©Gus Rios

Santiago Calatrava unveiled his first vehicular bridge in the United States. Located in Dallas, the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge is a major component of the city’s urban revitalization efforts, which will improve the landscape and community surrounding the Trinity River.

When Calatrava was first commissioned to design a signature bridge for Dallas, he saw it as an opportunity to rethink the city’s riverfront. In order to celebrate the Trinity River and highlight its enormous capacity to bring new development to Dallas, the architect devised a plan to transform the area into a central gathering place; effectively pumping life back into the River. Read the rest of this entry »

A fictional narrative conceived by John Becker at the GSAPP, Columbia University exploring the potential of the dew collection though the past, present, and future.

Dating back to the 18th century the Harnham Estate, located a short distance outside Salisbury England has documented regional techniques for harvesting water providing a rich history of the practice and the subsequent effects. The methods applied through the centuries reflect regional limitations, a shift in intention and attempts to amplify efficiencies. Although many of these techniques are specific to the region and time period, they are not necessarily unique to the site; it is the extent of the documentation of these exercises and the entrepreneurial achievements intent on monetary gain that make the subsequent story so fascinating.

After acquiring the Estate in 1786 following the death of his Father, Sir Edward Harnham commissioned a series of engraved maps to be produced of the Estate. Cataloguing the boundaries of the Estate, as well as all landmarks within the terrain in a series of 4 maps and 2 scenic prints one depicting the manor, and the other the view of the Salisbury Cathedral from the manor. The 2 remaining images both display the dew ponds contained on the site. The large number and proximity of these dew ponds is rare, and is considered to be the largest concentration of dew ponds known in the South Downs. Read the rest of this entry »

The building designed by Atxu Amann, Andrés Cánovas, Nicolás Maruri is essentially a cover protecting the remains of a Roman assembly (thermal baths, forum and domus) in the archaeological site of Molinete Park in Cartagena, Spain.

This cover is certainly another piece in the urban area of Cartagena whose main architectural challenge is to reconcile very different architectures, from the roman times, passing through baroque to contemporary architectures, making them vibrate together in the neighborhood. It is a transition element, between very different city conditions, in size and structure, from the dense city centre to the slope park.

The primary goal of the project is to respect the existing remains, using a long-span structure, which requires the least amount of support for lifting the cover. The intervention unifies all the remains in a single space, allowing a continuous perception of the whole site. The cover also generates a new urban facade in the partition wall. Read the rest of this entry »

An oil silo, or LPG Vessel, is a storage container for compressed liquefied petroleum gas. Oil silos are fully pressurized, waterproof, and built to meet industrial standards. There are approximately 49,000 oil silos in over 660 oil refineries worldwide!

As the human population increases at an exponential rate, oil discovery is decreasing at an exponential rate. Natural gas is becoming scarce and oil silos are now becoming abandoned as storage containers. As Earth rapidly approaches Peak Oil, non-renewable fossil fuel resources are diminishing fast. Soon humans can no longer depend on natural gas as an energy source. At this point, humans cannot use the existing 49,000 oil silos as fuel storage containers. Oil Silos will all be emptied and abandoned.

The Oil Silo Home designed by Pinkcloud recycles existing empty oil silos by transforming them into affordable housing for families worldwide. It’s a 100% self-supporting housing solution for the post-oil world. As an adaptive-reuse design, the Oil Silo Home incurs extraordinarily low costs. It’s highly structurally stable, efficient to assemble and disassemble, and has the capacity for pre-fabrication and mass production. Waste and embodied energy are dramatically reduced by the Oil Silo Home. By recycling existing abandoned silos for housing, we can revitalize former oil refineries and industrial zones into healthy, thriving communities. As a carbon-positive design, the Oil Silo Home can actually contribute energy back into the grid. Read the rest of this entry »

This project is a 55,000 square foot research lab, designed by award-winning office Brooks + Scarpa, office and industrial testing facility serving an automotive industry client who designs and manufactures automotive and heavy truck chassis. The first phase encompasses a total of 15,500 square feet, including 5,500 square feet of office space and 11,000 square feet of research labs and warehouse space for testing and developing prototypes. The second phase consists of an additional 5,500 square feet of office space and 34,000 square feet of research labs and warehouse space.

