The 2nd place winning entry for the Santa Maria del Mar Basilica in Malecon Tajamar, Cancun, Mexico went to Mexico and Spain-based firm sanzpont [arquitectura]. Cancun is a city of sun, beach and tourism so the architectural project though of religious character had to fully respond to these 3 key elements and their correspondent transcendence, which when combined with the religious concept generated a sacred space able to provide purity, protection and serenity which could only be achieved by a standard of top aesthetic beauty, symmetry and proportion. Read the rest of this entry »

This 3D printed LED diffuser is made from a lightweight ceramic or a semi transparent UV cured acrylic which gives an ethereal glow when switched on. Designed by Margot Krasojevic, the light geometry is a symmetrical helix which can be balanced along a central axis depending on which surface you wish to levitate it from. The semi-conducting base creates a magnetic field around it which enables you to position the light hovering over it; when gently pushed it rotates altering its immediate surroundings. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently Maxthreads Architectural Design and Planning from Edinburgh entered an international architecture competition for the design of a new City Cultural Centre in Taichung, Taiwan. The Taichung City Cultural Centre, Public Library & Fine Arts Museum will define the northern arrival gateway to Taichung Gateway Park, providing a public hub to the overall master plan.

As the entry sequence into urban fabric, their proposal reflects the New City’s philosophy of combining nature and innovative technology. The Taichung City Cultural Centre portrays their vision as the threshold for Taichung Gateway Park. An iconic visual corridor connects local and international arrivals (Transportation Centre) to the main cultural district of the city through a revived, vibrant pubic space. Read the rest of this entry »

Cheng Gong and Kiem Ho of the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles researched scripted panelizing systems and sought a script that would maximize control of visual and spatial effects without sacrificing variation and complexity. Ultimately they would come to call their findings “Tiling Within Tiling.” They favored scripts that allowed them to build in a higher level of variation while also creating vague, unpredictable relationships between a large multitude of panels.

First they found a way to explicitly manipulate the UVs along a 3D surface. Second, they built the panels in such a way that created continuities that were more prominent than the seams between individual panels. They looked at the artist Asao Tokolo and his 2D patterns that used repeating elements to create an unlimited number of variations and relationships.

Read the rest of this entry »

The “data center city” project designed by SO/AP was produced for the Unbuilt Vision competition, and was presented for Design Week at the University Art Museum of Louisiana.

The concept tries to analyze the physical impact of NTICs on our territory and especially our relationship to the city. Today there are nearly 619 data center facilities in 33 countries in the world. These places generate a new geography of virtual media. As a new territo

ry the project is based on the premise that identity is no longer considered through traditional, physical or administrative boundaries but linked to a server and consolidate under a domain name as each European country has its unique online identity. In practice, this means that data centers are directly associated to an urban structure and gather all information related to this structure. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Onaga from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCIarc) in Los Angeles asserts that the figure in architecture is neglected and feared; his thesis embraces the figure. The exploration seeks an alternative starting point for architecture that does not originate from abstracted forms. Instead, using a literal figure as massing, the head is taken as the architectural primitive. Read the rest of this entry »

Siivet aurora, the Aurora Borealis Arctic Observatory is an architectural project situated in argument between the historic mystic of the northern lights and the urban landmark of Rovaniemi. This proposal by designers Jensen Liu and Sally Hsu explores the awakening moment of the Eos (the goddess of dawn), enhancing a natural phenomenon that continues to amaze audiences. The aurora is signifying the goddess of dawn splitting open the night sky breaking free of the dark skyline. The architectural design symbolizes Eos’s wings responding to the natural aurora phenomenon; as the magnetic field and wind undulates, it follows throughout echoing nature’s best painting. Read the rest of this entry »

HAO and AI, along with three other teams, have been invited to participate in the National Maritime Museum competition, situated outside the city of Tianjin in Northern China. The proposal for the new National Maritime Museum is situated in Northern China, outside the city of Tianjin. The museum is designed to house both new and old maritime items with a focus on celebrating the historical achievements of Chinese naval exploration throughout time.

The National Maritime Museum combines all aspects of the maritime world, from aquarium to sailing to education, combining a series of unique visitor experiences under one roof. The building takes full advantage of the adjacent lake by pulling in and creating a raised exterior marina exhibition that showcase new and old maritime vessels alike. Read the rest of this entry »

Yaohua Wang from the Netherlands proposes a 21,000 sqm (~226,000 sq ft.) project to support infrastructure for the developing VFX industry. The VFX (short for visual effects) industry is in a stage of its middle-age. It is younger than the mature and defined financial industries but older than the adolescent “.com” startups. At the moment, the middle-age VFX industry, is facing transitions.

The VFX industry is facing the multiple challenges posed by emerging market patterns and technological progress.  As a new infrastructure node in Amsterdam, this design is built around the industry’s demand. The core of the building is a horizontally diverse and vertically contiguous office space. Other ancillary program spaces, such as a filming studio, a multi-purpose space, Cafe and so on, expand around this core of office space. Through such continuous and varied spatial experience, this design tries to promote and challenge the working methods of the VFX industry.

Read the rest of this entry »

With arts and culture at the core of Taichung, Taiwan’s urban identity, and the vision to lead in innovation and technology, RMJM’s design proposal seeks to bring together these significant attributes in a construct emblematic of Taichung’s achievements and vision.

We live in an archival era characterized by an impulse to collect, where all our experiences are supported by technological additions and digital information monitoring. A cultural center is a place of learning and a repository of information, in essence, a large archive. This accumulation of information can be thought of as a sort of “digital cloud,” an invisible archive of sorts. Read the rest of this entry »