A project for a centre for contemporary arts in Rome is now officially the best new building in the world. MAXXI, National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Italy, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, UK, has won global architecture’s most coveted accolade of ‘World Building of the Year’ at the prestigious World Architecture Festival Awards (WAF) 2010.

The presentation of the WAF Awards took place during a special ceremony, which marked the conclusion of the biggest global celebration of architecture – the World Architecture Festival, held at the Centre Convencions International Barcelona (CCIB) this week.

The winning design was selected from a shortlist of 15 projects from around the world by the WAF ‘Super Jury’. The ‘Super Jury’ consisted of Arata Isozaki, Barry Bergdoll, who is the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Enrique Norten, founder of TEN Arquitectos, and Hanif Kara of engineer Adams Kara Taylor.

Speaking at WAF 2010 Paul Finch, WAF Programme Director, said: “The clarity required for architects to present their work in ten minutes often underlines the clarity of thought itself. There were a number of buildings that the judges admired, but the winning building had a certain inevitability to win the overall award. This is a building which is a volume, which takes its place in a very happy way, inside the volume of a city – an unwound Guggenheim, with ribbons of connectivity. It is a building which will still be talked about in the history of architecture in 50 years time.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Tour de la Porte Chapelle is a new mixed-use development in Paris, France designed by award-winning architectural firm Abalos Sentkiewicz to be completed in 2012. The project was commissioned by the City of Paris as a new urban hub for the area; the innovative building is composed of three main towers that peel off from a multi-purpose plinth with civic, retail, and recreational areas. The towers are divided according to program including housing, offices, and hotel – a very interesting aspect of the proposal is the weaving of programs at the lower floors creating interstitial hybrid spaces. Read the rest of this entry »

The display category at the World Architecture Festival this year was not only about displaying objects, but even more about telling stories. Many of the display nominees were more like exquisite small museums. In the category we also found two of the pavilions from the Shanghai-Expo, where architecture itself is supposed to tell the story of a country. The category winner the Spanish pavilion by Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, is as much a piece of art as it is architecture.

The idea of taking wicker, even though not solely a Spanish material, shows what architecture can do when Expos like this send architects off doing the unthinkable. It stands out as a building, and a story, that the visitors to the event will remember. The container of the exhibition becomes an ephemeral poetic and strongly memorable image of the creativity of Spain. The connection of the Chinese visitors to the craft of wicker making encourages a level of sympathy with Spanish craftspeople of past times. Read the rest of this entry »

The project for the World War Museum in Gdansk designed by Chicago-based architect Sean Lally is organized around two straightforward principles. The first is to create a central exhibition core, a “jewel box” that contains the permanent and temporary exhibition space, continuously accessible from all sides along a “loop lobby” that encircles it: the second is the location of the public programs associated with the museum’s urban context–conference, restaurant, hotel, library, and education facilites as well as an urban park–on the upper level rooftop, initiating a “new city floor” with views to the surrounding city, accessible year-round. Making these outdoor public spaces attractive to visitors regardless of season requires the design of a “climatic wash’ that can produce artificial micro-climates and extend seasonal activities throughout the year.

This wash is made possible by harnessing the energy dumps that inevitably occur in a building of this scale (36,000 m²), which requires 900 m² of mechanical space and 11,000 m² of parking garage, both of which vent large amounts of heat and moisture, as well as the combined body heat of several thousand visitors a day. This climatically elastic and unique ‘new city floor’ is the resource for the museum and the city of Gdansk as a whole. Read the rest of this entry »

Award-winning firm Studio SHIFT unveiled their proposal for mixed-use housing in the periphery of Milan, Italy. Mario Cipresso is the founder of the Santa Monica-based studio and commented on the project: “The project is one of twelve proposals located on the periphery of the historic city center offering conceptual solutions for the densification of Milano. Each proposal injects 25,000 inhabitants into the existing fabric of Milano for a total population increase of 300,000.

