Arch Tracker

Hind House, designed by John Pardey, recently won an award for architectural excellence in the 2009 RIBA Awards from the Royal Instute of British Architects.

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Chips a residential building in Manchester, by british architect Will Alsop, is nearing completion. Three fat chips stacked on top of each other, it is a residential development like no other. The building forms the first part of the Alsop-designed New Islington Masterplan, an area east of Manchester city centre.

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Poland has unveiled the architectural design for its national pavilion in World Expo Shanghai 2010, presenting a geometrical structure covered with paper-cutting pattern. The design of the 3,000-square-meter Poland Pavilion is the winning entry chosen from 20 candidates in the designing competition and was designed by Arch. Marcin Mostafa, Arch. Natalia Paszkowska and Arch. Wojciech Kakowski.

More images and full description after the break.

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Project: Stone Towers
Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects
Location: Cairo, Egypt
Client: Rooya Group
Structural Engineer: Adams Kara Taylor
Gross Building Area: 525,000 m2
Site Area: 170,000 m2

Zaha Hadid Architects have design a new project for the Rooya Group in Cairo, Egypt. The Stone Towers will offer retail, office, luxury hotel and apartments.

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This is the inaugural year of The Ordos Prize, the first international architectural prize to emerge from Asia. Unlike other major prizes that recognize an architect for a significant project or body of work, the Ordos Prize is the first to honor emerging young talent and innovative design that engages both the physical and social environment.

The Ordos Prize grows out of the commitment to excellence in architecture by Jiang Yuan Cultural & Creativity Development Co., Ltd. Jiang Yuan first drew the eyes of the world to Ordos by commissioning 100 talented young architects from throughout the world to design 100 villas. The Ordos 100 is one component of a new cultural and creative industry center that Jiang Yuan has under development in this fast rising new city in Mongolia. In the past 30 years, China’s unparalleled growth has triggered unprecedented challenges to urbanism and architecture on the global scene. Riding on this tide, The Ordos Prize is destined to confront these questions.

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Project: Malibu 5
Architect: Kanner Architects
                         Stephen H. Kanner
Location: Malibu, California
Size: 3,300 sq ft
Status: Completed 2006

Vertically stacked and set into a hillside, Malibu 5 is a sustainable modern home constructed of environmentally friendly and recycled materials and design to minimize energy use.
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3six0 Architects shared with us their project Shepherd of the Valley, a United Methodist Church in Hope, Rhode Island

From 3six0
The church had grown and the existing building was no longer seen as being adequate in meeting the needs of worship, ministry, education and other activities. There was also an overall need for maintenance repair. Stan Mar buildings constructed the existing building in 1970, using pre-fabricated, vinyl-sided wood construction. We identified a formal origin for the current shape of the existing church as having a Basilican Plan, an external form with a deep gable and internally with a central nave and aisles—a formal type that goes back two millennia as the form for both churches and barns. Our study revealed pressing needs for a new education wing, restructured sanctuary end wall, reorganized entry and an overall renovation of the existing building’s exterior.

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From Chen + Suchart Studio
This contemporary house blends beautifully with its city environment, entering as a sleek glass box suspended within a modern, bold black frame. Behind this magnificent glass facade, interiors have a distinctly industrial feel – in harmony with the city surrounding it. Thick brick walls rise from cool concrete floors, and abut steel-paneled ceilings with exposed ductwork and contemporary light fixtures dangling overhead.

More images after the break.

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This classroom and office building is home to the University Honors Program and the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education. The building also contains six general assignment classrooms to serve the campus.

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UNStudio has been selected as the winning team in a competition for the design for the new Grand Hyatt Tower, a 110 meter tall tower in Frankfurt, Germany.

From UNStudio
From the six projects presented, the jury, chaired by Prof. Johann Eisele, chose the designs by UNStudio – Ben van Berkel (Amsterdam), and Kohn, Pedersen, Fox (New York) and recommended proceeding with the UNStudio design for further development.

According to Ben van Berkel the design for the Grand Hyatt tower celebrates and highlights the cosmopolitan character and diversity of Frankfurt. ‘It has three different elevations that are linked to the different aspects of the city. The tower takes up the variation and diversity offered by the city of Frankfurt and reflects that multiplicity of experiences back to the city itself. The tower can be perceived differently from each perspective; it appears needle-thin from one spot, strong and straight from another, and complex with a slight twist from yet another.”

The new tower will house a 5-star-plus hotel with 405 rooms and suites, a ballroom, spa, various restaurants, a lobby bar and a public Sky Lounge on the top floor, and the possibility of an adjacent congress center. The hotel tower consists of 30 floors at a height of approximately 110 metres and an area of 54,562.70 m2 for hotel tower + plinth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The result of an international design competition in 2004, the Zénith is a new cultural destination for Saint-Etienne and the first purpose built state-of-the-art music venue for the Rhone-Alpes region of central southern France. The new building is characterised by its aerodynamic roof and flexible performance space, and marks a major departure from Zénith’s tradition of using temporary venues. The project has two aims: to raise Saint-Etienne’s profile as a regional venue for arts events and to help drive the regeneration of this formerly industrial city.

