The 2010 Shanghai World Expo ‘Better City, Better Life’ has officially opened its doors to more than 70 million expected visitors. Although 190 countries are participating in the event, only 79 nations built their own pavilion. During the last year we have seen the transformation of the banks of the Huangpu River into the largest World’s Fair.
Images of every pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo: Read the rest of this entry »
Architect Neri Oxman is the founder of Materialecology, a Boston-based research studio that focuses on the intersection between architecture, engineering, computation, biology, and ecology. Oxman is concerned with material organization and performance across all scales of design. Material is interpreted merely as any physical entity which corresponds and reacts with its environment.
Commissioned by Boston’s Museum of Science, ‘Stalasso’ is her latest work. It is an investigation on mineralization processes and its application in designing structures that could be tailored to respond to different weights and to specific requirements and preferences. This piece is a prototype mold in which materials will be injected to create a surface with variable thickness, stiffness, and texture.
photo © Emily Roose / Museum of Science Boston
Hernan Diaz Alonso from Xefirotarch designed an installation for an art gallery in London. The project examines the notion of architectural explosion. It is evident the tension that generates the liquid /organic form that tries to escape from the crystal box confinement; some of the larger pieces seem to be habitable colonies for future generations. Read the rest of this entry »
The Oceanic Pavilion designed by Emergent Architecture and Kokkugia for the Yeosu 2012 Expo in Korea is a structure “which celebrates the ocean as a living organism and the co-existence of human culture and ocean ecosystems. The building is based on an aggregation of soft membrane bubbles merged together with a hard monocoque shell. The two systems are characterized by patterns of surface articulation which are specific to their materiality”. Deep pleats and mega-armatures that create structural stiffness are generally associated with the fiber-composite shell, while fine, double-pleated ‘Air-beams‘spread over and stabilize the vaulted ETFE membranes. Micro-armatures transgress thresholds between shell and membrane, creating structural and ornamental continuity between systems. Read the rest of this entry »
We have seen the financial outcome of the Real Estate crash in 2008. What sometimes we overlook are the urban voids left by unfinished buildings. That is the case of the Filene’s development in downtown Boston which construction was halted in November 2008. Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Squared Design Lab think this as an opportunity to explore new ways of producing architecture. They have designed a prefabricated ‘Eco-Pod’ that proposes to stimulate the economy and the ecology of downtown Boston. “The pods serve as bio-fuel sources and as micro-incubators for research”. The idea is that these pods will generate enough energy to control a series of robotic arms that will continue the construction of the building – once it is completed, the pods could be transported to other sites to build more structures. Read the rest of this entry »
We have not reached the second decade of the new millennium but Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut is already imagining the cities of tomorrow. The “Hydrogenase” was conceived as a flying city powered by bio-fuels, wind turbines, and solar panels. Callebaut is proposing a new way of travelling, one that is slower than airplanes but faster than automobiles and ships. It flies at 2000 meters high and could carry up to 200 tons at 175 km/h. The semi-rigid and not pressurized airship consists of a vertical spine that twists along its 400 meter-high structure. It is subdivided in four main sectors for housing, offices, laboratories, and entertainment areas. These four sectors rest under four “bubbles” filled with bio-hydrogen and helium. Read the rest of this entry »
Vertical Village designed by Graft is a mixed-use development in Dubai organized to reduce solar gain and maximize solar production. The buildings are massed as self-shading slabs to the North on the East-West axis to reduce low-angle sun penetration while a vast array of solar panels are located to the South. The solar roof behaves like a leaf with veins that break the solar field into units that provide structural support and transport the collected energy. Beneath lies an urban district with cinemas, restaurants, shops and theatres. The complex is designed to get gold LEED certification. Read the rest of this entry »
The “Pavilion 21” designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au for the 2010 Munich Opera Festival is one of the first mobile opera houses in the world. The project was generated through the parametric analysis of the overlay sound frequencies of “purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix and “Don Giovanni” by Mozart. The project will be installed at Munich’s Marstallplatz and according to the designers this was a very challenging work in order to achieve excellent acoustics and mobility. The 6,000 sqf pavilion is a cluster of trapezoidal components that are meant to reflect wound waves. Read the rest of this entry »
Rehabitat is a new vertical housing development designed by Robert Cardenas, Andres Fuentes, and Barkev Daron at Sci-Arc for the city of Jakarta. The main idea is to relocate the people living in Jakarta’s “kampongs” and to provide them with cultural and recreational facilities. The building is designed as a series of stacked boxes attached to a central core. Between each cluster there are leisure areas and outdoor gardens. Each of the housing boxes is perpendicular to the one on top to create different types of units and benefit from multiple panoramic views. Rehabitat is a designed as a green community with a recycle center that processes a great portion of Jakarta’s waste. The main structure is parametric and will be constructed offsite and transported by train which is a mere 200 ft from the site. Other green elements include solar panels and water collection systems. Read the rest of this entry »
New York-based architect Andre Kikoski has won the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant Design for his firm’s design of The Wright in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Kikoski, an emerging young talent, launched his firm only seven years ago. The Wright is a prime example of Kikoski’s work, showing his deft skill with materials, his ability to create a meaningful dialogue between art and architecture, and his finesse in designing a contemporary space inside an iconic structure. Read the rest of this entry »
