Italian firm Buratti + Battiston, an architect and engineer, respectively. With a strong grasp of aesthetics as their foundation for creating spaces, their Vetreria Airoldi Office + Showroom works with the characteristics of colored glass to form a contemporary working space.
More images and more about the project after the break.
Brent Vander Werf’s Compliant Shading Enclosure creates a movable mechanism within the air-gap of a glass enclosure to regulate the amount of sun, shade and shadow permitted in a space. Powered by the energy from the sun, the mechanism passively expands or closes to make the opening the correct size to meet the desired comfort level.
More about the shading system after the break.
A year ago, we featured a set of Tim Harris’ early construction photos of Jean Nouvel’s Doha Office tower previously on AD, and now photographer Nelson Garrido has shared some new shots of the 45 story cylindrical structure. The building’s dia-grid gives much character to the project, as it not only provides structural support but also gives the volume a textured appearance from far away that turns into a more delicate patterning in closer range. The facade is layered with metal brise-soleil based on a traditional Islamic pattern. The fairly standard geometry module becomes a complex visual as it is rotated and flipped to provide maximum shading for the interior of the building. In this way, the arrangement of the panels is both functional and supplies the aesthetic touch that will define the tower.
For the Young Architects Forum Atlanta’s 10UP! National Architectue Competition, participants were challenged to create a temporary installation for Atlanta. The winning 45 ft tower, Periscope, designed by Brandon Clifford and Wes Mcgee of Matter Design Studio, is an “inhabitable installation with iconic implications to advocate bold architecture for the Atlanta community and young designers across the globe.” The designers felt the tower would create a strong marker for the city, “Through vertical expansion via the omission of a vertical restriction, this tower will engage a broader audience, inviting them to the event similar to search lights in the night sky.”
More about the tower, including lots of images and a video, after the break.
Similar to their identifiable products, the Apple stores require a sleek, almost instantly recognizable, aesthetic. As keepers of the latest technology, the buildings’ minimalist interiors boast a calm and sophisticated demeanor, complimenting, yet not overshadowing, their prized possessions. It may come as a surprise that the leading architects behind the stores are Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ), a firm that had never designed a retail store before Apple and whose principal, Peter Bohlin, winner of the AIA Gold Medal, ironically doesn’t use email.
Bohlin has awed us in the past, especially with Apple’s second Manhattan retail store located on Fifth Avenue. Turning a tough retail space into a successful masterpiece, the store’s iconic cube, a 32-foot glass structure, marks the store’s entrance and beckons customers down to the retail level which is illuminated with natural light. And now, BCJ has just unveiled their latest Apple store, and the first of its kind in China which seeks to emulate similar design decisions as the Fifth Avenue project.
For more than 80 years, plastics have been improving the performance and durability of nearly everything we buy, and build, with their remarkable properties. Take, for example, this video we dug up on YouTube. Disney’s “Monsanto House of the Future” featuring “plastics used boldly, creatively as building materials.”
Architects: Flansburgh Architects Location: Kamuela, Hawaii Partner in Charge: David A. Croteau, AIA Client: Hawaii Preparatory Academy Contractor: Quality Builders Inc. Project Management: Pa’ahana Enterprises LLC Civil Engineering: Belt Collins Hawaii Ltd. Structural Engineering: Walter Vorfeld & Associates Mechanical Engineering: Hakalau Engineering LLC Electrical Engineering: Wallace T. Oki, PE Inc. Surveyor: Pattison Land Surveying Inc. Sustainability Consultants: Buro Happold Consulting Engineers Completion Date: 2010 Construction Area: 6,100 square feet Construction Value: $650/sf Photographs: Matthew Millman
Conceived as a high school science building dedicated to the study of alternative energy, the new Energy Lab at Hawaii Preparatory Academy functions as a zero-net-energy, fully sustainable building. The project’s fundamental goal is that of educating the next generation of students in the understanding of environmentally conscious, sustainable living systems. The project targets LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge certification. Recently completed in January 2010, the Energy Lab today strives as a living laboratory, furthering its educational goals as a functioning example of sustainability.
This month, we would like to introduce you the QuadroClad™ Metal Façade Panels, a great product from Hunter Douglas Contract.
HDA’s construction technologies used for the arch of the Turin Olympic Footbridge (previously featured on AD), have been further refined for their most recent award winning competition proposal, entitled Pylons of the future: Dancing with Nature. The competition, held by Terna, a private national electricity provider, asked participants to design pylons of the highest technical and aesthetic quality with a minimal impact on the environment. HDA’s design response was based on transforming the current ‘industrial soldier’ image of today’s pylons into an elegant shape whose form was inspired by nature.
More images and more about the pylons after the break.
This month we would like to introduce you the Box Series, another product from Hunter Douglas Contract, part of the Linear Ceiling System.
