Arch Tracker

At around 5:30am on June 27, an unoccupied building still under construction at Lianhuanan Road in the Minhang district of Shanghai city toppled over.  One worker was killed.  According to information, a 70 meter section of the flood prevention wall in nearby Dianpu River failed and that may have something to do with this building collapse.

Project: Kindergarten Sighartstein
Architects: kadawittfeldarchitektur
Type: Education
Location: Sighartstein, Land Salzburg (AT)
Construction Volume: GFA 957 m²
Client: Stadt Neumarkt
Realization: 2007
Competition: 2004 – 1st Prize

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Project: House in Kitakamakura
Author: Suppose Design Office
        Makoto Tanijiri
Design Team: Hayato Komatsu, Kazutaka Sumi
Location: Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan
Structural Engineers: Nawakenji-m/Kenji Nawa
Gross Internal Floor area: 113.5 sq mt
Photography: Toshiyuki Yano [Nacasa&Partners Inc.]

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Project: House N
Author: 3LHD Architects
Project Team: Saša Begovic, Marko Dabrovic, Tatjana Grozdanic Begovic, Silvije
Novak, Paula Kukuljica, Silvije Novak
Project Team Collaborators: Romana Llic, Lucija Stanicic
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Project: 2005 – 2006
Construction: 2006 -2008
Site Area: 746 m2
Footprint: 175 m2
Photo Credits: Damir Fabijanic

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Whale Beach House, designed by Rachel Neeson and Nick Murcutt, has recived the Wilkinson Award for Residential Architecture, in the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2009 NSW Architecture Awards. This is the second win in three years for Neeson Murcutt Architects, and the couple now join an elite grup of architects to receive the award more than once, Glenn Murcutt, Australia’s best known architect, holds the record at six wins.

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Spaceport America Conceptual Images URS/Foster + Partners

Spaceport America began its construction last Friday 19th June,  in New Mexico. Being the first spaceport worldwide and designed by Foster + Partners and URS Corporation, the complex will host commercial operations by private space travel companies.

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Project: Air Forest
Author: Minsuk Cho + Kisu Park
Design Team: Mass Studies (Joungwon Lee,Bumhyun Chun, Kyungmin Kwon, Sungpil Won)
Location:  City Park, Denver, Colorado, USA
Gross Floor Area: 673 m2
Building Scope: 56.3m (L) x 25m (W) x 4m (H)
Structure: Pneumatic
Finishing: Nylon fabric with silver dot printing
Fabricator: ABR
Design Period: 2008.04 – 2008.08
Construction Period: 2008.08
Client: Denver Office of Cultural Affairs

Air Forest is a temporary public pavilion installed in City Park, Denver, Colorado, USA, for Dialog:City, an arts and cultural event during the Democratic National Convention 2008.

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Project: GDL1 house
Author: bgp arquitectura
        Bernardo Gomez-Pimienta
        Luis Enrique Mendoza.
Project team: Daniela Legorreta, Hector Barroso, JN Morones Esquivel, Carlos Coronel
Location: Guadalajara, Mexico.
Structure: Colinas de Buen Ingenieros, S.A.
Glassing: Val y Val
Design year: 2003
Construction year: 2005
Lot area: 780m2
Surface area constructed: 750m2.
Photography: Jaime Navarro
Model: Ramon Alvarez y J N Morones
Prizes: Mexican Architectural Biennale, honorary mention / CEMEX prize, official selection/
Quito Biennale, official selection. Bienal Miami + Beach 2007, Miami, EUA
Silver medal ex aequo. Single Family Category

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Bjarke Ingels Group and Adams Kara Taylor have won an international contest to design Tallinn’s new City Hall in Estonia.

The purpose of the international idea contest was to find the best architectural solution for the new administrative building of the city government that will be situated on a 35,000 m2 plot near the Linnahall building. The contest for the new city was met with a great interest, 81 architects and their teams were willing to present an entry. Of those, the international jury chose the best 9 to shortlist as finalists into the second phase of the competition. By May 15 the finalists handed in their final solutions. The international jury’s decision to award BIG’s entry first place in the competition was unanimous and was presided by the vice mayor Taavi Aas.

