Re-imagining the Contemporary Museum, Exhibition & Performance Space
Carlo Aiello
Digital copy
192 pages

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eVolo_04: Re-imagining the Contemporary Museum, Exhibition & Performance Space

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Title: eVolo_04: Re-imagining the Contemporary Museum, Exhibition & Performance Space
Cover: Perfect Bound
Size: 9″ x 11.5″
Pages: 192
ISSN: 1946-634x
ISBN: 978-1938740039

INTRODUCTION

The architecture for performance and exhibition, being museums, galleries, music halls, pavilions, etc., has been in the leading edge of architectural innovation throughout the history and evolution of the discipline. Architects and designers experiment on new aesthetics, concepts, and ideas with projects that tend to have a flexible program and a large budget. In many cases, the main requirement of such structures is not only to accommodate a specific program but also to inspire the imagination of its users and challenge the current state of architectural design. Some examples, such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by Frank Gehry or the Sydney Opera House by Jørn Utzon are considered design masterpieces of the 20th Century. Gehry’s Museum transformed the city of Bilbao from a small industrial Spanish city into a world destination, while Utzon’s Opera House become the symbol of Sydney and Australia.

This issue of eVolo studies the most innovative examples of performance and exhibition architecture today. These are projects that revolutionize architecture on many levels, including sustainability, aesthetics, technology, and urban design. It is interesting to point out that these works are not concentrated in one specific region, but are located in every corner of the globe; from MVRDV’s Comic and Animation Museum in China, to the new Broad Museum in Los Angeles by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, or Kengo Kuma’s Victoria and Albert Museum in Dundee, Scotland. Read the rest of this entry »

The vision of the New Sky Condos by Los Angeles based B+U Architects is to develop a unique spatial experience for each condo unit by, on the one hand, utilizing an L‐shape sectional diagram that maximizes double height spaces and outdoor areas through interlocking the units in plan and in section (an evolution on the Le Corbusier cross section of L’Unite d’Habitation) and simultaneously developing a window typology that aims to dissolve the edges of the window frame creating a unique view to the outside. The window itself is not just a flat aperture but a three dimensional spatial object that shapes the interior walls and aims ones view to key features of the surrounding cityscape. For example it allows for views towards the San Isidro Golf Club to the north and the Ocean to the south even from spaces along the east and west facade of the tower.  Read the rest of this entry »

Steven Holl Architects has been selected as architects of the Maggie’s Centre at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. Maggie’s Barts will replace an existing 1960s block that was once used as offices, which is located at the periphery of the square.

Steven Holl said, “It is a great honor to design a Maggie’s Centre and a very special challenge to be given such an important central site in London. The hospital has been at the forefront of medial understanding for centuries. We are inspired by the deep history of the area, and particularly the nearby St Bartholomew the Great church, which has been in continuous use with marvelous music since 1143. Our proposal is like a vessel within a vessel within a vessel. In the spirit of music, architecture can be a vessel of transcendence.” Read the rest of this entry »

The vision by Maxthreads Architectural Design and Planning responds to the extending aim of positioning Taiwan in general, and Tainan city in particular, as a major historical based tourism destination, contributing Taiwan’s economic diversification from its current infrastructure lead planning system.

Tainan main station master plan is imagined as a cultural based community and nature intervention, with sustainable residential development and the potential for natural habitat areas. It aims to be a cultural and vibrant edutainment intervention as well as a secluded haven of peace and tranquillity. Tainan main station is conceived as a new gateway of Taiwan’s history. Read the rest of this entry »

Climate Change, rapidly growing megacities and the need for new energy sources are issues that need to be resolved in the urban context. The EU’s new climate ambitions are contained in a European Commission Roadmap for moving to a competitive low-carbon economy in 2050. It says the most cost-efficient way of moving to a low-carbon economy is by achieving a 40% cut in CO2 emissions by 2030 and a 25% cut by 2020, compared with 1990 emission levels. Poland has signaled its opposition to an EU plan for deeper carbon emission cuts. Poland, reliant on coal for more than 90% of its electric power, fears the move would make energy more costly. Coal and other fossil fuels emit CO2, seen as a catalyst for climate change. Motivation behind this project is to rise social awareness on importance of sustainability and alternatives energy sources. Read the rest of this entry »

