Archinect - News

Holcim and Zaha Hadid Architects team debuts second 3D printed concrete bridge concept

2024-01-14T08:00:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid Architects has released details of a second collaborative effort with Holcim on a 3D printed bridge concept that was first debuted as part of the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale.

The new ten-ton Phoenix design offers an evolution of the innovations seen in the previous Striatus bridge, the original blocks of which the team was able to recycle in the second iteration.

Image: Vincent Delesvaux

For the project, Holcim was able to deliver Phoenix with a 25% overall reduction in CO2 footprint compared to its earlier counterpart, thanks to the use of an updated ECOCycle circular technology and a special proprietary concrete ink that was also developed by the company. The construction was completed recently in Lyon, France, on the grounds of Holcim’s Innovation Hub. Its proponents are now citing it as a milestone for the design industry’s quest to develop low-carbon structural solutions at different scales.

Image: Holcim

Shajay Bhooshan, head of Zaha Hadid Architects' Computati...

'Zaha Hadid Architects: Vertical Urbanism' offers a new perspective on ZHA's innovations in tall building and urbanism

2022-02-21T15:26:00-05:00

A closer look at one of the most innovative approaches to tall building design in the industry went up in the gallery of the Hong Kong Design Institute after “Zaha Hadid Architects: Vertical Urbanism” opened to the public last Wednesday.

By utilizing a wide array of various forms of media, including technical drawings, models, renderings, and VR experiences, the show’s curators arranged a three-pronged exhibition that highlights the work of the firm’s five-year-old design education and research group ZHA CODE, explores their considerable regional output, including the forthcoming 36-story Henderson development for the central business district of Hong Kong, and, importantly, showcases ZHA’s innovations in supertall building and verticality across the world.

The Peak Project, Hong Kong, 1982-1983. Image courtesy of HKDI.

Thallus, Installation, 2017. Sculpture developed by ZHCode with ZHD in collaboration with AiBuild, Odico Formwork Robotics, Armadillo Engineering. Image courtesy of...

Zaha Hadid Architects to refurbish Southbank Tower lobby in London

2019-12-04T03:00:00-05:00

In true parametric fashion, Patrik Schumacher and the team at ZHA have designed a striking new look for the lobby of the Southbank Tower in London. Considered to be "one of the UK's most ambitious renovation projects," the office building was completed in 1972 by Richard Seifert and then converted by Kohn Penderson Fox Associates (KPF) from a 30-story office tower to a 41-story mixed-use complex in 2015.

Render by Arch018 srl. Image © Zaha Hadid Architects

According to a press statement by ZHA, the overall lobby design pulls inspiration of flower petals. Using these organic forms the design team took this concept to create a series of overlapping petals to conceal the lighting infrastructure within the lobby. Fluid in nature, the lobby's new look is shaped using class fibre reinforced gypsum and features furniture created using 3D digital fabrication techniques. According to ZHA, "...

Take a look at Frank Gehry’s shiny new Luma Arles tower

2018-11-27T14:05:00-05:00

Its opening has been pushed back to 2020, but the LUMA Arles complex is taking shape in the French town celebrated for its prestigious Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival. Set on the site of the former SNCF rail yard long used for exhibitions by Les Rencontres, LUMA Arles will be an interdisciplinary arts centre aimed at supporting and producing exhibitions, research, education and archives. It is backed by Swiss collector Maja Hoffmann [...].

The Gehry-designed aluminum-clad tower for the Luma Arles art complex in the south of France is slowly taking shape as new photos by Hervé Hôte show.

The latest photos show a dramatic progress compared to construction photos from June 2017.

View this post on Instagram À l'ombre de la tour LUMA...
A post shared by Luma Arles (@luma_arles) on Jun 20, 2017 at 12:44am PDT

Zaha Hadid Architects design 3D-printed chairs for Nagami's Milan debut

2018-04-18T16:20:00-04:00

Milan Design Week just kicked off, and one impressive highlight is the debut exhibition Brave New World: Re-thinking Design in the New Age of Technology by brand-new Spanish company, Nagami.

