Today the name Main Street represents the only geographical location of the passageway with no true meaning of its centrality to Lafayette’s urban organization. An exemplar of a suburban city, the core of Lafayette is too weak to organize the periphery, causing social and physical disintegration of the center itself and of the outskirts. Bearing on this condition we propose a hybrid system, which integrates public space, service and residential functions, existing potentials and new civic infrastructure into one synergy, that would recreate the core of the city.

Attacking the main illness of the downtown area – disintegration, our proposal connects the Cathedral of St. John with the plaza on Lee street all the way down to Johnston street – the whole Main Street into one system that would be the backbone of the city. Bearing on the fact into an area where walking is the prime mode of transportation; we propose to achieve it via a pedestrian deck. More than just a connector it would play multiple roles; most importantly assimilating the existing structures, adding new uses to them, with the new amenities, such as a mediatheque, a museum, shops, restaurants, etc., which all would serve the whole metropolitan area, increasing weight of the downtown as the social and cultural hub. The porous deck creates to worlds above it and under it. One above is about vibrancy, sunshine and open air activities – a bustling hub, occupied by pedestrians, with nonstop street performances, vendors, cafes; while the the space under it provides so much needed shadow in the very hot and humid climate of the Mexican Gulf. Read the rest of this entry »

The melting of glaciers comes with the consequences – it increases the sea level and causes the water shortage, as they are main reservoirs of sweet water in numerous cities. The melting also causes glacier lake outburst floods, serious consequences of the global warming directly related to glacier melt. The great majority of all glaciers worldwide lost a large part of its masses in last decades. Read the rest of this entry »

Avis Magica in Latin means “the magic bird”. The term “magic” comes from the city of Miami which is known as “the magic city”. Considering that the population grew from 1,000 to one million residents in just 100 years, we can say that the city “took off” like a bird. The resulting concept of “magic bird”. Analyzing the work of Constantin Brancusi ‘Bird in Space’ we observed how he stylized the bird, making a simple but elegant form. Armarada did the same thing while integrating the human image thus resulting the final form of the building.

How does the building work?

“Avis Magica” was built as the tallest building in the area 335 meters ( 1099ft ) and proposes a new concept: “vertical nature”.

It incorporates: a museum at the below ground level, dedicated to the city’s wildlife, an outdoor concert stage, a 120m tall aquarium water which is pumped and filtered directly from the ocean, an area of islands with tropical vegetation located above the aquarium, an area that generates artificial rain clouds at a time, the observation deck and the “wings” of the building – made up of a multitude of “feathers” that vibrate at wind action, producing electricity.

The feathers are made of semi-translucent material that allows sunlight to enter the building, necessary for photosynthesis process.They are mounted on a tension cable receiving vibrations, turning them into electricity. Read the rest of this entry »

Grand Cancun designed by Richard’s Architecture + Design will be the world’s first luxury eco-tourism resort that responds to our energy crisis and local fossil fuel dependency of the city. This is a vision for the year 2020 where Cancun will celebrate its 50th founding anniversary, a landmark or a memorial sculpture which is adapted from “KUKULKAN” and the magical legend of the Mayan Serpent God. This awesome eco-architecture contributes to the myth and raises the serpent from water to infinity, a great representation of exceptional harmony between Mayan people and their new metropolis. Read the rest of this entry »

The ‘Blindspot Initiative‘ is a group exhibition in Los Angeles, being funded via a Kickstarter campaign. The exhibition will showcase work by cutting edge interdisciplinary designers based in Los Angeles.

Backers of the campaign can attend up to 10 workshops, which are being offered by each of the participating designers. Each workshop aims to share the techniques and ideas at play in the production of the work. They include: fabrication, gaming, programming, 3D printing, data visualization and much more.

The exhibition has been conceived as an alternative means of design production to the traditional competition that designers frequently enter to develop and show new work.

The 10 exhibiting designers have come together to produce new work with a strong commitment to sharing their knowledge and production techniques, through the exhibition, catalogues and most significantly, workshops. Read the rest of this entry »

Cristal Riviera is a competition proposal by French firms Périphériques Architectes, a/LTA architects and Hamonic & Masson. It is a response to current developing renovation and regeneration program around Rennes Railway station in France, which asks for an improved urban circulation and connectivity within the whole of the city.

