Archinect - News

Wang Shu bucks China’s megacity trend

2013-06-17T20:25:00-04:00

“Cities today have become far too large,” Wang said in an interview while visiting New York in April. “I’m really worried, because it’s happening too fast and we have already lost so much.” Wang, a sturdy 49-year-old, has built his small architectural practice as a riposte to this heedless destruction. With his wife, architect Lu Wenyu, he runs a 10-person firm called Amateur Architecture Studio in Hangzhou, a picturesque lakeside city southwest of Shanghai.

Taksim Square and Gezi Park Protests: Designing a Common Present, Future, and Past

2013-06-17T20:22:00-04:00

I call these projects urbicide because of the social and ecological damages they cause, such as land speculation, expulsion of the lower-middle classes from the urban center, and the zoning of green areas for development. Among the projects is a third bridge over the Bosphorus, a canal bisecting Istanbul in the north-south axis near its western border, and the redevelopment of Taksim Square.

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.

Starchitect Trio: The Men Behind Germany's Building Debacles

2013-06-17T16:43:00-04:00

SPIEGEL: Mr. de Meuron, Mr. von Gerkan and Mr. Ingenhoven, architecture's reputation in this country is worse than ever. How much of the blame do you bear?

Stuttgart's train station, Hamburg's concert house and Berlin's airport: Three projects in Germany are currently competing to be seen as the country's most disastrous. SPIEGEL spoke to the star architects behind the construction sites.

A Manifesto for Hyperdensity

2013-06-14T13:39:00-04:00

We cannot expect big American cities to reach their potential when the very professions that purport to defend and perpetuate urbanism recoil at the presence of towers. Left rudderless by the experts, we are forced to inhabit the bleak consequences of a poorly regulated marketplace, analogous to a population that must operate on its own cancers due to the confused surgeons who keep cutting away at the healthy tissue.

Americans are famously conflicted about urban development: somehow we've demonized both sprawl and density. But today there is a new conversation about the future of cities, driven by diversifying social desires, evolving technologies, and pressing environmental constraints.

On Places, in an excerpt from the new book A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, Vishaan Chakrabarti contributes a bold argument for hyperdensity. The very dense city, he says, not only promotes prosperity, sustainability and delight; it will also determine our strength as a nation.

Baharash Architecture Wins Dubai Sustainable City Project

2013-06-12T19:17:00-04:00

Emerging London-based firm Baharash Architecture has been selected to design phase 2 of the 46-hectar Dubai Sustainable City development. The practice is set to open an office in Dubai following the victory against international anonymous teams from the United States, Lebanon, Jordan, UK, and UAE.

Urban Heroes of Istanbul: It’s About Public Space

2013-06-11T19:30:00-04:00

The protest was an effort to save a park by occupying that very park; it was not a symbolic or ideological demonstration like the Occupy Wall Street movements, but a primal struggle between human bodies and bulldozers, that made the political discourse all the more potent...

Jesse Honsa, (an architect and urban designer in Istanbul, and is co-founder of OpenUrban), has written a short piece, in which he shares his experience over the last days of the protests in and around Taksim Square.

h/t amlblog

Filling the Gap: New Architecture Discourse in Rio de Janeiro

2013-06-11T11:45:00-04:00

Since 2011, Studio-X Rio has been bringing together professionals, academics, decision makers, students, and the general public to confront the city’s most pressing challenges.

Andrew Rice shines a spotlight on Michael Kimmelman's war on Madison Square Garden

2013-06-10T15:43:00-04:00

It might seem like a mismatch: the Dolans, veterans of many public brawls, against Kimmelman, an urbane trained pianist who previously wrote primarily about art. But such is the power of the Times when it’s given to a crusading voice.

Once Unsafe, Rio's Shantytowns See Rapid Gentrification

2013-06-07T12:56:00-04:00

A new boutique hotel perched on top of one of Rio's previously most dangerous favelas is about to open. And yes, there is a jazz club and yoga, too. These are new services catering to a new kind of favela resident. "It's actually very conveniently located for my work," says Natalie Shoup, a 22-year-old American who lives in a favela called Babilonia, or Babylon. "This has a good amount of transportation to every part of the city. It's nice. It worked out really well."

On the other hand: Remaking Rio: turning an urban dystopia into an Olympic playground (The Verge)

Previously on Archinect:

More details of Zumthor's LACMA redesign

2013-06-06T19:19:00-04:00

Here is your first look at models and details of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor's proposed new building for LACMA. See these for yourself, along with a look at LACMA's architectural history and an overview of other Zumthor projects, in THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST: PETER ZUMTHOR RECONSIDERS LACMA, on view July 9-September 15, 2013

For more information, visit lacma.org/zumthor.

