Archinect - News

Twelve Architects to Compete to Design Nobel Center in Stockholm

2013-03-25T19:12:00-04:00

During the winter there has been a selection process to choose the architects who will be invited to participate in the planned architectural competition to design a Nobel Center at Blasieholmen in Stockholm. In total, over 140 architects have been considered by a specially appointed evaluation committee. Of these, 12 have been selected to be invited to the architectural competition.

The Nobel Foundation has announced the following 12 architects selected:

Kim Herforth Nielsen – 3XN, Denmark
Bjarke Ingels – BIG, Denmark
David Chipperfield – David Chipperfield Architects, England/Germany
Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron and Ascan Mergenthaler – Herzog & de Meuron, Switzerland
Johan Celsing – Johan Celsing Arkitektkontor, Sweden
Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal – Lacaton & Vassal Architectes, France
Lene Tranberg – Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter, Denmark
Marcel Meili and Markus Peter – Marcel Meili, Markus Peter Architekten, Switzerland
Rem Koolhaas and Reinier de Graaf – OMA, Netherlands
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa – SANAA, Japan
Kjetil Thorsen – Snøhetta, Norway
Gert Wingårdh – Wingårdhs arkitekter, Sweden

Within the two-stage competition, the architects' task will be to design the building that will become the new home of the Nobel Prize in Stockholm. The building will house the Nobel Foundation, toge...

Gert Wingårdh's stunning installation at this week's Stockholm Furniture Fair

2013-02-06T19:49:00-05:00

Swedish architect Gert Wingårdh and Finnish illustrator Kustaa Saksi have joined creative forces to design the installation that will set the stage for talks on design and architecture at the fair. They have each started out from their own perspective while adhering to a shared vision.

“From the very beginning, the idea has been to create a spatiality for communication in which furniture and design have a presence in words and images, as well as a physical presence. To explain the concept behind an item of furniture, what you were thinking and how you arrived at the design, gives a deeper dimension to the object. This is something we’ve wanted to focus on more this year and so we’re giving furniture companies a chance to introduce themselves, their products and designers by communicating through a new program item we call Show 'n Tell,” explains Sanna Gebeyehu, the producer of the project.

  The design suggests a church interior, with rows of high tables in front of an ‘...

schmidt hammer lassen to Design New Cultural Center and Library in Karlshamn, Sweden

2013-01-25T13:50:00-05:00

schmidt hammer lassen architects has just won an international competition for the new Cultural Center and Library in the Swedish city of Karlshamn, designed to gather the city’s cultural functions under one roof. The 5,000 square meter (53,820 sq ft) facility aims to be the city’s new meeting place and will house a library, an exhibition area, a movie theater, a tourist office, and a café.

The Stunning Repurposed Architecture and Lunar Landscapes of Gotland’s Refined Resort

2012-04-02T19:55:00-04:00

London-based photographer Peter Guenzel explores the sparse and calming atmosphere of former limestone refinery turned eco hotel, Fabriken Furillen... the minimalist retreat is set amid the area’s untrammeled natural beauty featuring rocky coastline, wind-swept pines and glistening sea... founder Johan Hellström preserved its original infrastructure and recycled local materials such as concrete, limestone and hardwood to build the hotel's 17 rooms.

A New Cycling Superhighway. Not in the U.S.A.

2012-01-17T19:00:00-05:00

The proposed bicycle superhighway would, in addition to four lanes (2 in each direction) have exits but no intersections, two types of wind protection (low bushes as well as solid fencing) periodic bicycle service stations, and would take eight years to complete. Total cost of the superhighway is estimated to be about 50 million Swedish crowns (US$ 7.1 million).

From the School Blogs: Norway Sweden Study Tour DIS

2011-07-18T14:47:06-04:00

As mentioned in previous posts I have been studying in Copenhagen with the Danish Institute of Study Abroad. In the last week we were treated to study tours to either Norway and Sweden or Finland and Sweden. My group traveled to Norway and Sweden.

Mock Firms International Skyscraper Competition 2nd Place Proposal

2011-06-17T02:33:23-04:00

The Mock Firms model aims to help facilitate the formation and function of simulated architectural design firms by collegiate and secondary school students. Entering in its 4th year, the Chicago-based Mock Firms Architectural Competition is already highly regarded on the landscape of student-based design competitions.

Students Brian Ng, Michael Zhang and Grant Cogan of The Danish Institute for Study Abroad and California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo have taken second place in Chicago Architecture Today’s 2011 International Mock Firm Skyscraper Design Challenge with their skyscraper proposal: “Reconcile: The Stensta Tower”

Below is their concept proposal brief:

Skyscrapers today represent social inaccessibility and commercial obsession, completely disengaged from any sense of ethical responsibility. How can the tower, a source of unaccepted scrutiny in Sweden, become good for the people?

In reigniting the social question of architecture, how can the tower reconfigure itself into something that reconciles sites of conflict, catalyzing social sustainability?

The biggest challenge with designing a skyscraper for the city of Stockholm is the “towerphobia” of Scandinavia. Any protrusion in the low, homogenous skyline of Stockholm is seen as a display of power; in the past, the ...

UK/CoD Assistant Professor Taught PERFORMA Workshop at Lund University in Sweden

2011-05-05T13:42:00-04:00

Michael McKay, Assistant Professor at University of Kentucky College of Design (UK/CoD) shared with us his impressions from the PERFORMA workshop he recently taught at Lund University, School of Architecture, Department of Theoretical and Applied Aesthetics in Sweden. The two-week workshop was part of a semester long studio, directed by Abelardo Gonzalez, composed of visiting guest professors.

Here's Michael's report:

The PERFORMA workshop at the LTH School of Architecture is an intensive two-week workshop based on research involving material systems and design strategies. This work seeks to create multi-performative material systems utilizing optimization, aggregation and efficiency. Simple units and semi-finished materials are physically tested in order to extract potential performative characteristics and limits. These limits are then negotiated through rigorous digital and physical techniques in order to produce strategies of fabrication. The formal systems have inherent s...

Örnsköldsvik's new [proposed] hotel is a love-hate affair

2011-04-18T15:20:01-04:00

Thomas Sandell's, of Sandell Sandberg, design for a new hotel in Örnsköldsvik's port has created quite a stir in an otherwise off-the-radar Swedish city of Örnsköldsvik, population 28,617. The hotel, commisioned by Elite Hotels, has such a stark design that it triggered a very public crit via the Örnsköldsvik Allehanda. Architects Per-Eddie Bjuggstam, Kjell Arne Mattsson and E Wistedte agreed that the building should be thinner, taller and less garish in color choice. The general public has likened the project to a pack of cigarettes and a nuclear power plant.

Kent Forsberg, of hockey fame, said, "No, it's not at all clear, there will be a lot happening yet." Forsberg, who owns local development company Forspro, is a major stakeholder in the project. Paraphrased in Örnsköldsvik Allehanda, "[Forsberg] thinks the hotel project should not be discussed in the media, but he welcomes views on the subject."

On the Örnsköldsvik Allehanda website, this single project has generated a doze...