Archinect - News

Edoardo Tresoldi's ethereal seafront colonnade opens this month

2020-09-02T12:21:00-04:00

Opera, the new public art permanent installation by Edoardo Tresoldi on Reggio Calabria's seafront, will be inaugurated on September 12th and 13th. The opening will host a series of music, performance, and poetry events administered in compliance with current COVID-19 guidelines.

"Opera was created to celebrate the contemplative relationship between place and the human being through the language of classical architecture and the transparency of the Absent Matter, a relationship through wire mesh," writes Tresoldi in a statement.

Previously on Archinect: Edoardo Tresoldi creates public colonnade consisting of 46 pillars in Italy. Image: Edoardo Tresoldi, Opera, original drawing © Edoardo Tresoldi.

The permanent installation consists of a colonnade of 46 pillars peaking at 8 meters at their highest points within a 2,500 square meter park. The project is due to become a new landmark for the region.

Interested in designing public installations and art exhibitions? Here are 9 firms offering architectural job opportunities

2019-08-01T15:56:00-04:00

This week, Archinect has selected jobs with firms whose work focuses on creative and imaginative public installations and art exhibitions. Whether permanent or temporary, these spaces allow for experiences outside of people’s daily interactions through art and the built environment. Below are 9 firms located in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Manhattan looking to hire the right candidate to join their team.

Fluidity Designs Consultants seeks a Junior Designer
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Fluidity Design Consultants is a Los Angeles-based leader in water feature design and engineering. The firm collaborates with many of the world’s most respected architects, landscape architects, institutions and developers in the realization of creative and technically refined installations around the world, mostly in the public realm.Work will entail concept development, modeling, visualization, materials research, the exploration of architectural assemblies, and related efforts. Candidates must have profici...

Freeland Buck's alluring ceiling installation draws the public to look up

2019-04-26T14:44:00-04:00

Los Angeles and New York City-based architectural office FreelandBuck expand on their exploration of three-dimensional drawing with their new site-specific installation, Over View. On display at Museum Lab adjacent to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, the ceiling installation is a three-dimensional drawing depicting the site's central lobby of the former Carnegie Library. The 34-foot x 38-foot suspended installation is made of printed textile cut and hung over an aluminum frame. The piece recreates the site's ornamental building accents and former glass ceiling before its renovation in the 1970s. FreelandBuck's design approach for the project was influenced by Renaissance-era trompe l’oeil ceilings.

Brennan Buck, partner at FreelandBuck shares, "The intricacy of the original ceiling, allowed us to create a dense cloud of lines overhead while clearly evoking the ornamental style of the original building." Through the power of depth perspectives Over View creates an illusionary vi...

Finalists announced for 2019 MoMA/PS1 Young Architects Program

2018-12-05T14:19:00-05:00

MoMA PS1 has announced the five finalists who will compete for the 2019 edition of its annual Young Architects Program. Challenging emerging architectural talent to develop creative proposals for a temporary summer outdoor installation, the highly coveted commission serves as a stage and shelter for the museum's seasonal Warm Up concert series. Architects are also asked to address environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling, with their installation.

To choose an architectural studio, over 100 nominators from across North America are asked to submit a young office for consideration. Previous talent tapped by the program has included SHoP Architects, Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation, The Living/David Benjamin and SO-IL.

This year's finalists are as follows:

Pedro y Juana's installation in the Chicago Cultural Center. Photo by Steve Hall, copyright Hedrich Blessing courtesy of the Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Pedro & Juana
Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo and Mecky R...

Doug Aitken's Detroit Mirage opens up in once-abandoned bank

2018-10-10T19:14:00-04:00

Doug Aitken's new art installation Mirage Detroit has opened in the once-abandoned State Savings Bank, a century-old Beaux-Arts building in downtown Detroit that has sat empty for decades.

Aitken's latest work brings back his much beloved project for Desert X, which saw a reflective suburban home plopped into the Coachella Valley desert. For the city of Detroit, the art world giant has taken this ranch-style home, given it a perfected mirrored surface, and placed it in the decorative interiors of the old bank.

Installation view of Doug Aitken, Mirage Detroit 2018, photography by Conner MacPhee, courtesy the artist and Library Street Collective.

Covered in hundreds of pieces of mirrors, the large sculpture reflects the Roman arched colonnades and bronze flourishes of its architectural surroundings. A light show choreographed by longtime Radiohead se...

Doug Aitken's 'Mirage' to be installed in downtown Detroit's State Savings Bank building

2018-09-13T14:51:00-04:00

The historic State Savings Bank in downtown Detroit will soon play host to the award-winning artist Doug Aitken's latest site-specific work. Opening to the public on October 10th, the former bank building will see a ranch-style suburban home erected inside its century-old walls.