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Project: Marchesini Headquarters
Architects: LAN Architecture
Location: Saint Mesmes, France
Constructed Area: 1,250 sqm
Project year: 2008
Photographs: Jean-Marie Monthiers

The primary intention of the programme was to explore the relationship between the building and its surroundings and between the building users and the landscape. One of the main design concerns was the building’s environmental adaptation and appropriation. The site slopes down three metres towards the west, offering attractive views over the neighbouring hills.
 
We wanted an office environment opens to the outdoor green spaces, a project which benefits from the natural, lights and colours, and respects the landscape while inserting a new constructed “object” within it. Thus we imagined the building as a sort of line that simultaneously follows the skyline and the ground.  We separate the space into two distinct volumes: offices in the upper area and the workshop volume anchored to the ground. This separation also corresponded to the different needs of the two areas in terms of lights, spatial capacities, finishing qualities, etc.

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

 Japan based firm Suppose Design Office, have designed a house located in the city of Otake, Japan.

From Suppose Design Office
The Otake house is located in the West of Hiroshima prefecture, on a high plateau that neighbors the Kamei Park of the Kamei Castle Ruins. To the South is an industrial region and a beautiful mountain range, and to the North a remarkable view of the Seto Inland Sea and Miyajima. We created a design fitting to these two contrasting and beautiful scenes. We thought of the North side as the type of scenery you take in and savor, and the South side as the type that you place yourself in. Structurally we divided the area between load bearing zones and free zones to make a place that could have two personalities at once.

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

The following video is not related with architecture, but we found it very funny and its worth sharing with our readers, enjoy.

Location: Scarlino – Italy
Architects: Arch. Franco Biondi
Studio: Paschi Gestione Immobiliare
Realization: 2007

The project regarding the so-called solar ATM is the result of an idea developed by the designer combining a specific need of the Bank with the ethical policy implemented by the same bank in relation to environmental protection. The need of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Bank was to develop an ATM station, completely autonomous and unattended, located very close to the tourist port of Scarlino (Grosseto).The project implied the development of a station that would also be something more than a machine wrapped in a specific housing that would guarantee its protection.

Leer el resto de esta entrada »

Adri Duivesteijn, city councilor of Almere, Amsterdam Housing Association Stadgenoot and MVRDV have met today the group of architects commissioned to design each two buildings within the MVRDV masterplan for the Olympiakwartier in new town Almere, Netherlands. In order to reach a great urban variety within the ambitious plan, 48 of the in total 93 buildings will be designed by 24 different architecture offices from Europe, Japan and America.

Each selected office will design two different buildings ranging from 500m2 to 5,000m2. The architect?s selection consists of a varied group of offices, from young and conceptual to more established classic architects, in order to create true variety. The projects will be realized by a group of experienced construction companies under quality care of MVRDV and Stadgenoot who are joint client to the architects, an experimental way of development. Leer el resto de esta entrada »

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and HP are pleased to announce the 3rd Advanced Architecture Contest, on the theme of THE SELF-SUFFICIENT CITY: Envisioning the habitat of the future.

The aim of the competition is to promote online discussion and research through which to generate insights and visions, ideas and proposals that help us envisage what the city and the habitat of the 21st century will be like.

The competition is open to architects, planners, designers and artists who want to contribute to progress in making the world more habitable by developing a proposal capable of responding to emerging challenges in areas such as ecology, information technology, socialization and globalization, with a view to enhancing the connected self-sufficiency of our cities.

The competition jury, which is composed of architects, directors of some of the world’s foremost architecture schools, and mayors of cities such as Barcelona, is looking for outstanding proposals for any city in the world, at any scale, and within any timescale. Competition entries should be submitted via the Internet on Connected metropolises, Eco neighborhoods, Self-sufficient buildings, Intelligent homes or any other proposal for a short-, medium or long-term project to create habitats that respond to the social, cultural, environmental and economic conditions that may obtain in the 21st century. The proposal should include whatever texts, drawings and other images may be needed to make it fully understandable.

The competition prizes will consist of three scholarships for the IaaC Masters in Advanced Architecture for academic year 2010-11, cash prizes, and the latest generation of large-format HP printers. The selected projects will go on show in a major exhibition, due to open in Barcelona in May 2010, which will then travel to key cities around the world. The best projects will also be featured in a book to be published by Actar. The project is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Housing, the Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona City Council, and the publishing house Actar.

More Info:
http://www.advancedarchitecturecontest.org/