Marking the brand's official launch event, the show at the Nagami pop-up showroom in Milan's Brera Design District features four exquisite chairs—designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, Ross Lovegrove, and Daniel Widrig—that combined computational design and large-scale robotic 3D printing.

The Robotica TM and Bow chairs © Delfino Sisto Legnani + Marco Cappelletti

Bow & Rise by Zaha Hadid Architects for Nagami

Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects
Design: Patrik Schumacher
Design Team: Sebastian Andia

The Bow and Rise chairs © Delfino Sisto Legnani + Marco Cappelletti

Design description: "Bow and Rise are the latest results of the extensive, ongoing research that Zaha Hadid Architects is conducting within the domains of 3D printing and material experimentation. These chairs combine pristine design informed b...

Burning Man reveals 2018 Temple design: Galaxia

2018-01-04T17:25:00-05:00

Galaxia celebrates hope in the unknown, stars, planets, black holes, the movement uniting us in swirling galaxies of dreams. A superior form of Gaia in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Galaxia is the ultimate network, the fabric of the universe connecting living beings into one entity.

Rejoice burners — the design for the 2018 Temple has been unveiled: 'Galaxia' by London-based French architect Arthur Mamou-Mani.

"Galaxia is shaped of 20 timber trusses converging as a spiral towards one point in the sky," describes the Burning Man Journal. "The triangular trusses form different paths towards a central space holding a giant 3D printed mandala, the heart of Galaxia. The timber modules start large enough to hold small alcoves in which people can write in peace. As participants walk through the path, the timber modules lift up and become thinner and thinner towards the sky as people reach the central mandala."

Mamou-Mani is no stranger to Burning Man: he and his MArch students at the University of Westminster's WeWantToLearn studio (taught jointly with with Toby Burgess) have been contributing art installations to the annual event site, Black Rock City in the Nevada desert, for the past six years: Shipwreck, Fractal Cult, Hayam Sun Temple, The Infinity Tree, Reflectio...

Zaha Hadid's Nordpark Cable Railway stations turn ten

2017-12-27T09:15:00-05:00

Time flies mercilessly, and another iconic example of contemporary architecture is already celebrating its 10th anniversary: designed by the late Dame Hadid and shortlisted for the 2008 RIBA Stirling Prize, the four stations of Innsbruck’s Nordpark Cable Railway opened to the public in December 2007. Since then, over 4.5 million passengers have used the Hungerburg funicular railway between the city center up the Nordkette mountain.

Lowenhaus Station. Photographer: Hélène Binet.

From Zaha Hadid Architects: "The Hungerburg funicular (Hungerburgbahn) is part of Innsbruck’s Nordpark Cable Railway (Nordkettenbahnen) and begins at the Congress underground station in the centre of the city. Trains stop at Lowenhaus Station before crossing the bridge over the River Inn, then climbing to Alpenzoo Station and on to Hungerburg where passengers can continue their journey on the Seegrube and Hafelekar cable cars up to its summit at 2,300m. The Nordkette mountain is within the Karwendel, the large...

Patrik Schumacher on architectural discourse and leadership: "People who are frank are trusted"

2016-11-09T14:50:00-05:00

“It’s my life’s work — to let that slip would be tragic,” Schumacher says, making clear his dedication to the firm. But as for his campaign against “the PC takeover of architecture,” isn’t there a chance his iconoclasm will alienate potential clients, when the firm can least afford to do so? [...] “My positions might be controversial, but they are the result of a careful, informed deliberation,” he demurs. “I think people who are frank are trusted.”

How Do You Imagine The Skyscraper Of The Future?

2016-11-08T14:32:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by 2017 Skyscraper Competition.

