Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Arch Daily

FeaturedFT House / Reinach Mendonça Arquitetos Associados

Editor's ChoiceArchDaily: What Happened In 2014, And Where We Are Heading In 2015

New Administration Building at Institute of Mental Health / LOOK Architects

Courtesy of LOOK Architects Mr Choo Meng Foo

Architects: LOOK Architects
Location: Buangkok View, Singapore
Area: 5533.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Courtesy of LOOK Architects Mr Choo Meng Foo

Kotobuki Restaurant / Ivan Rezende Arquitetura

Architects: Ivan Rezende Arquitetura
Location: Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro – State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Design Team: Anna Valente, Andrea Lima, Patricia Gouvea, Ana Cecilia Santana, Domenica Falacio
Area: 265.0 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: MCA Studio

Inside the now abandoned White Flint Mall. Image © Flikr CC License / Mike Kalasnik

Built Nostalgia: Why Some Are Lamenting the Death of the Mall

We have all visited places that linger with us long after we leave them, often drawing us back through the memories we made there. When recalling this memory of place, however, we rarely consider malls to be evocative of such powerful emotional connections. A recent article from The Huffington Post argues that these common shopping centers can incite some of the deepest nostalgia. “Why I’m Mourning The Death Of A Mall” delves into the connection between malls and their inherent qualities of independence, community, and growth, and encourages us to view them from a different perspective, as our increasingly technology-centric society may make the mall a thing of the past. Read the article, here.

Camperdown Childcare / CO-AP

Architects: CO-AP
Location: 58 Denison Street, Camperdown NSW 2050, Australia
Area: 588.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Ross Honeysett

Images from the 25th Annual ICEHOTEL

Every year for the past 25 years, the Swedish town of Jukkasjärvi has erected its famousICEHOTEL. Built almost entirely from the ice of the nearby Torne river, the building begins to take shape in October and is ready for business by December. Fifty thousand people visit annually, many choosing to stay overnight in the rooms which maintain a balmy air temperature of 17ºF. The sculptural and often ornate design of the building’s “art suites” is the work of handpicked artists from around the world, and is one of the most popular aspects of staying at the hotel. See photos from this year’s suites, and learn more about ICEHOTEL’s construction, after the break.

Residência das Algas / MarchettiBonetti

Architects: MarchettiBonetti+
Location: Florianópolis – State of Santa Catarina, Brazil
Area: 262.0 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: Philippe Arruda

176-Pound Concrete Slab Falls From Year-Old Zaha Hadid Library

Library and Learning Centre University of Economics Vienna / Zaha Hadid Architects. Image © Roland Halbe

A 176-pound (80 kilograms) chunk of concrete cladding has fallen from year-old Library and Learning Centre at the University of Economics Vienna. This, unfortunately, isn’t the first time theZaha Hadid-designed structure has malfunctioned; last year, an “assembly error” was deemed the reason why a large piece of fiberglass-reinforced concrete crashed down in front of the building’s entrance.

New Research Proves that Iron Was an Important Medieval Building Material

At Beauvais Cathedral, iron ties that were thought to have been added centuries after construction were instead dated to the early 13th century. Image © Flickr CC user James Mitchell

The Gothic cathedrals of the middle ages have long been respected as sites of significant architectural and structural experimentation. Hoping to reach ever closer to God, the master masons of the period took increasingly daring structural risks, resulting in some remarkably durably buildings that are not only timeless spaces for worship but miraculous feats of engineering. However, according to new research by a team of French archaeologists and scientists, we still haven’t been giving these historic builders enough credit.

Though iron components feature in many Gothic buildings, often forming structural ties to stabilize tall stone buttresses, it was previously assumed that these were later additions to shore up precarious structures. However, thanks to a highly sophisticated carbon dating technique, the team consisting of the Laboratoire archéomatériaux et prévision de l’altération, the Laboratoire de mesure du carbone 14 and “Histoire des pouvoirs, savoirs et sociétés” of Université Paris 8 have shown that iron fixtures were an integral part of cathedral construction techniques from as early as the late 12th Century – meaning that many buildings from the period were essentially hybrid structural systems.

