Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Arch Daily

FeaturedHair Salon Slundre / BHIS

Editor's ChoiceArchiculture Interviews: Shigeru Ban

Apartment at Paulicéia Building / JPG.ARQ

Architects: JPG.ARQ
Location: Avenida Paulista, São Paulo – SP, Brazil
Design Team: José Paulo Gouvêa, Giovanni Meirelles, Thaís Marcussi
Lighting: Luciana Yamamura e Ricardo Heder (Reka)
Area: 90.0 sqm
Year: 2013
Photographs: Fernando Stankuns

“Juxtaposition” Challenges Designers to Envision Hip Hop-Inspired Building Forms

What happens at the intersection of urban culture and architecture? How can the four elements of hip hop (DJing, MCing, Breaking and Graffiti) inspire the built environment? Participants of JUX.TA.PO.SI.TION are encouraged to create a sketch using mediums of their choice to depict new building forms, urban design concepts, and/or architectural products inspired by the four foundational elements of hip hop. This international competition is open to all individuals including students, graffiti artists, architects, urban planners, landscape architects, graphic designers, muralists, etc. You can complete the free registration form and find more information, here.

Liget Budapest Awards Third Place to LEAD’s Blue Tiled Museums

Taking home third place in the Liget Budapest competition, the Laboratory for Explorative Architecture and Design (LEAD) has proposed a colorful design for Budapest’s new photography and architecture museums. A stunning shade of blue, the undulating buildings will mark the entrance to Budapest City Park, and provide a new cultural hotspot for Hungary’s capital city. Learn more about them, after the break.

Pinar House / MO+G taller de arquitectura

© Miguel Valverde Hernández / Fabrica de Arquitectura

Architects: MO+G taller de arquitectura
Location: Zapopan, JAL, Mexico
Project Area: 535.0 m2
Project Year: 2014
Photographs: Miguel Valverde Hernández / Fabrica de Arquitectura, Helmer Murayama Caro / Fabrica de Arquitectura

Social Maps Could Potentially Shape Future City Planning

What is a city? To technologist Dave Troy, a “city is the sum of the relationships of the people that live there.” By mapping the interests of dwellers in some of the world’s most populated cities by looking at what they share online, Troy has generated a new and incredibly detailed way to view a city’s diversity beyond race. This rich data, as Troy believes, provides a real opportunity to designcities that are truly desired.

How a Le Corbusier Design Helped Define the Architecture of Southern California

We all know that in architecture, few things are truly original. Architects take inspiration from all around them, often taking ideas from the designs of others to reinterpret them in their own work. However, it’s more rare that a single architectural element can be borrowed to define the style of an entire region. As uncovered in this article, originally published by Curbed as “Le Corbusier’s Forgotten Design: SoCal’s Iconic Butterfly Roof,” this is exactly what happened to Le Corbusier, who – despite only completing one building in the US - still had a significant impact on the appearance of the West Coast.

Atop thousands of homes in the warm western regions of the United States are roofs that turn the traditional housetop silhouette on its head. Two panels meet in the middle of the roofline and slope upward and outward, like butterfly wings in mid-flap. This similarity gave the “butterfly roof” its name, and it is a distinct feature of post-war American residential and commercial architecture. InHawaii, Southern California, and other sun-drenched places, the butterfly roofs made way for high windows that let in natural light. Homes topped with butterfly roofs seemed larger and more inviting.

Credit for the butterfly roof design often goes to architect William Krisel. He began building single-family homes with butterfly rooflines for the Alexander Construction Company, a father-son development team, in Palm Springs, California, in 1957. The Alexander Construction Company, mostly using Krisel’s designs, built over 2,500 tract homes in the desert. These homes, and their roofs, shaped the desert community, and soon other architects and developers began building them, too—the popularity of Krisel’s Palm Springs work led to commissions building over 30,000 homes in the Southland from San Diego to the San Fernando Valley.

Goycolea Building / FG arquitectos

Courtesy of Renato Sepúlveda, Enrique Colin (FG arquitectos)

Architects: FG arquitectos
Location: Vitacura, Región Metropolitana, Chile
Architect In Charge: Alfredo Fernández Recart, Enrique Colin Altuzarra, Matías González Rast
Area: 15562.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Courtesy of Renato Sepúlveda, Enrique Colin (FG arquitectos)

Videos: The Best Architectural Firework Displays of New Year 2015

As any self-respecting world city now knows, when the time comes to change the calenders, you’d better also have an iconic building from which to hang some fireworks. With people all over the world looking out for the most impressive New Year’s celebrations, we’ve picked the most impressive architecturally-focused displays. Not surprisingly, Dubai - the world capital of ”go big or go home” – probably had the most impressive show of the year, with a combined light-and-firework show to turn the Burj Khalifa into the world’s largest celebratory canvas. However, a special mention goes to Paris‘ Arc de Triomphe, where a tasteful 14-minute light mapping display paid homage to the city’s other great architectural works, from the Eiffel Tower to the Centre Pompidou, before moving onto stylized scenes of Paris life to bring in the new year.