Since 2006 eVolo Magazine invites architects and designers around the world to imagine the skyscraper of the future. The annual Skyscraper Competition explores new possibilities of building high through the use of novel technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations. The competition challenges preconceived ideas, and as such, the results are received with a mix sentiment of excitement and misbelief. Many believe that these projects belong to science fiction, that would never be built, and let alone solve any of our current architectural and urban problems. eVolo Magazine seeks to enter the ranks of inspiring publications like Lacerba in Italy and Le Figaro in France which published conceptual projects by Futurists like Arne Hosek, Piero Portaluppi, and Sergei Lopati whose “out of this world” projects of the 1900’s became a reality 100 years later.

It is eVolo Magazine’s mission to keep promoting t...

"But always with Zaha’s DNA"

2016-10-29T13:33:00-04:00

"The importance to Zaha was the layering, setting a new structure over the old one” that would both read at a distance and liberate ground for public space. And Patrik wanted the new structure to overshoot the fire station and land on a single point."

On the occasion of the opening of Zaha Hadid Architects, Port House in Antwerp, Joseph Giovannini reflects on the afterlife of Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid, DBE.

Further images of the “floating” Port House in Antwerp were published previously, here.

Additionally, earlier this year Archinect shared the official announcement from Zaha Hadid Architects about plans to continue under Patrik Schumacher's leadership. More recently, Patrik Schumacher has further explained the parametric future he plans for ZHA.

Patrik Schumacher lays out his dreams for 'Parametricism 2.0,' post-Zaha

2016-10-27T13:45:00-04:00

He calls critics “dismissive” and “disdainful.” He accuses architects of “misguided political correctness,” and says they are guilty of “confusing architecture and art.” Schumacher has turned his criticism on his own practice, rolling out plans for what he calls “Parametricism 2.0,” to better address the human factors like productivity, social interaction, culture, and well-being that detractors used to say Hadid ignored. “I have to step up,” Schumacher says. “I will build my own star power.”

Patrik Schumacher on the parametric future he plans for ZHA

2016-09-12T13:25:00-04:00

[Schumacher] sees parametricism as the architectural style of capitalism, to which he is a relatively recent convert. “My early heroes were Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, people who wanted to make an impact”, but he now believes that free enterprise is the best means of the “human development of prosperity and freedom”. The innate logic of parametricism means that, in a truly free market, with “freer utilisation of land”, it would eventually triumph.

Patrik Schumacher sits down with Rowan Moore, and share his plans to assert a parametricist future as Zaha Hadid's successor at ZHA. Moore isn't exactly convinced.

What architects (and not just parametricists) can learn from 'No Man's Sky' – an astronomical, procedurally generating video game

2016-08-19T16:45:00-04:00

Hello Games has created its own periodic table of elements for the universe of No Man’s Sky ... This allows them to generate 1.8 quintillion planets that are all different from one another and built governing the inherent logic set forth. [...] “It is no longer about designing a final object or a product, but about designing or configuring the system or the process of their formation—the underlying code, algorithm, or procedure that can generate not just one but multiple outcomes.”

Zaha Hadid Architects to continue under Patrik Schumacher's leadership

2016-04-20T17:30:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects issued a formal statement announcing that the firm will continue to move forward, with Patrik Schumacher acting as de facto leader. In addition to finishing the 36 projects they had started or had under contract before Dame Hadid died on March 31st, ZHA will also be taking on new work. According to The New York Times, in addition to opening new offices in Mexico City and Dubai, the firm "also hopes to push further into aviation, having won a contract for a new airport in Beijing." In tomorrow's episode of Archinect Sessions, Schumacher will share his personal and professional reflections on Hadid's legacy, and elaborate on how he'll carry Hadid's "DNA" and his p arametricist ideas into new arenas.

“We want to tell the world that we’re still a viable, vibrant address for major work of cultural importance," Schumacher told the NYT. “My ambition is to become more visible as a leader of the field to clients."

He also stated that he wants to continue moving forward on ...