Full-Page Ad Inspired By Turkish Protests Is One Of Indiegogo's Fastest Campaigns Ever

2013-06-05T14:39:00-04:00

As protests have rocked Turkey over the past few days, three Turkish professionals in the U.S. decided on Sunday that they had to take some action. Turning to their technology backgrounds, the trio launched a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to buy a full-page ad in the front section of the New York Times in support of their fellow Turkish citizens who’ve clashed with the government across dozens of cities.

For more information on the protests in Istanbul, check Orhan's report with ongoing commentary. Here's a link to the Indiegogo campaign.

Lahore authorities battle to restore splendour of ancient Walled City

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

The Walled City's gardens and squares are now obscured by illegal shops and businesses, the skyline cluttered by unplanned tenements and bundles of cables. For many of the 200,000 inhabitants crammed into these 4sq km, a fraction of Lahore's 7m population, drinking water is a rarity. But last month the new Walled City of Lahore Authority met for the first time. The body oversees the ambitious plan to restore the past glory of the city's oldest neighbourhood.

Peter Zumthor's $450,000,000 'Black Flower' for LACMA

2013-06-03T14:10:00-04:00

"Bracingly forward-looking, Zumthor's design for LACMA would give the city a much-needed jolt of architectural energy."

Zumthor's design, which obliterates the original campus of LACMA, would cost an estimated $450M to construct, with another $200M in soft and operating costs built in.

A few questions abound: is this really any different (in overall approach) than OMA's ill-fated masterplan from roughly 10 years ago? Will this truly solve LACMA's core collections questions? And would the money raised be much better allocated towards improving those, the existing facilities and creating a long term operations fund to help stabilize the institution?

Solidarity with Istanbul

2013-05-31T11:14:00-04:00

Last few days Istanbul has been the site of mass protests and battles raging for the Gezi Park (translating as stroll park) in Taksim District where the prime minister Erdogan's government wants to build a "Shopping Mall," a kitschy copy of a 19th. century building, Taksim Military Barracks, that was demolished in 1940 on the recommendations of French architect Henri Prost who is known for his work with Tony Garnier.

The morphing of the existing park with grown trees to enclosed courtyard style kitsch shopping mall.

The decision to demolish the park is really a most recent assault in accordance with the over commercialization of this historic city of 16 million people. The blunt action to send bulldozers to uproot the trees certainly hit a nerve with thousands of protesters who are fed up with government's draconian measures of late, threatening the basic liberties of Turkish society at large and the invasion of the publicness of the open spaces in Turkey's largest c...

Giant demolition job as two mile viaduct in China is blown up

2013-05-29T18:08:00-04:00

The demolition took place at night in the Chinese city of Wuhan. With 100,000 volt wiring running alongside the viaduct and 30 major gas pipelines underneath it, explosives experts were faced with a task requiring particular precision. The two mile long viaduct was the longest concrete bridge ever demolished in China.

Thinking Big - Four Visions of a New Penn Station

2013-05-29T15:00:00-04:00

The Municipal Art Society asked four design firms to draw big: Reimagine the ideal Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. The proposals — by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, SHoP Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture — will be introduced on Wednesday at the TimesCenter. All plans expect the new station to include high-speed rail.

SHoP ARCHITECTS Expands the existing site with a lightweight concrete structure that is meant to evoke the old Penn Station and seeks to make the station a social meeting spot. “When’s the last time you heard someone say, ‘Let’s meet for a drink at Penn Station?'” asked Vishaan Chakrabarti, a principal. “People say that about Grand Central all the time.”

SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL Moves Madison Square Garden off site and expands the station to four city blocks from two. Above ground: green space four times the size of Bryant Park; housing twice the size of Tudor City; more offices than Rockefeller Center; and more cultural spaces than Lincoln Center. “We saw Madison Square Garden as a sideshow,” said Roger Duffy, a design partner. “The primary purpose of the site is for the public and transportation.”

DILLER SCOFIDIO & RENFRO Moves Madison Square Garden across Eighth Avenue next to the James A. Farley Post Office building; Penn Station becomes a multilevel publi...

New York Design Commissioner David Burney on the Politics of the Public

2013-05-28T20:33:00-04:00

Increasingly it's been cities that have taken the lead on critical issues, from gun control to immigration reform to economic stimulus to climate change. Given the migration of people into cities worldwide, this trend is sure to continue. We might even be in a de facto transition to a society dominated by economically and politically powerful cities — a contemporary version of the great city-states that arose in the 13th century and ruled Europe until the consolidation of modern nation-states.

For almost a decade David Burney has been Commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction in New York City.

In an interview with Places editor Nancy Levinson, he reflects on the urban design record of the Bloomberg years, focusing especially on PlaNYC, the ongoing post-Sandy recovery effort, and the potential for cities to take the lead in 21st-century sustainability planning.

The Pier, St. Petersburg's iconic inverted pyramid, closes this Friday, to be demolished in August

2013-05-28T20:24:00-04:00

The modernist five-story glass and steel structure was an attempt by city leaders to shake off the city’s image as a retirement destination. Even more radical was its inverted pyramid shape, chosen by architect William B. Harvard to make the most use of the limited space at the pierhead without blocking views of the city and Tampa Bay.

