Archinect - News

The Dubai Frame is becoming a reality, to be complete end of 2014

2013-05-13T14:47:00-04:00

Lootah said the project is a complete glass, transparent structure resembling a huge window frame intended to highlight the attractions of the city so visitors can view the skyscrapers on Shaikh Zayed Road from one side — symbolising modern Dubai — while the other side of the frame will show the old Dubai landmarks of Deira, Umm Hurair and Karama. “The electrical panoramic elevators will help visitors move through its facilities as if they are moving in the sky inside the glass frame,”

As some of you may remember, when the winner of the ThyssenKrupp Elevator Award was announced 3 years ago, there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding the selected winner. The winning entry, "Dubai Frame" by Fernando Donis of the Netherlands, was a 150m tall structure designed as a literal frame of the city of Dubai.

Well, it appears construction on the monument has begun, with a completion date estimated for the end of next year.

Click here to read the 3-year old news article announcing the winner, with the flood of reader comments.

Beautiful photo of sky cranes at WTC site, by BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh

2013-05-08T12:34:00-04:00

When I walked out to get breakfast this morning, clouds had obscured all but the topmost workings of the 1 World Trade Center site, visible through our living room window—a strange vision of machines, pulleys, cranes, and gears sort of hovering in the sky, like something out of Archigram by way of Hayao Miyazaki.

Poor-Quality Chinese Concrete Could Lead to Skyscraper Collapses

2013-03-21T18:53:00-04:00

The Ping’an Finance Center is planned to top out at 660m, making it not only China’s tallest building but the second-tallest building in the world after the Burj Dubai. 80m has been built so far, but construction has been halted in the wake of the revelation from Shenzhen’s Housing and Construction Bureau that substandard sea sand concrete had been used in its construction.

What the White House Looks Like Completely Gutted

2013-02-27T03:12:00-05:00

Harry S Truman inherited a White House that was in horrendous shape. After the British nearly burnt it to the ground in 1814, the construction of 20th-century innovations—indoor plumbing, electricity, and heating ducts—had also taken its toll on the structure. The building was nearly 150 years old, and it showed its age. In November 1948, the building was in a near-condemnable state... So it had to be gutted. Completely.

Construction Update of Reading Station Area Redevelopment by Grimshaw Architects

2013-02-06T12:59:00-05:00

Major construction is currently under way in Reading, England as part of the Reading Station Area Redevelopment. In this new construction update video, Mark Middleton, partner at Grimshaw Architects, is on site at Reading Station and explains how the redevelopment will double its capacity and relieve a major bottleneck in the rail network west of London.

Construction begin on Zaha's Softbridge Building at Oxford University

2013-01-31T16:33:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid visited Oxford to celebrate the start of construction works at St Antony's College.

Dubbed the 'Softbridge', the new building will be known as the The Investcorp Building on completion in the summer of 2014.

The building has been made possible through a generous donation of £11 million funded by the international alternative asset management firm, Investcorp. The guest of honour at the ground-breaking ceremony was Investcorp's Executive Chairman and CEO, Mr Nemir Kirdar.

The three-storey Softbridge building will form a suspended 'bridge' between numbers 66 and 68 Woodstock Road and provides 1,200 square metres of floor-space. Its new lecture theatre, replacing the cramped rooms where public seminars are currently held, offers 125 seats and disabled access. The building will also house a new library and purpose-built archive facility, doubling the amount of space currently available.

Mr Nemir Kirdar said: 'Investcorp was founded to create a bridge betwee...

Jerde-designed mixed-use destination in Moscow begins construction

2013-01-28T13:40:00-05:00

The first-ever, integrated mixed-use destination in Russia designed by the Jerde Partnership, a U.S. architecture firm renowned for creating experiential destinations, is under construction in central Moscow. Kuntsevo Plaza – a vibrant new live, work, shopping and entertainment village occupying a full city block – will deliver a modern community gathering place rooted in art, nature, and urbanity. Providing a stage for lifestyle, the pedestrian-oriented center is made up of geometric buildings that vary in size and shape, and topped with terraces and undulating glass features, to create a new landmark for the city.

