The Ecological Wall is a project designed by Polish architecture student Stanislaw Mlynski for an international competition organized by National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT) School of Architecture.

“I proposed to create structural wall using organic waste containers. I believe that arrangement of elements, as well as their shape have potential to create shelters for animals, gather water, reduce CO2 . The solar system has the aim to ensure energetic independence.

The subject of my interest was every -existing or built in the future- useless, dirty, not-adapted city wall. As in nature every organism consist of huge amount of repetitious cells, which ensure reliability, I decided also to make up a universal modular system, which will allow to transform industrial building, grey skyscrapers, office blocks or even typical fences in green ecosystems. Such system would also provide with possibility to create buildings. On every step of the project I was seeking inspirations in nature, because to my mind it is the master of OPTIMIZATION and usage of resources from surrounding (to which it is trying to adjust). Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Meridian 105 Architecture, Lincoln Mixed Use is a proposal for an urban mixed-use complex in Denver, CO, consisting of a hotel, retail, parking structure, restaurant, and movie theater. The building is sited on a transition lot between high-rise residential and a primary commercial corridor running through the city. Overlapping, cross circulation is established onsite, easing visitors through the various program uses between these two zones.

The building enclosure employs an aggressive energy strategy, with the hotel facade designed to perform as a twin glazed assembly, but consisting of prefabricated window units in lieu of labor intensive curtainwall installation. The units have densely fritted top and side panels angled to resist solar gain into the cavity during the summer, while allowing it to heat the shell in the winter. The facade is naturally vented in the summertime by the heat stack effect, with air intake at the base and exhaust at the top. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by CLS, headed by award winning Architect Darren Chan, the “Helios Rehab Sanctuary” innovates application of sustainable technologies.

Within an ethereal rehabilitating tower, shades of society gather forming communities of hope. Occupants are treated with supported clean peaceful living. The tower, vertically zoned, focuses on healing the BODY (lower), MIND (mid-section) and SPIRIT (high).

Truly sustainable cities should focus on the economy of resources but also the health of the people. Sufferers briefly “escape” pressured living to rehabilitate within the tower and ultimately release back into society.

The tensegrity-network-based outer-frame houses horizontal access to pods via green ramps. The “hexa-skin” and pod shells incorporate air pollution cleansing TX-Active integrated white panels which also reflect light onto the Solyndra Solar rod arrays encasing the kinetic pods. The Solyndra capture direct, diffused and reflected sunlight across 360-degree photovoltaic surfaces. Depending on climatic variation, it opens promoting cooling and the rod-system induces ventilation and views, it closes for protection, insulation and energy saving. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cloud Room designed by Shanghai-based One Design Inc. sits on the roof terrace of the National Art Museum of China, a historical landmark from the 1960’s in Beijing.

The outside white polycarbonate panels follow a computer generated cloud-like profile. Each piece revolves according to the wind, casting moving shadows and reflections onto a second layer of translucent polycarbonate. Standing inside, people can think of this cloud room as an apparatus of urban observation or meditation – the translucent interior screen gives a mix of vague pixel urban image intertwined with wind and sun.

This Beijing installation can be a starting point of a sequence of works. As the exhibition is travelling to Taiwan this summer, The Cloud Room is expected to transform and to dialogue with the mild and warm environment of Taichung. Read the rest of this entry »

The shortlist for the Victoria and Albert Museum Exhibition Road Design Competition have been announced and has been catching quite a lot of attention in the past week. One of the seven shortlisted projects, a team effort by Norway’s Snohetta Architects and Scotland’s Gareth Hoskins Architects, is an eye-catching sleek and contemporary design for one of London’s finest and historic public buildings.

The competition is to design a new courtyard and gallery space located on the Exhibition Road side of the V&A Museum. The courtyard will serve as a new entrance and exhibition space, the gallery will be located under street level and will be connected with and integrated into the courtyard design. The new design will also be a part of the larger re-development and pedestrianisation of Exhibition Road led by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Read the rest of this entry »

Stefan Ritter designed a proposal for an extension to the Riga International Airport in Latvia. The project’s architectural effects are based on three distinct surface qualities (clad solids, screened semi solids, and exposed trusses) which are composed over a geometric system with a strong tectonic expression. The consequence is a tension of simultaneous perception of surface figures juxtaposed with geometric volumes. The architecture becomes an esthetical experience of oscillating volumetric readings throughout the spaces of the building.

