The recent “ArchiSUR” competition was held among the architect and designer members of the Russian social network, Vkontakte. Supported by GRAPHISOFT Russia, the objective of the “Architectural design in ArchiCAD” contest was to implement fresh visions in architecture and design using ArchiCAD. The contestants were not limited to traditional notions of reality and were free to implement the most fantastic architectural design ideas, inspired by the works of surrealistic masterpieces.

The contest received more than 100 projects by architects and designers from across Russia, Belorussia, and Ukraine. The participants competed in three categories: SUR interior, SUR exterior, and SUR idea. Voters identified three of the winning projects in each of the categories; six projects were awarded incentive prizes. Read the rest of this entry »

(c) Philip Hanforth

The new Museum of Liverpool, opening on July 19th will not only tell the story of its importance as one of the World’s great ports or about its cultural influence, such as with the Beatles phenomenon. It will also serve as a meeting point for History, the People of Liverpool and visitors from around the globe. Therefore, according to the Architect, Kim Herforth Nielsen, the structure functions as much more than just a Building or a Museum.

As the largest National Museum to be built in the UK in over 100 years, and situated on a UNESCO World Heritage Site next to Liverpool’s famous ’Three Graces,’ Principal Architect and Creative Director at 3XN Kim Herforth Nielsen was fully aware of the magnitude of the challenge, when it came to designing the new Museum of Liverpool. Read the rest of this entry »

0RN8 is interested in pursuing the creation of novel interiorities through the articulated elaboration of experimental and existing structural systems. The development and differentiation of each tectonic system experiment that is under analysis occurs within the defining parameters of the system’s own inherent logic. The team’s design research work commenced with a variety of parametric design studies, where the issues of frame and fabric were investigated, along with the notion of generating multilayered, tectonic systems, where each of the layers was generated in an autopoietic manner.

After experimenting with generic parametric systems, the filigree interiors of the Gothic tectonic systems were chosen, as historical precedents that are the most efficient, in terms of aesthetic richness, qualitative differentiation, piecemeal construction and part-to-whole relationship intensities. Using the Gothic vault bay tectonic system as a starting point, an analysis of arch, rib and profile curvatures, as well as variable thicknesses and depths takes place, in an attempt to parameterize the entire vault bay structural system. This parameterization will eventually lead to the creation of a novel, autopoietic and parametric, proto-design system, which will give birth to a variety of inherently multi-systematic and adaptive interiorities. Read the rest of this entry »

A nearly 40-year-old municipal parking garage in downtown Manhattan is getting a remarkable cable façade as part of a $4 million renovation of the structure. Winner of a 2011 design award from the NYC Design Commission, the five-story, concrete Delancey and Essex Municipal Parking Garage is being completely rehabilitated in a project for the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT). The design, by Michielli + Wyetzner Architects, is part of Mayor Bloomberg’s Design + Construction Excellence Program which has been led by the New York City Department of Design and Construction since 2004.

The three-dimensional open façade consists of two layers of 1 1/4” diameter cables, material more commonly seen in DOT road barriers, extended in a continuous weave-like pattern from the second to fifth floors. The front layer folds in and out from the flat-planed one behind, creating large-scale moiré patterns that move across the building as the viewer walks or drives up the street. The cable façade replaces a grill-like concrete covering that had begun to deteriorate. Read the rest of this entry »

The objective in designing the ‘Living Bridge’ was to describe a new type of nonlinear algorithmic architecture through the design of an inhabitable bridge in Tokyo.  The chosen site integrates with the residential neighborhoods of Ginza and Tsukishima.  Through the harnessing and intensification of the discrete flows of the two neighborhoods, and through algorithmic generation of turbulent spatial and programmatic structures, a reinvention of the inhabitable bridge type is achieved.