For the green innovative house, architects Achawin Laohavichairat, Montakan Manosong, and Peerapon karunwiwat designed a building that provided infrastructure, urban facilities, green area, and living space. They designed the house for congested urban areas in this case they choose “Metropolitan Bangkok”. Ecological living uses of clean, non-pollution energies, gathering of organic and inorganic waste, creation of green spaces. The green innovative house is designed with self-sufficient considerations planed to take care of the management of energy. Read the rest of this entry »

Showcasing the recently completed floating staircase along with renowned pieces from the Zaha Hadid Architects archive: The Peak Site Plan (1983), Aqua Table (2005), Seamless Collection (2006), Belu Bench (2005), Lotus (2008), Cirrus (2008), Kloris (2008), and Seoul Desk & Table (2009).

The new floating staircase maintains the lightness of the gallery space. Each suspended step is articulated as a separate ribbon cast from Ductal®, an ultra-high performance concrete with exceptional structural as well as aesthetic qualities. The tensile strength of Ductal® allows the ribbons to remain relatively thin with each tread cast from a single adjustable mould that was engineered in Italy by Il Cantiere. The floating staircase has been designed to be demountable. Read the rest of this entry »

The studio’s ( Varouzhan Torosdamy, Evan Emery)journey started from investigating some certain aesthetical and architectural qualitative values within a series of 2d drawings derived from a digital scripting software . After some manual modification in the script,  certain qualities were achieved,  that were based on the initial drawing, next step was to  transit those drawings into a  2 ½  D surface and from there forth, into a project scale proposal on a corner site located in west Hollywood California. Read the rest of this entry »

This building is a proposal by award-winning firm from Los Angeles, P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S, for a 120-bed student dormitory for the Pontificia Catholic University of Puerto Rico in Ponce, the second largest city of the island and the old capital before San Juan. As part of a larger master plan aiming to attract students from the whole Caribbean region and fulfill the current demand of 500 apartments, the proposal aims to create a new presence within the campus. Articulating a vertical mass with a figural void that encapsulates the main social areas of the program, our proposal aims to induce human interaction among students and visitors in a vertical environment while enhancing unprecedented urban vistas from and to the historic center of the city just beyond the university campus. Read the rest of this entry »

In Greek mythology the Chimera was a monstrous fire-breathing creature. She had the body of a lioness, a tail ending in a snake’s head, and a goat’s head arising on her back at the centre of her spine. There are of course many other examples in different cultures that could also be referred to as Chimeras. In genetics, biology and botany a Chimera represents an animal or plant with genetically distinct cells from two different zygotes or genetically different types of tissue; the resulting organism is a mixture of tissues, and of different sets of chromosomes. In paleontology, it is a fossil reconstructed with parts from different animals.

aRC(2)himera is an architectural chimera. From its distinct sets of digital chromosomes and analogue chromosomes evolves a monstrous mix-up of various approaches that go from developing skin morphologies, structure anatomies, ornamental textures, responsive environments, biological growth, robotic behaviour, miniature devices, machined fabrication, interactive media design, sensorial feedback etc. To some this may look and sound outrageous and horrific—as it is neither elegant nor pure, nor truthful or correct (process-wise).

Why this Frankensteinian, modern Promethean approach? The grotesqueness of aRC(2)himera is only relative. aRC(2)himera must be seen in a postvirtual and postdigital context of New Materialism, which marks the ambition to escape from the old unsustainable (socially and environmentally) virtual and cyber architectural visions, and from the old off-the-shelf and unsustainable (environmentally and financially) architectural production methods towards innovative applicable theories, techniques and technologies. Read the rest of this entry »