Coop Himmelb(l)au’s design for the the new Grand Theatre and International Culture & Art Center for Changsha, China, won by Zaha Hadid Architects, is offering unique and eclectic design, full of surprising turns. The site of the competition is located on the northeaster side of the newly created Changsha Meixi Lake in the Daheexi District and the proposed design is engaging both the water and the ground. Undulating white form is announcing the shiny and smooth spectacle while the architects wanted to create a new cultural center that interacts with the existing natural landscape, visually and scientifically – the development was designed to use alternative energy sources and efficient passive energy systems, in order to minimize environmental impact.

The overall concept was driven by the aim to position the elements of the Center like the objects of an urban Chinese garden, where the elements of water, stones, hills, bridges and flowers are transformed into urban shapes animating and vitalizing the daily life of the entire Daheexi District. The waterfront promenade closes the loop between the west and east end of the development opening with a generous plaza in front of the Grand Theater. By thickening the surface, the ground becomes flexible and lively landscape that integrates the service and leisure facilities in order to provide an active and attractive support for the cultural site. Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to inform you that our very own Editor-in-chief, Carlo Aiello, will be part of the “Viral Voices: Global Discussions” panel at the Center for Architecture on May 02, 2013. If you are in the city please reserve your place as soon as possible. Admission is free.

When: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM THURSDAY MAY 02
Where: Center for Architecture (536 Laguardia Place, New York, NY 10012)

The AIANY Global Dialogues Committee has dedicated this year to “uncovered connections,” with the intent of investigating issues that are similarly impacting multiple regions, cultures and individuals. Viral Voices: Global Discussions will explore the impact that social media, technology and device culture are having on our design process, and ultimately the way we practice. How do we shape a global conversation? How are we changing the relationships between academia and the profession? What is the impact of hyper information sharing and critique? Throughout the evening, the topics of communication, research, collaboration, and data distribution will be addressed and debated.

Mark Wigley, Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University and David Basulto with David Assael of ArchDaily will come together for an evening discussing how these technologies affect the relationships between academia and profession. Following their talks, Carlo Aiello from eVolo, David Fano from CASE, Jill Fehrenbacher from Inhabitat, Toru Hasegawa from The Morpholio Project/the GSAPP Cloud Lab, Tim Maly from Wired Magazine and Cliff Kuang from Fast Company will join the speakers for a panel discussion addressing the impact that social media, technology and device culture are having on our design process, and ultimately the way we participate in a global discussion.

Price: Free
Please RSVP
Organized by: AIANY Global Dialogues Committee Read the rest of this entry »

Designed as an experimental hybrid between urbanism and landscape design, BIG’s proposal is a winning entry for EuropaCity. Along with fellow team members Tess, Transsolar, Base, Transitec and Michel Forgue, Denmark based architectural office will be in charge for designing the new urban center in France, between Paris and Roissy. It will be a mixture of retail, culture and leisure, gathered around the defining theme of the European urban experience, diversity and culture.

The winning proposal is a sustainable urban form, combining dense city with an open landscape and is predestined to become a cultural and commercial gathering point for surrounding cities. Recreational areas, hiking paths and urban farming found its place at the accessible green roof that covers the whole city. The vast roof features allow visitors to experience the panoramic views of central Paris and La Defense skylines.

The new contemporary urban settlement is designed as a laboratory for sustainable technologies and experimental ground for viable green tech implementations which not only save energy but improve the quality of urban environment. The chain of culture and leisure programs like concert halls, skiing hill, swimming pools and urban farming form an urban ecosystem where the resources feed each other. Waste heat form retail is channeled into leisure spas, water is reused for irrigation. EuropaCity is actually going to provide the surrounding neighborhoods with district heating and cooling. The development will be powered with the powerful combination of solar, biofuel and geothermal energy. Read the rest of this entry »

2b is the second year undergraduate studio at USC School of Architecture, and the studio agenda focuses on materials, their properties, limitations and effects. The process that led to the glass pavilion was a succession of exercises. The studio section taught by Roland Wahlroos-Ritter started with precedent studies of the primary building materials timber, masonry [brick], steel, concrete and glass. Shelley Fu and Vicky Wong, the students that designed the glass pavilion started with a precedent study of the glass pavilion in Toledo by SAANA. They translated their interest in structural glass, as well as it reflective and refractive qualities, into their first project design of a glass bench. Since they were unable to bend glass similar to the glass in Toledo, they became interested in origami techniques and folding glass. The design developed into a simple but elegant folded plate structure.

Through the discovery of the amazing structural abilities and seductive reflections of folded plates in their bench, they became more ambitious in their design for their second project. They explored various geometries in paper models and developed a number of detail solutions. At the end of the second project review all pavilion designs within the studio section were put up for a student vote to choose which design was going to get built by all students. The glass pavilion, by far the most ambitious and expensive, won the vote.

After the vote, the project design had to be re-strategized, since within the time constraints of only two weeks of design revisions, fabrication and installation it would have been impossible to be built in glass. So in this sense the project is seen as a 1:1 prototype for a future glass pavilion; to test the geometry, spatial qualities and fabrication process. Thus glass was substituted for 6mm polycarbonate. In the process the overall geometry was refined, rhino scripts written to generate the folded plate geometry, and shop drawings developed to allow fabrication. The final design consisted of over 800 polycarbonate pieces fastened together with over 2500 zip ties. The prototype revealed unexpected moments in terms of structural behavior, especially of the two cantilevers at the end and it’s ability to transform the perception of the environment.

