Designed by FREE Fernando Romero EnterprisE, Museo Soumaya opened to the public on March 29, 2011 after four years of development. The Museo Soumaya houses one of the most important art collections in Latin America with over 6,200 artworks and 60,000 square feet of exhibition space.

The Soumaya Museum is located in a former industrial zone dating from the 1940’s which today presents a very high commercial potential. The Soumaya Museum plays a key role in the reconversion of the area: as a preeminent cultural program, it acts as an initiator in the transformation of the urban perception. Its avant-garde morphology and typology define a new paradigm in the history of Mexican and international architecture.

From the outside, the building is an organic and asymmetrical shape that is perceived differently by each visitor, while reflecting the diversity of the collection on the inside. Its heterogeneous collection is housed in a continuous exhibition space spread over six levels, representing approximately 60,000 ft². The building also includes an auditorium for 350 people, library, offices, a restaurant, a gift shop and a multi-purpose gathering lounge. Read the rest of this entry »

Agentware is a seven-day workshop in Rovinj, Croatia directed by Alisa Andrasek of Biothing and Jose Sanchez of Genware. Its focus is generative algorithmic design, in particular multi-agent computational systems that can read external feedback for applications in complex design ecologies. The workshop will be followed by a two-day symposium entitled Proto/e/co/logics. The symposium will bind together ideas of speculative realism in philosophy, expanding developments in science, and shifting modes of production as it pertains to design – all working towards a redefinition of materiality and adaptation in complex environments. Invited speakers include Wolf Prix, Patrik Schumacher, Reza Negarestani, Sanford Kwinter, Francois Roche, Sylvia Lavin, Ed Keller, Tom Kovac, Adrian Lahoud, Brett Steele, Jeff Kipnis, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Usman Haque and others.

Imminent future developments within still largely untouched stretches of Adriatic Coast offer opportunities for speculative approaches to ecological exploration in architecture. Specifically, these studies aim to go beyond innocent and reductive approaches to ecology such as notions of “sustainability” and “green.” In relation to increased computational intelligence with the introduction of adaptive agent-based systems and large data sets in architecture, the workshop will explore rewriting material and organizational protocols within design and planning sequences. This specific focus will push the design output towards a larger sensitivity to host ecologies. Speculative agent-based proposals will be tested through pilot locations found within rich cultural and natural resources of Istria. Read the rest of this entry »

Can parametric architecture be considered Architecture? Two of the eVolos 2011 Competition finalists, Patrick Bedarfand and Dimitrie Stefanescu would say so. Their C:Strip can be described as a singular manifesto for  meaningful use of computational techniques.

With the assistance of software analysis and various datascapes capturing different environmental influences, the design evolves into a multi-layered architectural object of almost permeable urban quality.

Ecotect was used in processing wind speed and insulation grids, calculating the optimal position of apertures and photovoltaics. In order to avoid disrupting the existing pedestrian flows and visual parameters, circulation analysis programmed in Processing/Java used starting parameters gathered by local observations. Functional distribution was carried out with careful attention to visual trajectories, relying on DepthMap calculations. Centric distribution of functions was replaced with grouping of facilities along motion paths, allowing not only spread of data, but also creating new information through societal behaviour. Read the rest of this entry »

Growing with stringy tentacles off of typical, rectangular high-rise towers is the Sky Cloud, a skyscraper that winds and grows from the ground into a twisting structure that resembles, at the top, an aquatic tail or fin.

The Sky Cloud design, by New Jersey and New York-based architects and designers Patricia Sabater, Christopher Booth and Aditya Chauan, presents a building whose skin and shape are “experimentations of deformation with portals and cellular growth.”  The portals feed the exotic needs of the future: gateways at the skyscraper’s peak allow for arrival and departures of sky taxis and a sky rail system. The building’s cells house a variety of functions, from apartments and hotel rooms to corporate meeting space, a “sky lounge” and a museum of economic crisis. The structure will also feature a park and a resource co-op. Read the rest of this entry »

Planners have long argued against suburban sprawl for the possible health effects it has on residents who are able to avoid physical exercise from behind the wheel. California Polytechnic State University architecture students Thomas Shorey, Ryan Nevius and Baptiste Roult have approached design as health promoter in a more urban manner: design a city vertically to force physical movement and better health.

