Proposal by Sanzpont Arquitectura for the Changing The Face Competition. This project goes beyond the reconstruction of the facade of the building, and aims to promote Russian cultural life from the inside out. While the interior is used as a cinema, the exterior becomes the cultural landmark of the city being used as an Urban Stage for everyone. The outdoor stage is designed to host performances and public events, including theater, film and fashion shows, sculpture, sound and light art, dance, video and music. Lateral facades are designed unfolding the roof of the building from top to bottom, creating urban stairs to reach the top, plus 2 exterior elevators that allow people to access the roof using it as an urban balcony and a figure skating rink. The LED media wall is an element that makes the building come alive and is used as the Cultural Media Wall of the city. Powered with green energy, generates a visual urban display contributing to the Moscow’s cultural life. Read the rest of this entry »

X|A is organizing an international workshop of Advanced Architectural Design, part of an ongoing academic research, which introduces participants into contemporary discussions of formal exploration in Architectureand Art, through technical attainment of design and production. The Omni(progra)chromatic by X|A is under the auspices of Benaki Museum, the Hellenic Institute of Architecture and the Athens School of fine Arts. It is an opportunity for architects, students of Architecture and Art, professionals designers and artists. Read the rest of this entry »

This project by computational architect Michael Hansmeyer involves the conception and design of a new column order based on subdivision processes. It explores how subdivision can define and embellish this column order with an elaborate system of ornament. An abstracted doric column is used as an input form to the subdivision processes. Unlike the minimal input of the Platonic Solids project, the abstracted column conveys a significant topographical and topological information about the form to be generated. The input form contains data about the proportions of the the column’s shaft, capital, and supplemental base. It also contains information about its fluting and entasis.

The input form is tagged to allow the subdivision process to distinguish between individual components. This allows a heterogeneous application of the process, with distinct local parameters settings. In addition to distinguishing among tagged components, the process parameters can be set to vary according to the input form’s topography as well as its topology. Finally, an environmental specification of parameters is possible to allow regional phenomena to occur. Read the rest of this entry »

Ghostly Illumination designed by Sofia Borges and Danika Voorhees enhances the sensory potentials of the Orthodox church through the strategic alignment of spatial boundaries. Through a series of pulls and pinches, spaces that once maintained rigid edge conditions begin to erode. This spatial erosion provides for a more dynamic and engaged experience for the user as sight lines collapse and extend and programmatic hierarchy dissolves, allowing for wider range of opportunities to intermingle between the priests and their patrons. Read the rest of this entry »

This iconic 950 foot tall residential tower is proposed for a micro-urban site in New York City. Designed by solus4, an architecture and planning firm, the tower is a vertical neighborhood creating an efficient and valuable use for a small and otherwise underutilized water’s edge site. Uniquely, the tower is designed by solus4 using their SNCI principals (Sustainable Neighborhood Collaborative Initiative). Applying these principles to a vertical neighborhood requires the full engagement of the design team, the building team, the financing team and the owners.

With a cross-section of G plus 55, there are 50 full-floor four bedroom plus apartments planned at approximately 3,000 square feet each served by high speed destination selective elevators. The distinctive shape of this tower comes from its innovative structure and energy generating systems. The entire structural system, designed by LeMessurier Consultants, is in-situ concrete with flat slabs supported by columns and shear walls embedded in the extruded core shaft leaving large portions of the perimeter free for the 14 foot floor to ceiling glass. The exterior glazing makes up one of the tallest proposed hybrid double glazed skins. While the initial intent of the double skin is to enhance the thermal barrier thereby controlling heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter, an interesting added benefit will be the chimney effect at the external surface. Strategically placed mini-turbines take advantage of the vertical air movement to generate supplementary power. Balconies at each floor provide exterior space for the resident while adding a variable shading screen to further control glare and heat gain. Temperature controlled window shading with personal preference overrides will provide for individual comfort requirements in any season. Read the rest of this entry »

The Nine Bridges Country Club-Clubhouse designed by Shigeru Ban Architects is a 16,000-squaremeter facility that serves a golf course. It has an underground level and three floors above grade. There is a main building, VIP lobby building, and a structure with private suites. The atrium and the upper portion of the main building include timber columns and a glass curtain wall, while the base is made of stone (random rubble masonry typical of Korea). The timber area includes the reception zone, a member’s lounge, and a party room. Read the rest of this entry »

(c) A. Menges

In 2010, the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) designed and constructed a temporary research pavilion. The innovative structure demonstrates the latest developments in material-oriented computational design, simulation, and production processes in architecture. The result is a bending-active structure made entirely of extremely thin, elastically-bent plywood strips.

Material computes. Any material construct can be considered as resulting from a system of internal and external pressures and constraints. Its physical form is determined by these pressures. However, in architecture, digital design processes are rarely able to reflect these intricate relations. Whereas in the physical world material form is always inseparably connected to external forces, in the virtual processes of computational design form and force are usually treated as separate entities, as they are divided into processes of geometric form generation and subsequent simulation based on specific material properties. Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to announce a new parametric design workshop at the end of June 2011 by modeLab. Register soon as they have very limited number of spaces.

This workshop will engage the conceptual and technical domain of parametric design by introducing participants to systemic processes capable of registering and responding to a range of diverse ecologic criteria. Emphasis will be placed on workflows that utilize constraint-based design, associative modeling techniques, and environmental influencers to discover novel and inventive design solutions.

Rhino, in conjunction with the parametric modeling plug-in Grasshopper, offers the possibility to explore parametric and computational design with unprecedented fluidity. Leveraging this capacity, we have structured this workshop around a series of architectural design strategies with supporting content to foster a fast-paced and productive learning environment. Read the rest of this entry »

The Parasite Office designed by za-bor architects rises from in-between two buildings to offer an alternative to office spaces all over the world. The 230 square meters office is nestled between two residential buildings, occupying the space which was left unused until its construction. Moscow was the perfect place for the architects to present their project at the architectural biennale АRCH Moscow. Read the rest of this entry »

The Oasis Tower for Zabeel Park, Dubai is an answer to the rise in population and the dearth in the amount of land available for farming. Designed by Rahul Surin, the tower would provide a solution for urban farming and sustainable housing. The architect believes that the Oasis Tower will be able to provide food enough to feed 40,000 people each year. Read the rest of this entry »