Industrial buildings are rarely a place that anyone is happy to visit or work. They are typically a direct, and often nefarious programmatic response to the function inside with little consideration for the occupants needs. The approach to this project was to preserve the integrity of a high bay industrial facility and program, while providing a model environment for the users and visitors.

A saw-toothed roof draws from the geometry of old factories and the surrounding Monterrey Mountains. The angled elements of the roof provide abundant natural daylight to the spaces below at the building’s northernmost elevations. By modulating space and light thru a fractured roof geometry, the building is able to maintain a rational plan to meet the rigorous requirements of the program, while providing a strong connection to the landscape both visually and metaphorically. Read the rest of this entry »

In the international competition for the new Sofia Metro Line extension and Metro station, Amsterdam-based ShaGa Studio, in collaboration with Margherita Del Grosso Architects, was shortlisted out of over 130 entries. The Lantern Metro station showcases ShaGa’s inclination towards combining architecture with infrastructure, ecology with computation, maintaining the idea of sustainability as backbone of the design process. The project ultimately received an honorable mention. Read the rest of this entry »

Each year the Young Architects Program creates opportunities for emerging designers to build a temporary, outdoor installation at MoMA PS1’s facility in Long Island City, Queens. New York-based HWKN is this year’s winner, with a proposal  for a multi-program structure. The project Wendy proposes a network of scaffolding on the site, combining high-tech materials with sustainable functions.

“Wendy does not play the typical architecture game of ecological apology – instead she is pro-active”, state the architects. The 5,000-square-foot structure is composed of nylon fabric treated with a ground breaking titania nanoparticle spray that neutralizes airborne pollutants. As the Titania nano-particles, used as coating for the fabric, are hit by sun, they trigger a catalytic and chemical reaction that neutralizes nitrodgen dioxide. The shape of the object has to do with amplifying the surface area, so that more air is cleaned. Also, the spiky arms spray water and push out blasts of cool air and water mists that cool the hot summer air. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Asadov Architecure Studio for the Aerostatic Architecture Competition in 2010, the project envisions a universal system of modules capable of clustering and separating at great heights. The design has various functions.

The Clouds consist of aluminium skeletons fitted by a membrane fabric, divided into a number of compartments. Rigid connections between “clouds” stabilize their vertical movement and give stability to the whole structure. The structures are reachable by means of platform-boats, available on each module. The project can also have a cooling effect, as sets of rain funnels accumulate moisture in the lower parts of the modules. Solar elements are integrated within the top layer of the cover, developing necessary electric energy for life support and illumination. Besides these hybrid types of “clouds”, the ensemble also contains separate “air turbine modules”. Read the rest of this entry »

©Ho Kyung Lee

BIG + Times Square Alliance + Flatcut + Local Projects and Zumtobel celebrate the Valentine’s Day with an interactive heart installation at Times Square, New York utilizing the flow of people, air and touch to bring the heart to life.

“BIG♥NYC,” a 10-foot tall glowing heart sculpture consists of 400 transparent, LED lit, acrylic tubes donated generously by the Austrian lighting company Zumtobel. The transparent tubes refract the lights of Times Square, creating a cluster of lights around the heart. The hovering heart will appear to pulsate as its tubes sway in the wind. When people touch a heart-shaped sensor, the heart will glow brighter and beat faster as the energy from their hands is converted into more light. Read the rest of this entry »

Part of a worldwide research network conducted by PlanktonTech Institute, the COCOON_FS is a structure that integrates architectural sculpture, new technologies and biomimetic principles. As the Institute’s focus is on basic research of marine plankton organisms such as diatoms, the intention of the project is to develop as a material efficient construction by learning from natural lightweight composite structures. Pohl Architekten created a technical solution by translating natural lightweight constructions into technical prototypes using highly efficient technical fibers. It is a floating system that embodies the activities of PlanktonTech. Read the rest of this entry »