American designer Stuart Fingerhut has created the Kinema Pendant Luminaire. This 10″ x 12″ x 14″ lighting object uses a combination of different layers in order to create a specific effect and appearance. The luminaire is unique in its ability to give the user control of the light’s character to match the mood of the environment. Each of the pendant’s rings can be individually flipped to create dramatic light and shadow effects, as a single object or in multiples. The designer states he was inspired by the movement of crustaceans; a wide variety of forms can be created by arranging the pendant’s rings in alternating open and closed positions. Read the rest of this entry »
Kinema Pendant Luminaire / Stuart Fingerhut
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Based on Bionics
The concept of this design by Xiaofeng Mei and Xiaotian Gao is based on the deconstruction and restructuring of Bionics as well as the supernatural spirit of re-designing a church.
The idea is based on two starting levels and extraction elements. One is the derivative and evolution of fish’s bone and texture. Specifically, from fish bones, fish gills, fish suko, and other various important parts, I can extract the geometric elements and then sort out the logic of formation of biological body, which would become the primitive of main structure and mode. Second is the religious beliefs of church and spiritual of space. The exploration of the spirit of building is the basic method and necessary mean to study how to combine the modern architecture and ultra-modern architecture together. Read the rest of this entry »
City of Pain – Purgatory Architecture / Jovile Porvaneckaite
For the purpose of consciously evoking society’s reaction, an architectural object is inserted into the main recreational zone of New York – Central Park Jovile Porvaneckaite. Moreover, social and cultural phenomena inspired by the innovative form are discussed. The aim of the project is to analyse the process of form modelling and, consequently, perform a research of the form as power, based on an experimental project carried out by the author. The article aims at establishing the influence of the volume deficiency formed or shaped in the city’s planning system on the suggestibility of the building’s form.
In the project concerned, the term volume deficiency is used to describe the stress environment in the city structure, formed on the artistic, planning, volume, stylistic, value or historical base, and programming continuity of the above processes after integration of the newly proposed object into the environment mentioned. Read the rest of this entry »
Innovative Student Housing in Paris / Stephane Malka
The student housing on rue Amelot designed by Stephane Malka is a project that inserts itself into an urban interstice: the thickness of a blind wall. It’s within the thickness of these walls that this thin building is constructed. The urban form is a strict extension of the blind walls, which houses using the existing. No building is destroyed, and no pollution generated. The skin consists of an existing module: the wooden pallet.
Held using horizontal hinges, the pallets contract towards the top, allowing privacy or large openings. The modularity of the various palettes creates varied geometries, which are based on use and constantly regenerated. The reappropriation of materials recycles the existing without additional processing, which would cost energy in terms of production and create byproduct pollution. Read the rest of this entry »
Epiphyte Travelling Pavilion / Marvin Bratke + Tor-Magnus Horten
Epiphyte is a complete self sufficient, modular summer pavilion, created to travel around the world providing its surrounding with a natural aesthetic , explaining modern and ecological building systems in one architectural experience. The pre-fabricated organism is designed to have carbon-zero emissions, collecting energy at daytime using it for media projection at night. It benefits from its green or urban surrounding, while providing a new and interesting space for exhibitions and art installations. The cladding is covered by a TiO2 nano layer of shaped anatase that reacts to ultraviolet rays enabling the reduction of air pollution, cleaning the atmosphere around the pavilion. Read the rest of this entry »
TMW Technical Museum Entrance Foyer / Querkraft Architects
Querkraft Architects, together with the Technical Museum of Vienna, designed a new entrance foyer and shop for the existing building. Older museum buildings are challenged to expand and modernize whilst remaining attached to their existing historical structures. In the 90s the technical museum faced precisely this difficulty as it tried to gain more space for a larger entrance foyer, a new museum shop and café as well as sufficient amenities, cloakroom space and ticketing capacity. The architectural solution that was chosen in the 90s was a steel-glass box placed in front of the existing historical structure. This solution proved problematic on a few levels shortly after the opening in 1999. The foyer was dominated by large temperature fluctuations, poor acoustics and ventilation, as well as less than optimal visitor circulation. Read the rest of this entry »
University of Applied Arts Vienna / Wolfgang Tschapeller
Located between 1st and 3rd district on the Ringstrasse in Vienna, a block of three cultural buildings presents an architectural whole with all parts maintaining their physical autonomy. The buildings are intended to house the content of the Museum for Applied Arts and partly accommodate the University of Applied Arts. Winning the competition for the reconstruction and linkage of the existing buildings, Wolfgang Tschapeller’s design seeks not only to restore the architecture, but also to reinvigorate the urban tissue of the site. Read the rest of this entry »
Recycled Pallet Pavilion / Avatar Architettura
Avatar Architettura is a multi-disciplinary Italian office for architecture and industrial design founded in 2001 by Nicola Santini and Pier Paolo Taddei. The office research is oriented towards the identification of design strategies which privilege ecology, flexible systems, biodiversity and recycled materials in urban context. Their Recycled Pallet Pavilion is a temporary structure acting as a versatile art space. It can host different kinds of events and offers space for a wide diversity of production forms. Read the rest of this entry »
Houston Pavilion for the 8th China International Garden Expo
Invited to participate in the 8th China International Garden Expo under the title “Better Garden, Better City”, the city of Houston appointed Morris Architects, along with SWA Group to design the Houston Pavilion. The design evokes the configuration of “bayous”, a network of slow-moving waterways dominating the cost of Gulf of Mexico.
The Houston pavilion is bounded by an embossed concrete wall that refers to the long Chinese tradition of walled gardens; the wall is inflected to allow entry and to retain an earthen hill that is intended to reference the topography of a Houston bayou. Visitors move along a path guided by a water course that winds between the perimeter wall and the hillside. The path is further defined by a trellised canopy to provide shade and to refer to the natural tree canopy of a typical bayou landscape. The trellised canopy is made up of plasma-cut plate steel, welded and painted white, covered by a perforated steel layer that will produce intricate patterns of shadows along the path. The hill is planted densely with indigenous grasses and wildflowers. Read the rest of this entry »
Design Proposals for Houston Central Station
The Houston Central Station Competition called for an iconic landmark station situated on the median strip on Main Street, between Capitol and Rusk. Here are the proposals of five award winning firms:
The proposal designed by ShoP Architects references the form of traditional train stations: columns supporting vaulted ceilings, lofted spaces that conjured images of grandeur, a firmness and solidarity that resonated with its surroundings. The tent like structure stretches beyond the platform, encompassing the surrounding urban space, thus breaking free from the restrictive narrow site. The 100 foot solar chimneys provide relief from heat, offer natural ventilation, helping air circulation. The form of the chimneys directs the rainwater so it wouldn’t disrupt the passenger flow.
Neil M. Denari Architects offered a steel structure; the concept was derived from the prevalent steel buildings of Houston, particularly Mies van der Rohe’s Museum of Fine Arts. The use of color evokes the surrounding icons of art and architecture, including sculptural works by Calder and even the George R. Brown convention center a few blocks away. Structure, signage, ticketing, lighting and seating are integrated and pertain to the single unique design gesture. Read the rest of this entry »