The LAVA designed MTV Awards Installation has been shortlisted for the 2010 Australian Interior Design Awards Environmentally Sustainable Design category. Suspended in the Sydney Convention Centre for the 2009 award program, the sculpture provided an intense visual environment for the global TV show.

The design is at once comforting, yet alien. Drawing its design inspiration from natural patterns found perhaps in membranes  and sea anemones, the digital design was realized in lightweight fabric, using the latest digital fabrication and engineering techniques. The design seeks to create more with less. The 108m3 of space is enclosed within a minimal surface area of 568m2 and uses only113.6kg of lightweight material. Yet there is no shortage of eye candy to keep a fickle TV audience glued to their seats as the engaging interior landscape supports the MTV award experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners in the architectural firm, SANAA, have been chosen as the 2010 Laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The formal ceremony for what has come to be known throughout the world as architecture’s highest honor will be held on May 17 on historic Ellis Island in New York. At that time, a $100,000 grant and bronze medallions will be bestowed on the two architects.

In announcing the jury’s choice, Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, elaborated, “This marks the third time in the history of the prize that two architects have been named in the same year. The first was in 1988 when Oscar Niemeyer of Brazil and the late Gordon Bunshaft were so honored, and the second was in 2001, when Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, partners in a Swiss firm, were selected.”

21^st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan.  1999-2004.  Courtesy of SANAA.  Photo credit: Yukio Futagawa.

He continued, “Japanese architects have been chosen three times in the thirty year history of the Pritzker Architecture Prize — the first was the late Kenzo Tange in 1987, then in 1993, Fumihiko Maki was selected, and in 1995, Tadao Ando was the honoree.”

The purpose of the Pritzker Architecture Prize is to honor annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanityand the built environment through the art of architecture. Read the rest of this entry »

With the 2010 Shanghai World Expo less than forty days away now, work is quickly being finished on the international pavilions set to grace the city for the expected visitors. Two hundred countries are participating and one of the most interesting contributions is the UK Pavilion designed by Heatherwick Studio out of London. Designed to represent the Expo theme, “Better City, Better Life,” Heatherwick teamed up with the UK Seed Bank to build the Seed Cathedral. The building is made up of 60,000 acrylic rods that encase tens of thousands of seeds, all to promote the UK’s conservation efforts of seeds. Read the rest of this entry »

The proposal from the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) to re-skin the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) tower in Sudney Australia has won the ZEROprize for Re-Skinning. The proposal aims to transform the identity of the brutalist-style high-rise and reduce its carbon footprint. LAVA has developed a simple, cost-effective and easily constructed building skin that forms a translucent cocoon to create a micro-climate. The skin can generate energy with embedded photo-voltaic cells, collect rain water, and improve the distribution of natural daylight. It can also use available convective energy to power the building’s ventilation requirements, reducing HVAC dependency. The skin is self cleaning and quite striking to the eye. The skin could be applied to other similar existing structures inexpensively, contributing to a low-cost, efficient way to beautify cities everywhere. Read the rest of this entry »

Kitchens of the future will likely look vastly different than they do today. Lots of new high tech gadgetry is a given, but what about indoor vegetable and herb gardens, composters that are as easy to use as a sink disposal, and even integrated appliances that utilize waste heat or water? Ekokook, by La Faltazi Lab, is already way ahead of us and has designed that kitchen of the future, and the outlook is very green.

As the kitchen is often the heart of the home, it naturally follows that it is one of the bigger sources of environmental impact, considering the amount of energy used to cook and store food, as well as the impact of the food itself. This is the reason why La Faltazi Lab wanted to tackle this area of the home and make it more energy and resource efficient, as well as a place we would want to spend our time. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist  – 2010 Skyscraper Competition

Vision Included
Martijn de Geus, Albert Dijk
The Netherlands

The International System skyscraper is a project that recognizes the specific function of each space with a design that derives one-hundred percent from it. Each part of the building is different according to its program but they all come together with transition or buffer zones. This project was designed for the city of Almere in the Netherlands. Its plinth makes a connection with the urban fabric of the existing city. Among the different programs within this city-like structure there are schools, libraries, housing, museums, cinemas, and shopping areas. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist  – 2010 Skyscraper Competition

William Fong, Joshua Loke, Livee Tan
Australia

With an average ground level of 1.5 m from the sea level, Maldives is the lowest county on the planet, with its highest point topping off at only 2.3 m above sea level.

The country is in a dire situation as sea levels are set to rise to 59 cm above the sea level in the year 2100. This rate would probably be accelerated if natural disasters are to be accounted for. The 2004 tsunami affected many of Maldives’ inhabited islands, where only 9 islands managed to escape flooding. 57 islands faced serious damage to its infrastructure, 14 needed to be completely evacuated and 6 were decimated.

Physical destruction aside, the flooding of Maldives would also signal the obliteration of the proud Maldivian culture, as well as a complete loss of her people’s sense of self and sovereignty. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist  – 2010 Skyscraper Competition

Meurisse Frederic,  Huyghe Lieselotte
France

The main idea of this project is to create a green ribbon of parks and recreational areas that will connect the Vincennes and the Boulogne forests – the two major lungs of Paris. The ribbon will be equipped with a series of skyscrapers that will inject programs to the city. Some of them will be used as housing while others will have museums or restaurants. Its triangulated steel structure is a three dimensional network of voids and surfaces inspired by the Origami pleating game. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist  – 2010 Skyscraper Competition

Stéphanie Durniak, Baptiste Franceschi, Anthony Frutoso, Caroline Mangin
France

The city of Marseilles is one France’s principal urban hubs that attract thousands of new residents each year. It has been designated World Cultural Capital for 2013 and many new urban developments are underway. The “Euroméditerranée” project is one of the most important ones and aims to give a new maritime façade to the north.

The idea behind this project is to create a vertical village that integrates to the tens of villages that configure the city. Each village has its own character and function. This project will have housing, offices, commerce, and recreational areas; gardens and parks will be incorporated as public terraces between the different programs and will serve as meeting places for the community. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist  – 2010 Skyscraper Competition

Kevin Hemeryck
France

The city of Paris is recognized worldwide for its beauty, architecture, and urban planning. Unfortunately the lack of green areas has been a constant problem for decades. The Flying Planame (paname refers to Paris in French slang) is an utopist project that proposes multiple layers of green planes throughout the city. The main concept is to maximize the outdoors areas while making use of the structure for commerce and housing. Similar to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the rice growing terraces of Yunnan, China, this project proposes equilibrium between the natural and built environments. Read the rest of this entry »