The “Pavilion 21” designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au for the 2010 Munich Opera Festival is one of the first mobile opera houses in the world. The project was generated through the parametric analysis of the overlay sound frequencies of “purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix and “Don Giovanni” by Mozart. The project will be installed at Munich’s Marstallplatz and according to the designers this was a very challenging work in order to achieve excellent acoustics and mobility. The 6,000 sqf pavilion is a cluster of trapezoidal components that are meant to reflect wound waves. Read the rest of this entry »

Rehabitat is a new vertical housing development designed by Robert Cardenas, Andres Fuentes, and Barkev Daron at Sci-Arc  for the city of Jakarta. The main idea is to relocate the people living in Jakarta’s “kampongs” and to provide them with cultural and recreational facilities. The building is designed as a series of stacked boxes attached to a central core. Between each cluster there are leisure areas and outdoor gardens. Each of the housing boxes is perpendicular to the one on top to create different types of units and benefit from multiple panoramic views. Rehabitat is a designed as a green community with a recycle center that processes a great portion of Jakarta’s waste. The main structure is parametric and will be constructed offsite and transported by train which is a mere 200 ft from the site. Other green elements include solar panels and water collection systems. Read the rest of this entry »

New York-based architect Andre Kikoski has won the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant Design for his firm’s design of The Wright in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.  Kikoski, an emerging young talent, launched his firm only seven years ago. The Wright is a prime example of Kikoski’s work, showing his deft skill with materials, his ability to create a meaningful dialogue between art and architecture, and his finesse in designing a contemporary space inside an iconic structure. Read the rest of this entry »

The Bubble Skyscraper was designed by Iranian architects Farzad Mirshafiei, Amin Aghagholizade, Farzin Misami, and Peyman Aali. 

The exterior shell was designed based on the aerodynamic properties of bubbles against cross-wind deflection during strong ocean winds. Three legs at the base and a structural braced core provide additional resistance against lateral forces.

 According to the wind and solar orientations, there are gaps between bubbles at different levels. Green spaces and sky-gardens are accommodated in these gaps to provide the building and the community with social spaces – intelligent trapdoors in these areas allow natural ventilation produced by the chimney effect of the central atrium. The electrical and mechanical systems are embedded in pipes running along the facade that illuminate with different colors at night. Some of the green elements of the Bubble Skyscraper are: wave energy convertors, water recollection systems, solar panels, and wind turbines. Read the rest of this entry »

Alabama-based architectural firm Forrest Fulton designed a 900,000 sqf building that resembles a mountain in Yerevan, Armenia. The biomorphic building consists of a structural lattice that connects the city and landscape to the project. The hill is covered with regional plants and it is accessible to pedestrians as a leisure park. From the top there are excellent views to Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Read the rest of this entry »

A recent design competition called for entries for a backcountry ski patrol and emergency services operation center for a site at 9,000 ft in elevation somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. The winner of the 2010 Cavin Family Traveling Fellowship was Garrett van Leeuwen, a recent graduate of Architecture at Cal Poly, who now has $10,000 to use towards travel in order to learn about sustainable building. Garrett’s winning design 11,300 square foot facility incorporating emergency medical facilities, a backcountry operations center, sustainable building strategies as well as passive solar design.

The location for the backcountry operations center is at the top of a hill in a large valley with commanding views of the nearby ridges and terrain. Four main program categories make up the operations center – avalanche control, emergency medical service, ski patrol office and vehicle storage. Each program category needed an increasing amount of space, with vehicle storage needing the most and avalanche control needing the least. So four separate rooms were designed for a each purpose in ascending size, and linked together with storage towers and a hallway. Read the rest of this entry »

IwamotoScott Architecture designed a very innovative set of towers in New York City as part of the Greenwich South design study – commissioned by the Alliance for Downtown New York, and led by Architecture Research Office, Beyer Blinder Belle and Open. 

The work was shown in an exhibition, Five Principals For Greenwich South last fall in Lower Manhattan’s Zucotti Park. Architects, artists and designers who contributed work include: Architecture Research Office, Beyer Blinder Belle Coen + Partners, DeWitt Godfrey, IwamotoScott Architecture, Jorge Colombo, Lewis.Tsuramaki.Lewis Architects, Morphosis, OPEN, Rafael Lozano- Hemmer, Transolar Climate Engineering, WORKac. Read the rest of this entry »

Mexico City will soon see a new landmark take its place on the landscape. Torre Reforma is a 244 meter tall, mixed-use tower with a projected LEED Platinum certification, a first for Latin America. Wedge faced on one side, flat on the other, its changing character will complement and counter balance its smaller neighboring tower Torre Mayor. The building is designed by LBR&A Arquitectos. Read the rest of this entry »

Two projects by Greg Lynn that explore architecture in space in a near future.

New City is an architecturally considered virtual world; it responds to the emergence of social media through the design of a parallel virtual reality in which all of the earth’s inhabitants reside in a single interconnected city.

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The 2010 Shanghai World Expo is about to open in a couple of days. The majority of the pavilions are ready and expecting around 70 million people during the next months. One of the most publicized structures is the Danish pavilion designed by Bjarke Ingels Group. Since its conceptual stage it received instant praise by architectural critics and the media because of its design simplicity and concept. The building is a bicycle loop with a reflecting pool in the center. The Danish national symbol, the statue of the Little Mermaid, will be on display during the exhinition. Read the rest of this entry »