Archinect - News

Hollywood Burbank Airport unveils three finalist for new terminal design

2023-03-15T14:02:00-04:00

Three options to replace the aging Hollywood Burbank Airport main terminal have been released to the public following an internal selection from the Holder, Pankow, TEC, Joint Venture (HPTJV) team tasked with leading the Elevate BUR process.

Urbanize LA has more on the forthcoming 14-gate, 355,000-square-foot terminal project, which will also include parking, maintenance, and cargo facilities, along with other “ancillary features” located on the northeast portion of the 91-year-old airport.

First, "The Century," is inspired by the region's rich architectural history and calls for a "light-filled hall" defined by the "simple forms" and "clean lines" that are synonymous with Mid-Century design.

"The Century" concept. Image courtesy Corgan

The next design, dubbed "The Icon," is supposedly inspired by the "glitz and glamour of Hollywood" and includes a silver screen facade that is subsumed by an overarching canopy structure connected to the par...

Winter Stations launches special late Spring showcase in Toronto's Distillery District

2021-06-04T19:54:00-04:00

The seventh annual international design competition Winter Stations has launched its inaugural Spring Stations installations in Toronto. The temporary pavilions are now on public view in the city’s historic distillery district.

Established by RAW Design, Ferris + Associates, and Curio, Winter Stations tasks participants with designing winter art installations that incorporate existing lifeguard towers across Toronto’s Kew and Woodbine beaches. The towers, which aren’t in use during the winter, must play a notable role in the design. The competition seeks to bring the public to Toronto’s beaches that are left deserted during the winter.

Due to the pandemic, organizers postponed the competition and its location was moved away from the shore. Keeping Winter Stations alive for this year, organizers partnered with the Distillery District, a pedestrian-only commercial and residential sector in downtown Toronto, to launch a first-of-its-kind Spring Stations program. This new edition brin...

Foster + Partners wins design competition for Guangming Hub

2020-11-25T13:31:00-05:00

Foster + Partners has won the design competition for Guangming Hub, a new Transport Oriented Development situated on the high-speed rail link that connects Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The design scheme also includes three new metro lines within the city and is the central focus of a new masterplan for the region.

"We are absolutely delighted to have been chosen as the designers for the Guangming Hub – a fantastic opportunity to develop a contemporary urban centre with an integrated and sustainable transport hub at its heart," said Foster + Partners Head of Studio Grant Brooker in a statement. "The generously landscaped, walkable town centre will seamlessly connect to a smart autonomous transportation system, combining both wellbeing and convenience and creating a vibrant urban focus for the surrounding neighborhoods."

The "smart city" will support the flow of people and goods with dynamic infrastructure, transport networks, public services, and generous landscaping. The desig...

Winners of the 2020 Philip Freelon Design Competition have been announced

2020-08-25T14:40:00-04:00

Formerly known as the Design Leadership Council (DLC) Design Competition, the annual Perkins and Will competition was renamed to honor the late architect Philip Freelon in 2019. According to Design Leadership Council Director Casey Jones, "For 17 years, teams around the world have invested enormous amounts of passion and creative thought into our annual design competition. It’s one of the hallmarks of our firm’s design culture, which is rooted in purpose, curiosity, research, and innovation. "

The 2020 competition brief focused on affordable housing and design initiatives addressing this ongoing issue. This year, 68 design teams across all Perkins and Will firms participated in the competition.

Below are the winning projects and project descriptions provided by competition coordinators.

PRIZE WINNERS

First Prize: Arroyo by Vangel Kukov and Hala EL Khorazaty

IImage courtesy of Vangel Kukov and Hala EL Khorazaty

Image courtesy of Vangel Kukov and Hala EL Khorazaty.

Infused with princi...

Fentress Global Challenge invites students to push the boundaries for public architecture

2020-05-01T14:26:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Fentress Architects

Despite a multitude of technological advances including video conferencing and drones, the proliferation of airports worldwide continues to be spurred on by global commerce and an unrelenting demand for travel.

While the airport terminal—conceived a century ago—is a relatively new architectural typology, it has since its inception held equal importance with quintessential civic buildings: city halls, courthouses, libraries, museums, and theaters. Yet, airports are uniquely complex and they are more than just high volume transportation hubs. Increasingly, airports are also workplaces, centers of commerce, recreational outlets, and cultural resources.

Fentress Global Challenge (FGC) is an annual international student design competition. Since its inception in 2011, thousands of entries from over 75 countries have competed for top honors. FGC represents an extraordinary exploration into the future of architecture, and in so doing, cont...

