a/LTA architectes unveiled their winning design for 142 homes in Nantes, France. The project was conceived as a sustainable neighborhood with green technologies and a highly articulated landscape. The design consists of three housing buildings placed on top of a retail plinth. The whole is articulated by a landscaped garden with vegetal and mineral nuances.

The architects believe that “beautiful” housing accommodations are bright, well-oriented and offer large views. That is why they developed for the three buildings, views to the city center of Nantes and to the river. They used the same codes and registers, but declined for each operation. The aim is to distinguish each entity while having an overall unity. Thus, the staging of homes through their extension outside (loggias, terraces), scripted buildings from public spaces. The inherent quality of the housing draws the facades. The architecture emphasizes the use and the opportunity offered by the housing. Read the rest of this entry »

Solar Shift is a proposal for an exterior art piece for the new Evansville Arena. Design by PROJECTiONE LLC, the structure looks at the large public outdoor space in combination with concepts of sustainable interactive lighting.  The project will dynamically change in response to individuals and groups in the space through the use of motion sensors, photovoltaics, and LED lighting.

Solar Shift is created as a fully self contained system that acts as a solar collector, using photovoltaic panels to charge during the day, and in turn power the reactive lighting in the evening. As the sun sets each day, the project shifts and slowly comes to life, recognizing the individuals inhabiting it and lighting up to follow their movement in space. Each component in the system will power itself and react independently, eliminating any electrical connections between panels or tapping into an existing power grid. Read the rest of this entry »

Architects at 10 Design have designed a prototype house able to tackle extreme weather. Equipped with high-tech mechanisms for tornado evasion and flood resistance, the building is able to change positions in order to avoid damage. The house has a set of hydraulic levers that are activated by high-velocity winds that can pull the house into the ground to safety. Once the house is underground, the roof locks to make it water and wind proof. With the optimal environmental conditions re-established, the building emerges, exposing its inhabitants to open air and natural light. Ted Givens, a design partner at 10 Design, apparently has a vision of communities wired up with sensors and can process weather data to tuck away the homes in case of an emergency. Read the rest of this entry »

OFL Architecture is an interdisciplinary practice established by Francesco Lipari in 2008, currently based in Rome. Aiming to combine Art, Sculpture, Biology and Cinema, they engage in various international competitions and tackle a wide range of architectural typologies. Receiving several prizes: the honorable mention at the Hong Kong Noise Barrier Competition with the Riccio project, as well as the first prize for the Silk Road Map International Competition, their work is considered provocative, as it ranges from referencing historical architecture to issues of future housing. Read the rest of this entry »

Target, the box retailer who’s appeal for quality design at low prices has not been evident in their store design commissioned the Target Tower. The concept store, unveiled by Belzburg Architects, is an attempt to reorganize the urban retail experience. A residential tower looming above is the expression of how density drives a better marketplace. The store itself spreads out in an undulating fashion with elevations rising, falling and merging to create a more naturalized effect. The multiple scales of the project are intended to provide mass and density to the city while still providing an approachable exterior that does not overwhelm the neighborhood.

This concept is a rebranding of sort, creating high design principles with integrated sustainable practices takes recent developments in Wal-Mart retail stores and adds a distinctive architectural narrative. Daylight within the store is added with large perimeter windows and slivers of skylights though the main body of the building. The perimeter is also scaled to meet street level, creating a more approachable store front. Read the rest of this entry »

For the hundredth birthday of the creation of “Taiwan R.O.C.”, the main aim of the Taichung City Government is to honour the local building traditions and symbolize the new Taiwan dynamics into economic, political, social and cultural achievements.

International model of the green building of the 21st century, the innovative and pioneering design of the Bionic Arch by Vincent Callebaut Architecture is part of the new master plan “Taichung Gateway – Active Gateway City”, the future urban oasis for lifestyle, innovation, culture and biodiversity in the heart of Central Taiwan.

