Archinect - News

Setúbal Public Library Entry by AND-RÉ

2013-06-19T17:36:00-04:00

Portuguese architecture firm AND-RÉ (previously on Bustler) has sent us its stunning entry to the architectural competition for the new public library building in the city of Setúbal, Portugal.

OMA’s Twin Skyscrapers Win Tors Torn Competition in Stockholm

2013-06-19T14:51:00-04:00

OMA has been announced as winner of the design competition for Tors Torn in Stockholm. The proposed pair of towers with its facetted facade was designed as the third tallest twin skyscrapers in Sweden.

DS+R, Morphosis, Viñoly and Holl Among Finalists for new U.S. Embassy in Beirut

2013-06-19T13:28:00-04:00

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has shortlisted six design teams for the new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

The shortlisted teams are:

Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Mack Scogin Merrill Elam/AECOM
Morphosis Architects
Rafael Viñoly Architects
Steven Holl Architects
Yazdani Studio

Helsinki Central Library Competition Picks ALA Architects’ Käännös as Winner

2013-06-18T21:32:00-04:00

The international architectural competition for the design of the Helsinki Central Library [...] has announced the entry "Käännös" by Finnish firm ALA Architects as the winning proposal. The jury selected Käännös unanimously and described the entry as "impressive and casually generous." A Second Prize was not awarded, and the entries ”Liblab” by Playa Architects and "Kasi” by Verstas Architects were awarded a shared Third Prize. Additionally, five Honorable Mentions were awarded.

Previously: Helsinki Central Library Competition Announces Stage 2 Finalists

Peace Pavilion by Atelier Zündel Cristea

2013-06-18T18:39:00-04:00

Paris-based practice Atelier Zündel Cristea (AZC) has shared with us photos of its Peace Pavilion which was open to the public for a few weeks in May and June at London's Bethnal Green, Museum Gardens. The proposal had won the first prize in the Triumph Pavilion - LONDON competition and earned the rare opportunity to go from design concept to built pavilion.

The Grand Opening - Honorable Mention Entry, Redesigning Detroit: A New Vision for an Iconic Site

2013-06-18T14:45:00-04:00

Last week, we published the winning projects of the international design competition Redesigning Detroit: A New Vision for an Iconic Site. Organized by the Opportunity Detroit campaign, the competition sought after ideas for a potential signature project on the former Hudson’s Department Store site in downtown Detroit. [...] the proposal "The Grand Opening" which won an Honorable Mention. The design team comprised Chung Whan Park, Terry Park, Jeong Jun Song, Hyuntek Yoon, and Kyung Jae Yu.

Previously: Winners of Redesigning Detroit: A New Vision for an Iconic Site

Hurry Up and Slow Down - 2013 Burnham Prize NEXT STOP Citation

2013-06-17T19:41:00-04:00

In our previous post, we published the winning projects of the 2013 Burnham Prize Competition: NEXT STOP-Designing Chicago BRT Stations. The brief asked designers to envision iconic, functional and sustainable stations for Chicago’s planned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. One of the finalist entries, the concept "Hurry Up and Slow Down" by Ann Lui and Craig Reschke, was recognized with a Citation for proposing a counterpoint to a RAPID transit system: the Slow Line.

Previously: Winners of the 2013 Burnham Prize Competition: NEXT STOP-Designing Chicago BRT Stations

Winners of the 2013 Burnham Prize Competition: NEXT STOP-Designing Chicago BRT Stations

2013-06-17T19:09:00-04:00

The Chicago Architectural Club and the Chicago Architecture Foundation recently announced the winners of the 2013 Burnham Prize Competition - NEXT STOP: Designing Chicago BRT Stations. An exhibition of winning designs and all competition entries is currently on view at the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Atrium gallery (224 S Michigan Ave) until June 28.

Sejong Art Center Entry by H Architecture & Haeahn Architecture

2013-06-17T15:12:00-04:00

New York-based practice H Architecture has shared with us its submission to the recent Sejong Art Center competition for the design of a cultural center for the planned city of Sejong in South Korea. The entry was a collaborative effort with Haeahn Architecture from Seoul.

RIBA International Award Winners 2013 Announced

2013-06-14T18:20:00-04:00

[...] here are now also the twelve projects which won the institute's 2013 RIBA International Awards for architectural excellence. The selected award winners are eligible for the RIBA Lubetkin Prize awarded to the best international building by a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Minneapolis’ Water Works Competition Shortlists West 8, SCAPE, Gustafson Guthrie Nicol

2013-06-13T18:03:00-04:00

The Minneapolis Parks Foundation has announced a shortlist of three award-winning design teams for the schematic design project Water Works: A Next Generation Park on Minneapolis’ Central Riverfront. The teams are Gustafson Guthrie Nicol with VJAA and Interboro (Seattle/Minneapolis/New York); SCAPE with Rogers Marvel (New York); and Team West 8 (Rotterdam/New York).

