Four architectural practices were challenged recently to re-envision New York’s Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, in order to create more livable city through intelligent urban planning and design. Four designs have been revealed, proposing fresh and improved biggest transit hub in the western hemisphere, and are focused on smart solutions for pedestrians as well as on the impact of built form to the transit access.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), the renowned architecture, engineering, interiors and urban-planning firm, revealed its proposal. SOM was invited to contribute because of its long history of working in Manhattan, its wide-ranging expertise on extraordinarily complex sites and issues. Their plan dramatically expands the transit capacity at Penn Station – it calls for the expansion of Penn Station’s footprint by two additional blocks, in order to accommodate high-speed rail lines for the Northeast Corridor, expanded commuter rail service for the entire tri-state area, and direct rail connections to JFK, LaGuardia and Newark Airports.

The vision for the very station is very intuitive and open – the transparent Ticketing Hall is placed at the center of the site, surrounded by the radial pedestrian connections to the city. Two concourses directed north-south seamlessly enable passengers to move from ground level to level below.

The proposed design fully exhausts the potential air rights yet preserving the full four block ground-plane, for public use. The architects at SOM believe that, in order to reach its full unrealized potential, the site must be the civic heart of Midtown West. Aiming to optimize one of the largest multi-modal stations in the world, SOM provides to build public Park, four times larger than Bryant Park, a commercial development the size of Rockefeller Center, a city of Culture larger than Lincoln Center, and a residential neighborhood the size of Tudor City.

Inspired by the way silkworms weave delicate cocoons from a single strand of silk, the Silk Pavilion is created using a base of robot-woven threads. Created by The Mediated Matter group, focused on biologically inspired design fabrication tools and technologies, the pavilion explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication on both architectural and product scales. The primary structure of this unique and fragile pavilion was created of 26 polygonal panels, made of silk treads laid down by a CNC machine.

The research of the Mediated Matter group aims to integrate computational form-finding strategies with biologically inspired fabrication and the pavilion is the outcome of a process. They strongly believe in the importance of this research, therefore enabling mediating synergies between objects and environment, between humans and objects, and between humans and environment, which would enhance the relation between natural and artificial environments by ensuring higher levels of versatility and customization, material efficiency and environmental performance integration.

The geometry of the pavilion is created using an algorithm assigning a single continuous thread across patches, therefore providing various degrees of density. The overall density was further informed by the silkworm itself, as a biological printer creating the secondary structure. A swarm of 6,500 silkworms was positioned at the bottom rim of the scaffold spinning flat non-woven silk patches, locally reinforcing the gaps across CNC-deposited silk fibers. The migration of silkworms was directed by light conditions due to spatial and environmental conditions, including geometrical density and variation in natural light and heat. Read the rest of this entry »

Zaha Hadid has been commissioned by Swarovski to design a celebratory installation which would mark the completion of her fist major build project, twenty years ago – the Fire Station at Vitra Campus, in Weil am Rhein, Germany.

Highly polished angular pieces are entitled Prima, and the components are flexible – they could be moved into different configurations. The assembly is installed in front of Fire Station, reflecting the design process of Hadid’s building. The form of the installation pieces is party derived from the dynamism of her drawings for Vitra Fire Station, expressive and exploding in three dimensions from the lines and planes of the paintings and sketches. The polished, reflective surfaces form the urban furniture – the seating for visitors, and are equipped with LED lighting.

The pieces are built using the advanced design and manufacturing technologies available, therefore the facets of Prima seating are a direct translation of the lines from the canvas, representing the detailed and thoughtful experimentation with the aim of perfecting the Fire Station Design. However, the new design could be seen as continuation of the twenty years older process, documenting architect’s remarkable adventure as an articulator of complexity, managing that two dimensional sketches evolve into a workable space and actual building. Inspired by the work of Kazimir Malevich, Hadid translated the anti-gravitational space of Russian avant-garde painting and sculpture into her own and unique architectural expression. Read the rest of this entry »

This digitally fabricated lamp, named ”Phýllon” by Nikolay Hristov Ivanov,  is inspired by the complexity of the leaf’s venation. Completely new process that employs computed simulation is used in order to generate very precise and subtle design, operating almost at a micro-scale. The project started as a design-investigation with the goal not to mimic the leaf’s pattern, but to configure a new reading – using speculative data set and reconnecting within a different logic – of a spider net, where the complexity is created by the quantity of elements and not by their quality.

The elegance of this unique lamp is an outcome of the serious exploration of numerous configurations of points, connections and logic of growth therefore the crystallized structure is extremely fragile.

The lamp is self-sufficient – it generated energy by itself. The silicon membrane contains spherical photovoltaic cells.  The leaves are composed of two layers, an external armor skeleton and internal soft membrane that merge into one homogeneous blade. Read the rest of this entry »

The Palace of Justice in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by Claus en Kaan Architecten is designed to be autonomous complex, recognizable in its presence. The exterior walls of this landmark piece are light, almost abstract, therefore adding universal and timeless quality to this massive architectural monument. The Magistrates Court and the Public Prosecutor co-habit in the Western IJ-dock complex, but clearly organized – each function is accommodated in separate volume and connected with one another by the walkway on the central fifth floor.

The abstract character of the façade is efficiently activated by applying very bright materials, white or light grey – natural stone, ceramic elements, whitewashed concrete, powder-coated steel plate and glazed brick. The glass openings, providing great panoramic views over the city and the docks are placed at the same plane as the outer walls, so the transition from one material to another is smooth and seamless.

