Mexico City’s most provocative building may be underground. A 65 thousand square meter shopping mall and parking garage will be submerged 18 meters beneath an urban park in Santa Fe City Center. KMD Architect’s design for the multiuse space adds much needed private infrastructure to the area without subtracting from the public good. The result is layers of program that seamlessly transition from the street to the park to the retail environment below. Shops and entertainment venues will be the primary use with the park containing a jogging track, water features, trees, grass, and a performance space. Three levels of tucked under parking for 1600 cars will accommodate the complex and neighboring buildings. Read the rest of this entry »

The Board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority announced they have chosen the Foster + Partners designed “City Park” for the massive West Kowloon Cultural District project. Foster + Partners design is a flowing mixture of 230,000 sq meters open park space and 32,000 sq meters of arts and cultural facilities.

Nineteen hectares of green park space dominate the District’s mammoth footprint. Foster + Partners wanted to the park to reflect that environment and filled it with the flora of the Hong Kong countryside and exotic specimens from around the world. The tree groves become denser closer to the center of the park, to create a shady canopy for visitors to enjoy on summer days. The park will be dotted with pavilions, gathering areas, public art installations, and an outdoor amphitheatre.

The district typology will be balanced out by a comprehensive arts and culture district.  Woven in, out, and around the green space will be exhibition centers, concert and chamber halls, a hotel, a library and media center, and even a 2.2km continuous shaded waterfront promenade. Read the rest of this entry »

De bartolo + riminac has released their proposal for their East Village Stadium intended house the San Diego Chargers NFL team. The East Village Stadium would replace the current home of the Chargers, Qualcomm Stadium, with a Super Bowl caliber site. The unique design of the stadium structure is inspired both by the Charger’s team colors and logo and the urban fabric of San Diego. The design is a collaboration by de bartolo + riminac with McCullough Landscape Architects. Images were created in collaboration with Design SubContracting Co.

For the main structure of the stadium, de bartolo +riminac flipped the Chargers’ lightning bolt logo and created a pinwheel-like circular structure. The shape is also an attempt by the architects to re-imagination of the concept of the civic center as a structure that outwardly embraces the surrounding cityscape and climate instead of focusing buildings towards a center point.

The stadium is planned for an area that links San Diego’s growing green space network of parks that is currently parking lots and train tracks. de bartolo + riminac want to embrace the connection with a new civic center for the city. The site is also an epicenter of public transportation, which allows the East Village Stadium to be easily accessible by bus, train, and trolleys. Read the rest of this entry »

BIG + Grontmij + Spacescape are the winning team for the Stockholmsporten master plan competition to design an inviting new entrance portal into Stockholm at the intersection of a newly planned super-junction.

The planned Hjulsta Intersection 15 km north of Stockholm where two European highways the E18 and E4 Bypasses converge into a three level intersection, amounts to the largest infrastructure project in Sweden, required due to the growth and development of the capital. The Stockholmsporten competition seeks to define the Hjulsta intersection through sculpting the surrounding landscape and framing the automotive scale of the intersection. Additionally the proposal connects the adjacent Järvafäl¬tet recreation area through a continuous promenade to the distinctive natural and heritage-laden environment and adds new qualities to the site. BIG was selected as the winner of the invited competition among proposals from Norwegian Snøhetta, Danish landscape architect Kristine Jensen and Swedish Erik Giudice Architects.

”The magnificent bowl shape of this proposal is an ingenious solution which interacts with the geometry of the intersection while at the same time creating an urban context linking together the different areas surrounding the site. Possibilities of adding qualities and activities to the place which will benefit residents are very elegantly added.” Jury Report, Stockholmsporten.

Prior to this competition, the intersecting roads would create physical and visual barriers between the surrounding neighborhoods and divide them into four areas totaling 580.000 m2. BIG’s proposal, the Energy Valley, re-connects these in an un-hierarchical and democratic way through a continuous circular bike and pedestrian loop aligned with public buildings and functions, including a shopping- and sports centre, a hammam and a mosque which will attract visitors from Stockholm and its suburbs. Read the rest of this entry »

MVRDV announced Thursday that the first phase of construction has begun on the Future Towers project of Amanora Apartment City in Pune, Maharashta, India. Then tower complex will offer 1,068 units, and is part of the masterplan for the larger 400 thousand square meters, 3,500 unit Amanora Park Town development. MVRDV was commissioned to design the towers by City Corporation Ltd, a leading Indian real estate development corporation in Maharashtra.

The Future Towers is MVRDV’s attempt to answer the prevalence of “monotonous large scale housing estates” in India and re-introduce the values of the vertical city by “(introducing) lost qualities to mass housing: increased density combined with amenities, public facilities, parks and a mix of inhabitants”.