The terminal is an extension of Riga international airport for airBaltic. The architecture is concentrated on the roof – creating an artificial sky that modulates the spaces of the main hall through its undulations. The geometry condenses at the slowest point of circulation (security check) and expands towards the two gate arms, thus amplifying the circulation flows and simultaneously orientating passengers in the building. The main hall is subdivided into zones of land-side and air-side circulation by the cladding patterns of the roof and broken into rooms by “fake columns” that replace walls – they come down from the ceiling but don’t or just barely touch the ground. The roof includes spaces for longer waiting periods for transfer passengers, with an atmosphere of a semi underwater camera – looking down into the terminal hall, through the structure, and up over the roof scape out to the airplanes taking off and landing.

via suckerPUNCH Read the rest of this entry »

When David Adjaye was commissioned to design the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management, he turned to the works of Russian artist Kazimir Malevich for inspiration. Adjaye stated that he wanted to create a work that was both reflective of the Russian culture, as well as the school’s innovative and progressive nature. As the campus’s inaugural building, the project offered Adjaye a sense of autonomy, as well as the opportunity to redefine the traditional campus scheme. In addition, Skolkovo enabled the transposition of the emotive nuances found in Adjaye’s residential designs, to his largest work to date. Read the rest of this entry »

P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S & Maxi Spina are on familiar terrain with the design of Jujuy Redux, an apartment building currently under construction in Rosario, Argentina. With Jujuy 2056 completed less than ten years ago, the team returns to the same street to continue their exploration and invention. Situated on a corner site in a low density neighborhood, Jujuy Redux challenges the inescapable components and conventional assemblage of mid-rise housing.

The design centers on the engagement of the building envelope (balconies, projecting slabs, windows strips, etc.) in an unorthodox manner as to dissipate the homogeneity of vertical housing. Rather than stacking the components, the design uses torsion as an apparatus to carry them up the façade. The balconies peel away at the corners and torque backwards to create horizontal surfaces, while also framing the surrounding views. Undulation along the facades presents Jujuy as simultaneously heavy and light relative to one’s vantage point. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed for a location on the Umedalen Sculpture Park in Umea, Sweden, BIG’s hockey rink utilizes the local topography to connect interior and exterior design in a clean and seamless program. BIG was commissioned for the rink by Balticgruppen Fastigheter AB, a local real estate group. Post-design and construction considerations are currently in progress.

The Bjarke Ingels Group‘s (BIG) most important design goal in creating this hockey rink was to create a space that would not only maintain the natural qualities of the site but embrace them. In this case the dominating feature of the site is it’s natural recessed bowl shape, which the hockey rink structure becomes an extension of. The structure would also have to be designed to flow seamlessly with the surrounding Umedalen Sculpture Park. Read the rest of this entry »

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) have been selected as one of two winners in the E2 (Ecology and Economy) competition in Finland. The international competition was to design a sustainable timber construction multi-story residential unit that will be constructed at a pilot site outside of Kouvola, Finland. BIG’s design was chosen by the jury for the unique living environment it creates as well as the architects’ consideration of environment in the design process. The Arup Gmbh team’s design E2volution shared the first place award, chosen for its structural clarity as well for the speed and cost-effectiveness of construction.

The real design BIG has created is not the snaking design that will be constructed outside Kouvola, but the pre-fab timber construction system they call PUU-BO. PUU-BO is a multi-purpose modular system for use in any environment or typology. Like LEGO blocks they can be stacked and attached specifically for the site they will be built at. The designers drew influence from Le Corbusier’s DOMI-NO concrete structure system with PUU-BO, and see PUU-BO as a sort of updated re-imagination of the DOMI-NO system made to address the sustainable and resourceful demands of 21^st century design. Read the rest of this entry »