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Lord Norman Foster

Foster and Partners has been granted with a prestigious RIBA Award for the “Zenith” a state-of-the-art music and cultural facility for St. Etienne that places the formerly industrial city on the cultural map, forming the heart of an exciting project to revitalise the area to the north-east of the city centre.

From Foster and Partners
The Zénith concert venue in Saint-Etienne has been granted a prestigious RIBA Award, it was announced today. The first purpose built, state-of-the-art performance venue in the Rhône-Alpes region of France, the Zénith is characterised by a cantilevered aerodynamic roof, which contributes to a highly efficient environmental strategy and has become a bold symbol for the city’s regeneration.

Grant Brooker, an executive director at Foster + Partners, said: “We are absolutely delighted and I would like to congratulate the full team involved in the project, particularly our collaborators Cabinet Berger. Winning this prestigious award is a wonderful credit to our clients, the Mayor and the people of Saint-Etienne Metropole, who initiated the Zénith, put their faith in us and supported the project at every stage.”

Pulsation in Architecture

IaaC is pleased to invite you to the open lecture of Eric Goldemberg from MONAD Studio.
Monday 25th of May.
19:30h
IaaC Main Hall
C/ Pujades 102, Poble Nou

The architecture of MONAD aims at ‘pulsation’, a fundamental animate capacity of living forms.

Pulsation thrives on hyper-charged, syncopated rhythms and sexual drive. It operates via smooth aggregation of discrete, articulated components and de-aggregation of luscious bodies in friction, unzipping seams and foraging into spatial crevices.

The partners of MONAD Studio – Eric Goldemberg + Veronica Zalcberg – define a practice that takes advantage of cutting-edge 3D computer technology, design techniques and digital fabrication (CAD/CAM) for a range of scales, from urban strategies and landscape infrastructure to architecture, installations and product design.

The conference is part of the workshop´s activities: “Barcelona-Berlin Extramuros Studio 2009″ with the participation of the students of the Architecture School of Florida, International University in Miami, USA. Workshop´s coordinators: Bea Goller, Armando Montilla

UNStudio has released a new video featuring the recently realized Music Theatre in Graz.

The building is structured to combine a unit-based volume (the black box of the theatre) and a series of movement-based volumes (foyer and public circulation). Because this organising principle is made constructive, a fluent internal spatial arrangement is actualised, efficiently connecting spaces to each other. The multipurpose auditorium can seat up to 450, and that is adaptable to a great variety of performances. The free-flowing space of the foyer is made possible by a spiraling constructive element that connects the entrance to the auditorium and to the music rooms above, thus welding together ‘with a twist’ the three levels of this side of the building. This twist forms a 3D interpretation of the repetitive pattern, executed in the muted tones of stage make-up, which  is applied to the facades and then enveloped by a glittering mesh.

The Pavilion of Ideas, designed by Heatherwick Studio, beat five other short-listed designs, including plans put forward by the creators of the London Eye — the largest Ferris wheel in the world — to become final the winner. The pavilion looks like a box with thousands of spines that hover without visible support above a public square.

All the spines, which can swing in the breeze, are tipped with tiny colored light sources which can display a variety of images together.

“The image can be changed every day or every week. If people love to see David Beckham, we will play Beckham’s picture. If Louis Hamilton wins the F1 Championship, maybe we will show Hamilton,”

Inside the pavilion, visitors will see an enormous digital screen showing various contents. The outside area of the pavilion will be an exhibition space and auditorium as well as a cafe and shops surrounded by two strips of grass. The pavilion will be as ecological as possible and the designers are trying to make all the aspects recyclable and carbon-neutral. It is light, without heavy concrete foundations and will “touch the ground softly,” according to the introduction by Heatherwich.

“We were really energized by the uniqueness of the concept and the way it integrated technology with a sensory experience for visitors,” said the jury leader Lord Jones of Birmingham, Trade and Investment Minister.

“It will be a spectacular pavilion that responds to what visitors say and feel and at the same time showcases the very best of brand Britain.”

From Heatherwick Studio
The Pavilion of Ideas is a unique display device – an enclosure that throws out from all faces a mass of long, radiating cilia, each ending with a tiny light source. Their length means they gently sway in response to any wind movement.

These cilia, or staves, provide the Pavilion with its only means of support. It rests on its soft forest in an urban field, flanked by two ramped, embracing arms of grass, formed as ramparts under which an auditorium, exhibition space, café, shop and reception spaces are sited. The architecture eschews the need for significant concrete foundations and aims to use simple construction techniques to touch lightly on the site.

Above and peering into these spaces, the Pavilion flickers with patterns of light as it sends its messages, and those of its visitors, across the site. Each cilium terminates within the Pavilion – with another tiny light source. Inside, clustered together by the form of the structure, they create an enormous engulfing digital screen. This is how the British Pavilion’s content is expressed – outwardly as well as inwardly.