SHoP

The Houston Central Station Competition called for an iconic landmark station situated on the median strip on Main Street, between Capitol and Rusk. Here are the proposals of five award winning firms:

The proposal designed by ShoP Architects references the form of traditional train stations: columns supporting vaulted ceilings, lofted spaces that conjured images of grandeur, a firmness and solidarity that resonated with its surroundings. The tent like structure stretches beyond the platform, encompassing the surrounding urban space, thus breaking free from the restrictive narrow site. The 100 foot solar chimneys provide relief from heat, offer natural ventilation, helping air circulation. The form of the chimneys directs the rainwater so it wouldn’t disrupt the passenger flow.

Neil M. Denari Architects offered a steel structure; the concept was derived from the prevalent steel buildings of Houston, particularly Mies van der Rohe’s Museum of Fine Arts. The use of color evokes the surrounding icons of art and architecture, including sculptural works by Calder and even the George R. Brown convention center a few blocks away. Structure, signage, ticketing, lighting and seating are integrated and pertain to the single unique design gesture. Read the rest of this entry »

The venerable 200 year old Städel Museum has just reopened after a major 3 year remodeling which, from the exterior, is a no more than a modest if not unique pokadotted lawn. Frankfurt’s hometown architecture firm schneider+schumacher used a subterranean program to provide 3,000 square meters of space for post war and contemporary art. Like massive portals the 195 circular skylights connect the underground space directly with sky creating a tension between landscape, form and light. Read the rest of this entry »

Organized by the Chengdu Ministry of Culture and the Chengdu Culture and Tourism Development Group, the Competition for the Chinese MoMA was part of an initiative for creating a double ring of public facilities around the Tianfu Square in Chengdu. The first ring is supposed to consist of cultural facilities. The second and larger one is planned for highrises.

Designed by Studio Ramoprimo, the winning entry proposes a dialogue with the surrounding, drawing physical references from the existing urban and architectural condition. The basic idea is to enlarge the existing public space of Tianfu Square and make it “climbing” on the roof of the new building. The new museum is a group of volumes creating a small cultural city. Read the rest of this entry »

Anemone is an art installation aimed at waving together aesthetic experience and tactile engagement- a combination generally considered off limits within the world of contemporary art. All too often, art installations are considered precious, almost sacred objects; while they are meant to be appreciated for their aesthetic beauty, they offer little in terms of human interaction. In other words, they are meant to be seen, not felt. Recognizing that human engagement is one of the key factors in creating a rich experience, Anemone has been designed with the idea of interaction as one of its key design objectives. Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to inform you that The Wall Street Journal featured our Limited Edition Book EVOLO SKYSCRAPERS during the weekend. The full-page article highlights the role of the eVolo Skyscraper Competition in showcasing “the next generation of big buildings…the new book compiles 300 of these plans, divided into categories like technological advances, ecological urbanism and social solutions. Some of the designs tackle familiar problems, like the need for parking space, but others are more forward-looking, like buildings that incorporate robotics or are capable of flying”.

The book has a limited print run of 500 copies and the last few are exclusively available here. Read the rest of this entry »

©Ho Kyung Lee

BIG + Times Square Alliance + Flatcut + Local Projects and Zumtobel celebrate the Valentine’s Day with an interactive heart installation at Times Square, New York utilizing the flow of people, air and touch to bring the heart to life.

“BIG♥NYC,” a 10-foot tall glowing heart sculpture consists of 400 transparent, LED lit, acrylic tubes donated generously by the Austrian lighting company Zumtobel. The transparent tubes refract the lights of Times Square, creating a cluster of lights around the heart. The hovering heart will appear to pulsate as its tubes sway in the wind. When people touch a heart-shaped sensor, the heart will glow brighter and beat faster as the energy from their hands is converted into more light. Read the rest of this entry »

Part of a worldwide research network conducted by PlanktonTech Institute, the COCOON_FS is a structure that integrates architectural sculpture, new technologies and biomimetic principles. As the Institute’s focus is on basic research of marine plankton organisms such as diatoms, the intention of the project is to develop as a material efficient construction by learning from natural lightweight composite structures. Pohl Architekten created a technical solution by translating natural lightweight constructions into technical prototypes using highly efficient technical fibers. It is a floating system that embodies the activities of PlanktonTech. Read the rest of this entry »

Under a commission for the show Pavilions for New Architecture at the Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) in Melbourne, Australia, Elenberg Fraser Architecture contributed a darkly disorienting space. The pavilion is built at 1:3 scale for the exhibition and explores the viewers spatial relationship with form, creating a geometrically altered reality. Visitors crawl through the black plastic envelope on a glass walk and can be observed from various ‘portals’ extending from the vessel. The play in scale, shape and light give the pavilion a sensory manipulation often only described in two dimensional renderings of geometric abstract environments. The manipulation of visual space within the small pavilion creates an illusion of a vast inner world not connected to the same plane of that of its outer vessel in our reality. Read the rest of this entry »

Prickly Pear is an installation proposal for the work of Nicola Formichetti designed by Barker Freeman Design Office that proposes an immersive sensory environment with changing color tones that can correspond to changing music, body movement, or merchandise within the space. Our concept was to insert an enveloping volume of stretchy translucent netting that would capture and reflect the shifting light spectrum emitted from the system of custom LED fixtures. The lighting could be programmed on a pre-set script or it could be set to respond to environmental changes. Read the rest of this entry »

After graduating from MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins, Chinese designer Zhang Zhoujie founded his own laboratory where he today explores furniture concepts based on traditional Chinese fine art. One of his most elaborate projects is the Triangulation Series which investigates the relationship between computer technologies and Wu Wei, one of the principles of Taoism. It means “lack of intervention”.

The Triangulation Project is based on the interaction of faceted triangular surfaces. These objects are created through a process of evolution, establishing families of objects with common predecessors. By creating different typologies based on the initial geometry, the laboratory offers a possibility of creating personalized chair designs by taking key measurements from the customer. The device which performs the actual measuring is in the form of hundreds of sensors embedded into a measuring apparatus. Gathered data can be directly imported into the digital model.

The fabrication process begins with turning the digital output of the 3d model into a 2d layout of individual triangles which creates data for the laser cutting phase.  The shapes are then cut-out of the base material (stainless steel or titanium). After receiving the material a precise set of angle guides are produces for each of the different contact angles present on the chair. These are then used to bend the individual metal elements into the correct alignment based on an angle map, also created from the 2d layout. Read the rest of this entry »