How Engineers Are Building a New Railroad Under New York City

2013-05-28T15:13:00-04:00

The biggest public transit infrastructure effort in the US is almost completely invisible — unless you’re 160 feet underground. The East Side Access project will connect the Long Island Railroad to New York’s Grand Central Terminal via a massive tunnel under the East River. Actually, that tunnel was the easy part; it was started in 1969. The hard part? “We are building a brand-new railroad here,” says Michael Horodniceanu, president of Metropolitan Transit Authority Capital Construction.

Beautiful photographs by Dean Kaufman. To view more of his photos from this story, go to his website.

Istanbul saves its silhouette

2013-05-24T13:38:00-04:00

Three skyscrapers are to be demolished in Istanbul's Zeytinburnu district for interfering with city's historical silhouette. Decision reached by the 4th. Administrative Court of Istanbul and the use licences of the buildings were revoked. H ü rriyet

"Sky City" gets approval, to be tallest building in the world, with contruction schedule now estimated at 7 months

2013-05-23T17:13:00-04:00

Last week, Broad Group announced it has received approval from the Chinese government and will break ground on the project next month, though according to Quartz's Lily Kuo, Broad Sustainable Building has pushed the building's schedule to a more modest seven months.

China Builds Museums, But Filling Them Is Another Story

2013-05-23T17:12:00-04:00

Jeffrey Johnson, an architect who runs the China Megacities Lab at Columbia, is among a number of scholars who study China's rapid urbanization. He says local governments are building museums to create a cultural life and competitive identity for their cities. But China lost a lot of art because of its civil war in the 1940s, as well as the Cultural Revolution, looting and overseas sales. Johnson says many museums are going up faster than curators can fill them with works and audiences.

Colon, Panama: A Once-Vibrant, and beautiful, City Struggles

2013-05-23T12:56:00-04:00

Civil society has to get things done here - Kurt Dillon, architect, Urbio

"In recognition of its historic role in the development of modern international trade and transportation, as well as its cultural and environmental value, the Historic Center of Colon was declared a historic monument in 2002. Despite its protected status, the center continues to suffer the effect of more than 30 years of neglect and abuse. This short, Spanish-language documentary offers criteria for a democratic project of urban conservation and economic revitalization that begins with the dispelling of stereotypes and the valorization of Colon's exceptional cultural heritage."

The Historic Center of the City of Colon: A project for its conservation, revitalization and sustainable management.

The too-smart city

2013-05-22T20:01:00-04:00

We’re already building the metropolis of the future—green, wired, even helpful. Now critics are starting to ask whether we’ll really want to live there.

"Unconscious Perception" and 99 other urban trends in BMW Guggenheim Lab's glossary of ideas

2013-05-22T17:47:00-04:00

Unconscious perception represents the automated processes the body goes through to take in the surrounding environment and its metaphysical status. While our five senses help us perceive the physical world, unconscious perception connects us to the realm of intuition. To shed light on how we are influenced by this dimension of our minds, artist Dan Graham spoke about his practice, which challenges our perceptions of space through performance, installations, video, sculpture, and writing.

Gowanus by Design: WATER_WORKS Competition Exhibit Opens Tomorrow

2013-05-21T14:37:00-04:00

Back in February, we had published the winners of Gowanus by Design's second design and planning competition, WATER_WORKS. The intent of the competition, according to David Briggs, co-founder of Gowanus by Design, was to design a new community resource in Douglass/Greene Park that shares the site with a Combined Sewer Overflow [CSO] retention facility.

The award winners, along with other entries selected by the GbD competition committee, will be on display tomorrow, Wednesday, May 22, at the Old American Can Factory Gallery, 232 Third Street at Third Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. The event starts at 6:30PM.

Previously: Gowanus by Design: WATER_WORKS Competition Winners

Why Is China Stealing Cities, Towns, and Buildings?

2013-05-20T17:37:00-04:00

A lot of Chinese people look up to the West as an ideal, so the construction of these towns could be seen as a way of accelerating their progress; a quick way of achieving through emulation.

POST+CAPITALIST CITY 4#Move - Winning Projects

2013-05-20T14:30:00-04:00

The international ideas competition series POST+CAPITALIST CITY has announced the winners of its last quarter, 4#Move. Previous installments focused on the issues of 1#Shop, 2#Work, and 3#Live.

Previously:

Security trumps urban planning at WTC site

2013-05-17T13:56:00-04:00

With the blank slate offered by a catastrophic attack, planners, soon joined by the mayor himself, saw a chance to re-establish a great crossroads: Fulton and Greenwich Streets, tying the second World Trade Center into New York — north, south, east and west. Now, however, they see that vision slipping away, as security concerns trump urban planning.