The Féval city-block is a significant part of the renovation program performed around the Rennes rail-station. The urban project is developed by FGP and Territores. The program suggests developing of a new territory to connect the two sides of the city, while involving changes in landscape and topography. The railway road passes through urban structures like a river would pass through giant tectonic monuments in a form of large crystals.

Three buildings that form a project are made by three different architects, and the whole project is structured around a landscape rift. The crystal structure is carved very precisely in order for sunlight to reach the inner territory. Read the rest of this entry »

Studio Daniel Libeskind has recently unveiled the design for a residential building in Berlin that will brighten the already emerging neighborhood of Chausseestrasse. The completion is expected in 2015. The eight-storey building is continuation of his work in this city – his Berlin projects include very well known Jewish Museum. With its large angular windows designed to catch maximum light, canted walls and metallic-coated ceramic façade the building will occupy the corner of a block in Berlin Mitte.

The challenge was to create 73 one to four bedroom apartments on almost rectangular plot, which will accommodate seductive retail on the ground floor, underground parking and a common outdoor area. The dramatic ending of the building features a penthouse apartment at the top, which embodies the ultimate inside-outside urban living. Its double-height living room is lined on one side by a sloping wall of obliquely shaped windows, which leads out to a patio overlooking Berlin.  A floating stairway ascends to an open-plan living area, bedrooms are tucked into the rear, and the ceiling sweeps up to a height of ­21 feet. Read the rest of this entry »

Studio Daniel Libeskind designed an iconic 46-floors sustainable office tower for the new Yongsan International Business district development in , South Korea. The design is inspired by YunDeung, traditional Korean paper lanterns. The aim was to create a faceted tower as a lantern, whose multiple planes reflect the sky and the earth while capturing the light on its differing angles. Therefore a glowing beacon for YIBD site is created.

The tower is sculptured and shaped by the urban context – it tapers at its base in order to create a feeling of space and openness for the pedestrian plaza. The floor plates and the views over Han River are maximized as the form reaches out in the middle of the tower, creating a sense of scale marking the gateway from the western entrance to the site. The tower tapers back and up to its top to allow the most light and air onto the other towers around, creating a strong ascending peak to the tower. Read the rest of this entry »

MARS Architects recently won open architectural competition to design Walltopia Headquarters in Sofia. The building will be Bulgaria’s first sustainable activity center. Walltopia was founded in 1996 as a manufacturer of artificial climbing walls and holds. Now the company is global leader in its field, supplying its products to every country in the world where climbing is popular – including all West European countries, USA, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Starting with just 5 people, the company now employs over 300 people working in the areas of design, engineering, manufacturing and installing of the climbing walls.

MARS’s proposal is a hybrid structure whose program is folded by an interweaving climbing atrium. The proposal is characterized as flawless integration of a complex program with a spectacular user experience and it undoubtedly showed that sustainable can be seductive.

The authors found inspiration in emerging market of Bulgaria and its refreshing vitality. The program, consisting of climbing and brand head offices is supplemented by a diversity of functions – from leisure and entertainment to health and wellness. The climbing walls of the winning entry are folded through the entire office program therefore the constant crossover is achieved.  The project reveals the outer limits of what can be achieved with these climbing walls as sculptural interior spaces. Read the rest of this entry »

It is finally revealed that Dubai has been chosen to host the 2020 World Expo. HOK, teamed with Populous and Arup, has developed the master plan for the expo and more then 25 million visitors are expected to be drawn from October 2020 through April 2021. The plan is futuristic but it also pays homage to Emirati heritage and culture. Dubai will become the first Middle Eastern city to host this event in its 150-year long history.

HOK’s plan reflects great qualities of the city and the form and spirit of a World Expo, with its mixture of education, innovation and entertainment. The site is on the southwestern edge of Dubai in Jebel Ali, near Dubai’s new Al Maktoum International Airport and Jebel Ali Port. Read the rest of this entry »