The green tower combines and surpasses the nine major indicators defining a green building by law, and intensifies the relation between the building site and the surrounding Taichung Gateway Park, including an environmental integration of the park and the green land, the integration of green vertical platforms, sky gardens and living façades, interaction between human and natural environments. It actively contributes to the development of the use of new sustainable energies (solar and wind generated power, coupled with botanical and bio-technologies), emphasizes cohabitation and respectful attitude in order to reach even higher standards than regular green buildings. Read the rest of this entry »

New York City’s Watershed is in crisis. Not only is there a larger demand for water due to the growth of the population, but due to further suburban development in upland areas, water catchment sites are not as hygienic as before. Within the Croton Watershed lies Carmel,  a suburban town in Putnam County with large basins for water catchment integrated into a developed suburban community. The distributed system currently in place for the dispersal of sewage, though, has a very high risk of contaminating the watershed.

Based on a topological study using sand and cavities to represent the density and area of groundwater contamination risk, a landscape was generated by Carla Lores and Michael Yarisnky. The areas that are highest upland have the highest ground water capacity and lowest contamination risk, and the areas downland have the lowest capacity and highest risk. This relationship is key to the remediation strategy, by creating a topography that channels effluent water to these specific sites. The exo-landscape is then populated with components that not only allow the material flow relationship but can also be modulated to allow for varying lighting conditions and the ability to contain soil and plants. This passive system is then activated by integrated pumps that draw sewage to biogas processing sites. Read the rest of this entry »

Inspired by the jagged and characteristic landscape of Lanzarote the Palacio de Congresos by Henning Larsen Architects emphasises the surrounding nature. The building is an elegant mountain of lava with an inner red glow and a vivacious inner life. The building is designed to become the new cultural converting point for Lanzarote and a showcase of the islands characteristics, the vast nature with mountains, ocean and the high sky. The building is created for this place and this place alone. The crystalline shape accentuates the identity and evolves the profile of the city. As a geological formation it creates a special skyline for the city and the island. With a silhouette similar to a mountain ridge the compo-sition creates a foreground and background in constant change, depend-ing on the different viewpoints.

From Arrecife, the Palacio de Congresos is very visible and significant at the end of the promenade. With no rear side, the building will appear a landmark from the ocean, the city and from all the access roads. The main entrance hall is elevated from the traffic and opens up towards the city and the ocean promenade. It welcomes visitors and shows the inner glow and activity, and the city park is activated as a part of the en-trance plaza, leading the way to the “red carpet area” and a grand entry of the building. One collective foyer, as a cave, accomplishes visual contact to all levels and converts, with precise views back to the city and the city park, the skyline of the mountains, the ocean horizon and the sky. Read the rest of this entry »

Innen Stadt Auen (Inner City Out) is the first solo exhibition by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in a Berlin institution. The central theme of the show, which has been curated especially for the Martin-Gropius-Bau by Daniel Birnbaum, is Berlin, the city in which the artist has lived and worked for many years. Here he has set up his multifaceted studio, which combines research, experimentation and production; and as a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts founded the Institut fr Raumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experiments) in April 2009. The exhibition concerns itself closely with the relationship between museum and city, architecture and landscape, and space, body and time. The site-specific investigations within the museum are amplified through various projects in public space, thus linking the Martin-Gropius-Bau to other places within the city. The entire project includes 28 works, most of which have been created especially for this occasion. Read the rest of this entry »

This opera house designed by Emergent is a synthetic mountain. It stands in stark contrast to the horizontality of the Marine Culture District, and relates to the mountainous topography that bounds and characterizes the city. It can be seen from all over the bay as a strong silhouette.

The mountain contains two nested volumes which house the 2,000 seat Opera and the 1,300 seat Multifunctional Theater. The outer shell of the mountain loosely contains these volumes, sometimes fusing with them, sometimes vaulting over them, and sometimes dissolving away to create views and passageways through a cavernous public space. Openings in the mountain are positioned towards picturesque views of the city and the waterfront.

The manifold skin of the mountain varies from razor-thin and roof-like to extremely thick and spatial, where it is packed with public amenities and private support functions. Elevator cores and other circulation elements also inhabit these poché spaces rather than being expressed. The double-layer mass is therefore an organizational device rather than simply a formal expression. Read the rest of this entry »