Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Arch Daily

Editor's ChoiceVitra Design Museum’s Manuel Herz On The “Heroic” Modern Architecture Of Africa

Farmhouse / Minako Wakasa

Architects: Minako Wakasa
Location: Shiga Prefecture, Japan
Collaborator: Motoaki Sano
Site Area: 359,48m²
Area: 156.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Yoshihiro Asada

Hello Wood: Open Call for Students and Young Architects

Hello Wood is looking for students and young architects, designers, and artists in their Project Village, its 2015 workshop and symposium held 11-19 July. Applications are due before the 16th of May.

This year’s event follows the success of Hello Wood’s workshop in the summer of 2014, which saw participation from over 120 architects, artists and designers from 25 countries. Project Village will examine the typology of the village and the means for its production, proposing new and more efficient methods of master planning and construction. Among the invited team leaders of Hello Wood 2015 are: the founder of Invisible Studio and Studio in the Woods, Piers Taylor; winner of ArchDaily’s Building of the Year 2014 award, Katsuya Fukushima; and founders of 72 Hour Urban Action architectural group. Open Call for students is available here.

Anne Démians Wins Competition to Renovate France’s Nobel School

French architect Anne Démians has been named the winner of a competition to renovate and expand the Paris Tech Higher School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry (ESPCI), the 120-year old Nobel School. The competition, which seeks to convert the university into a leading research center, garnered submissions from such designers as Rem Koolhaas and Renzo Piano. As part of a larger transformative campaign undertaken by the school, the ESPCI redesign aims to elevate the Ile de France area to a metropolis standing.

Read on after the break for more on the 176 million Euro proposal.

Maison D / Fouquet Architecture Urbanisme

Architects: Fouquet Architecture Urbanisme
Location: Couëron, France
Architect In Charge: Gabriel Lefèvre
Area: 148.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Philippe Ruault

eVolo’s 20 Most Innovative Skyscrapers

Cloucity / Juerg Burger, Ge Men, Qingchuan Yang, Yin Li, Wei Hou. Image Courtesy of eVolo

In the celebratory spirit of its recent 2015 Skyscraper Competition, eVolo has compiled a list of the contest’s most innovative submissions. 20 skyscrapers from 13 countries rose above the rest in terms of their unorthodox forms and imaginative solutions to socio-environmental issues. The avant-garde designs, which range from self-sustaining micro-climates to extensive sky-bound bicycle networks, address the cultural, social, and sustainable contexts of the future through groundbreaking means.

See all 20 innovative skyscrapers after the break.

Light Matters: Heightening The Perception Of Daylight With Henry Plummer (Part 1)

Therme Vals, Switzerland by Peter Zumthor. Image © Henry Plummer 2000

Architecture professor and photographer Henry Plummer has heightened the transformative power of daylight with his cameras and published several remarkable books about light and architecture. His deep interest in light, and his lyrical writing perspective, were formed through his contact with the designer and art theorist György Kepes while studying at MIT. Within his numerous photo journeys Plummer has documented the various facets of daylight in Japan and the Nordic Countries, and of masters like Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn. As a Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Plummer also still has ambitious plans for future book projects. In the first part of this interview, Plummer shares a variety of insights about understanding light and approaching buildings for photography.

Public Housing VPO in Ciudad Real / Rojo/Fernández-Shaw

Architects: Rojo/Fernández-Shaw
Location: Calle Gregorio Marañón, Ciudad Real, Ciudad Real, Spain
Architects In Charge: Begoña Fernández-Shaw, Luis Rojo de Castro, Basic AAP slp arquitectos
Year: 2009
Photographs: Courtesy of Rojo/Fernández-Shaw

© guiba6 via Flickr. ImageSan Cataldo Cemetery

Spotlight: Aldo Rossi

Ada Louise Huxtable once described him as “a poet who happens to be an architect.” Italian architect Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) was known for his drawings, urban theory, and for winning the Pritzker Prize (in 1990). Rossi also directed the Venice Biennale in 1985 and 1986 – one of only two who have served as director twice.

Central Art Depository Freiburg / Pfeifer Kuhn Architekten

Architects: Pfeifer Kuhn Architekten
Location: Freiburg, Germany
Architect In Charge: Günter Pfeifer, Prof. Christoph Kuhn
Design Team: Daniel Lenz, Alexander Unsin, Klaus Dömer
Area: 5690.0 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: Claudius Pfeifer, Städtische Museen Freiburg, Kuhn und Lehmann, Hannelore Pfeifer

INHAC / Atelier d’Architecture Brenac-Gonzalez

Architects: Atelier d’Architecture Brenac & Gonzalez
Location: Saint-Gratien, France
Year: 2014
Photographs: Sergio Grazia

IZB Residence / Stark Architekten

Architects: Stark Architekten
Location: Am Klopferspitz 2, 82152 Planegg, Germany
Design Team: Claudia Kammerer, Christine Röger, Markus Müller, Nicole Arndt
Area: 2000.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Robert Sprang

3 Winners Announced for Bangkok Fashion Hub Competition

1st Prize: Ilya Pugachenko, Andrey Sayko, and Alla Aniskova. Image Courtesy of HMMD

The winners of the international design competition ”Bangkok: I am Fashion Hub“ have been unveiled. Entrants were challenged with the task of unifying the functions of a community center, library, exhibition theater, and public space within a cohesive venue in Bangkok for both the local and international fashion communities.

Of the original entries, three winners were selected by an international jury based on their adherence to several design factors including conceptual clarity, creativity, integration within the existing urban fabric, and feasibility as a center for fashion. The winning designs, from Malaysia, Russia, and France, garnered monetary prizes ranging from $1,000 to $6,000. Check them out, after the break.

Slice / Saunders Architecture

Architects: Saunders Architecture
Location: Haugesund, Norway
Area: 15.0 sqm
Year: 2014
Photographs: Bent René Synnevåg

Photo Essay: The Evolution of Atlanta’s Ponce City Market

For almost a century, one of the largest buildings in the Southeastern United States has maintained a dominating street presence in Atlanta, Georgia. Now the Ponce City Market, the building was originally designed by Nimmons, Carr and Wright Architects and built in 1925 as a Sears, Roebuck & Co. distribution and retail center, operating until 1989. In 1991, the City of Atlanta purchased the building, renamed it City Hall East and housed several public works departments, storing countless items among its 2.1 million square feet of space. As the city’s utilization of the building dwindled, Jamestown Properties stepped in and acquired the building in 2010. Five years later, Ponce City Market is poised to become one of the greatest historic rehabilitation projects in the country.

Unified Architectural Theory: Chapter 11

View from St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. — View from St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. “Strong centers are formed when a substantial region of space is tied together coherently” . Image © Flickr CC user Michael Seljos

We will be publishing Nikos Salingaros’ book, Unified Architectural Theory, in a series of installments, making it digitally, freely available for students and architects around the world. In Chapter 11, Salingaros introduces and explains a list of 15 properties theorized by Christopher Alexander which give rise to the phenomenon of “life” in architectural designs. If you missed them, make sure to read the previous installments here.

Alexander’s Fifteen Fundamental Properties

We have come to the point in this course when we need to present the geometric properties responsible for the deep connectivity that I have discussed in previous chapters. Christopher Alexander has derived a set of 15 properties that all structures that we perceive to have “life” possess (Alexander, 2001).

Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies

Translation from English

Sunday, May 3, 2015

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