Archinect - News

One of Oscar Niemeyer's last drawings to be realized at Château La Coste in France

2022-04-07T19:24:00-04:00

France’s Château La Coste will make history this summer with the realization of one of Oscar Niemeyer’s last architectural drawings.

Set idyllically amongst the Château’s 500-acre estate in one of the country’s most significant wine regions, the latest in a series of pavilions will play host to a 1,250-square-foot art gallery and 80-seat cylindrical auditorium.

Image © Stéphane Aboudaram, WE ARE CONTENT(S), 2022

The project was initiated in 2010 and took more than a year to perfect, resulting in a striking final gift to his adopted home and its age-old craft, which Niemeyer considered a sacred and essential human activity.

Image © Stéphane Aboudaram, WE ARE CONTENT(S), 2022

Visitors will enter the pavilion’s glass facade across from a shallow reflecting pool that provides a perfect frame for the structure’s signature curved form and surrounding Provencial terroir. Niemeyer worked alongside founder Paddy McKillen and his grandson-in-law, architect Jair Valera, to select the site and ...

NFTs will be at the (i)heart(blob) of the Tallinn Architecture Biennale

2021-12-17T11:49:00-05:00

The hot new trend sweeping the art and design communities will be at the center of next year’s Tallinn Architecture Biennale. The festival released its 2022 list of exhibitors on Thursday, which includes an installation program highlighted by a virtual metaverse space from the web-based studio iheartblob.

Touted as the world’s first-ever blockchain-funded pavilion, the installation "Fungible Non-Fungible Pavilion" has a specific focus on the concept of slowness similar to the overall theme of the biennial, which this year is “Edible; Or, the Architecture of Metabolism.”

Image courtesy iheartblob

The installation was named the de-facto winner of this year’s installation competition after another exhibitor, the fungi-inspired team called Simulaa (previously on Archinect), dropped out due to unforeseen circumstances. iheartblob nonetheless won for its crowdfunded and sourced entry that they say will empower local communities towards craftsmanship in specifically AI and NFT-based hybrid...

Es Devlin's UK pavilion is unveiled as the Expo 2020 Dubai officially kicks off

2021-09-30T12:26:00-04:00

Lauded as one of the “must-see” highlights at this year’s Expo 2020 Dubai, the entry from the United Kingdom stands above the crowd thanks to a unique collaborative design from London-based artist and designer Es Devlin.

Photo © Alin Constantin Photography

The 20-meter (65.5-foot) conical CLT structure will host a program that highlights advancements in artificial intelligence, sustainable food, fashion, and other technologies relating to the Expo’s theme of “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.” The pavilion also includes an interactive feature, inspired by Stephen Hawking, that will transcribe and then broadcast user-aggregated messages into space using machine learning technology.

Photo © Alin Constantin Photography

Devlin, who, in the past, has collaborated with luminaries like Bjarke Ingels and Benedict Cumberbatch, and who was responsible for the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony Union Jack set design, came to view the pavilion as a showcase for not only technology and com...

Perkins&Will unveils designs for an ecumenical pavilion in Brazil's Minas Gerais region

2021-09-13T16:54:00-04:00

A symbolic new communal space is coming to the Brazilian city of Varginha, Minas Gerais State thanks to a new design from Perkins&Will.

The 85-year-old firm is responsible for a new pastoral pavilion that it says will become an ecumenical space within the country’s coffee capital.

Image courtesy Perkins&Will

Featuring a corten steel structure and organic design elements that pay homage to the region’s economic and material history, the open-ended triangular design creates a dramatic, bench-lined interior while alluding to the Catholic influence around Minas Gerais and represented in the state’s official flag.

Image courtesy Perkins&Will

“Symbolisms in materials and shapes were a simple, smart solution, where the main piece does the entire project work,” Design Principal Douglas Tolaine said in a statement.

Image courtesy Perkins&Will

The São Paulo office of Perkins&Will has completed numerous projects within the country that have designs informed by local plant life and traditions. This...

The livMatS Pavilion at the University of Freiburg displays the strength of a more sustainable material

2021-07-20T08:00:00-04:00

A new “bioinspired” pavilion is opening in Germany thanks to some help from robotic hands.

