Newsweek recently asked three leading architecture firms to imagine what our future cities would look like in 2030. They posed the question to Richard Meier & Partners, Cooper Robertson & Partners and HOK and had them take a look at the future of New York City, and how the way we commute, live, work and play would all change. All of the firms proposed that sustainability would be a major factor in our development, with more efficient transportation and buildings, more green space, more walking and homes that are closer to our place of work. The firms underlying vision of the future was that quality of life was richer and healthier as a result of the sustainable advances.

Richard Meier & Partners proposed that waterfront areas would be covered in green spaces to add more recreational places for city residents. While transportation along the North and South cooridors, the cross town transportation needs significant improvement. They proposed strengthening cross town public transportation and adding destinations at the end of the nodes. In the future, Richard Meier & Partners thinks that people will work closer to where they live to reduce time spent commuting and that the segregation between work areas and live areas will lessen.

Richard Meier – Live Work

Richard Meier – Recreation Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Kenneth Loh and Michelle Lim this project is an investigation for a new urban prototype of solar powered towers. The entire façade is covered with a thin membrane of solar cells and a water collector system. The main idea is to develop a green building with different types of programs. The building core is a hollowed cylinder that moves hot air from the surface and creates micro-climates for gardens, farm fields, and recreational areas. Residential units for low, medium, and high density are attached to a continuous ramp or street. Along the entire structure there will be ‘pockets’ of different sizes and materials for cultural and educational areas. The building is connected to an underground cistern with a power plant. Rainwater is collected, filtered, stored and used to produce sufficient energy for the entire community. A series of these towers will cool the environment and solved the housing problems of some urban settlement worldwide. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Wiscombe’s (Emergent Architecture) design for the Cheongna City Tower is based on creating an innovative spatial, structural, and energy production device which will become an operational symbol of the future for the IFEZ Cheongna region. Located at the intersection of the main pedestrian passageway from east to west and the main artificial waterway from north to south in Lake Park, the Tower is intended to be a hub of urban activity and a new destination for the region. It is 400 M. tall and offers views of the ocean, the Incheon Airport to the west and Mt. Geyang to the east. The lower levels of the Tower contain various leisure and cultural activities such as art and design exhibition spaces, an assembly and lecture space, gift shops, and bars. The mid-levels of the Tower contain public Sky-Terraces every 50 M. as well as a Business Spine which contains showroom office space for various technology companies and cultural institutions. The upper levels of the Tower contain an astronomical observatory, a seasonal high-end restaurant with star chefs, and various lookout points and observation decks. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2010 Shanghai World Expo ‘Better City, Better Life’ has officially opened its doors to more than 70 million expected visitors. Although 190 countries are participating in the event, only 79 nations built their own pavilion. During the last year we have seen the transformation of the banks of the Huangpu River into the largest World’s Fair.  

Images of every pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo: Read the rest of this entry »

Architect Neri Oxman is the founder of Materialecology, a Boston-based research studio that focuses on the intersection between architecture, engineering, computation, biology, and ecology. Oxman is concerned with material organization and performance across all scales of design. Material is interpreted merely as any physical entity which corresponds and reacts with its environment.

Commissioned by Boston’s Museum of Science, ‘Stalasso’ is her latest work. It is an investigation on mineralization processes and its application in designing structures that could be tailored to respond to different weights and to specific requirements and preferences. This piece is a prototype mold in which materials will be injected to create a surface with variable thickness, stiffness, and texture.

photo © Emily Roose  / Museum of Science Boston

Hernan Diaz Alonso from Xefirotarch designed an installation for an art gallery in London. The project examines the notion of architectural explosion. It is evident the tension that generates the liquid /organic form that tries to escape from the crystal box confinement; some of the larger pieces seem to be habitable colonies for future generations. Read the rest of this entry »

The Oceanic Pavilion designed by Emergent Architecture and Kokkugia for the Yeosu 2012 Expo in Korea is a structure “which celebrates the ocean as a living organism and the co-existence of human culture and ocean ecosystems. The building is based on an aggregation of soft membrane bubbles merged together with a hard monocoque shell. The two systems are characterized by patterns of surface articulation which are specific to their materiality”. Deep pleats and mega-armatures that create structural stiffness are generally associated with the fiber-composite shell, while fine, double-pleated ‘Air-beams‘spread over and stabilize the vaulted ETFE membranes. Micro-armatures transgress thresholds between shell and membrane, creating structural and ornamental continuity between systems. Read the rest of this entry »

We have seen the financial outcome of the Real Estate crash in 2008. What sometimes we overlook are the urban voids left by unfinished buildings. That is the case of the Filene’s development in downtown Boston which construction was halted in November 2008.  Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Squared Design Lab think this as an opportunity to explore new ways of producing architecture. They have designed a prefabricated ‘Eco-Pod’ that proposes to stimulate the economy and the ecology of downtown Boston. “The pods serve as bio-fuel sources and as micro-incubators for research”. The idea is that these pods will generate enough energy to control a series of robotic arms that will continue the construction of the building – once it is completed, the pods could be transported to other sites to build more structures. Read the rest of this entry »

We have not reached the second decade of the new millennium but Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut is already imagining the cities of tomorrow. The “Hydrogenase” was conceived as a flying city powered by bio-fuels, wind turbines, and solar panels. Callebaut is proposing a new way of travelling, one that is slower than airplanes but faster than automobiles and ships. It flies at 2000 meters high and could carry up to 200 tons at 175 km/h. The semi-rigid and not pressurized airship consists of a vertical spine that twists along its 400 meter-high structure. It is subdivided in four main sectors for housing, offices, laboratories, and entertainment areas. These four sectors rest under four “bubbles” filled with bio-hydrogen and helium. Read the rest of this entry »

Vertical Village designed by Graft is a mixed-use development in Dubai organized to reduce solar gain and maximize solar production. The buildings are massed as self-shading slabs to the North on the East-West axis to reduce low-angle sun penetration while a vast array of solar panels are located to the South. The solar roof behaves like a leaf with veins that break the solar field into units that provide structural support and transport the collected energy. Beneath lies an urban district with cinemas, restaurants, shops and theatres. The complex is designed to get gold LEED certification. Read the rest of this entry »