Archinect - News

Apple is rumored to hire Foster to revamp its retail stores

2013-04-11T15:01:00-04:00

Sources close to the project said Foster + Partners... is helping Apple on the retail store design brief.

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson has reached out to us about an error in the cited article at Marketing Magazine...

The Regent Street and Fifth Avenue Apple Store were not designed by Eight Inc., but by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. We also continue to have a very collaborative relationship with Apple Inc., and are fortunate to be working with their Retail Development Team on many new stores worldwide.

Foster + Partners completes Bedouin tent-inspired Jordan Airport

2013-03-27T13:32:00-04:00

Foster + Partners recently added another international airport to its portfolio, the just-opened Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan. According to a press release, the flight hub boasts a “highly effective passive design, which has been inspired by local traditions,” namely a canopy of shallow concrete domes that mitigate Amman’s hot climate and mimic forms in Islamic art.

Editor's Picks #301

2013-02-05T10:09:00-05:00

Archinect released the final and third part of a multi-part interview Orhan Ayyüce conducted with George Brugmans, Executive Director of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR). The topics included: São Paulo, Rotterdam and Beyond. At one point Mr. Brugmans summed up "when the requirement is to find the right balance between people, planet and profit, transformational and infrastructural ambitions are to all intents and purposes to be seen as part of the same ‘making city’ package. It worked like that on both Test Sites, in Istanbul and in São Paulo. It is important to note here that this provides a unique opportunity".

I was also interested to note the final section wherein Mr. Brugmans discussed the recent post-austerity political/budgetary challenges facing the Netherlands in general and the IABR specifically. Along those lines in a comment after the first part of the nterview was released, I referenced an op-ed by Sérgio Miguel Figueiredo published last m...

Foster + Partners Designs Tile Showroom on Madison Square Park

2013-01-17T14:30:00-05:00

Lord Norman Foster, the hyper-modern British Pritzker Prize winner, is having a moment in New York, with numerous projects underway across Manhattan. But his latest hews away from the slick techno-futurism for which Lord Foster is best known, instead embracing a city landmark at one of our most famous intersections.

Foster + Partners has picked up yet another project in New York, an 18,000-square-foot showroom for one of Spain's largest tile and ceramics makers. Located at one of Manhattan's most popular intersections, it is a strikingly understated building for the Pritzker Prize winner.

Unveiled> Engel & Volkers Headquarters

2013-01-15T11:37:00-05:00

Richard Meier & Partners’ mixed-use building was selected in an international competition topping submissions by Foster + Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects. The challenge, Bernhard Karpf, associate partner-in-charge, said was to create a hybrid building that was “like a city in itself,” which creates “property lines” that carves out distinct areas for rentals, offices, and shops, but still comes together in a unified and coherent design.

Sky Gardens Add Drama to $750 Million Park Avenue Tower

2012-12-26T20:15:00-05:00

The Park Avenue tower rises from a monumental covered plaza to two setbacks, where the 42-foot-high garden levels expose those massive, dramatic building supports. The top two floors of the tower, tentatively planned to rise 49 stories, form a glass- roofed garden. Elevator shafts morph into glowing blades that slice the sky above the roof.

Watch Koolhaas; Hadid; Rogers Stirk Harbour; and Foster pitch their proposals for the new L&L Tower

2012-11-19T12:32:00-05:00

The series of videos below offers a fascinating insight into how this generation of "starchitects" behaves under pressure, as they each pitch to win one of the most high-profile competitions in recent years: a new tower for L&L Holding Company on Park Avenue in New York. The site has such daunting neighbours as Mies van der Rohe's Seagram building, and it will be the first full-block office tower to be built on the street in almost half a century.

In San Francisco, Life Without ‘Starchitects’

2012-11-16T13:35:00-05:00

Developers in San Francisco are loath to take architectural risks because the city’s approval process for new development is long and rigorous, perhaps the most onerous in the country, architects say. It’s hard to fault their caution when you consider how small San Francisco really is — 47 square miles (Manhattan alone is 23 square miles) — with much of the area consumed by neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes.

Norman Foster Designs His First U.S. Apartment Building

2012-11-14T11:09:00-05:00

From William Zeckendorf’s work with I.M. Pei and Minoru Yamaski in the 1960s and ’70s to his grandsons’ projects with the likes KPF and, most notably, Robert A.M. Stern, who created both the brand new 15 Central Park West and the newly renovated 18 Gramercy Park South, the Zeckendorfs have a thing for high design.

Foster + Partners has just designed its second apartment tower in North America, and first in the U.S., for Zeckendorf Development. They are the same developer who worked with Robert A.M. Stern on 15 Central Park West, considered the best-selling condo building of all time. Can Lord Norman and his sleek 44-story tower top that?

The Next 100 – Foster + Partners re-imagines Grand Central Terminal for 2013 Centenary

2012-10-19T12:36:00-04:00

Within the station, the proposal creates wider concourses, with new and improved entrances. Externally, streets will be reconfigured as shared vehicle/pedestrian routes, and Vanderbilt Avenue fully pedestrianised. The proposal also creates new civic spaces that will provide Grand Central with an appropriate urban setting for the next 100 years.

Foster unveils major redevelopment plan for Toronto

2012-10-16T15:38:00-04:00

Riding on the tailwinds of last week’s Mirvish + Gehry announcement, Oxford Properties Group today announced plans for the large-scale redevelopment of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and its surrounding areas. Dubbed "Oxford Place," the project will include much more than a refurbishing of the convention centre. Oxford plans to build four towers: one residential, one office and, of particular interest, two for a hotel that would serve a proposed casino...