The project provides a vital connection to the nearby transit line through the grand exterior plaza, multiple entryways and various street connections. Intentionally designed to allow the community to naturally flow through it, the development will seamlessly connect commuters and visitors arriving from the nearby subway to the neighborhoods and urban areas sur...

Chilean Skyscraper Overshadows The City

2013-01-07T00:30:00-05:00

The skyline of Chile’s capital city, Santiago, has a new addition with the Gran Torre skyscraper casting a two-kilometre shadow across the historic city. The 70-storey residential building stands more than 300 metres tall, making it the tallest building in South America. The five-ton steel structure cost an estimated one billion dollars to build and tenants are expected to move into the building next March.

Isolated Tombstone Stands Among Chinese Skyscrapers

2012-12-12T14:01:00-05:00

In a bizarre dispute, a skyscraper has been built around a tombstone in the city of Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province in China. Building developers bought a cemetery with an eye to building a series of skyscrapers on the land. Prior to construction, locals were paid to relocate the graves, yet one family refused the proposed terms, forcing developers to build around the landmass.

Construction Update of St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport by Grimshaw Architects

2012-12-12T13:48:00-05:00

Grimshaw Architects reveals an interesting glimpse of the massive construction going on at Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg, Russia. Back in 2007, Grimshaw had won the competition for a new combined international and domestic terminal designed for 17 million passengers a year. The building is scheduled for completion in December 2013.

North Korea Ryugyong 'Hotel of Doom' may open next year

2012-11-05T15:30:00-05:00

A delegation from the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea, which inspected the building almost 15 years ago, concluded it was beyond repair and its lift shafts crooked. But in 2008 an Egyptian company, Orascom Telecom, which operates a mobile network in North Korea, began equipping the building. Mr Wittwer said the hotel will "partially, probably" open for business next year. But original plans for 3,000 hotel rooms and three revolving restaurants have been greatly scaled back.

Manhattan Construction Crane Collapses at One57 Luxury Tower

2012-10-29T17:24:00-04:00

A crane attached to One57, the luxury apartment tower under construction in midtown Manhattan, partially collapsed amid gusts from Hurricane Sandy. [...] One57, poised to be the tallest residential property in Manhattan at 90 stories, is being developed by Extell Development Co. A penthouse at the building went under contract earlier this year for more than $90 million.

Follow the construction of Renzo Piano's new Whitney online

2012-10-22T18:45:00-04:00

Follow the progress of our new building in real time by watching our web camera, which documents the construction of the Whitney’s new home with an updated image every fifteen minutes.

Iconic Photo of Construction Workers Lunching Atop a Skyscraper Was Faked

2012-09-21T19:26:00-04:00

“The image was a publicity effort by the Rockefeller Centre,” Corbis’s chief historian Ken Johnston told the Independent. “It seems pretty clear they were real workers, but the event was organised with a number of photographers.”

Stone Spray builds architecture from the ground up ... literally

2012-08-13T18:04:00-04:00

Using natural soil and sand, the Stone Spray can construct intricate solid structures at almost any location, even on vertical surfaces. The device was developed by architects Petr Novikov, Inder Shergill, and Anna Kulik as a research project to experiment with applying the concepts of digital manufacturing to construction work.

Visit the Stone Spray website.

Tianjin Samaranch Memorial Museum - Construction Update

2012-08-09T17:27:00-04:00

Danish/American practice HAO / Holm Architecture Office has sent us latest renderings and constructions photos of their Samaranch Memorial Museum project for former Olympic president Juan Antonio Samaranch in Tianjin, China. The initial design scheme has undergone some adjusting and fine tuning since HAO won the international competition in collaboration with Archiland Beijing last year [...]. The museum is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

Masonic Amphitheatre Construction Time Lapse

2012-07-10T16:23:00-04:00

This video documents the construction of the Masonic Amphitheatre in Clifton Forge, VA. The project was designed and built by 16 students from Virginia Tech's design/buildLAB, helmed by Keith and Marie Zawistowski. The video was put together by photographer Jeff Goldeberg of Esto.

For more about the Masonic Ampitheatre project, visit Virginia Tech's design/buildLAB blog.

Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Details" Pinterest Board

2012-04-27T17:08:00-04:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Details.

