Alex Lozano from Miami, Florida  explores ideas of prosthetic architecture. Prosthetics can be subdivided into two categories: 1) those that rehabilitate and 2) those that enhance.
The idea of prosthesis sets up an interesting situation which questions the boundaries between existing private areas and adjacent proposed public programs. Prosthetic architecture has the ability to “cut out” detrimental facades and compromised structure and replaces them with a new formal species which will set up a dialogue between old and new. Read the rest of this entry »

SOFTlab is one of the most talented design studios in New York; they recently won the New Practices New York Award and they need your help to produce an installation at the Bridgegallery in the lower east side of Manhattan. The idea is to fill the gallery by August 26^th with a funnel made out of 5,000 panels of different color.

In order to fund CHROMAtex.me they have created a Kickstarter page. The catch is that if they do not raise the set amount in the remaining days, they will lose all the funds. So, if you have as little as $5 you will help this project become a colorful reality. In addition, there are very interesting rewards including pieces of the actual exhibit mailed to you. Read the rest of this entry »

As a part of the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark the signature Bella Sky Hotel is currently under construction. The towers lean 15 degrees in opposite directions to provide views for all the rooms but still alolows the towers to share a common footprint. Being located adjacent to Copenhagen Airport 3XN Architects had to design two 75m tall (25 floors) towers rather than a single tower to accommodate 800 rooms .

The 42,000 square meter facility is intended to provide a landmark status for Bella Center, host to many international events. A turn on the top floors of the towers is designed to lower wind turbulence around the structures and soften the angularity. The fenestration is angled with the towers lean, an effect enhanced from the interior view. The Bella Hotel recalls the Puerta de Europa twin towers in Madrid, only at a larger scale, becoming the largest hotel in Nordic Europe. Expected to top out this summer the first phase of the Bella Hotel will be completed in spring 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

Architecture firm Peter Rose + Partners has completed the Kripalu Annex, the first step in the firm’s master plan to reshape the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. The project, which reflects Rose’s career-long commitment to ecologically innovative design, has recently been declared a winner of the prestigious AIA National Housing Award in the category of Specialized Housing; just one day later, I.D.’s 2010 Annual Design Review awarded Kripalu an Honorable Mention in the Environments category.

Tucked into 300 acres of dense forest in the Berkshire Mountains, Kripalu (kri-PAH-loo) is the largest and most established yoga retreat in North America. For over 30 years, Kripalu has been teaching skills for optimal living through experiential education for mind, body, and spirit, and this holistic approach was the starting point for the innovative plan that secured Peter Rose the Kripalu commission in 2004. 

According to Rose, “Kripalu’s housing needs are modest and straightforward, but the architecture of the Annex, like yoga itself, is full of subtlety and layers of complexity that gently improve the structure’s performance. Light, air, using minimal means to create a calm, healing environment—it’s all about fulfilling these almost intangible requirements.”

The 80-room Housing Tower is attached to Kripalu’s existing facility through a glazed passage with a planted roof and sunny southern exposure, allowing guests to pass from the older structure to the new one with ease—in their stocking feet if they choose. Under a canopy on the western façade, the primary entrance leads to a modest lobby and a 2,400-square-foot yoga space glazed on two sides, surrounded by dense foliage, and filled with light. Read the rest of this entry »

eVolo Magazine is pleased to invite students, architects, engineers, and designers from around the globe to take part in the 2011 Skyscraper Competition.

The annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition is a forum for the discussion, development, and promotion of innovative concepts for vertical density. It examines the relationship between the skyscraper and the natural world, the skyscraper and the community, and the skyscraper and the city.

The exponential increase of the world’s population and its unprecedented shift from rural to urban areas has prompted hundreds of new developments without adequate urban planning and poor architectural design. The aim of this competition is to redefine what we understand as a skyscraper and initiate a new architectural discourse of economic, environmental, intellectual, and perceptual responsibility that could ultimately modify our cities and improve our way of life.

The use of new materials, technologies, aesthetics, and novel spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution are some of the multi-layered elements that the participants should take into consideration. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community.

There are no restrictions in regards to site, program or size. The objective is to provide maximum freedom to the participants to engage the project without constraints in the most creative way. What is a skyscraper in the 21^st century? What are the historical, contextual, social, urban, and environmental responsibilities of these mega-structures?

Registration

Students, architects, engineers, and designers are invited to participate in the competition. We encourage you to have multidisciplinary teams.