Airbnb launches $1 million fund to realize world's most unique home ideas in global design competition

2020-03-11T12:34:00-04:00

Airbnb has launched a $1 million fund to make the world's wildest home ideas a reality. Called the Unique Airbnb Fund, it is the company's first $1 million program aimed at finding and helping to finance "the most unconventional and unusual [livable] spaces on the planet."

Big Idaho Potato Hotel.

According to Airbnb, ten recipients of the fund will be selected be an "expert panel of design and style innovators," including actor Billy Porter, Airbnb Superhost Kristie Wolfe of the Big Idaho Potato Hotel, and familiar to the architecture industry, Rotterdam-based MVRDV.

Cabane Spa Zen in Raray, France.

The Boot - Fairytale Accommodation in Nelson, New Zealand.

Helsinki-based JKMM announced winner of National Museum of Finland Design Competition

2019-12-05T17:41:00-05:00

The proposal, entitled "Atlas," designed by JKMM Architects, was selected for 1st place out of 185 entries. The project was in response to a two-stage anonymous design competition for the extension of the National Museum of Finland, which was organized by The Finnish Heritage Agency, the National Museum of Finland, Senate Properties.

Ariel view

Interior view

Building on the existing museum which opened in 1916 and was designed by the Finnish architecture firm Gesellius, Lindgren, and Saarinen, the 2019 competition brief called for additional exhibition space; workshops; a new restaurant in the museum's underused enclosed garden; and improved access including a new entrance for the Museum.

"Our entry, Atlas, reinforces our interest in how architecture can enable a sense of solidarity and belonging to a place," said JKMM founding partner Samuli Miettinen about the design approach. "The National Museum is a place that belongs to everyone and anyone in Finland and we thought its extensio...

Norman Foster's thoughts on the Notre Dame Cathedral restoration gets strong reaction from the public (updated)

2019-04-23T19:48:00-04:00

With the Notre Dame design competition well underway participants and submission ideas are flowing in. Although many submission ideas poke fun at the possibilities of what the new design could be, some firms are looking at the competition as an opportunity. Norman Foster of Foster + Partners shared this thoughts for what the cathedral's new roof and spire could look like. However, when the rendered image, created by The Times, based on his feedback, made its way to social media, the public took to commenting with much criticism.

The new cathedral spire is said to be made of glass and steel with the possibility of also having a built-in observation deck at the base of the spire. Foster views the competition as an opportunity to view the spire rebuild as a way to utilize the "technology of the age [...] The decision to hold a competition for the rebuilding of Notre Dame is to be applauded because it is an acknowledgment of that tradition of new interventions.” Although Foster's enthu...

Questions raised over selection process for massive expansion of O’Hare International Airport

2019-01-18T15:34:00-05:00

A city-appointed evaluation committee heard presentations from the architects on Tuesday and Wednesday, yet the city is declining to make public the identities of the committee’s members. Worse, the committee will prepare a report, but that report won’t be made public.

The highly anticipated international design competition to expand Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has released their shortlist of five proposals from heavyweights Foster + Partners, Studio Gang, Calatrava, SOM, and Fentress. Amidst chatter on the merits of each, questions have been raised over the transparency of the selection process, which refuses to disclose both the identities of the evaluation committee as well as their report on the five presentations. This lack of transparency matters because, as Blair Kamin cautions in the Chicago Tribune, it "means that the public will be in the dark about what the experts think. It also means Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be free to make an arbitrary or ill-informed choice."

Central Park's long forgotten design alternative

2018-11-09T19:03:00-05:00

The iconic landscape of New York wouldn't be complete without a view of Central Park. But, what if the beloved New York staple could have looked different? It's hard to envision Central Park any other way, but after the uncovering of a long forgotten park plan was rediscovered renderings could prove otherwise.

Central Park Image © Airpano

Rendering of John J. Rink's Central Park submission Image © Budget Direct

In 1858, a design competition invited individuals to submit their ideas for the construction of, at the time, an area of unused space. For a prize of $2000, submissions had to include various features ranging from a fountain, skating arena, parade ground, four major cross streets, and a room for an exhibition hall.

Rendering of John J. Rink's Central Park submission Image © Budget Direct

After reviewing 33 potential park designs two individuals by the name of F.L. Olmsted and C. Vaux and their plan, "Plan Number 33," was selected. Thanks to their submission Central Park loo...

Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design hosts design competition for attainable housing schemes

2018-05-16T16:13:00-04:00

"Housing design is equally a design territory in which we believe the school can contribute to both a regional and a national conversation for the betterment of our society" says Peter MacKeith, the Dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. Located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the school is situated in a region with a rich architectural legacy, spanning from E. Fay Jones to Marlon Blackwell. But, Northwest Arkansas has also become the 22nd fastest-growing area in the U.S. and like many smaller cities, is beginning to come up against similar housing challenges as larger ones.

Faced with the conflicting forces of rapid growth and strong desires to maintain small-town character, the school's recent design competition tasked design professionals to present housing solutions that embrace the local challenges, culture, value, and vision of Northwest Arkansas. Addressing the fact that many are struggling to find affordable, available housing options, the prompt called for mixe...

Lille, France and Sydney, Australia named as World Design Capital 2020 finalists

2017-07-12T14:59:00-04:00

The World Design Organization today announced that Lille, France and Sydney, Australia have made the shortlist to become World Design Capital 2020, for their effective use of design to drive economic, social, cultural, and environmental development in their cities. City visits will be conducted prior to final WDC 2020 selection, to better assess the scope and capacity of each of the cities’ proposed programs. The winner will be announced on 14 October 2017 in Torino, Italy during WDO’s 30th General Assembly.

"Once an industrial center facing economic upheaval, Lille aims to engage its 2.1 million inhabitants (including companies, local authorities, research and training centers, cultural destinations and civic spaces) in collaborative design-driven projects. Under the theme, Eldorado: the greatest design experiment, it places design at the heart of its economic, societal and environmental transformation.

Sydney, in collaboration with Parramatta and other surrounding suburbs, wil...

Studio Gang Architects selected to design new U.S. Embassy in Brazil

2016-03-09T12:55:00-05:00

Out of a shortlist of six firms, The Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations has chosen Studio Gang Architects, run by MacArthur fellow and winner of 2016's Architect of the Year from the Women in Architecture Awards, Jeanne Gang, to design a multi-building campus for the new U.S. Embassy based in Brasilia, Brazil. Studio Gang Architects, which has tackled such easy breezy projects in the past as a proposal to reverse the flow of the Chicago River, was chosen in part for its "more than 20 years of collaborative experience executing projects with complex constraints at challenging sites," according to a press release. The new embassy, which will rebuild the existing compound on its 12 acre site, will feature a Marine Security Guard Residence, a Chancery, and various support facilities.

For more on what the Gang has been up to:

NCMH Announces the 2015 Matsumoto Prize for Modernist Residential Design

2015-02-09T19:04:00-05:00

North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH) announces the 2015 George Matsumoto Prize for North Carolina Modernist residential design, sponsored by Leland Little Auctions, the Southeast’s premier estate auction gallery, based in Hillsborough, NC.

NCMH created the Matsumoto Prize in 2012 to honor George Matsumoto, FAIA, one of the founding faculty members of North Carolina State University's School of Design (now College of Design). Matsumoto designed some of North Carolina's most well-known and well-loved mid-century Modernist houses.

The Matsumoto Prize uniquely features $6000 in awards, a blue-ribbon jury of internationally known architects, and online public voting.

According to George Smart, NCMH Executive Director, “The Matsumoto Prize promotes new talent and provides motivating honors and incentives for a new generation of architects. It also contributes to wider public recognition of Modernism in all its forms -- architecture, art, furniture, and fashion -- and recognizes the signif...

WORKac, Henning Larsen and SO – IL compete to design UC Davis art museum

2012-12-06T14:00:00-05:00

The university believes this to be the first design-build competition for an art museum in this country. Each team gets four months to design a museum and prepare a bid for the museum.

The teams competing to build the museum are:

Contractor: Kitchell; design architect: WORKac; executive architect: Westlake Reed Leskosky
Contractor: Oliver and Co.; design architect: Henning Larsen Architects; executive architect: Gould Evans
Contractor: Whiting-Turner; design architect: SO – IL; executive architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Richard H. Driehaus says, "It isn’t too late to get the Eisenhower memorial right"

2012-03-19T11:55:00-04:00

Controversy has erupted over the memorial to President Dwight Eisenhower proposed by Frank Gehry for a site next to the Mall. The memorial’s large size and unconventional emphasis on Eisenhower as a “barefoot boy from Kansas” drew objections from the Eisenhower family, which in December called for it to be redesigned. A mounting public debate has since coalesced around familiar cultural positions.