How Frank Gehry helped create the era of "technological construction"

2015-05-13T16:48:00-04:00

In the 1990s, Frank Gehry pioneered... “smart” digital design in architecture, by using software to optimize designs and translate them directly into a process of fabrication and construction. Now known in the industry as parametric design and building information modeling, this approach has ushered in a new era of architecture, according to art historian Irene Nero: the era of “technological construction” [...] How did an architect who doesn’t use computers start a technology company?

In an article for Priceonomics, Lian Chang looks at the role Frank Gehry and his team had on the development of parametric design, aka building information modeling. Beginning with Gehry's fish-inspired pavilion for Barcelona’s 1992 Olympics, Chang traces the various construction impasses and subsequent revelations that have helped establish Gehry Technologies as a significant player in the realization of many major architecture projects today (and not just the one's bearing his famous signature).

After a contractor failed numerous times to translate Gehry's vision for the Barcelona pavilion, the resident "office hippy," Jim Glymph, turned to CATIA, a C++ software package originally developed for the aerospace industry. Using parametric Bézier curves (or vectors) and 3D surface algorithms, Gehry's team was able to realize the project, and on budget.

Chang continues her history looking at the initial controversies surrounding Gehry's plans for the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the impo...

Is The Broad Museum's newly unveiled facade living up to its renderings?

2015-01-02T18:31:00-05:00

The facade of Bunker Hill's The Broad museum was officially unveiled this morning as workers removed the last of the exterior scaffolding, and things are not looking quite as originally envisioned. The design, by starchitects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, was originally advertised as an "innovative veil" that will activate "two-way views that connect the museum and the street"; today it's been updated to be, well, a bit less innovative.

For comparison - the rendered promise:

Parametric smackdown: Patrik Schumacher and Reinhold Martin debate at CalArts conference

2013-11-19T16:05:00-05:00

CalArts two-day symposium on “The Politics of Parametricism” opened last Friday with a conversation between Reinhold Martin, associate professor at Columbia University’s GSAPP, and Patrik Schumacher, partner at Zaha Hadid Architects. Their debate, while at times tending more towards dysfunctional improv theater than academic discussion, revolved around the relationship between architecture and politics -- generally speaking, Martin sees the two as indelibly linked, while Schumacher idealizes their explicit separation. Their debate didn’t concern the visual aesthetics of parametric design, so much as argue about its utility in political systems.

Patrik Schumacher

As an event presented by CalArts’ MA Aesthetics & Politics program, the Martin-Schumacher debate did not explicitly discuss individual architecture projects, but tended more on the side of critical architectural theory. To introduce their debate, both Martin and Schumacher presented papers on their approach to parametr...

Editor's Picks #331

2013-09-03T12:39:00-04:00

News
Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune architecture critic tweeted "George Schipporeit, co-architect of Chicago's suavely-curving Lake Point Tower, once the world's tallest all-residential building, has died".

Donna Sink offered up her memories "I spent a summer living in that building. It's very lovely and graceful, though I like ‘suavely-curved’ much better as a descriptor! The views are unmatched, IMO, still. Breathtaking...Back then its only drawback was that it was very removed from the activity of the city. It was a bleak walk for several blocks to get back into the hustle of daily life in a city. These days it's surrounded by smaller scale housing, retail, and the much-improved Navy Pier, yes?"

thisisnotmyname answered "Somewhat. A few more adjacent sites need to fill in. Lake Point Tower is still one of the finest examples of residential high rise design in Chicago".

Over at the New Yorker Elizabeth Greenspan chatted with Daniel Libeskind and discussed the openin...

“The Politics of Parametricism” conference coming to Los Angeles this November

2013-08-28T12:57:00-04:00

"The Politics of Parametricism" conference at LA's Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) from Nov. 15-16 explores the vast complexities of Parametrics, the evolving design paradigm described as becoming the "avant-garde in architecture and design" and "the next 'grand style' of architectural movements."