Creating Living Bridge was a three-step process.  Using Processing, the designers identified the movement patterns of people and vehicles in the city, considered them as agent-based systems of entangled flows, and modeled their interactions as a vector field.  Next, they released decking agents to read the vector field, moving through it and creating walking, cycling, and vehicular paths.  Finally, the designers introduced self-organizing components that changed their shape and connectivity depending on the turbulence of the field.  The components thereby simultaneously create, channel, and enclose the interactions of the circulation and programs inhabiting the bridge, leading to a dynamic space that connects and activates the riverfront. Read the rest of this entry »

With the completion of the 2010 Apomechanes studio, which led to the exhibition and publication “apomechanes / non-linear computational design strategies,” the summer studio of 2011 will open a new cycle of research further devoted to the construction of immersive architectural environments. At present, computational techniques are predominantly employed in the optimization, rationalization or surface decoration of more traditionally created wholes. This studio instead focuses on the inherent potential of computation to generate space and of algorithmic procedures to engage self-organization in the design process. Apomechanes 2011 introduces 3 parallel areas of research: immersive spatiotemporal media, feedback material systems and embodied computational ecologies. The studio operates as a design laboratory, investigating these areas at the scale of a temporary pavilion. Participants engage closely with computational processes in order to develop an aesthetic and intuition of complexity that resides in a balance between design intent and emergent character. During the summer studio, participants will create their own custom algorithms appropriate to the research trajectories of choice. Apomechanes will follow up with a second phase of design development (and another workshop) towards the construction of the pavilion in the academic year of 2011/2012. Read the rest of this entry »

The Graft Tower is a Parametric-designed eco-hotel and vertical farm conceived by Diego Taccioli, Sizhe Chen, and Tyler Wallace to be located on the New Monserrate Street at the intersection of the San Juan’s two arterial public transportation routes. It is a net plus resource building that provides water, food, and energy for the neighborhood. The program on the ground levels is an epicenter of commercial activity and services to support the light-rail hub. The tower has a eco-tourism hotel and living units for permanent residents. It is a design using a new language of an interlaced mesh -work of structural columns spiraling into the sky with connecting fingers spreading out to the new plazas below. The structure is literally grown by grafting in-osculate fibers around the basic skeletal frames of the commercial and housing units. Optimizing the frame’s capacity for natural ventilation and cooling, a twisting tower is created, with each unit’s shape stretching toward the west, as determined by wind dynamics. Water is collected at the bottom of each unit and then dispersed throughout the open framework into the vertical farming. The plants grow sporadically throughout the transforming building, as they are able to find water and sunlight. Read the rest of this entry »

The Korean Performance Media Center designed by Cehei Design is situated within a mid-sized residential complex. It promotes a blending of programmatic spaces through the application of a responsive surface media. The display of information and signage prevalent in Koreatown provoked the use of solar powered LED panels which could act to create a new transportation resource (electricity) while also serve as an alluring technology in order to promote the inclusion of a Performance based Media Center at this medium sized residential development. The urban surface in this project is expanded by the use of LED panels which respond to the weight of human interaction and also serve as a new medium for the display of artists residing in the Center. The hopes are that this new center will spawn a drive towards solar resource capture while it provides the culture of the neighborhood with fun and interactive technologies. Read the rest of this entry »

Moh architects is a Vienna based group of architects dedicated to developing an innovative approach towards architecture, urbanism and design. Their work encompasses both methodical research as well as the application of innovative design strategies through built work.

The Askim Museum Competition was about designing a museum for a private art collection. The functional program of roughly 2800 sqm had to be embedded in the surrounding urban fabric in an intelligent way, credibly delivering a strong figure/anchor for the region while not overpowering the delicate natural backdrop.

The site given is located on sloped terrain, slightly elevated from the nearby city center. It is connected through a single road which terminates at a derelict quarry. The design proposes this derelict quarry to be an alternative building grounds rather than the original site, as the existing topographical changes and the resulting voids within the hillside lend themselves almost ideally for the museum’s functional spaces. Read the rest of this entry »

FreelandBuck is an architectural design practice based in New York and Los Angeles whose work assumes that “fabrication and construction can enhance the spatial and sensual qualities of digitally designed form rather than compromise them”. Affiliated with Yale and Woodbury Universities, the team’s work exploits both formal undulation and graphic variation – of pattern, color and material – to synthetically enrich surface and space.

Stack Pavilion is a non-modular construction system, cut and assembled from flat plywood sheets that produce ornate detail and lush pattern directly from its logic of assembly and structure. Here, it is manifest as a dynamically torqued pavilion for exhibitions and lectures designed for the Lightbox Gallery in Sussex, UK. Read the rest of this entry »