Archinect - News

The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach makes a splash with its new expansion "Pacific Visions"

2019-05-22T20:44:00-04:00

Pacific Visions is unlike any other aquarium expansion project. We are taking a unique, unconventional approach in creating a space where the focus is on the one species that is affecting all others on Earth: humans. Pacific Visions is a place where scientists, policymakers, and the public can come together to explore solutions to create a better future for all.”

Since its debut on June 20, 1998, the Aquarium of the Pacific has been an iconic landmark and public attraction to the city of Long Beach. The 5-acre public aquarium attracts over 1.5 million visitors a year. The aquarium features over 11,000 animals with an emphasis on exhibits highlighting information about the animals, their habitat, and conservation efforts.

The Aquarium of the Pacific. Image © Tom Bonner

Honda Pacific Visions Theatre - The Aquarium of the Pacific. Image © Tom Bonner

With the expansion taking over two years to complete, the $53-million project will make its official debut on Friday, May 24. The new expansion, called Pacific Visions, is a two-story, 29,000 square foot structure which will offer interactive exhibitions, an art gallery, and 300-seat theatre.

The Aquarium of the Pacific. Image © Tom Bonner

The structural form of the expansion is designed by San Francisco- based architecture firm EHDD. Its biomorphic shap...

Three new public projects by Dominique Coulon & Associés show off the firm's commanding use of form and color

2018-03-01T17:16:00-05:00

Dominique Coulon & Associés, based in the east of France, is famous for its masterful use of color. The firm recently completed a sports hall, a performing arts center, and a media library all in France. Check out these stunning public projects below:

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: Eugeni Pons.

The 'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, was recently completed in December 2017. The center consists of a sports hall, a multi-purpose hall, changing rooms, an infirmary, and staff accommodations.

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: Eugeni Pons.

'Human Rights' Sports Center, located in Strasbourg, by Dominique Coulon & Associés. Image: David Romero-Uzeda.

The sports center was built in conjunction with a local school created to serve international civil servants working in the city. The two halls were built to accamodate multiple sports and serve as a venue fo...

"A stack of neighborhoods": DS+R's design for Rubenstein Forum revealed

2016-05-26T12:46:00-04:00

The University of Chicago, weary of holding large events off-campus, hired Diller, Scofidio and Renfro to design a 90,000 square foot, multi-faceted meeting place. The result is the Rubenstein Forum, which will be placed next to the Harris School of Public Policy’s future Keller Center and across the Midway from Rockefeller Chapel.

In terms of the design concept, Liz Diller stated that "we composed the tower as a stack of ‘neighborhoods’ with meeting and communal spaces of all sizes—both formal and informal, calm and animated, focused and diffuse. The building prompts its varied populations to cross paths with one another where possible to enhance intellectual exchange. The lower floors of the Rubenstein Forum are porous and dynamic with connections to the campus and the community in all directions. As one climbs the building, there is a progressive retreat from the everyday to more contemplative spaces with dramatic views of Chicago and Lake Michigan.”

What else is DS+R up to these ...

BIG appointed to design public square for revamped Battersea Power Station

2014-11-13T18:20:00-05:00

BIG is about to make its debut in the UK. The Architects' Journal reported that the Danish firm was selected in an international competition to design the public square in the £8 billion redevelopment of the historic Battersea Power Station, a decommissioned coal-fired power station in southwest London. A formal announcement is yet to be made.

Situated within the Rafael Viñoly-designed masterplan, BIG's public square is described as becoming the gateway to the revamped power station.

BIG, who is working alongside the Malaysian-backed Battersea Power Station Development in overseeing the design of the public square, is set to join the redevelopment project's star-studded list of architects.

Find out more on Bustler.

New "C-City" museum district breaks ground in The Netherlands

2014-11-01T12:03:00-04:00

Continium. Cube. Columbus. What sounds like characters in a comic book series is really the three defining components in "C-City", a new museum district located at the entrance into the Dutch-German border town of Kerkrade. Designed by Rotterdam-based Shift Architecture Urbanism, the €20.5 million project recently broke ground and is currently scheduled to open by the end of 2015.

C-City will bring technology, science, and design in one integrated museum district. Next to the existing Discovery Centre Continium will be the C-Square, a sunken-square space for student labs, restaurants, and other public amenities. C-Square will also serve as an underground pathway landscape that connects all of C-City's facilities.

The Continium will also be joined by the Cube and Columbus buildings. The Cube will house The Netherland's first design museum whereas Columbus was designed as an inverse planetarium theater — making it the first building of its kind in Europe. In addition to the museum gall...

OMA and OLIN Studio to design new 11th Street Bridge Park in D.C.

2014-10-16T12:37:00-04:00

OMA and OLIN Studio have been selected to design the new 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington D.C. The competition was held as part of the 11th Street Bridge Park project initiative, which will transform an old freeway bridge into D.C.'s first elevated park. From the six shortlisted teams in phase one of the nationwide competition, and down to four finalists, OMA + OLIN won with their proposal, "Anacostia Crossing."

Dig into the details over at Bustler.

"Wynwood Greenhouse" gets 1st place in DawnTown’s Wynwood Gateway Park Competition in Miami

2014-09-30T17:21:00-04:00

Our friends at DawnTown continue to uphold innovative ideas in the Miami architecture scene with their Wynwood Gateway Park Competition. Just recently, the winners were announced for the international competition, which challenged participants to design a 14,000-sq.ft urban park and garden to be realized at the Wynwood Gateway Complex near Downtown Miami. The competition garnered over 238 submissions from interdisciplinary teams from over 20 countries.