Their Sky District plan abandons the typical design of buildings where visitors are distributed to floors via easily accessible elevators, saying that method offers “poor architectural design, consumes finite resources and promotes a lazy way of life.” Instead, they propose, arrange city blocks vertically and offer skip-stop elevators and attractive stairways that reward climbers with impressive city views. Not only does this encourage walking, they say, but it also increases opportunities for public interaction. Read the rest of this entry »

If the S.M.A.R.T. tower appears to be in constant motion, it’s only because the structure is covered by a swarm of 100,000 robot bees.

S.M.A.R.T. stands for Swarm Manufacturing and Augmented Reality Technology. Using CAD and LPS (Local Positioning System) data, the bees can be programmed to augment the structure virtually, turning virtual information and data into physical realities. The concept is the vision of Seoul, Korea architects Yoon H. Kim and Yang-Kyu Han.

These bees aren’t interested in honey: these workers will actually build a structure. Each robot is capable of using cartridges filled with agents that enable them to construct literal physical material, which the designers dub “augmented synthetic material.” An amassing of this material forms skyscraper that is conductive, allowing electricity and data to flow throughout the skin of the structure which enables the pulses to be directed to very specific locations. Read the rest of this entry »

The Acadia Tree tower design by Czech architect Petr Pospisil operates from the basic observation that as cities grow and density rises, precious ground space takes on new importance. The design for the Acadia Tree allows for an exciting high rise that is both monumental in scale and look and has a small footprint on the city below.

Three long legs rise high and support a complex of living and commercial spaces on top. The legs themselves have many functions: they house office spaces, the are the location of elevators that whisk people to the tower’s top, and they have plants growing in a middle groove, bringing living foliage to the whole length of the tower, culminating in plentiful green space on the complex that rests on top of the pillars.

The relaxing, green area perched on the three legs is meant to resemble a bird’s nest, providing secure housing, protection and respite. With expanses of grass, trees and even swimming pools, residents living in apartments on this tower enjoy leafy environs and fantastic views. Each apartment even has its own large, landscaped terrace. Read the rest of this entry »

Hong Kong architectural graduate student Kenneth Cheung Shiu Lun is worried about human kind’s consumption. We are killing the earth, Lun argues, and will soon make our own kind extinct as we deplete the planet’s resources.

In Noah’s Tower, Lun has designed an architectural island where the mantra “survival of the fittest” means that those brave enough to leave land will live on into the future. Noah’s Tower, playing off the story of Noah’s Ark, comes with a tagline: “It’s time to face it. Architecture without ground.”

As the earth’s land disappears, refugees gather on temporary floating islands before arriving to the Noah’s Tower complex, which is a series of towers connected by bridges that float and move with the waves and are interchangeable to allow for new linkages as the city grows.

The bridges linking the towers serve a special purpose: not only do they connect the expatriate community, but they serve as a link for residents to the world they left behind. The floating bridges are comprised of two levels, the bottom serving for traffic and the top covered in trees, bringing a connection to nature and the environment that has been lost for residents. Read the rest of this entry »

Egyptian architects and engineers Gehan Ahmed Nagy Radwan, Sameh Morsj Gad El-Rab Morsi and Ahmed Magdy Ali are heavy on idealism and light on literal plans for their design Stairway to Heaven, a skyscraper design that blends reality and dreams to create a new utopian dimension.

Located within the slums of Cairo, the Egyptians’ entry couples the smiling faces of children and women with a futuristic tower plan that stacks spheres and rectangular living units high into the sky. The opposite shapes are symbolic of the different purposes the structure serves: dream bubbles foster idealism, living cells house real life, and a “main core of hyper cubes” fuses the two, as would a time machine, say the architects, in a way that opens a “fourth dimension” to residents. A new reality is what is truly created when blending dreams of the future with the roots of your past, issues of identity and community considerations. Read the rest of this entry »

Situated along the Great Glacier Trail in Canada, the Discovery Walk design interprets the architectural phrase “natural surroundings” in an extreme manner. The object shifts the attention from itself, humbly accentuating the grandeur of nature.

The 400 feet long boardwalk allows visitors to savor the overwhelming beauty of Jasper Park. Its tectonic structure successively transforms into a glass viewpoint suspended 30 meters above the Sunwapta Valley. Steel was used as an artificial equivalent of surrounding rock, making the design act as a natural extension of the terrain. Use of material and form reveal a strong sustainable approach to building. Read the rest of this entry »