Continue after the break for all the videos of the world’s best New Year celebrations.

Courtesy of Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture, and Design, via Flickr

A Day at Stanford With Rem Koolhaas

Delving deeper into his recent engagement with smart cities, earlier this year Rem Koolhaas took a trip to California to visit the technology companies of Silicon Valley. While he was there, he managed to find time for a brief visit to Stanford University‘s School of Architecture, leading to this engaging profile by Pooja Bhatia for OZY; replete with snappy one-liners such as “So, what are you disrupting?” from the man who is notoriously difficult to get along with, the article offers an interesting insight into Koolhaas’ ideas, both past and present. Read the article in full here.

Rodeio Restaurant / Isay Weinfeld

Architects: Isay Weinfeld
Location: São Paulo – State of São Paulo, Brazil
Design Team: Fausto Natsui , Gabriel Bicudo , Marina Capocchi , Sophia Lin , Daniela Kurc
Area: 1050.0 sqm
Year: 2011
Photographs: Romulo Fialdini

Northwest Corner Building / Moneo Brock Studio

Architects: Moneo Brock Studio
Location: Department of History, Columbia University, 1180, New York, NY 10027, USA
Design Architect: Rafael Moneo Valles Arquitecto, Belen Moneo and Jeff Brock
Moneo Brock Studio Project Team: Benjamin Llana, Spencer Leaf, Andrés Barron
Associate Architect: Davis Brody Bond Aedas, New York, NY, U.S.A. William Paxson, Partner-in-Charge
Dbba Project Team: Mayine Lynn Yu, David Haft, Fernando Hausch-Fen, Gene Sparling, Mario Samara, Clover Linne, Dohhee Zhoung, Veronique Ross, y James Paxson
Project Management: Columbia University Facilities – Capital Project Management
Area: 188000.0 ft2
Year: 2010
Photographs: Michael Moran

Marquesina en Plaza San Juan Bosco / MLMR Arquitectos

Architects: MLMR arquitectos
Location: Pamplona, Navarre, Spain
Architect In Charge: Javier Martín, Víctor Larripa, Javier Martínez, Daniel Ruiz de Gordejuela
Area: 17.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Javier Martín Pascual, Víctor Larripa Artieda

Kyung Hee Cyber University ACAPeace Building Renovation / Chiasmus Partners

Architects: Chiasmus Partners
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Design Team: Hyunho Lee AIA, James Wei Ke, Kyungmin Kim, Myung shin Kang, Kiryung Kim, Youngjong Park, Narae Yang
Area: 478.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Youngchae Park

Carol Urzua / Lira Arquitectos Asociados

Architects: Lira Arquitectos Asociados
Location: Santa Rosa 1727, Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile
Architect In Charge: Raimundo Lira, Marlene Fischer, Diego Arroyo, Carolina Valenzuela
Area: 2373.0 sqm
Year: 2008
Photographs: Pedro Mutis

Loft Vasco / Urbana Arquitetura

Arquitetos: Urbana Arquitetura
Localização: Rua Vasco da Gama, 1020
Execução E Projeto: Urbana Arquitetura
Área: 246.0 m2
Ano Do Projeto: 2011
Fotografias: Marcelo Donadussi

MOBO to Streamline Public Access to Cartagena’s UNESCO-Protected Fortress Wall

MOBO Architects has won a competition to refurbish the vertical and horizontal access structures of the UNESCO protected fortresses that surround Cartagena’s colonial walled city. With an aim to create a walking tour through the bastions and walls that is both safe and pleasant, MOBO’s winning proposal offers a series of urban interventions that will unify the existing disparate structures and create a continuous pathway for pedestrians and cyclists. This, as MOBO describes, will “completely restructure the way that the citizens and visitors use not only the wall, but also the spaces in the city.”

The Broad Reveals Its Honeycomb “Veil”

The final exterior scaffolding has been removed from Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s “The Broad” in downtown Los Angeles, revealing its distinctive honeycomb-like “veil.” Comprised of 2,500 fiberglass reinforced concrete panels and 650 tons of steel, the structural exoskeleton “drapes” over the building’s interior “vault,” lifting at its south and north corners to provide two street-level entrances. At its side, the veil is torn by a central “oculus” that provides a direct visual connection between the museum and Grand Avenue.

“The Broad will be porous and absorptive, channeling light into its public spaces and galleries. The veil will play a role in the urbanization of Grand Avenue by activating two-way views that connect the museum and the street,” described Liz Diller.

Malinalco House / Arquitectura Alternativa

Architects: Arquitectura Alternativa
Location: Malinalco, MEX, Mexico
Director: José Palomar Romo
Project Area: 137.0 m2
Project Year: 2013
Photographs: Luis Gordoa