• Participants must register by January 11, 2011.
• Early Registration:  US $65 until November 16, 2010
• Late Registration: US $85 from November 17, 2010 to  January 11, 2011
• One registration = One project.
• Participants may submit various projects, but must register each entry.
• There is no limit as to the number of participants per team. Individual entries are accepted.
• After your registration has been approved eVolo will send the registration number which will be necessary for submission boards.

Schedule

• July 19, 2010 – Competition announcement, registration begins, acceptance of questions
• November 8, 2010 – Deadline for submitting questions
• November 16, 2010 – Early registration deadline
• November 30, 2010 – Answers to questions posted on website
• January 11, 2011 – Late registration deadline
• January 18, 2011 – Project submission deadline
• February 28, 2011 – Winners’ announcement

Submission Requirements

This is a digital competition and no hardcopies are necessary. Entrants must submit their proposal via email no later than January 18, 2011 (23:00 hours US Eastern Time) to the following email address:  skyscraper2011@evolo.us

The project submission must contain the following files:

1. Two boards with the project information including plans, sections, and perspectives. Participants are encouraged to submit all the information they consider necessary to explain their proposal. These boards should be 24″ X 48″ in HORIZONTAL format. The resolution of the boards must be 150 dpi, RGB mode and saved as JPG files. The upper right corner of each board must contain the participation number. There should not be any marks or any other form of identification. The files must be named after the registration number followed by the board number. For example: 0101-1.jpg and 0101-2.jpg.
2. A DOC file containing the project statement (600 words max). This file must be named after the registration number followed by the word “statement”. For example: 0101-statement.doc.
3. A DOC file containing the entrants’ personal information, including name, profession, address, and email. This file must be named after the registration number followed by the word “info”. For example: 0101-info.doc.
4. All the files must be placed in a ZIP folder named after your registration number. For example:  0101.zip

Jury

Benjamin Aranda [principal Aranda\Lasch]
Juan Azulay [principal Matter Management, professor at Southern California Institute of Architecture]
CarloMaria Ciampoli [port director Live Architecture Network]
Mario Cipresso [principal Studio Shift, professor at University of Southern California]
Ted Givens [associate director RMJM]
Eric Goldemberg [principal Monad Studio, professor at Florida International University]
Jose Gonzalez [principal Softlab, professor at Pratt Institute]
John Hill [editor Archidose] 
Mitchell Joachim [principal Terreform One, professor at New York University]
Andrew Liang [principal Studio 0.10., professor at University of Southern California] 
Chris Lasch [principal Aranda\Lasch]
Neri Oxman [principal Materialecology, Presidential Fellow at MIT Media Lab]
Javier Quintana [principal Taller Basico de Arquitectura, Dean of IE School of Architecture]
Rezza Rahdian [Architect, Second Place 2009 Skyscraper Competition]
Michel Rojkind [principal Rojkind Arquitectos]
Michael Szivos [principal Softlab, professor at Pratt Institute]

Regulations

1. This is an anonymous competition and the registration number is the only means of identification.
2. The official language of the competition is English.
3. The registration fee is non-refundable.
4. Contacting the Jury is prohibited.
5. Entrants will be disqualified if any of the competition rules are not considered.
6. Participation assumes acceptance of the regulations.

Awards

• 1st place – US $5000
• 2nd place – US $2000
• 3rd place – US $1000

Winners and special mentions will be published in several print magazines including eVolo_04.
Previous winners have been featured in:

About:Blank Magazine – Portugal, Aeroflot – Russia, Architecture and Culture – Korea, AWM – The Netherlands, B-1 – Thailand, Bauwelt – Germany, Blueprint – United Kingdom, BusinessWeek – USA, C3 – Korea, CAAOH – Ukraine, Casamica – Italy, Casas y Mas – Mexico, Discover Magazine – USA, Enlace – Mexico, Focus – Canada/Italy, Future Arquitecturas – Spain, Grazia Casa – Italy, Indian Architect Builder – India, Kijk – The Netherlands, L’Installatore Italiano – Italy, La Razon – Spain, L’Arca – Italy, Le Fourquet – Mexico, L’Uomo Vogue – Italy, Mark Magazine – The Netherlands, Mladina – Slovenia, NAN – Spain, New Scientist – United Kingdom, Of Arch – Italy, Pasajes de Arquitectura – Spain, Popular Mechanics – USA/Russia, Puls Biznesu – Poland, Quo – China/Spain, RUM – Sweden, Salt Magazine – The Netherlands, Space – Korea, Spade – Canada, Spazio Casa – Italy, Stafette – Germany, Tatlin – Russia, The Broker – The Netherlands, The Outlook Magazine – China, Time Style and Design – USA, Vida Simples Magazine – Brazil, Vogue – Australia, USA, Vox Design – Poland, Wettbewerbe Aktuell – Germany, Wired – USA/Italy, Woongjin – Korea, World Architecture – China