Lord Foster Beats Rem, Zaha, Rogers for Unusual NYC Office Tower

2012-10-03T12:42:00-04:00

“We are grateful to each of the firms for the thoughtfulness and creativity they demonstrated throughout the process. There is no doubt that each group was fully capable of helping us realize our vision of a 425 Park Avenue tower that redefines the modern office environment while also respecting and enhancing the timeless allure of the Plaza district.”

In one of the most unusual assignments around, Foster, Rogers, Koolhaas and Hadid were asked to tackle a New York City office building on Park Avenue. A famous address with two famous towers, but really, the rest of them stink. The catch for 425 Park, one of those middcentury stinkers, is that the zoning for the existing 1957 building was modified a few years later so any new building on the site would be smaller than what is there now. The developer figured out that if he tore down most but not all of his tower and built back up from there, he could keep his zoning envelope. Check out Lord Foster's fascinating design for this challenging project.

Fully Charged visits Foster-designed Masdar City

2012-10-02T12:18:00-04:00

Masdar City is a project in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Its core is a planned city, which is being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, a subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company, with the majority of seed capital provided by the government of Abu Dhabi. Designed by the British architectural firm Foster and Partners, the city will rely entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy sources, with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology.

Foster for Cuban Ballet School, A Dance Of What?

2012-09-11T15:57:00-04:00

"You have to accept that 50 years have gone by, but the changes should be done by the architect who was in charge. If this architect is no longer able, this is another thing. But the last time I saw Garatti, he was thinking clearly. So there's no reason to put him aside. I don't think it's ethical."

British architect Sir Norman Foster jumps on the opportunity to remodel iconic and unfinished Cuban National Art Schools. But one of the the original architects, Roberto Gottardi, is still alive. (via Alexis Navarro)

Also see; Revolution of Forms: Cuba's Forgotten Art Schools by John A. Loomis

"Confidential" architectural drawings of new Apple HQ leaked

2012-09-07T16:52:00-04:00

A reliable source provided us with some official blueprints for the Apple Campus 2 yesterday, and these are just a few of the images that illustrate the mammoth building currently being planned in Cupertino, Calif. A single one of these slides leaked out today, so we are putting these up now; we are resizing and still have to watermark.

Firms credited on the drawings include Foster and Parters, ARUP, OLIN and Davis Langdon.

Architectural Association’s Foster + Partners Prize 2012 Goes to Yi Yvonne Weng

2012-07-06T19:14:00-04:00

Earlier this week in London, the Architectural Association and Foster + Partners announced AA diploma student Yi Yvonne Weng as winner of the 2012 Foster + Partners Prize for her project ‘The 6th Layer – Explorative Canopy Trail’. The award is presented annually to the AA fifth year diploma student whose portfolio best addresses the themes of sustainability and infrastructure. The recipient is selected jointly by the AA and Foster + Partners at the end of each academic year.

What Do Norman Foster's Plans for the New York Public Library Mean for its Storied Architecture?

2012-06-06T14:28:00-04:00

People love the New York Public Library, and yet there’s a general agreement that it cannot survive in its current state. [...] While strong points have been made on all sides of the debate over the NYPL's future as a center of research, a real conversation about its future as an architectural treasure is just now emerging — and thankfully so, for the fate of the institution is also the fate of one of New York's most iconic landmarks.

Zaha Hadid for Park Avenue? She and 10 Starchitects Compete to Design a $750-Million Skyscraper

2012-04-24T18:12:00-04:00

The site of 425 Park Avenue now awaits its fate as a star-studded line-up of prospective architects compete for the chance to helm the $750 million project. L&L Holding Co. has tapped Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Foster & Partners, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Richard Meier, Renzo Piano and others with high hopes to create a "bespoke skyscraper that will both complement Park Avenue's existing architectural treasures and make its own indelible mark in the world's most timeless office corridor"..

Foster + Partners-designed Hermitage Plaza Granted Building Permit

2012-03-07T17:17:00-05:00

Foster + Partners announced today that Hermitage Plaza, the ambitious high-rise project in Paris, France, has been approved and was granted the Permis de Construire. The twisted twin towers – at 320 meters aiming to be Western Europe's tallest mixed-use towers – promise to create a new community to the east of La Défense, bringing the life of central Paris to the business district with a riverside park lined with cafes and restaurants.

'Torn open': Wind rips roof off $2.8 billion terminal

2011-11-26T13:22:58-05:00

The airport is the result of a frenetic Chinese building boom that has produced numerous architectural marvels, though some of the iconic new projects have been hit by quality and safety problems.

Terminal 3 was designed by Fosters & Partners.

Norman Foster Honored with the 2011 Save the Children Award

2011-06-27T17:02:07-04:00

Norman Foster has been presented with the 2011 Save the Children Award, given by Save the Children Spain, at a ceremony in Madrid. The high profile awards are given annually to outstanding individuals whose work helps to build a better world for children. Lord Foster has been recognised for his longstanding relationship with the charity and his humanitarian work.

Inside Masdar City: a modern mirage

2011-05-11T11:46:11-04:00

The first phase of this zero-carbon Gulf city is up and running. But behind the futuristic facade of driverless pods, medieval streets twist and turn back the clock to traditional design