The 18th CEMEX BUILDING AWARD shows the contest has strived to achieve its goal of promoting a culture of innovation and competitiveness in concrete construction. The outstanding structures by the winners and finalists show the effort and hard work involved in creating architecture committed to improving people´s quality of life while still caring for the environment. More info after the break.

Here we showcase buildings that have been key to the development of cities where CEMEX has a presence, and that reflect the company’s overall vision. The competition´s continuing success and renown in the fields of design and construction in Mexico and abroad is largely thanks to its jury of fifteen highly-regarded professionals, academics and researchers from around the world.

The LIFE AND WORKS AWARD has been given to outstanding engineers and architects from various countries, acknowledging the merit of men and women who created major buildings that shape the world of construction. This year the prize went to engineer Luis Guillermo Aycardi, for his over forty-year-long career as a professional and academic, and for the excellence of his contributions to structural design in construction.

The MARCELO ZEMBRANO SCHOLAESHIP aims to support for their graduate studies at prestigious universities around the world.

The book presents the Mexican and international submissions to the 18th CEMEX BUILDING AWARD, and profiles the winners and finalists of the three international categories and the Special Prizes for Sustainable Architecture Accessibility Congruence Innovation in Construction and Social Impact.

The 18th CEMEX BUILDING AWARD accomplishes its mission of disseminating a global culture of innovation and competitiveness, by giving awards to the most outstanding projects in the concrete construction industry.

More info and where to buy:
http://www.arquine.com

Founded in 1977 as an alternative to mainstream architectural publishing, Pamphlet Architecture provides a forum for architects and writers to present their ideas, theories and designs in modest, affordable booklets.  Pamphlet Architecture helped launch the careers of architects from Steven Holl and Lebbeus Woods to Zaha Hadid, and has had influence far exceeding the ad-hoc nature of these humble books.

Competition theme: Resilience
By addressing the capacity to cope, the ability to bounce back, and the mitigation and management of risk, proposals are welcome that showcase a fresh understanding of the possibilities and opportunities of resilience in architecture, from the large to the small scale. Whether resilience stems from natural disaster, civil conflict, global warming, catastrophe, and so on, is the applicant’s discretion. Please visit the submission site for more details. Dates and contact info after the break

The winner will receive a prize of $2,500 and the opportunity to have their manuscript published by Princeton Architectural Press as Pamphlet Architecture 32. The registration fee is $25 for students and $50 for professionals.

The winner will be announced in September 2010.

Submission guidelines:
Before submitting your proposal, please register following the instructions on the registration section of the Pamphlet Architecture website www.pamphletarchitecture.org.

Applicants cannot have published previously most or all of their submission in book form. Submissions must be postmarked by August 2, 2010. If postmarked with a later date, they will be disqualified.

In your proposal:

• Please include an abstract (250 words) of your submission.
• Submissions must be submitted on 8.5 x 11 inch paper and may not exceed 16 pages in length.
• In addition to the hardcopy, please also submit a disc with a PDF version (5 MB maximum size) of your project.
• Submissions should be anonymous. Please include a separate sheet with your name, address, and email, in the form of your Paypal registration receipt.
• If you registered as a student, please staple a photocopy of your valid student ID to this page.
• We would like to make all submissions available to future researchers and students. If you do not want the PDF of your anonymous submission to be made available for research, please indicate this on this sheet as well.
• If you wish your submission to be returned to you, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Submissions may be sent to:
Competition
Pamphlet Architecture, Ltd.
37 E. 7th St.
New York, NY 10003 USA

To find out more about the competition, please visit www.pamphletarchitecture.org

Visit Pamphlet Architecture on:
facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53463633506&ref=ts
flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pamphletarchitecture/
Web:
http://www.papress.com/other/pamphletarchitecture/index.html

Via Dutch Profiles we found this interesting interview with Rem Koolhaas, principal at OMA, the interview has english subtitles.

The iconic buildings of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, OMA, and its core principles as embodied by Rem Koolhaas, have gained worldwide attention since it’s foundation in 1975.

The philosophy and aesthetic developed for competition submissions for and the Centre for Art and Mediatechnology in Karlsruhe, La Villette, the Jussieu campus and the Très Grande Biblioteque in Paris, garnered frenzied international attention and were finally realised in De Kunsthal in Rotterdam.

Rem Koolhaas’ intensive conceptual thinking about architecture and social circumstances ran simultaneously from the very early stages of his career. With a background in journalism and scriptwriting – his curiosity, research and urge to analyse are basics of his and OMA’s working process.

