Archinect - News

Snøhetta's Blanton New Grounds redesign opens at the University of Texas at Austin

2023-05-25T12:20:00-04:00

A recently completed project from three alumni Snøhetta staffers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art has delivered an artistic intervention they say stands as a new gateway between the 51,000-student campus and its host city.

Principal and co-founder Craig Dykers, Managing Director Elaine Molinar, and Director John Newman, each School of Architecture graduates from the late-1980s, collaborated to enact a new canopy-like intervention that’s meant as a centerpiece to the museum’s $35 million Blanton New Grounds initiative.

Photo: Sloan Breeden Photography

Their solution involved a series of 40-by-30-foot metallic shade structures formed in the shape of flower petals to create a canopy of the new landscaped garden entrance to the museum while also framing Ellsworth Kelly’s 2018 monumental stone Austin chapel on the Blanton’s Moody Patio.

Photo: Sloan Breeden Photography

The petals double as a rainwat...

Architensions takes over Coachella with a playful new subversion of vertical design

2022-04-18T18:02:00-04:00

After two years of cancellations and wait, the exciting re-opening of Coachella took place over the weekend with a new installation by Architensions titled The Playground.

The studio’s installation joins others by Estudio Normal, Kiki Van Eijk, Oana Stanescu, Christopher Cichocki, and LosDos and is meant to evoke a “vibrant urban landscape” based on the ideas of play expressed by the prolific Dutch intellectual Constant Nieuwenhuys in his visionary idea for a speculative anti-capitalist mecca called New Babylon.

Photo by Michael Vahrenwald/ESTO

Composed of four separate steel towers totaling 42 and 56 feet in height respectively, the installation hinges on a visual grid meant to “an open space that opposes the isolation and homogeneity of technologically mediated experiences” in ways similar to that of Cedric Price’s seminal early-60s Fun Palace design.

“The Playground is a fragment of a city,” Architensions co-founder Nick Roseboro explained, “a node for engaging festival-goers in ...

Kengo Kuma sets in stone an impressive stereotomic-inspired cathedral intervention in Western France

2021-10-28T19:17:00-04:00

Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA) has begun construction on a much-needed cathedral addition that will add a contemporary feel in "harmonious dialogue" with a 12th-century structure set on the edge of the historic Loire Valley in France.

The cathedral is host to several important polychromatic sculptures from the Middle Ages which will be protected by the new intervention.

With preservation in mind, KKAA’s design will transform the western portal of the Cathédrale Saint-Maurice in Angers into an improved entrance that presents the stone relics in an open gallery with sculptural archways and improved wayfinding from the outside into the bifurcated portal.

Viewed from the western entrance, the addition presents an astounding visual symmetry with the 900-year-old rebuilt Gothic cathedral. The grooved rectangular intervention is a few meters removed from the original structure, cast using stonework processes that...

Foundation by Volkan Alkanoglu & Matthew Au

2018-01-15T13:09:00-05:00

Volkan Alkanoglu has a prolific history of producing provocative interventions that playfully embrace the audience while researching and experimenting with the limits of color, geometry, depth and the representational techniques which use them. From his Cloudscape playground in Florida to his eruption of Plumes throughout the country, Volkan has found a delicate balance between tectonics, art, architecture and the image.

image: VA | DESIGN

His most recent addition to his body of work completed with a partnership with Designer Matthew Au is no exception. Foundation, an installation in Lee Hall III, on the Clemson University Campus consists of two formations: the visual and physical extension of the roof form on the wall as a 3Dimensional reading of the building, and the unique and custom folded golden structures which are inspired by the geometry of the building as well as the techniques used by students during their academic studies.

image: VA | DESIGN

The implement...

LA's Grand Ave to get a color makeover

2017-08-23T12:43:00-04:00

The Broad announced today that it will present a new work from Venezuelan-born artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (b. 1923), in collaboration with the Cruz-Diez Art Foundation. Couleur Additive has been commissioned by The Broad as part of the Getty Initiative, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, taking place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California.

Similar public installation done by the artist for Miami Art Basel, 2013

Installation of the public artwork will take place on four crosswalks at the intersection of West Second Street and Grand Avenue from Sept. 1 through Sept. 3. The work can be experienced by the public beginning Sept. 5, 2017 and will be on view into 2018. As part of the installation, and in order to further deepen the project’s ties to the Grand Avenue arts community, high school students from the nearby Ramon C. Cor...