The project titled 'Mirage Detroit' is a continuation of the California artist's ongoing investigation into what he calls 'liquid architecture,' described by the desire of wanting to make 'the Building' disappear.

Last year, for the inaugural Desert X event which saw various artworks scattered across the Coachella Valley, Mr. Aitken created a sculptural installation in the form of a typical ranch house, fully covered in mirrors inside and out. A riff on this elaborate structure will now be presented inside the archaic bank building.

Image by Doug Aitken Workshop.

Entirely reflective, the mirrored installation transforms the classic one-story house into a 'human-scale kaleidoscope'. Placed within the Beaux-ar...

A look at the incredible structures of Burning Man 2018

2018-09-05T14:57:00-04:00

While Bjarke Ingels's 30-ton Orb installation–described by some as a giant disco ball—has transfixed many of the festival goers at Burning Man this year, the annual festival saw a slew of spectacular artworks worth checking out. Adhering to the theme of I, Robot, the playa was transformed by larger-than-life works that helped create a unique event for the more than 70,000 visitors descending on Black Rock City. From a massive, spiraling wooden temple to a memorial celebrating Burning Man's co-founder Larry Harvey, who passed away earlier this year, here is a selection of the art of Burning Man 2018.

As vacation season comes to an end, watch how one of Summer's hottest installations was constructed

2018-08-21T13:34:00-04:00

The National Building Museum's Summer Block Party installation Fun House has been one of the hottest events this vacation season in D.C. Designed by New York design studio Snarkitecture, the installation turns a conventional household into a sequence of interactive rooms inviting play. From a front yard featuring seating that spells out F-U-N H-O-U-S-E to a back white patio with deck chairs and parasols, the exhibit has taken over the museum's entire Great Hall for the months of July and August, much to the delight of museum-goers.

With summer coming to an end, the exhibit will be coming to a close on September 3rd. If you can't make it to the Museum before shutting its doors, Work Zone Cam has teamed up with the Museum for the 5th consecutive year to document the event with a time-lapse movie of the entire process.

“It is always exciting to see the time-lapse from Work Zone Cam for our Summer Block Party installation,” said Chase Rynd, executive director of the National Building M...

Snarkitecture's interactive 'Fun House' opens at the National Building Museum

2018-07-05T15:09:00-04:00

Snarkitecture's interactive installation Fun House has opened at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. Following their blockbuster ball pit that took over the Great Hall in 2015 and attracted a record-breaking 160,000 visitors, the New York design studio has come back for the Museum's highly anticipated, annual "Summer Block Party."

Photo by Noah Kalina.

Established by architect Alex Mustonen and artist Daniel Arsham, the practice operates in the space between art and architecture and are known for their monochrome and mostly stark white aesthetic. They just reached their 10-year anniversary, an accomplishment fiercely celebrated by their installation, which looks back on their decade of work showcasing 42 of the firm's projects.

“Fun House represents a unique opportunity for us to bring together a number of different Snarkitecture-designed interiors, installations, and objects into a single, immersive experience,” said Alex Mustonen, co-founder of the firm. It is the firs...

Tiny, cartoonish homes by artist Richard Woods pop up in British seaside town

2017-08-25T15:12:00-04:00

For his latest project, Holiday Home – part of this year’s Folkestone Triennial (2 Sept to 5 Nov) – Woods has created six colorful bungalows, situated in unexpected locations around the town.

Richard Woods is known for his architectural installations that feature colorful, geometric patterns and playful decorative facades. For his latest project, the UK artist has installed six tiny, cartoon-like homes across the town of Folkestone.

In his interview with the Guardian, the artist explained the idea of the project came from visiting the seaside town and receiving a "strange leaflet saying, 'Have you thought about turning your property into cash?'" He goes on the explain, "the idea grew out of that: to make six identical bungalows and install some in very desirable locations, some not, but keeping it very open-ended."

FreelandBuck's "Parallax Gap" installation goes up at the Renwick Gallery

2017-07-14T13:31:00-04:00

Created by architecture firm FreelandBuck, the piece consists of nine different illusions that click into place only if you stand at the exact right point underneath each of them and gaze upward. “We want people to wander through this room and really figure out this puzzle for themselves, while also enjoying this wonderful, confusing, complex shifting of patterns and geometries,” Renwick curator-in-charge Abraham Thomas says. “Touch wood, there won’t be collisions.”

Back in May, the Los Angeles-based studio FreelandBuck was selected to design and install a temporary ceiling in the Renwick Gallery’s Grand Salon in the Smithsonian. This is a first for the gallery that plans on turning this into a recurring installation series called "Above the Renwick." The firms project, which utilizes digital technology to achieve the trompe l'oeil effect, recreates iconic American ceilings from quintessential buildings such as D.C's Eisenhower Executive Building and SF's Palace of Fine Arts. The visual puzzle opened to visitors July 1st and will be on display through the rest of the year.