2013 RIBA National and EU Award Winners

2013-06-13T15:11:00-04:00

The Royal Institute of British Architects has revealed the winners of the 2013 RIBA National Awards. The shortlist for the coveted RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK's best building of the year will be drawn from the 52 RIBA National and EU Award winners (43 buildings in the UK and 9 buildings elsewhere in the EU).

Click here for the full list of Award Winners.

AIA, Make It Right, St. Bernard Project and AFH launch competition to aid disaster survivors

2013-06-13T12:14:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) today announced a strategic partnership with Make It Right, St. Bernard Project and Architecture for Humanity to launch “Designing Recovery,” an ideas competition created to aid in the rebuild of sustainable and resilient communities. The competition, which is designed to help survivors of three recent natural disasters, was announced as a Commitment to Action at CGI America, an annual event of the Clinton Global Initiative focused on finding solutions that promote economic recovery in the United States.

Dow Building Solutions, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, is sponsoring the award, providing building science expertise and products.

The “Designing Recovery” competition will take place in three distinct settings – New Orleans, LA; Joplin, MO; and New York, N.Y. – where the non-profit partner organizations are already working to recover from previous disasters. The partner organizations will assemble a portfolio, or patter...

Winners of Redesigning Detroit: A New Vision for an Iconic Site

2013-06-12T14:55:00-04:00

The international design competition Redesigning Detroit: A New Vision for an Iconic Site has announced its winners today. Hosted by the Opportunity Detroit campaign, the competition solicited ideas for a potential signature project on the former Hudson’s Department Store site in downtown Detroit.

Previously on Archinect: A Motor City Missionary

Taichung City Cultural Center Entry by Architecton

2013-06-10T17:34:00-04:00

Since announcing the five shortlisted finalists to Taiwan's Taichung City Cultural Center competition last week, we have been receiving a steady stream of further competition entries from around the world. Here's one from Moscow-based firm Architecton which moves the "Gate" metaphor to the core of its design concept.

Thom Mayne Announces Winners of the 2013 Julius Shulman Emerging Talent Award

2013-06-07T19:09:00-04:00

[...] unique to this event was a student design contest among the top seven schools of architecture in Los Angeles. Teams of three students from each school participated in a three-day competition in February to design a Continuing Care Retirement Community that will promote social interaction and community on the MLK Medical Center Campus in the South Los Angeles community of Willowbrook.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas joined Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne to honor the team from Woodbury University in Burbank with the Julius Shulman Emerging Talent Award. [...] Honorable Mentions went to the teams from CalPoly Pomona and USC.

The schools participating in the charrette were:

University of Southern California
Otis College of Art and Design
University of California, Los Angeles
California State University, Long Beach
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Woodbury University
Southern California Institute of Architecture

Winners of the 2013 Los Angeles Architectural Awards Announced

2013-06-06T15:47:00-04:00

At a festive ceremony yesterday afternoon, the Los Angeles Business Council unveiled the winners of its 2013 Los Angeles Architectural Awards. The program recognizes buildings from throughout the region for their excellence in design, commitment to sustainability and impact on the community. Architectural icon and SCI-Arc founder Ray Kappe was honored with the L.A. Architectural Lifetime Achievement Award.

5468796 Architecture wins one of five WAN 21 FOR 21 Awards

2013-06-05T20:22:00-04:00

Canadian firm 5468796 Architecture has been selected for the WAN 21 FOR 21 Award by World Architecture News in London, UK. 5468796 was one of five emerging architectural practices chosen from over 150 entries and a longlist of 50 firms from around the world.

TIMBER IN THE CITY Competition Entry by Samuel Pitnick

2013-06-05T14:34:00-04:00

Young LA-based architect Samuel Pitnick has shared with us his entry to the 2012-13 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) competition for architecture students and recent graduates. This year's competition, titled TIMBER IN THE CITY: Urban Habitats Competition, was a a partnership between the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, the ACSA and the School of Constructed Environments at Parsons The New School for Design.

Taichung City Cultural Center Entry by Sériès et Sériès

2013-06-04T16:07:00-04:00

French-Californian practice Sériès et Sériès has shared with us its entry to Taiwan's Taichung City Cultural Center competition [...]. The design team's engineering partner was Buro Happold.

Previously: Taichung City Cultural Center Entry by Maxthreads

Taichung City Cultural Center Entry by Maxthreads

2013-06-03T19:42:00-04:00

Five teams have recently been shortlisted as stage one winners in the international architecture competition for the design of a new City Cultural Center in Taichung, Taiwan. Taichung, after the merger of Taichung City and Taichung County the third largest city in Taiwan, established this competition to distinguish itself from the other major Taiwanese cities, Taipei and Kaohsiung.

The five shortlisted teams are:

Stücheli Architekten AG / Mathis Tinner (Switzerland)
MASS STUDIES / Minsuk Cho (South Korea)
Eisenman Architects, PC / Peter Eisenman (USA)
Jean-loup Baldacci (France)
SANAA / Kazuyo Sejima (Japan)

The jury will announce the stage two results at the end of August.