Three winning teams were selected under anonymity by the jury:

1ST PLACE (US$10,000): "Wynwood Greenhouse" by artist Jim Drain, landscape architect Roberto Rovira, and architect Nick Gelpi
2ND PLACE ($5,000): “Graffito Green” by Meyer + Silberberg Land Architects from Berkeley, California
3RD PLACE ($2,500): “Wynwood Commons” by Solid Objectives - Idenburg Liu/SO-IL from Brooklyn, New York

Wynwood Greenhouse will be constructed and implemented as part of the second phase for the Wynwood Gateway Complex development, which will be built as a dynamic entryway for the Wynwood neighborhood.

Find out more on Bustler.

Previous DawnTown competitions.

NY Transit Museum wants you to wax poetic about public transit

2014-02-14T13:38:00-05:00

Inspired by the engineering, intricate choreography, and impromptu interactions of your daily commute? Wish there was an open mic night for historians and urbanists? A show-and-tell for your creative musings on mass transit? Looking for a public platform to present your ideas to a captive audience? Us, too. That’s why we are excited to announce PLATFORM, a new series of cross-disciplinary programs created by the public for the public. Have an idea? We’ll give you a platform.

The New York Transit Museum is launching an open exhibition program, accepting proposals for projects devoted to any and all aspects of public transportation. The aptly named Platform program will exhibit the first winning proposal in its subway station home in downtown Brooklyn, on Thursday, April 10.

Projects can take any performative or static form -- whether you're choreographing a ballet inspired by metro drivers, making Metro-card origami or curating a gallery of subway maps, Platform wants your submissions.

Questions regarding Platform can be sent to programs@transitmuseumeducation.org. Submissions will be reviewed by the NYTM through Tuesday, February 25 at noon (EST).

L.A.'s "People St." initiative puts public place-making into the public's hands

2014-02-13T14:27:00-05:00

Communities can transform underused areas of L.A.’s largest public asset—our 7,500 miles of city streets—into active, vibrant, and accessible public space with People St, a program of the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT). Eligible Community Partners can apply for approval to create projects that enhance the quality of life in this city. Three innovative types of projects are available: Plazas, Parklets, and Bicycle Corrals.

Los Angeles began piloting its "People St." program in 2011, developing spaces designed to reclaim sections of streetspace for public recreation and use, rather than car traffic. The projects were few but popular, including the Sunset Triangle (designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios) plaza in Silverlake, a couple of parklets in Downtown, and bike corrals in Atwater Village and Highland Park. Led by LA's Department of Transportation and invigorated by LA's current mayor, Eric Garcetti, the program will accept applications for "People St." initiatives by any eligible community group, beginning this March.

The program is designed not only so communities can individualize their surroundings and make their city more livable, but for LADOT to expedite city improvement projects. Initiatives that otherwise would have taken years of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars become faster and cheaper to execute, led by the people most in touch with the project site, and approved by city of...

WATCH: Diller, Lowry, critics, writers and more discuss MoMA's expansion plans

2014-02-04T18:31:00-05:00

As reported last week by Archinectors Ayesha Ghosh and Alex Stewart, a discussion regarding MoMA's expansion plan and the intended demolition of the American Folk Art Museum took place at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, an appropriate venue for a conversation rife with implications for the ethics of preservation, real estate development and the architectural profession. The aim was to create an opportunity for public discussion of what has been criticized as a unilateral move by MoMA, and investigate the supposed necessity of the Folk Museum's demolition.

The conversation was presented by The Architectural League, in partnership with the Municipal Art Society and the AIA, New York Chapter. Watch the entire discussion below, featuring:

Glenn Lowry (Director of the Museum of Modern Art), Ann Temkin (The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture), Elizabeth Diller (principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro), Reed Kroloff (director of the Cranbrook Academy...

Urban Heroes of Istanbul: It’s About Public Space

2013-06-11T19:30:00-04:00

The protest was an effort to save a park by occupying that very park; it was not a symbolic or ideological demonstration like the Occupy Wall Street movements, but a primal struggle between human bodies and bulldozers, that made the political discourse all the more potent...

Jesse Honsa, (an architect and urban designer in Istanbul, and is co-founder of OpenUrban), has written a short piece, in which he shares his experience over the last days of the protests in and around Taksim Square.

h/t amlblog

It’s true: people don’t know what architects do

2012-07-19T14:53:00-04:00

Less than a fifth know architects prepare construction drawings, and only nine per cent understand that they control site budgets; 15 per cent don’t even know that architects design buildings.

SOILED's third installment: Platescrapers

2012-04-02T11:24:00-04:00

Platescrapers navigates itinerant fare, comestible politics, and gastro-ritual to purvey stories about social issues and exaggerated realities; each story illustrates food as a monument to galvanize the public.

SOILED is an architectural periodical based in Chicago. It investigates latent issues in the built environment and the politics of space.

SOILED's latest issue, entitled Platescrapers, is out! With three issues to date, SOILED is available in both a print edition and a free downloadable PDF via www.soiledzine.org. SOILED is published by CARTOGRAM architecture + urban design.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Stewart Hicks, Allison Newmeyer, and Joseph Altshuler challenge us to play with our food.
Annie Lambla connects yogurt making to dairy farms while observing the Midwest's culture.
Thomas Hillier recounts the exodus and edible nostalgia of an English twosome.
Greg Corso champions the inclusion of cannabis cultivation into architectural vernacular.
Kyle Andrew Sturgeon strategizes an infrastructure to combat the invasion of Asian carp.
Eylül Kethüda choreographs a mega-event around victuals, monuments, and mob mentality.
Francesco Vedovato sets the table with an ec...

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...