The forming of the urban context is based on the existing territory, something that changes slowly, and human activities, which are changing all the time. Due to the non-stop pace of human activities, the urban context remains in a cycle of perpetual negotiation. Like organic tissue, the city is always in a state of growth, decay, and rebirth.

In the initial forming of a city, people gather according to their habitual behaviors, which are collective ideas. The multiple and collective ideas often made singular. However, in the development of urbanism, master plans are always rigid and lack tolerance and changeability, like a machine. However, when a mechanical system is broken, it forms another context, in which the city can release and breath. Therefore, I would argue that an ideal urban design should be like a coordinating machine that retains flexibility for its users to adapt the city for themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

The proposal for the “House Of The Future / Haus der Zukunft” by Dietmar Köring, Simon Takasaki and EyeTry in Berlin responds to Berlin’s strict urban context: the concept of the “urban block” is touched upon and developed further. The building is partially lifted off the ground, and takes up the general building height of common Berlin housing. The ground floor level is characterized by large open spaces allowing for direct and dynamic circulation. The ground floor area of the building acts as an buffer zone between the neighboring hospital, the harbor and the river Spree. The landscaping and shaped pathways offer a manifold experience of the green zone, which is an integral part of the building’s appearance. The outdoor areas invite people to stay – a small open-air stage offers additional possibilities for spatial programming.

The fluid ground floor concept takes users into the open and dynamic spaces of the building’s inside. The urban block features three-dimensional cuts on the side facing the park, which creates a contemporary, clear structure, blurring the boundaries between exterior and interior. Read the rest of this entry »

Front - eVolo 2012 Skyscraper Competition Poster

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We are pleased to announce a new limited edition publication – the eVolo 2012 Skyscraper Competition Poster that showcases 620 innovative projects submitted to the contest (all authors’ names and countries of origin are included in the publication).

We hope you enjoy this publication that intends to become the reference for outstanding vertical architecture in the world – a glimpse to the future of building high!

Size: 32″ x 24″
Double Sided: 310 projects per side (620 total)
ISBN: 978-1938740022

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The Phýllon lamp designed by Nikolay Hristov Ivanov was inspired by the complexity of a leaf’s veins system. A novel process that employs computer simulation is used to generate a design that operates close to a micro-scale. It started as a research design-investigation based on the distribution of the veins of a single leaf blade. The goal was not to mimic the leaf’s pattern of veins, but rather to have a new reading towards using a speculative data set and reconnecting it within certain logic – establish direct connections – more like covered with a spider net, creating complexity via the quantity of the elements, rather than the elements themselves. Via exploring a numerous configurations of points and diverse connection logics of growth, it crystallized as extremely fragile, elegant or even precious single object design. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last decade or so we have heard the buzz of parametric design and experimented with the physical possibilities that come with digital fabrication. There is no question that our primary push forward lies in research labs and institutes synthesizing new materials and scripting new algorithms for generative or morphogenetic design. We have dipped our feet into the sea of what digital architecture can be, but we are still in the experimental phase. Currently, monumental architecture is left to the big named-architects, leaving the rest of the world’s architecture firms in shy efforts to making such bold moves. However, like most other cases in history, technological innovation plays a part in leveling the playing field. Some have understood the key ingredient to making the wildest schematic designs a constructed reality: innovative technological thinking.

Frank Gehry amazed the world with his Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. When there was no software that could translate his gestural drawings to a 3D model, he figured out a way. The solution came as a 3D modeling software called Digital Project, which contributed to the birth of Gehry Technologies, a company with bestselling project delivery service. In only 10 years since their establishment, Gehry Technologies has already assisted some of the world’s most complex architecture projects through various consulting and modeling services as well as licensing Digital Project to other teams. An alternative to ArchiCad, Microstation, and Revit, Digital Project (based on CATIA from Dassault Systemes) is widely favored for its design-to-fabrication feature and complex parametric modeling tools. Digital Project has been instrumental in assisting engineering and production management of some recently popular projects like the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City, Beijing National Stadium, and Louvre Abu Dhabi. With the mission to “provide the most cutting edge technology, improve the spirit of collaboration, and support the realization of inspirational work for the build environment” Gehry Technologies has gained a reputation for embarking on monumental projects all over the world. Now with a decade of experience leading and assisting large-scale construction projects, Gehry Technologies addresses an issue that has for a long time been a project of its own to handle in the construction process: project collaboration. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ban is the latest pavilion by architects Orproject which has been constructed for the Beijing Design Week 2012. The Chinese title refers to floral petals, and similar to the way that the shape of a flower is created by its bent petals, Ban is constructed from bent polymer sheets which form a self-supporting structure and create shapes and volume from a multitude of leaves. Read the rest of this entry »

This project by Shahira Hammad envisions a new train station for Vienna, one that would either modify or replace the existing Westbahnhof train station.

The project keeps the existing building, but contaminated with structures that would express a complexity of programs now missing. The project was inspired both from Nature and Culture, and beyond its polemical characteristics it does intend to bring back what in science is called: Spontaneous Order.

It is, evidently, a reaction against excessive rationalism and rationalizations. Yes, it is excessive, but essentially it tries nothing else but to bring the complexities present in Nature into the urban fabric.

In a way the “project” is not really a “project,” since Shahira let what was envisioned come into being “naturally,” almost by itself, expressing not only outer realities, but also inner ones. Read the rest of this entry »

One can’t possible think about the Architecture of buildings without considering the physical and non-physical conditions that surround it. In the process of thinking about a specific typology; especially a tall building, the context becomes more important than ever, If one has to reimagine the tall building, there has to be a clear understanding of what cause-effect relationship tall buildings have on its context and users. Most tall buildings are found in city centers of most major cities globally. These city centers are also known as the downtowns, they carry a different urban grain due to the inherent density of tall buildings.

In order to reimagine the tall buildings well, it would be most effective to consider them in the downtown context. That will enables us to understand the most important issues associated with them, helps us provide an integrated piece of architecture which will not just redefine the tall buildings but also the core concept of the Downtown; A new version of the downtown.

Higher density results in sustainable downtowns, but most tall buildings in the downtown function in a very unsustainable way; with a huge carbon footprint. Almost all buildings are huge masses of singular programs with only single connection to the context which happens at the street level. This condition results in a huge volume of population densely packed in the buildings, very close to each other yet disconnected. Due to the height of these buildings create longer and larger shading regions. These result in a lack of natural daylight at the street level, which is also the only active plane where people can interact with each other. These tall buildings do offer the best views; unfortunately rooftops of the same are occupied by mechanical equipment. Lastly, downtowns tend to have latent spaces- they are mainly used as parking. These spaces aren’t just underutilized but also a huge safety issue during the night since they are not well lit; these areas give downtowns a bad rap. The change can be brought upon about these issues in an intelligent way. This need for a design to bring about a change fuels my need to reimagine tall buildings. Read the rest of this entry »

According to the KMUTT Roadmap 2020, the university is aspiring to be one of the world class universities in the area of science and technology. For the Learning Innovation, the design by MAB Studio (Achawin Laohavichairat) used biomimicry as a natural inspiration to make the building harmony with the context. The building became a new transition of the university to transfer people to go to each building and to create the structure that can show the potential of the engineering because that is an image of the university, the biomimetic strategies that integrate form, material, and structure into a single process. We try to observe and study the behavior of natural form. The structure is derived from the geometry of an infinite array of the structure. The structure in the building is a light weight structure. There is main circulation in the building and each program was designed along the main circulation. There are three dimensional structures as a space truss module those transfer the load to each other. The structural module was created by a natural pattern. Read the rest of this entry »