I Melt With You: "Indoor City" installation explores dissolving spatial boundaries in an era of climate change

2017-03-14T17:44:00-04:00

With layered narration from writers and the input of a climate scientist, the 40-foot long table installation known as "Indoor City" designed by Founder Rome Prize Fellows Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem (MODU) with Jonathan Berger, Hussein Fancy, Christoph Meinrenken, Jack Livings and Matthew Null, tackles the dire conceptual heft of designing for massive systemic weather change.

By placing carbon ice on the installation, the idea is to track how divisions between urban spaces and the environment release more carbon dioxide into the air, thereby creating more stress on the environment (and making the urban spaces quite unpleasant to live in as a result). The project advocates for a more integrated design concept while allowing visitors to enjoy what amounts to a trippy installation. Here's a video of the installation, which is part of the 2017 Cinque Mostre show and will be viewable in person at the American Academy in Rome until April 4th:

Bureau Spectacular's installation to be exhibited at SFMOMA

2017-02-02T13:45:00-05:00

Not content to be merely groundbreaking, Bureau Spectacular's imaginative work is increasingly becoming prestigious. The SFMOMA will display "insideoutsidebetweenbeyond," a large-scale installation the museum specifically invited Bureau Spectacular to design, from February 11th through August 13, 2017.

As Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design at SFMOMA explains, "Led by Jimenez Lai, the Los Angeles–based studio considers architecture to be a medium capable of rewriting sociological narratives. In this view, architecture is not solely functional; informed by client input and civic policy, buildings also reveal societal values. Noting the banality of developed cities worldwide, Lai suggests that boxy skyscrapers are the result of a drive for economic efficiency. In their place, Bureau Spectacular proposes an architecture that reflects a balanced democracy of creative individuals."

First look at the 2017 International Garden Festival landscape installations

2017-01-24T18:24:00-05:00

In response to the all-too-familiar “nature-deficit disorder” in society these days, participants in this year's competition had to create inventive “Playsages” that would inspire, if not remind, today's tech-savvy kids — and adults — to spend more time outdoors. Out of 162 proposals from 30 countries, six lucky designers had the winning schemes that will be exhibited during the 2017 International Garden Festival starting June 23.

Here's a glimpse of the winning projects:

↓ LA CHRYSALIDE by landscape architects Gabriel Lacombe & Virginie Roy-Mazoyer

↓ PAYSAGE EUPHONIQUE by MANI

↓ L'ESCALE by Collectif Escargo

HAIKU by architects Francisco A. Garcia Pérez & Alessandra Vignotto

SOUNDCLOUD by Johanna Ballhaus, landscape architect & Helen Wyss, architect

↓ THE WOODSTOCK by Atelier Yok-Yok

More details on Bustler.

UrbanCampsite Amsterdam lets visitors camp in style in these artsy "tents"

2015-07-24T15:41:00-04:00

If you happen to find yourself wandering IJburg's Centrumeiland artificial island in Amsterdam this summer, you might encounter a peculiar group of art installations randomly camped out in what feels like the middle of nowhere. Although the installations alone are enough to draw in passers-by, they're actually part of UrbanCampsite Amsterdam, an outdoor public exhibition wherein you can, yes, go camping.

Founders Annette van Driel and Francis Nijenhuis launched UrbanCampsite Amsterdam this past June after a successful first exhibition last year. As a way to brighten up the "sandy piece of wasteland" on the IJburg island and attract visitors to the developing neighborhood, the project offers all the basics of outdoor camping — but appeals to anyone looking to add a "luxurious" artsy twist in their experience.

The campsite features 12 very different installations mostly built out of waste materials. With an Airbnb reservation, a lucky number of visitors can spend the night in these char...

8,500 bottles of beer in the wall - father and son build office out of beer bottles

2015-07-16T13:17:00-04:00

The 300-square foot office, located in Chongqing city, consists of 40 layers of bottles that Li and his father laid out over four months.

Although full-scale installations in architecture are gaining ground as a method of successfully exploring and testing out spatial, material, and interstitial concepts (see the recent "Bigger Than a Breadbox" competition) Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology graduate Li Rongjun's beer bottle office seems less intellectually rigorous than a dare gone to its extreme.

Of course, getting inspired isn't about doing what's proven: it's about taking risks and sometimes falling flat on your face. According to Oddity Central, instead of going to the trouble of presenting his designs via rendering or plan, Li has apparently opted to simply build them. Li said “[The beer bottle office] will allow investors to see my products in real life and see my talent."