The livMatS Pavilion has been successfully installed in the botanical garden on the campus of the University of Freiburg thanks to a cross-university team of engineers, architects, and biologists. The building is the first of its kind using a load-bearing structure that is entirely made of robotically-wound flax fiber.

Images courtesy ICD/ITKE/intCDC and the University of Stuttgart

Participants from both the University of Freiburg and the University of Stuttgart combined on the demonstration piece that showcases the material’s ductile capabilities in a spindly geometric form that simultaneously evokes both latticework and natural structures like cactus tissue and spiderwebs.

Images courtesy ICD/ITKE/intCDC and the University of Stuttgart

The pavilion’s prefabricated flax fiber truss was wrapped in a waterproof skin and wound together using a robotic process designed by the University of Stuttg...

Arquine announces winners of the MEXTRÓPOLI 2020 Pavilion contest

2020-01-21T19:33:00-05:00

As preparation for the MEXTRÓPOLI 2020 Architecture and City Festival taking place in March gets underway, the festival organizers have announced the winners of a pavilion contest held in conjunction with the event. The international competition, led by Arquine, called for architects and designers to submit their best proposals for a temporary pavilion to be located within Mexico City. According to the competition brief, participants should aim to create a structure that would generate creative discourse surrounding the themes of innovation and sustainability. Proposals should also create an open public program that builds a place for the interaction between architecture and citizenship.

The contest's powerhouse jury consisted of Tatiana Bilbao, Ruth Estévez, Carlos Facio, Alberto Odériz, Saidee Springall, and Alejandro Tapia. After reviewing and evaluating 292 proposals, the group selected its winners.

The jury awarded Gastronmic Palapa by Sabrina Morreale, Lorenzo Perri (Lemonot S...

A look back at Arata Isozaki's idiosyncratic Joshua Tree pavilions

2019-03-11T17:01:00-04:00

The recent Pritzker Prize winner was never shy to show his bold and unapologetic design aesthetic, pulling from various architectural practices. Using large forms and volumes, Arata Isozaki works with his environment to create seamless spaces. During a trip to the desert to visit his long-time art critic friend Jerry Sohn, Isozaki was immersed into Southern California's desert landscape. After discussing ideas for a new project with Sohn, the trip's experience allowed for the architect to create three pavilions that use the California desert and the empty sky as his backdrop.

The three totems created by Arata Isozaki for long-term friend Jerry Sohn and his family. Located in Joshua Tree, CA. Image © Iwan Baan

The property is nestled in Southern California's Joshua Tree national park. A space entirely off the grid, the closest "urban setting" is a small town built by Gene Autry and Roy Roger called, Pioneertown. Isozaki used these elements to create three outdoor "bedrooms" that repr...

Architecture students at UVA honor bicentennial with a digitally fabricated pavilion

2017-10-29T15:04:00-04:00

Students and faculty from the University of Virginia created a temporary addition to Thomas Jefferson’s vision for a living and learning community. The final product – a series of interlocking arches made of nontoxic, recyclable polypropylene plastic – is very different from the neoclassical style that Thomas Jefferson admired. However, Jefferson, who had a chemistry lab installed in the Rotunda, likely would have been fascinated by the technology used in its production.

Repair of natural environment: Australia's creative team for 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale announced

2017-08-23T13:19:00-04:00

Australia's creative team for the 16th International Venice Architecture Biennale has been announced at events in Sydney and Melbourne. Baracco+Wright Architects will collaborate with artist Linda Tegg to cultivate and nurture thousands of temperate grassland species within the pavilion alongside large-scale architectural projections. Visitors will enter a physical dialogue between architecture and endangered plant community. Reminding us what is at stake when we occupy land.

Explicitly addressing the theme of Freespace, 'repair' responds by encouraging new ways of thinking and seeing the world, ‘of inventing solutions where architecture provides for the well-being and dignity of each citizen on this fragile planet’. 'Repair' will frame and reveal an architectural culture in Australia that is evolving through processes that integrate built and natural systems to effect repair of the environment, and in so doing, repair of other conditions such as social, economic and cultural ones.

...