It is this approach that makes him a highly debated thinker and architect – although he staunchly refutes the label “Starchitect”. This image, he feels, blinds the public to a clear view of what his and OMA’s work is really about.

Casa da Musica in Porto provides a valuable steppingstone for one of OMA’s latest commissioned projects, the Taipei Performing Arts Centre. Treatment of form, innovative techniques, and the celebration of context are key elements of the design. Rather than relocating the roaring Shilin night market from the site of the forthcoming Taipei centre, OMA will instead build its 3 theatres above the market.

The vibrant, dynamic culture of the East forms a crucial element in Koolhaas’ pre-occupation with Asia. As a child he lived in Indonesia for several years. This experience is central to his current fascination with the region –  and its architecture.

Koolhaas’ seminal 1978 book Delirious New York, a Retroactive Manifesto, explores the Culture of Congestion in the big city. Nowadays, his focus is shifting to the wider consequences of the rapid growth of mega-cities.

Our friends at Princeton Architectural Press have sent us “Interactive Architecture, where authors, Michael Fox and Miles Kemp, introduce us to a brave new world where design pioneers are busy creating environments that not only facilitate interaction between people, but also actively participate in their own right. These spaces—able to reconfigure themselves in response to human stimuli—will literally change our worlds by addressing our ever-evolving individual, social, and environmental needs. In other words, it’s time to stop asking what architecture is and start asking what it can do.

Interactive Architecture is a processes-oriented guide to creating dynamic spaces and objects capable of performing a range of pragmatic and humanistic functions. These complex physical interactions are made possible by the creative fusion of embedded computation (intelligence) with a physical, tangible counterpart (kinetics). A uniquely twenty-first century toolbox and skill set—virtual and physical modeling, sensor technology, CNC fabrication, prototyping, and robotics—necessitates collaboration across many diverse scientific and art-based communities. Interactive Architecture includes contributions from the worlds of architecture, industrial design, computer programming, engineering, and physical computing. These remarkable projects run the gamut in size and complexity. Full-scale built examples include a house in Colorado that programs itself by observing the lifestyle of the inhabitants, and then learns to anticipate and accommodate their needs. Interactive Architecture examines this vanguard movement from all sides, including its sociological and psychological implications as well as its potentially beneficial environmental impact.

Physical Change

Embedded Computation

Project Landscape

Design and the Profession

New Horizons

More Info:
Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN 9781568988368
7 x 9 inches (17.8 x 22.9 cm), Hardcover , 256 pages
350 color illustrations
Available (publication date 9/1/2009) Rights: World;

A few weeks ago we received Digital Fabrications Architectural and Material Techinques by Lisa Iwamoto and edited by Princeton Architectural Press. Digital Fabrications celebrates the design ingenuity made possible by recent advances in digital-fabrication techniques. Lisa Iwamoto explores the methods architects use to calibrate digital designs whith physical forms.

Architectural pioneers such as Frank Gehry and Greg Lynn introduced the world to the extreme forms made possible by digital fabrication. It is now possible to transfer designs made on a computer to computer-controlled machinery that creates actual building components. This “file to factory” process not only enables architects to realize projects featuring complex or double-curved geometries, but also liberates architects from a dependence on off-the-shelf building components, enabling projects of previously unimaginable complexity.

The book is organized according to five types of digital fabrication techniques: tessellating, sectioning, folding, contouring, and forming. Projects are shown both in their finished forms and in working drawings, templates, and prototypes, allowing the reader to watch the process of each fantastic construction unfold. Digital Fabrications presents projects designed and built by emerging practices that pioneer techniques and experiment with fabrication processes on a small scale with a do-it-yourself attitude. Featured architects include AEDS/Ammar Eloueini, Atelier Manferdini, Brennan Buck, MOS, Office dA, Florencia Pita/MOD, Mafoomby, URBAN A+O, SYSTEMarchitects, Andrew Kudless/Matsys, IwamotoScott, Atelier Hitoshi Abe, Chris Bosse, Tom Wiscombe/EMERGENT, Thom Faulders Architecture, Jeremy Ficca, SPAN, GNUFORM, Heather Roberge, PATTERNS, Ruy Klein, and servo.

Sectioning

Tessellating

Folding

Contouring

Forming

More Info:
Princeton Architectural Press
Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 144 p. edition (July 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1568987900
ISBN-13: 978-1568987903
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches