The Buddhist temple soon to be built in Taichang, China, takes shape of a Mobius ring, reflecting the basic principles of Buddhism and the idea of reincarnation. With the aid of digital design and fabrication techniques, the spatial logic of the building is rooted in the idea of “formlessness”. The architecture is interpreted as a path, connecting the beginning with the end, ultimately representing the principle of reincarnation. The shape of the project allows the inner and outer surface to meet in the same point seamlessly. The entire building is intertwined with two spiral dislocation rise. The form of the building does not have the traditional architectural image of circular structures, but an “unstable” configuration with the beginning and ending of the worshipper’s path occurring at the same point. Read the rest of this entry »
Buddhism Temple Based on a Mobius Strip / Miliy Design
Arteixo Tourist Office / Alejandro Garcia y Arquitectos
Arteixo Tourist Office was designed by the Spanish firm Alejandro Garcia y Arquitectos and is located on a site previously used as a bus top. The ambition was to create an urban attraction of the Arteixo municipality in Galicia, Spain.
Note that other cities such as Santiago de Compostela and are themselves an attraction, not necessary that the Tourist Office be, however in Arteixo Tourism is little known (beaches, trails landscapes, architecture , trade is not known) is why from the beginning we wanted a solution that was the center of attraction of tourism, the tourist that goes to the coast of Finisterre or death did stop along the way through a unique building after giving staff would be responsible for information that will remain on Arteixo tourists to consume and learn from another point of view the area. Read the rest of this entry »
Offices for Junta Castilla y Leon / Alberto Campo Baeza
The sandsone walls of Junta Castilla y León offices are completely enveloped in glass. Using the same stone as the Zamora Catherdral, which is located in the west of the historic walled city, Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza has created a box-like building with two irregularly shaped courtyards. The building houses the advisory board for the autonomous region of Castilla y León. Read the rest of this entry »
New Keelung Harbor Service Building / Neil Denari Architects
The winning proposal for the New Keelung Harbor Service Project, designed by Neil M. Denari Architects, focuses on its relationship with the site and draws from it the design guidelines in terms of massing, materials and colors. Located in Keelung, Taiwan, the new port will serve up to 10,000 cruise ship passengers a day. The terminal is scheduled to enter construction in 2013.
The phasing of the construction process precipitated the terminal’s linear organization. The main entry and boarding corridor are located at +7m, while the shopping mezzanine and boardwalk are at +13m. Shaped by these parameters as well as the functional circuitry of the various pathways and hardware of movement, the terminal extracts formal properties from programmatic limits. ETFE skylights hover over voids lined with stainless steel mesh, a diaphanous surface intended to refract light into the terminal spaces. The Northern end of the terminal turns vertical as it supports a cantilevered scenic restaurant, which itself becomes a bridge to the second phase office complex. Below the Gateway Tower is a boardwalk called “the Shoelace” that forms a connective loop / roundabout to other directions on the boardwalk level. Read the rest of this entry »
KRob 2012: The 38th Annual Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition
The Ken Roberts is the most senior architectural drawing competition currently in operation anywhere in the world.
In the late 1920’s, The Architectural League of New York established the first American competition for architectural drawings. It was named after Birch Long, one of their greatly talented and much-loved members who died while working on their 1927 exhibition. The “Birch Burdette Long Memorial Prize” was awarded annually until 1972, when it was discontinued for lack of interest in architectural illustration.
It seems a remarkable coincidence, indeed that a new annual event in far-away Texas was initiated the following year by the Dallas Chapter of the AIA, and was subsequently named for the untimely death of a respected colleague.
This event preceded by two years the 1975 founding of the British Society of Architecture Illustrators (SAI), the first of several national organizations to follow. In 1980 the Japanese Architectural Renderers Association (JARA) was initiated, followed by the 1986 founding of The American Society of Architectural Perspectivists (ASAP) in Boston by Frank Constantino, Steve Rich and myself. The NYSR in New York and the short-lived New Jersey Association were formed soon after ASAP. After the Koreans founded KAPA in 1990, the Australians became the “newest kid on the block” with their AAAI, which was organized [in 1995]. All this makes the Ken Roberts the most senior architectural drawing competition currently in operation anywhere in the world. – (article researched and written by Paul Stevenson Oles, FAIA) Read the rest of this entry »
National Art Museum of China Proposal / MAD Architects
The building was designed by MAD Architects, as proposal for the international competition for the future National Art Museum of China in Bejing. Their concept is based on an elevated public square which is protected by a floating mega volume above.
The original structure of the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) built in 1962, houses one of the country’s largest art collections and has played host to some of the influential exhibitions as recorded in contemporary Chinese history. The current plans are to move the institution into a new building, situated within a designated ‘art district’ on the central axis of the 2008 Olympic site. Read the rest of this entry »