'Unbuilding walls': GRAFT Announced as Curators of the German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale 2018

2017-08-17T13:07:00-04:00

Today the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) announced that the curators of the German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale 2018 will be Lars Krückeberg, Wolfram Putz and Thomas Willemeit of GRAFT together with Marianne Birthler. The architects were selected by the ministry on the recommendation of the selection committee for their submission to the open competition entitled “UNBUILDING WALLS”, which responds to current debates on nations, protectionism and division.

As the world grows together, walls are increasingly being discussed and built that divide people from one another. Walls can denote division, power and exclusion, but also protection.

In 2018, Germany will be reunified for 28 years – exactly as long as the inner German border wall (1961-1989) existed. In the German Pavilion, GRAFT and Marianne Birthler take this parallel as an opportunity to explore the effects of division and the process of healing as a...

A living heart for a modernist Campus - Erasmus University Rotterdam revitalizes its grounds

2013-10-21T11:52:00-04:00

Erasmus University Rotterdam has opened the new public heart of its Woudestein campus. The project can be seen as a benchmark for the way grim and gloomy '60s and '70s institutional areas can be sparked to life.

A new semi-sunken garage has been integrated with a new public space design and pond together with a new student pavilion mark the realization of the first phase of a unique and ambitious revitalization master plan. The master plan was designed by the collaborating Dutch firms Juurlink [+] Geluk and jvantspijker architects.

Transformation master plan: parking and landscaping as a game-changer
The transformation primarily addresses the need for a sense of place, orientation, way-finding and identity as well as providing a high quality of public space with a pleasant experience. The Erasmus Plaza is the new central axis of the campus, a boulevard and formal entrance to the University.

The garage frees the site for landscaping while it injects people into t...

Editor's Picks #308

2013-03-26T16:23:00-04:00

Archinect published work from Beyond Prototype, an advanced digital fabrication seminar developed at Columbia University...Nicholas Cecchi was impressed but also offered some criticism "This is amazing student work...However, I would like architecture schools to stop pushing students to contextualize this kind of research-based exploration. Showing these as enclosures (or the one as a gondola) only undermines the amazing generative capacity of this kind of design"

For the latest edition of the Student Works feature, Archinect published work from Beyond Prototype, an advanced digital fabrication seminar developed at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation by Jason Ivaliotis and Nicholas Kothari. In the course "Students develop parametrically controlled tessellations and transform them into building component systems that can be built using conventional sheet stock materials. These tessellated systems are extracted from the digital realm and built at full scale".

Nicholas Cecchi was impressed but also offered some criticism "This is amazing student work. The craft and quality is great, and the theory behind it is impressive. However, I would like architecture schools to stop pushing students to contextualize this kind of research-based exploration. Showing these as enclosures (or the one as a gondola) only undermines the amazing generative capacity of this kind of design. These should not be taken liter...

A garden within a garden

2011-04-05T11:36:00-04:00

Peter Zumthor has unveiled his plans for a secret garden for this years Serpentine Pavilion.

In collaboration with the Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, Zumthor will create a contemplative garden courtyard enclosed by lightweight black-clad structure.

Archinect - News

One of Oscar Niemeyer's last drawings to be realized at Château La Coste​ in France

NFTs will be at the (i)heart(blob) of the Tallinn Architecture Biennale

Es Devlin's UK pavilion is unveiled as the Expo 2020 Dubai officially kicks off

Perkins&Will unveils designs for an ecumenical pavilion in Brazil's Minas Gerais region

The livMatS Pavilion at the University of Freiburg displays the strength of a more sustainable material

Arquine announces winners of the MEXTRÓPOLI 2020 Pavilion contest

A look back at Arata Isozaki's idiosyncratic Joshua Tree pavilions

Architecture students at UVA honor bicentennial with a digitally fabricated pavilion

Repair of natural environment: Australia's creative team for 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale announced

'Unbuilding walls': GRAFT Announced as Curators of the German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale 2018

A living heart for a modernist Campus - Erasmus University Rotterdam revitalizes its grounds

Editor's Picks #308

A garden within a garden

One of Oscar Niemeyer's last drawings to be realized at Château La Coste in France