↑ PH3 in Tijuana, Mexico by T38studio

↑ Condorcet School in Évry, France by Jean Baptiste PIETRI

↑ Foyer design inside the Oslo Opera House in Oslo, Norway by Olafur Eliasson (Photo: Katherine York)

↑ Resonant Chamber in Ann Arbor, MI by rvtr

↑ The Lofts at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, CA by Brooks + Scarpa (Photo: John Linden)

↑ Four Gables in Nort Haven Village, NY by workshop/apd (Photo: T.G. Olcott)

↑ Lighting design for Richard Lippold's "Flight" sculpture, in the lobby of the MetLife building, NYC by bluarch architecture

↑ National Olympic Committee House in Tbilisi, Georgia by Architects of Invention (Photo: Nakanimamasakhlisi Photo Lab)

↑ House on Fire Island in Fir...

Mecanoo Begins Construction of Onze Droomschool in Dordrecht, NL

2012-04-26T13:18:00-04:00

Today marks the official start of construction of the new building for Onze Droomschool in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, designed by Mecanoo architecten. The new 5,322 m² school brings together education, child care and medical care. [...] In addition to classrooms, the building will house practical training studios, a mediatheque, music studio, sports center and an outdoor Johan Cruijff court for soccer and basketball.

Honest Buildings Website Launches To Make Building Research Easier

2012-03-20T16:57:00-04:00

Every building is unique, and each has good things and some not-so-good things. The new website Honest Buildings launched today to make it a lot easier to learn about projects and open up a discourse on how to make them perform better. As the site matures, the creators see it developing into an organic gathering place for discourse on the built environment – a social media hub just for buildings.

Construction Photos of soma’s Thematic Yeosu EXPO Pavilion

2012-03-09T19:54:00-05:00

Austrian firm soma is updating us on the latest construction status of their “One Ocean“ Thematic Pavilion for the EXPO 2012 in Yeosu, South Korea. The pavilion is a major and permanent building for the Expo and is scheduled for official opening on May 12, 2012. [...] The building will house two kinds of exhibitions that will give the visitors an introduction to the EXPO’s theme, The living Ocean and Coast.

Building as Business

2012-02-01T13:08:00-05:00

Peter Gluck & Partners’s innovative approach to project delivery, “Architect Led Design Build”, is simple: the New York City-based firm acts as both the architect and the contractor. The client gets two separate contracts with different legal entities but the same people. A typical project goes from schematic design, directly to subcontractors who estimate cost and contribute useful information on alterations or alternatives.

30-story building built in 15 days

2012-01-10T14:24:00-05:00

What can you accomplish in 360 hours? The Chinese sustainable building company, Broad Group, has yet attempted another impossible feat, building a 30-story tall hotel prototype in 360 hours, after building a 15-story building in a week earlier in 2011.

Brick Swarm

2011-11-27T19:05:03-05:00

Semi-autonomous flying robots programmed by Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler "will lift, transport and assemble 1500 polystyrene foam bricks" next month—starting 2 December 2011—at the FRAC Center in France. The result, they hope, will be a "3.5 meter wide structure."

COBE and TRANSFORM start construction of new Maritime Museum and Science Center in Norway

2011-11-11T17:08:00-05:00

Construction of the new Maritime Museum and Science Center started this week in Porsgrunn, Norway. The building, designed by Danish architecture offices COBE and TRANSFORM, conveys Norway’s transformation from a seafaring nation to a modern society based on knowledge industry. The project is expected to be completed already in fall of 2012.

The Holmenkollen Ski Jump Wins 2011 ECCS Structural Steel Design Award

2011-09-22T13:12:00-04:00

JDS Architects’ Holmenkollen Ski Jump has been announced as the winner of the 2011 ECCS Structural Steel Design Award today at the ECCS Congress in Potsdam, Germany. The award recognizes outstanding design in steel construction emphasizing the many advantages of steel in construction, production, economy and architecture.

Find more images of the new Holmenkollen Ski Jump here.

Following years of delays, construction finally moving ahead at World Trade Center

2011-08-15T14:47:56-04:00

After years of controversy and delays, the 16-acre World Trade Center site is finally taking shape. Construction cranes and exposed steel frames dominate the site, towering over the National September 11 Memorial. Here is an update on the major projects