Artist Daniel Buren spruces up Gehry's Fondation Louis Vuitton with colorful intervention

2016-05-13T20:18:00-04:00

Thanks to in situ artist Daniel Buren, the white glassy curved sails of the Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris have received a generous splash of vibrant color — or 13 colors, to be exact...Developed in collaboration with Frank Gehry, Buren's temporary piece, titled “The Observatory of Light“, made its official debut this past Wednesday. It took 29 nights over a period of five weeks to apply the dyed filters and white 8.7 cm-wide strips throughout the building's 3,528 glass panes.

Read more about Buren's intervention on Bustler.

“Serra Gate” salutes to Taksim Square protests in Istanbul, will tour city next year

2014-11-24T18:37:00-05:00

Nodding to the Taksim Square political protests in May 2013, the Serra Gate installation by Istanbul practice GAD Architecture artistically interprets and also invites passers-by to examine the influence of urban interventions in the public realm. Serra Gate, which was inspired by the large-scale sculptures of artist Richard Serra, highlights how protesters created makeshift living spaces inside the park and the streets...

Learn more about the project on Bustler.

In light of 5 POINTZ demolition, DEFACED fights to protect NYC's artistic roots

2014-09-30T17:20:00-04:00

Upon the recent controversial demolition of the "5 POINTZ" graffiti mecca in Long Island City, NY, a group of architects consisting of Arianna Armelli, Ishaan Kumar, David Sepulveda and Wagdy Moussa came up with the idea of DEFACED. In the proposal, DEFACED is an organization that is dedicated to the preservation of cultural landmarks, districts, and neighborhoods worldwide.

Using 5 Pointz as a starting point, DEFACED asserts not only the timeless value of open artistic expression but also the need to build communities where all inhabitants can benefit and thrive. The proposal calls attention to NYC's gentrifying cityscape over the last decade, ongoing socio-political concerns, and last but not least, that a structure like 5 Pointz — although considered an eyesore to some — was truly a luxury of its own kind.

Below is the project in fuller detail, provided by the architects:

"INTRODUCTION: You see, it goes like this; New York City was affordable when it was ugly and unpleasant; whe...

"Hacking" Rem Koolhaas' 2014 Venice Biennale with Project Source Code

2014-09-24T15:33:00-04:00

Hacking an architecture exhibition through augmented reality? Yes, there's an app for that. "Project Source Code" is a digital guerrilla-style exhibition created by architect/artist/researcher Güvenç Özel that lets mobile-device users "hack" key works in Rem Koolhaas' "Elements of Architecture" exhibit currently at the 2014 Venice Biennale. Blending digital and physical space, the project is deemed to be the first to use augmented reality on a live exhibition and also the first time that raw 3D architectural models are treated as exhibition pieces.

Ozel's selection includes 6 pioneering works he directly acquired (with prior approval) from contemporary architects and designers known for their use of digital design techniques. This includes Asymptote Architecture, Greg Lynn FORM, Neil M. Denari Architects, and Oosterhuis_Lénárd.

Ozel fully explains his project in the info he provided below:

PROJECT SOURCE CODE

"In the field of computer science, SOURCE CODE refers to a set of instructions...

Started from the Bottom: Boston Experiments with Parklets as Place-making Strategy

2014-07-02T18:03:00-04:00

The city of Boston has been the stage for a long history of experiments with public space. Most notably, the Boston Common is the oldest public park in the country – and perhaps the first public urban park in the world. Originally a shared cow pasture until overgrazing led to a real-life example of “the tragedy of the commons”, the 50 acre plot of land later bore witness to the Revolutionary War, public executions, riots, protests, and concerts. Now, Boston will be the most recent in a slew of international cities to adopt parklets as a means of activating and extending sidewalks into revitalized public spaces.

An increasingly popular tactic in urbanism, parklets are small spaces that often replace two or three parking spots to make way for seating, greenery and other amenities. Though often permanent, they tend to be constructed in ways that allow for easy dismantling, either to accommodate winter snows or for emergency situations. Started in San Francisco as unsolicited interventio...

Gdyby Group project shows potential of empty historic Targ Weglowy Square in Gdansk, Poland

2013-10-18T12:33:00-04:00

The historic Targ Węglowy Square in Gdańsk, Poland was merely an empty lot before the Gdyby Group (whose name translates to "What if?") in collaboration with City Culture Institute proposed a new public space to revive it. Back in early September, the group installed the numerous cubic box furnishings throughout the lot, where visitors of any age can play, socialize, and relax. Gdyby then gathered public feedback on the project and held an open public discussion about the Square's future.