Barsa Taberna / +tongtong

Architects: +tongtong
Location: St. Lawrence Co-Operative Day Care Inc., 4 Market Street, Toronto, ON M5E 1M6,Canada
Area: 3000.0 ft2
Year: 2014
Photographs: Lisa Petrole Photography

Mons International Congress Xperience (MICX) / Studio Libeskind + H2a Architecte & Associés

Architects: Studio Libeskind, H2a Architecte & Associés
Location: Avenue des Bassins, 7000 Mons, Belgium
Owner: City of Mons
Area: 12500.0 sqm
Year: 2015
Photographs: Hufton + Crow

ARQ DOCS: Pier Vittorio Aureli

Published by the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile as part of their ARQ DOCS series, “Pier Vittorio Aureli” features two in depth interviews with Aureli, the high-profile Italian theorist and co-founder of design and research studio DOGMA. The book’s introduction, written by Emilio De la Cerda is excerpted below.

The work of Pier Vittorio Aureli constitutes a rigorous effort of thought regarding architectural discipline and the political dimension enclosed by the specificity of form. It is an approach focused on the power of the project, a speculative but delimited tool, which allows overcoming the paralysis of diagnosis and the abuse of diagrams, in order to establish a decisive commitment with the concrete reality of the city.

This line of thought, which is introduced here through two interviews conducted in 2010 and 2012 by Felipe De Ferrari and Diego Grass —architects and professors in our school—recognizes the profound historical and collective tradition of architecture, showing itself distant from those conceptions that see both creativity and the subjective originality of form as a sort of ethical manifest. Far from celebrating authorial genius, Aureli insists in the inseparable link that exists between architectural production and the cultural realm in which it develops.

Wicker Metamorphosis / Normal Architecture Studio

Architects: Normal Architecture Studio / Domingo Arancibia
Location: Chimbarongo, Chimbarongo, O’Higgins Region, Chile
Architect In Charge: Domingo Arancibia
Project Team: María José Araya, Juan Basch, Alexis Quinteros, Stephan Puschel.
Area: 79.0 sqm
Year: 2013
Photographs: Pablo Casals Aguirre

Video: Steven Holl and the Architectural Experience

In this installment of the Louisiana Channel, world-renowned architect Steven Holl discusses his philosophy on organic architecture and its ability to generate a specific experience. “I believe architecture is an art, that it changes peoples’ lives, and I think that’s what architecture has the potential to do,” Holl remarks.

Contemplating the relationship of people and place, Holl likens architecture’s capacity to inspire an experience to that of music, claiming the phenomenon evoked by a space needs no conceptual explanation, just as music inspires the listener without any back-story. His work, which is carefully crafted from the inside out and is unique to each site, reflects his attitude that “the soul has more need for the ideal than the real.”

Past Turned Into Space / Pitsou Kedem Architects

Architects: Pitsou Kedem Architects
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Architect In Charge: Tamar Berger
Design Team: Irene Goldberg, Tamar Berger, Pitsou Kedem
Photographs Styling: Eti Buskila
Area: 220.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Amit Goren

Demolition Begins On John Madin’s Brutalist Former Library in Birmingham

Work has begun on the demolition of the UK city of Birmingham’s former Central Library, designed by home-grown Brutalist architect John Madin. The move by Birmingham Council to not retain the structure of the library, in spite of ideas and petitions put forward by numerous public groups (including one titled Keep The Ziggurat), has been widely met with disappointment among the architectural community. The BBC recently compiled some of the most interesting ideas for reuse which included, among others, transforming the concrete structure into a new English Parliament, an international trade centre, and an enormous space for rock climbing.

Madin, who passed away in 2012, had at least three of his major Modernist projects demolished during his lifetime. His design for Birmingham Library had been met with criticism from the likes of the city’s Director of Planning and Regeneration of the time who described it as a “concrete monstrosity.” Prince Charles famously described it as “looking more like a place for burning books than keeping them.”

See photographs of the former library under construction and in use after the break.