This intriguing skyscraper proposal by Vahan Misakyan designed for the city of Yerevan in Armenia consists of an assemblage of structural geodesics that form three piercing towers linked by habitable bridges at the top and bottom. Different programs, including offices, residences, and hotel are located in each tower – the geodesics change in size and configuration depending on the program. The bridges are used as commercial and recreational areas for the general public.

One of the main concepts of the proposal is to create a soft transition between the vertical and horizontal planes by creating surfaces that peel off from the ground and transform into habitable areas. A transportation hub for the entire region emerges from one of these structures while a second one creates a bridge and a recreational park.

The building is designed with the latest green technologies. An “intelligent” skin controls, through mechanical openings, the amount of light incidence and could also be used to reduce heat and provide natural ventilation. This skin is also equipped with rain water collection systems, photovoltaic cells, and wind turbines. Read the rest of this entry »

Weilun Xu and Chenyi Zhang from the Tongji University in Shanghai explained their vision for a novel skyscraper for modern China:

“A facade in architecture is not only a part of the architecture itself but also an interface with the world outside. Therefore, a facade can well be seen as a medium that integrates the inner space and the outside space. This design is not only symbolic of the traditional Chinese culture but also a practice of new technologies attempting to highlight natural light in terms of time and space.

This high-rise  is situated in the most prosperous economic center of Shanghai. As an economic center of a huge developing country, Shanghai is developing at an exponential speed. The old city as well as the life-style of the old city is disappearing swiftly. Unfortunatley, the demise of chinese life-style may result in oblivion of the traditional Chinese aesthetics. This building is aimed at producing a subtle sense of Chinese beauty like a cheongsam flower. It studies the relations between sunlight and time to achieve geometric variables based on the instant relations between different surfaces.” Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Gassaway and Mitch Rocheleau designed this project that operates as an application of a diagrammatical mapping study to formulate an urban intervention within a pre-existing Eixample block in the Poblenou district of Barcelona, Spain. Intensive on site analyses lead to the generation of a mapping tool which addresses the issues of visual permeability and visual densities within the pre-existing urban condition of the site. Read the rest of this entry »

Architecture students Kim Lagercrantz and Chia-Ching Yang from SCI-Arc talk about their design for a fashion muesum in Los Angeles, California.

Exploring the 2D&3D qualities of flatness and contemporary pop-culture, we intend to develop systems of color, texture and plastics that will produce multiple affects and various degrees of sensation. Relating to the urban obsession for the Surface, the envelope becomes the prime target for an architectural escape that offers immediate satisfaction. Although our building may appear as a solid from the exterior, the interior reveals a new kind of figural condition developed from the initial two-dimensional digital drawing applied to the Surface.

Articulated as floating exhibition Chambers, the elongated rooms open up to the outside revealing views over the city. From the exterior, they appear as glowing stars on the façade. We seek qualities of the ephemeral and temporal, a sense of continuity, but also a clear spatial transition, which reinforces similarities as well as unexpected differences. We are interested in this relationship, the juxtaposition of different qualities, the figure, the effects it may produce. Reaching the opening, color becomes darker, texture deeper, while the epicenter is white revealing a blush inside which eventually fades into new color. Using color we maximize contrast between Surface and Chamber. Read the rest of this entry »

Leading international art-based design studio Urban Art Projects (UAP) today announced their collaboration with artist Ned Kahn, Hassell Sydney,  and the Brisbane (Australia) Airport Corporation (BAC) to convert Brisbane’s new Domestic Terminal short-term multi-level car park in to an eight-storey kinetic public art project.

After being engaged by BAC for the project Urban Art Projects commissioned established American artist Ned Kahn who is known for his innovative works throughout North America and Europe.

Kahn, who has developed an international following for his artworks that incorporate the use of natural elements such as wind and light will collaborate with UAP and BAC’s design team to create a 5000 Sq m kinetic façade for the new Domestic Terminal short-term car park. Read the rest of this entry »