In approaching the design for the new Kimball Art Center, we found great inspiration in the urban development of Park City, the Kimball site, and the citys mining heritage. We feel the form of the new Kimball Art Center emerges where these rich stories overlap. We were particularly moved when a long-time resident of Park City spoke nostaligally about the former Coalition Building, which once stood just south of the Kimball site.

It stood 80 feet tall for 80 years as an iconic landmark for Park City and a monument to the mining heritage, until a fire tragically brought it down on 1982. We wanted to recreate some of its attributes in the new Kimball Art Center – not only the proportions and materiality but the history it represented. Historically, timber was the primary construction material of the first miner settlers in Park City. Inside the mines, heavy timbers were stacked into retaining walls. The same technology was applied outside the mines as primary structure for most residential construction. We conceived the new Kimball Art Center as an evolution of this construction technique basically a highly-evolved log cabin at an unprecedented scale. Read the rest of this entry »

The proliferation of device culture, social networking, and cloud technology is changing the way we work and connect on a daily basis. For designers, this means that technology is not only transforming the process of production, but also the processes through which we share, critique, and organize ourselves around the work we do. It has been predicted that in 2020, there will be 50 billion mobile internet connections worldwide, the equivalent of seven devices per person. Morpholio is not simply about the existence of technology, but rather is a tool for and an experiment in how we might better harness its power.

What is the future of critique, the driver of design culture, in this increasingly connected world? Is the speed at which images circulate around the globe, advancing the level of conversation within and amongst design disciplines? When placed in opposition, the time honored design school tradition of convening public debate around a set of images and ideas, presents a stark contrast to the typical comment forum found in social media. Taken together, however, a new spectrum of valuable means of gathering feedback about one’s work becomes visible. Its continued evolution will be impacted by the tools we create for sustaining and magnifying meaningful conversation, critique, feedback, and debate with a global community.

The Morpholio Project begins by re-imaging the portfolio. “Although essential to design culture, the current methods of creating and sharing design portfolios and presentations still ultimately rely on fixed notions of time, media and outdated technologies of sharing,” says Anna Kenoff, Co-Creator. The design world lacks the tools needed to understand how our work is consumed and experienced by those we most want to reach. The project ultimately asked, what would happen if you could merge processes of presentation, critique and collaboration into a single elastic platform? Read the rest of this entry »

JDS’s proposal for the Bicycle Park in Chongming, China, consists of three landmark buildings, each portraying different aspects of the culture of cycling. With their spiraling shapes and sloping sides, the structures are accessible by bike, and offer a varied experience to visitors. The Park aims to inform and stimulate biking as an expression of social awareness, while illustrating the relationship between sport and technology through its distinctive architecture.

The Visitor Center acts as an entry landmark, serving as main access point and providing information about the park. The Bike Museum is a double helix, with its exterior portion used for the ride downwards. Swirling ramps provide excellent views of the surroundings, while the interior leads the visitors on a tour through the historical development of the bicycle. The multipurpose building is shaped as an island that can be used by people for various purposes. It can be used for holding conferences, competitions and even concerts. The slopes are at the disposal for biking enthusiasts to navigate. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Huston-based MA2 Studio, the project is a proposal for a multifunctional urban structure located on Saadiyat Island, UAE. The main purpose of the design is to create a center for gathering and storing knowledge. It attempts to avoid the typical appearance of contemporary libraries and establish a strong relationship between distinct programmatic contents. In line with this, the resulting structure emerges as a mix-use facility, comprising a media center, exhibition spaces, offices and housing capacities. Various platforms that surround the zones are articulated as public and semi-public spaces, markets and green roofs. Read the rest of this entry »

Through the implementation of year round programming strategies, including hop plant farming, beer making and providing flexible vending market spaces, this 3^rd Prize Winner proposal for the Farmer’s Market Competition aims to strengthen West Highland’s local identity. The project combines agricultural spaces with venues for art and music performances, acting as an entrance to the Denver cultural scene. Designed by Lorene Faure and Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui, the Brewerymarket design is based on the natural properties of the hop plant.

“Hop plant (Humulus Lupulus) is vigorous climbing vegetation and hops are used primarily as an important flavoring and stability agent in the beer making process. The proposal creates the sensual experience of a vibrant ‘garden’ where the hops are farmed on hop poles to create the building’s main green facade. The adjustable assembly systems of the modular vending bins are inspired from the natural material properties of hop pods. Read the rest of this entry »

Black Narcissus highlights the importance of encompassing all methods of fabrication; digital and analog in terms of technology, management efficiency and time towards the production the project. The piece is constituted of 1,000 pieces including the 644 pieces of CNC routed syntra, 50 large flowers with jewel like crowns and 100 small flowers. The idea was to produce a structure that combines a parametrically designed large form ornamented and gardened with nonparametric flowers. Through this gardening process of aggregation, the flowers produce a sensation of excess in a garden of delight. Read the rest of this entry »

The new Dalian library conceived by Architects Collective is designed to become the center and heart for the local community with a strong relationship to the ocean and the bay. The building is placed in a park setting and aims to be a landmark for locals and visitors and a symbol for the creative and environmentally friendly future of New Pulian. It is a place for the public to read, contemplative and come together. The basic architectural form for the new library is the rose petal since the Monthly Rose is the city flower of Dalian. The new Pulian branch is one of several library branches in the Dalian region with each branch symbolizing a petal and forming a rose flower. Read the rest of this entry »

This tower designed by award-winning firm FXFOWLE, the tallest on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, makes a memorable presence for the headquarters of a dynamic construction and development company. Occupying an “edge-city” context at the intersection of two major highways, the tower is completely freestanding and seen in the round. Functioning like an obelisk, it marks the end of long vistas and announces the entrance to the city from the east. Read the rest of this entry »

This proposal designed by Brandon Martella is for a mixed use dormitory facility at the New School of Architecture and Design in San Diego, California.

The primary purpose of 3 block is to hold a group of modules within a fluid ribbon of vertical community for 360 students at New School of Architecture and Design.  The vertical sprawl of greenscape is a continuation of the balboa to bay park that runs along park blvd. dividing the New School campus.  Through a division of city, home, and community a new realm of San Diego is created.

Whether its tight rope walking the twin towers or using Renzo Piano’s louvered New York Times Building as a ladder, people around the world see buildings as urban terrain, wanting to feel like a kid once more with imaginative ambitions afloat on the playground. With 3 block these treasured experiences are made real again, a vertical hiking path integrated into the buildings southern exposure, enables the adventurous to finally use the cityscape as their playground.  With various green spaces and local shrubbery the walkways become a shading device to reduce the high-rises overall solar gain, plus the exploration of the building can be turned into an entire day adventure. Read the rest of this entry »

DCPParquitectos proposal for the New Taipei City Museum of Art is an open and welcoming design that erases the barrier of exclusivity normally surrounding the world of art, patrons, and experts.

As such, the architecture of the New Taipei City Museum of Art is one that embodies this idea of erasure through eliminating the traditional borders between exhibition space and circulation, as well as exterior and interior. Every part of the museum is represented by a space without limits that can hold any type of expression.

Put together, each space is part of a large connected organism that expands and extends itself through the site, acting as a filter and transitional space between public and art. Read the rest of this entry »