The radical nature of this undertaking, specifically the insertion of twenty-five thousand new inhabitants at the site, on the periphery of the cultural and economic center of the city, requires an equally radical response. The population increase will most certainly impose enormous demands on existing infrastructure and the social and economic well-being of the population will face new strains.

In order to address this situation, our proposal employs a comprehensive strategy that simultaneously establishes a self-sustaining community and one that seeks to integrate programmatically and physically with the existing city. Read the rest of this entry »

Creative director Byung Ju Lee of Planning Korea announced a new paradigm in bridge called ‘Paik Nam June Media Bridge’ in Seoul, Korea. Connecting Dangi-li Power Plant (which has a plan to be redeveloped into public cultural space) in the north and The National Assembly Building in the south, this bridge shows the first example of ‘a city expanded to the river’.

As a futuristic and aesthetic sculptor over the Han River, Paik Nam June Media Bridge shows how to use spaces over the bridge efficiently and eco-friendly. Inspired by the water strider, the overall shape is organic with sleek, streamlined outline. With the total length of 1080m, this mega structure bridge is covered with solar panel to generate energy by itself. Read the rest of this entry »

Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas won the “International Schematic Design Competition of Shenzhen Guosen Securities Tower” After the Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport Terminal 3 won by Studio Fuksas in March 2008, on October 18th 2010 Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas won the “International Schematic Design Competition of Shenzhen Guosen Securities Tower”.

The project by Studio Fuksas is born from the intention to create a new concept of vertical public space for the tower. A three-dimensional void will be arranged along the facades giving a dynamic image to the building and creating different public scenarios for the offices. The design of the void shape explores the relation between the podium and the vertical section of the tower with diagonals spaces and fluxes that create a vertical tension in the full height of the tower. Read the rest of this entry »

The Urban Tree project was designed by Geotectura, and award-winning architectural studio based in Israel and founded by Dr. Joseph Cory as a way to merge land and architecture with sustainable elements, cost effective technologies, and social responsability.

This urban scale structure contains greenhouse platforms on dwelling floating cubes that keeps a minimal footprint on the ground. The bioclimatic structure capsule enables space and function flexibility. Variation in size and function in each unit is preserved within each cube with panoramic viewpoints and optimal air flow. Together with the multi-dimensional absolute green environment and the terrace sky courts of this versatile self-sufficient project reflect a sustainable responsability while building high. This concept of two helicoids prefabricated infrastructure is like a growing a urban tree that improves the dwellers’ quality of life while living in the sky. These mega-cubes weave nature and communities  into a dense city. Read the rest of this entry »

Amsterdam-based architectural firm UNStudio unveiled the design for the Urban Library of the Future and Centre for New Media in Gent, Belgium. The new complex creates a dynamic, flexible and open knowledge environment, with an open landscape, alternative circulation routes, several meeting areas and a public plaza. The building is fluid in form, accommodating to its surroundings and incorporates expansive sightlines. The internal organisation of the building is based on an open central void, around which the circulation takes place. This void enhances the spatial experience, creates clear orientation through the building and fulfills a bridging function between the city and the Municipal Library. The structure of the building makes it possible to introduce (green) roof terraces whilst also ensuring low levels of direct sunlight penetration. Read the rest of this entry »

Award-winning Norwegian architectural firm, Snøhetta, unveiled an innovative proposal for the Max-Lab in Lund, Sweden. The Max-Lab is a national laboratory jointly operated by the Swedish Research Council and the Lund University.

The overall architectural idea builds on the meeting point between the strong landscape and the circular shape of a synchrotron (cyclic particle accelerator). The circular shape is twisted and raised to create a dynamic form based on a Möbius strip that becomes an actual volume, not just a ribbon.   The building is unified to the landscape through parks and cultural programs around an oval road with an iconic layout that would be independent from future developments in the surrounding area – from agricultural landscaping to urban developments.  The geometry of the twisted cylinder is generated based on functional requirements and detailed solar studies for heat gain, reducing it up to thirty percent. Read the rest of this entry »