Studio Instructor: Roland Wahlroos-Ritter
Students: Meaghan Camp, Amrine Katherine, Feng Zhentao, Fu Shelley, Ghods Saeed, Jeung Peter, Lee Dong, Mendoza Andrea, Nicholson David, Prabhakaran Krithika, Sakaamini Zenah, Su Yang Chun, Wong Vicky, Wood Graham Read the rest of this entry »

The Beukenhof Auditorium and Crematorium by Asymptote Architecture recently won 2013 Progressive Architecture Award, showing that the building can be the powerful architectural piece regardless of its program. Located in the Dutch community of Schiedam, this fluid piece accommodates and celebrates whole variety of rituals, both in form and program. Comprising an undulating seamed copper roof and double-curved enclosure, Asymptote’s design for the Auditorium and Crematorium in Netherlands exploits the country’s rich tradition of brick architecture through a thoroughly contemporary formal expression.

The building is wrapped into dematerialized envelope whose perforations invite modular daylight to enter the interior. The structure could be seen as a materialization of movement and it intensely bonds with the surrounding in its fluidity and smooth flow. Pools at each corner of the building collect water flowing along the edifice, providing a serenity that complements the peaceful aura of the rest of the building. The interior spaces of Beukenhof Auditorium and Crematorium are imbued with a subtly transforming quality of light that works in concert with the shifting architectural form. On the exterior, the dune-like architecture is another landscape element that bridges over the adjacent canal. Read the rest of this entry »

Perforated aluminum pavilion resembling of a huge piece of coral is designed by Marc Fornes, French based architect of THEVERYMANY. Part of the permanent collection of the FRAC Centre, Orleans, the pavilion is a prototype which engages in numerous architectural experiments, known as text based morphologies. This 10 meters long, 4.5m high experimental space is assembled from 27 components, and the surface of the pattern is created of more than 155.000 asterisk-shaped perforations. Such prototypical structure requires massive number of elements, not only all unique but usually morphologically extremely different.

The form of the pavilion is developed through complex computational protocols. It is derived from methods such as form finding, form description, information modeling, generational hierarchy and digital fabrication. The pavilion is addressing some important issues like the paradigm shift from linear spaces, not necessarily on a formal level, but more in order to engage a multiplicity of social situations. Being the test space for series of experiments, the assembly is also an investigation into transformations from network to surface condition. Read the rest of this entry »

McDonald’s and the fuel station are gathered under the same roof in one of the newly urbanized parts of the seaside city of Batumi, Georgia. Designed by Giorgi Khmaladze, ambitious piece of art includes also recreational spaces and reflective pool. Due to the importance of the given location, the imperative was to maximize the recreational area therefore the footprint of the building is very limited as well as the vehicular circulation. As a result, all the contents are compressed in one volume.

Two major programs – dining and vehicle service are physically and visually isolated from one another, so that the operations at the fuel station are not visible from the restaurant. Restaurant starts from the lobby and is having a separate entrance on the ground floor. The interior is designed in a manner that offers smooth and seamless transition between levels, the floor steps upwards creating inhabitable decks on intermediate levels which are actually occupied as dining spaces. Views from the restaurant spaces are partly directed towards outside water features while the rest look into open air patio on the second level. The patio acts as a buffer zone, ensuring soundproof interior space and open air lounge. Giant cantilever canopy is covered in vegetation, acting as an ecological shield for the shaded terrace while also helps avoiding energy loss. Read the rest of this entry »

The 196 meter long curvy and twisting China Wood Sculpture Museum in Harbin, China, by MAD Architects is complete. Unveiled building, sheathed in metal, sits nestled in a densely populated Chinese-style residential area, adding a cultural and surreal essence to the surrounding urban context. Harbin gets regular snowfall and is known as the Ice City, so MAD Architects designed the Museum with a horizontal, twisted body modeled on the shapes made by frozen liquids. Beijing-based MAD first revealed images of the China Wood Sculpture Museum in 2011, when construction began. Now is the moment when we can finally compare for ourselves how these seductive and shiny, curved structures actually look when built.

Museum is clad in plates of polished steel, mirroring the surrounding and changing light, interrupted by curving strips of glazing forming central entrance, windows and skylights. In the words of the architects, the museum actually embodies some of the foremost conceptual and formal ideas that define the work of MAD, bringing out an expression and abstraction of nature to an otherwise quotidian surrounding. The aim was to reference the local natural scenery and landscape; therefore the boundaries between solid and liquid are blurred throughout the building. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by UAP Principal, Daniel Tobin, Matthew Tobin and Jamie Perrow, KAUST Breakwater Beacon has been recently revealed – as a part of $7 billion research institution, the honeycomb tower becomes a symbol for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The magnificent 60-meter high-rise is comprised of amorphous hexagonal sections in the form of an elliptical spire, reaching into the air.

The Tower is located on a new University Campus, as a part of a larger master plan – a new town of 10,000 people, living over 6.5 million sqf along the Red Sea, 80km north of Jeddah. The design process was accelerated with a “Racing the Sun” approach, in which planners from 10 offices across multiple time zones contributed to the plan over one 24-hour period.

Due to its fantastic presence, one could be deceived that the tower is all about the look, but the skyscraper is actually designed as natural cooling tower for communal events and celebrations. The hot air from the foyer is pulled up through the building and cooler breezes are brought in instead, while the skin of the atrium is creating a dappled shaded effect. Read the rest of this entry »

In words of the architects at Saraiva + Associados, the ambition was to design landmark building for Awaza Congress Center in Turkmenistan, not only as a national monument, but an icon that would be recognized internationally. Its monumental form is derived from a strong symbolic concept which reflects patriotic and cultural values of the country. Transmitting internal organization of Turkmenistan, the volume of the building is broken into five larger groups of spaces, materializing five provinces and forming a Congress Hall as a whole. Five elements are Circulation element, Auditorium element, Events, Business and Square element. National motifs in interiors and dominant green color tone – color of Turkmenistan flag reflect patriotic aims. Read the rest of this entry »