MVRDV says the “peaks, valleys, canyons, bays, grottos and caves” of the exterior structure are what gives character and identity to the city. The hexagonal footprint and multilayered vertical structure maximize the sunlight each apartment receives and provides views. The hill shape also offers more spacious balconies and garden space for the top apartments. Read the rest of this entry »

This design by Ameller-Dubois Associés was unveiled Friday as the winner of an international competition for a Russian Orthodox Church and Cultural Center in Paris. The Franco-Russian firm brought together traditional Russian Orthodox architecture and contemporary design concepts in their winning entry.

The project comprises three main elements: a base for the cultural center, the contemporary church rising on this base, and a central garden as an outdoors mediation and reflection space. The garden will be filled with birch and oak trees, both endemic to Russia.

Traditional Eastern Orthodox churches maintain specific architectural elements crucial for identification and legitimacy within the Orthodox canon. Ameller, Dubois Associés made 21^st century interpretations of from these traditional elements. For example, the traditional domes atop the church structure were taken and redrawn by the architects in a ribbon-like design that’s “immaterial delicacy refers to the immateriality of the divine presence… bold structure is a fervent hymn to the courage of the apostles and martyrs…(and) visual purity of this group of domes, almost vibrating, evokes the purity of heavenly light”. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago firm STL has released it’s finalist entry for the Torres De Cotillas Competition in Las Torres De Cotillas, Spain. Their proposal is for a 21^st century styled auditorium and performing arts center. The auditorium and arts center is meant to be located within a proposed office park, and to thrive on the public activity the office park would bring.

STL designed the exterior structure like one would mold a piece of clay. They started with a pentagon like shape and “pulled” up from the center to draw the centers of each wall inward. Then they “pushed” the center of the structure back down to create multi-purpose amphitheatre-like space to host activities, social meetings, performances, and showings. Directly underneath the open air theater will be an auditorium to hold concerts and performances.

The formal auditorium space and the multi-purpose amphitheatre make the Torres De Cotillas Performing Arts Center a truly multi-functional building. They offer flexibility and room for expansion to hosted programs and will give the Center range to host a larger variety of programs than singular outdoor spaces or auditoriums can. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tena Tower is a massive 640,000 square meter development project for the town of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Designed by Paris based architect Manuelle Gauntrand, the Tena Tower project is meant to be an entirely energy self-sufficient oasis to draw in foreign and internal investments to Burkina Faso.

Gauntrand began her design by establishing a 180,000 square meter man-made lake to design the complex about. Although visually dominated by the 96 ft. tower on the northwest side of the development, the Tena Tower masterplan includes 80 villas, a park system, and a number of mixed used facilities to be built around the new lake.

Surrounding the lake in an emulating pattern are 14 massive groves of photovoltaic cells to power the villas and facilities. The pattern of the lake and groves were inspired by the feathers of a peacock. Parks, recreation areas, and promenades surround the lake and weave in and throughout the villa complexes.

The tower itself will house a hotel, 50 apartments, offices, and restaurants. A lace of metallic panels is extended beyond the facade, twisted to efficiently filter light but maintain views to the surrounding landscapes. Between the lace and façade will be periodic terraces to further emphasize viewing. Like a woman’s dress at the ankles, the lace lays outward at the base of the tower to cover the lobby and lower facilities. Read the rest of this entry »

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation students David Zhai and Alexis Burson jumped way ahead of the curb with their “Ubiquitious Network” entry into the d3: Housing Tomorrow competition. Their fusion of data exchange, living space, and urban farming earned them a selection in the New York category of the competition.

The design is for an arrangement of high and low density housing to be built around a network of towers containing vertical farms and data servers.  Revenue from the servers would be used to offset housing costs for residents and their excess heat would be used like in a greenhouse to help grow food in the vertical farms.Parking is all located underground and a light rail system is proposed to run through the development.

This interwoven information grid provides a perfect system to build a smart complex on. Internal communication and socialization is encouraged by the system. Integrated biometrics provide feedback on health and lifestyle and will even be used in harmony with emergency services. When households wish for more privacy, a technology called the “Data Negation Space”, a 21^st century membrane akin to the Faraday Cage of the 19^th allows residents to filter in and out certain information or even cut off feedback altogether. Read the rest of this entry »

Power Flower is an exploration by Amsterdam based NL Architects to create aesthetically pleasing and adaptable windmills for use in all environments, particularly in urban settings. To create a design that is one part power plant one part art, NL asked themselves the question: “Can we turn windmills into objects of desire?”

NL began by examining current windmill design: the typical three-rotor, and horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) design. These windmills require a large amount of space around them to operate safely and efficiently. This of course leaves significant unworkable space between mills that could be used to capture more energy. Not to mention they must be placed at a safe distance from homes, where that energy is needed, a particular hindrance to use in urban settings. Read the rest of this entry »