The design is actually a compromise with the master plan of the area, done by Van Gameren and Mastenbroek, the given spatial envelope and the budget limitations. However, the architects managed to overcome the strict conditions and to provide the design they aimed for. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Park Avenue is a 550-meter, 116-story tower in Dubai, designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture. The development, with a trio of podium buildings as a base, is a signature design for Dubai’s Jumeira Gardens. Undulating sculptural form of the skyscraper, as a string of pearls – traditionally harvested and traded in Dubai for generations – ensures poetic and evocative appearance of this landmark architecture.

1 Park Avenue is also a representative example of cutting-edge sustainable design. The transparent skin of the skyscraper features a high-performance exterior wall, controlling the heat transfer and light from outside, with the combination of the high-tech system of light shelves and light-sensor-activated shades. Shading fins jut out above each floor, shading the glass beneath, which allows for a more transparent curtain wall and adds visual texture to the building skin. The façade comes with the integrated photo voltaic cells, which harvest solar energy.

The complex houses premium office space, condominiums and service apartments, along with high luxury hotel, on 600,000-square-meters of space. Three podium buildings, whose form complements the form of the tower, facilitate offices and support for the hotel. Read the rest of this entry »

The apocalyptic-ally looking project, done at SCI-Arc, by Austin Samson and Danny Karas, is an investigation on manipulation of the three dimensional space, by two-dimensional drawings or images. Conventional drawing techniques were used as tools, such as hatching to present shade and shadow. The primary aim of the project was to explore the new ways of understanding how designers create and read projects – through orthographic images and the two dimensional projection of three dimensional objects. The whole project is about the drawing and its successful and possible translation into other mediums.

Projection in orthographic view is one of the standard techniques used in as a tool for creating imagery. Animated projection was also used – the authors were projecting animated shadow movements onto a sectional relief model in order to produce an object whose depth is continuously changing and being altered.

The geometry of the project was created first from the outside, and the inside came as a secondary process. The exterior geometry is designed as convex, multi-sided object, which has been smoothed in order to remove the hard edges. Instances of shadow were interpreted and painted on the outside so the levels of ambiguity within the object would be produced, moments where the author is not sure if the geometry extends into darkness or brightness or if it stops short. The inside of the object is clearly separated from the outside – the squares are intersected by sphere, allowing us to understand the difference between a hard and soft. Read the rest of this entry »

Sériès et Sérièes, French-Californian practice, in successful collaboration with engineering partner Buro Happold did a proposal for Taiwan’s Taichung City Cultural Center. The project is rooted in architects’ vision of how the urban interventions of new age have to be – they have to have minimal environmental impact and very high visibility, in order to have the strength and power to shift the perceptions of a neighborhood and to change the common thought into the realm of what is possible to be done but has never been done before.

Due to the fact that the authors from Sériès et Sérièes believe in a fact that the success of the cultural center lies in the ability of the built environment to actually inspire the residents to look beyond the common and expected, materialistic and the easily consumed, in favor of the stimulating and daring. The the Taichung Fine Arts Museum and Library is designed to become a sustainable landmark.

In order to become a landmark, the form of the project resists easy classification – it avoids the association with successive symbols of the industrial, the abstract, the utilitarian and the poetic. It is done in mixing maximum efficiency with maximum artistry. The building takes a geometrical stand in relation to the surroundings and creates a microcosm of the natural environment within public space, as a reference to the natural landscape of Taiwan, known for its various altitudes and diverse microclimates. Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is designed by multi award-winning Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. He is the youngest, at 41, to accept the invitation to design one of the most famous temporary structures worldwide – the Sepentine’s annual Pavilion commission is one of the most important events on the cultural calendar.

Architect stated that he tried to create something – of course really artificial – but nicely melding together with the surrounding, in order to create a nice mixture of nature and architecture. The grid is artificial and sharp, transparent, but the atmosphere created is blurring and ambiguous, cloud-like. Therefore beautiful duality is created – artificial order and natural order.

The white, cloud-like, blurry structure of the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens is made in white lattice of steel poles. As the grid varies in density, it sometimes frames while sometimes obscures the surrounding park, depending on the visitors moving around it. Transparent polycarbonate enables the structure to act like a shelter from the rain, while creating a reflecting layer for the sunlight.

Technical drawings and technical designed services for 2013 Pavilion is provided by AECOM – David Glover, AECOM’s global chief executive has worked on the design of many previous structures for the Serpentine Gallery. Read the rest of this entry »

Sweden based studio Belatchew Arkitekter proposed a concept for the transformation of the Stockholm skyscraper into a wind farm. The aim was to covering the building in thousands of electricity-generating bristles – the plastic straws would generate electric energy using piezoelectric effect.

Söder Torn on Södermalm in Stockholm is a 26-story high-rise, initially designed to be 14 floors higher. Therefore, the architects at Belatchew Arkitekter wanted to restore the building’s original proportions and proposed the extension, while exploring the new techniques for creating the urban wind farm. Covering the façade in thin straws can produce energy through movements, generated by wind. The success of this concept would open up the possibility of widely applying this kind of technique and would change the way we think of ways the buildings can actually produce energy, itself.

The architects were additionally interested in transforming the common notion about the facades, as static building elements, by proposing a moving spectacle, an undulating landscape which also happens to be productive. The constant change of the façade is further reinforced during the night with the lighting in changing colors. Read the rest of this entry »