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

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 »

Capital Gate is a new building forming the entrance to Capital Centre, a major development project in Abu Dhabi and is designed by RMJM Architects.  It is an advanced parametrically designed tower sitting at 160 meters featuring a leaning façade of 18 degrees off horizontal. This technically has given it the title of the most substantial lean to a building in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The building contains a substantial concrete core slightly off center that carries the cantilevered floors. 490 pilings were cored to a depth of 30 meters to counteract the cantilever. A diagrid exterior structure made of triangular tubular steel units creates a ridged mesh to add support and act as a frame for the custom glazing units. The exterior was also developed to reduce the supports mass, thus weight. The triangular glass is a double glazing unit and is custom cut to fit the constantly changing form of the building’s skin. The individual units were installed in a prebuilt panel that was then secured to the diagrid structure. The building’s exhaust air cycled between the panes of glass to lower the radiant temperature. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Maria Mingallon, Sakthivel Ramaswamy, Konstantinos Karatzas

Fibre composite adaptive systems is a research project which emulates self-organisation processes in nature by developing a fibre composite that can sense, actuate and hence efficiently adapt to changing environmental conditions. Fibre composites which are anisotropic and heterogeneous offer the possibility for local variations in their material properties. Embedded fibre optics would be used to sense multiple parameters and shape memory alloys integrated in a fibre composite material for actuation. The definition of the geometry, both locally and globally would complement the adaptive functions and hence the system would display ’Integrated Functionality’. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Readers,

We are very excited to be celebrating the first anniversary of our print journal. It has been an unforgettable ride and an enormous satisfaction to discover and promote the work of excellent new designers that are pushing the boundaries of architectural design.   

We would like to show our gratitude and offer you a 50% off discount on our second issue ‘Skyscrapers of the Future’.  This offer is available worldwide all of June.

Thank you for an amazing year!

Skyscrapers of the Future

USA – 50% OFF One-year Anniversary Offer

International – 50% OFF One-year Anniversary Offer Read the rest of this entry »

Although lacking an intriguing name, the “Multi-Storey Building” designed by Athens-based Kois Associated Architects has a very intriguing facade. Backed up against a living green wall, the mixed use building for Amman, Jordon, was designed after a study of Jordanian architecture, which informed the final volume of the building. A traditional block glass walled building is covered in a veil that has openings or shadings depending on the corresponding need for the program on that level. The veil acts as a boundary to the city, and the entrances on the street level are like gates into the building, providing a transition zone to those entering. Read the rest of this entry »

Award-winning architecture studio Asymptote, directed by Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture, recently unveiled their design for the FCD Yongsan Landmark Tower in Seoul, Korea.  The tower was conceived by Asymptote and engineered by Thorton Tomassetti. It was designed to confront the notion of a single spire, instead, proposes the idea of coupling and stringing three towers together.  According to Asymptote, “the inherent symbolism and reading of this tower will appeal to the global community and place a focus on South Korea, specifically Seoul’s aspirations for the future. Read the rest of this entry »

Construction on the sustainable headquarters for the City of Masdar in Abu Dubai has recently started and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City as part of the 2010 National Design Triennial. Masdar Headquarters, designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, is on display until January 9th, 2011 along with 134 projects from 44 countries that all promote environmental stewardship, social equity, accessibility and creative capital. The centerpiece of Masdar City is slated for LEED Platinum certification and will be a positive energy, zero waste development. Read the rest of this entry »

London-based architect Daniel Widrig designed a set of stackable side tables for a private exhibition in London. Its organic and nature-inspired geometry, fluid lines, and colors remind us Art Nouveau at the turn of the 20^th century. Read the rest of this entry »