Following is the entry to the Taichung City Cultural Center competition we have received from Scottish practice Maxthreads Architectural Design and Planning.

Faulty tower: Glasgow's £10m white elephant

2013-06-03T11:43:00-04:00

When it was built, it held the Guinness World Record for the "tallest fully-rotating tower" - although to be fair, there was not much competition for that particular accolade. The 127m-tall (416 ft) steel and glass tower, the highest building in Scotland, was the only structure in the world able to rotate fully through 360 degrees from base to top. Neil Baxter, secretary of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland says the idea was unique: "Nobody had ever tried to do that."

The problem, however, is that it doesn't work.

The tower has now been closed since August 2010 and the science centre recently announced it had settled a lengthy court action with the contractors.

Science centre bosses said they had received "substantial" compensation but there seems to be very little prospect of the tower ever turning again.

Architect Peter Wilson, of Edinburgh Napier University, is one of the critics of the project.

"The fundamental thing about this is that when it was initially designed, it was never meant to be built," he says.

"It was intended for an 'ideas' competition."

Results of Denver’s Micro Housing Ideas Competition

2013-05-31T19:42:00-04:00

The Denver Architectural League recently announced the winners of their Micro Housing Ideas Competition as well as seven formal recognitions. Inspired by a concern about the lack of innovation in Denver's existing multi-family housing market where many banal apartment, townhome and condo complexes continue to be built, this competition offered designers an opportunity to engage in reinventing the notion of "responsible affordable housing" with an emphasis on regenerative design.

Winners of Australia’s THE LODGE ON THE LAKE Competition

2013-05-31T18:30:00-04:00

Winners have been unveiled in THE LODGE ON THE LAKE competition. As part of the celebrations for the Centenary of Australia's capital city Canberra in 2013, the University of Canberra and the Gallery of Australian Design had invited designers to participate in this design ideas competition for a new official residence for the Prime Minister of Australia on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra.

The competition was endorsed by the Australian Institute of Architects and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, however there are currently no intentions by the Australian Government to actually build a new Lodge for the Prime Minister.

Winners of the 2013 New Zealand Architecture Awards

2013-05-29T17:51:00-04:00

The New Zealand Institute of Architects has announced nineteen architectural projects as winners of the 2013 New Zealand Architecture Awards. [...] The Imperial Buildings, a group of heritage buildings on Auckland’s Queen Street which have been restored and revived by Fearon Hay Architects, received this year's New Zealand Architecture Medal, which is awarded to the most outstanding of the New Zealand Architecture Award winners.

Cultural Center Chapultepec Entry by Yau/Morales/Easter/Wawrzenczyk

2013-05-28T14:53:00-04:00

The collaborative design team consisting of architects Adrian Yau, Frisly Colop Morales, Jason Easter and Lukasz Wawrzenczyk has shared with us their entry to the Cultural Center Chapultepec competition in Mexico City.

Winners of the 2013 IS ARCH Awards

2013-05-24T17:27:00-04:00

The annual IS ARCH competition for architecture students and young architects has announced the winners of its second edition. The competition jury, composed of Sou Fujimoto, Benedetta Tagliabue (EMBT), Tomislav Dushanov (Herzog & De Meuron), Taba Rasti (Foster + Partners ), Rik Nys (David Chipperfield Architects), and Carlos Ferrater (Technical University of Catalonia), looked through 153 submitted projects from all over the world.

Zaha Hadid-Designed Riverside Museum Wins European Museum of the Year Award 2013

2013-05-23T18:57:00-04:00

The Zaha Hadid-designed Riverside Museum: Scotland’s Museum of Transport and Travel keeps raking in recognitions [...]: the new Glasgow museum attraction just won the prestigious European Museum of the Year Award 2013, presented by the European Museum Forum. The announcement was made at a special awards ceremony at EMF's annual assembly hosted by the Gallo Romeins Museum in Tongeren in Belgium, EMYA Winner in 2011.

FABRIC Wins Competition for a Temporary Pavilion in the King’s Garden in Copenhagen

2013-05-23T17:04:00-04:00

The entry Trylletromler by Dutch practice FABRIC has won the international design competition for a temporary pavilion in the King's Garden in Copenhagen. The completed pavilion is scheduled to open to the public on September 13.

PinkCloud’s Pop-Up Hotel Turns Empty Office Spaces into Temporary Hospitality Spaces

2013-05-22T17:44:00-04:00

The finalists of the 2013 Radical Innovation in Hospitality competition recently gathered during Hospitality Design Expo in Las Vegas to present their ideas for the next big hotel concept in front of a jury of top industry judges. [...] the Copenhagen-based international architecture collective PinkCloud.dk took home the $10,000 grand prize for its Pop-Up Hotel concept, which utilizes empty Class A office spaces in urban centers, turning them into temporary hospitality spaces.