A wooden skyscraper that Austrian architects say will be the tallest of its kind in the world is to be built in Vienna next year. The 84-metre (276ft) HoHo project in the Seestadt Aspern area, one of Europe’s largest urban development sites, will house a hotel, apartments, restaurant, wellness centre and offices, and is expected to cost about €60m (£44m). — The Guardian
Designed by Rüdiger Lainer and Partner, the skyscraper would consist of 76% wood. The material choice, according to project developer Caroline Palfy of Kerbler, is largely ecological. While wood requires hewing down trees, its net environmental impact is far lower than concrete: construction... View full entry
“There was an intense flowering of experimental and futuristic architecture in the 1960s and 70s, which the young African countries used to express their national identities,” says [Swiss architect Manuel] Herz, who has curated an exhibition of more than 80 buildings from sub-Saharan Africa, showing at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, until May. “But we simply don’t know about it... we wanted to show this incredible cultural wealth that also exists.” — The Guardian
Usually the projects of African "big man" leaders, the modernist buildings were often constructed for propagandistic purpose and tended to be designed by European architects. Noted architectural photographer Iwan Baan took many of the photographs in Herz's exhibit. View full entry
Built largely in secret and under decidedly unorthodox circumstances, the Whitney [Plantation] had been turned into a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery — the first of its kind in the United States.
Located on land where slaves worked for more than a century, in a state where the sight of the Confederate flag is not uncommon, the results are both educational and visceral.
— nytimes.com
Los Angeles is a place that is “conducive to making ideas and forms at the same time,” asserted Michael Maltzan during a talk yesterday at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles. Part of the museum’s ongoing lecture series inCOLLABORATION, Maltzan’s talk focused on the... View full entry
“Silicon Valley has been the cradle of a series of innovations that, over the last decades, have propelled technology and [the] world economy, but all of the resources, all of the intelligence, has been invested into the immaterial, the digital realm, the internet,” asserts Bjarke Ingels of... View full entry
Julia Ingalls published another edition of Archinect’s UpStarts: featuring Martha Read Architects. Referring to the design for a Marina authorities Building in Porto Montenegro, Olaf Design Ninja_ commented "it's like it's dancing, right Kristofer?...a little twist on the water kind of... View full entry
The Chinese government has promised to protect a rural mountain village that contains some of the country’s oldest temples and residences. [...]
Despite designating Banpo as a protected heritage site in 2007, the Jincheng city government nonetheless allowed the Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group to displace the village later that year. [...] Nearly every building was destroyed and those that remained were left in ruins.
— theartnewspaper.com
“Corporations are people, my friend.” View full entry
Plans for a replica Crystal Palace have suffered a set back after a south London council pulled out of negotiations with a Chinese developer.
ZhongRong Group wants to rebuild Crystal Palace, which burnt down in 1936, but has failed to meet a deadline set by the council to produce plans.
— bbc.com
The push is on to incorporate brain science into design and architecture...
Hopefully, the days of windowless classrooms to prevent vandalism and distraction are over.
— Al Jazeera
Science once agains confirms what we already know, and architects turn it into a marketing tool. View full entry
Along the highways leading from Los Angeles into the Coachella Valley desert, there are two types of sign-posts. One is the rocky, harsh faces of the imposing mountains – the closer the mountains are cut to the side of the road, the narrower the perspective and the less intimidating the... View full entry
From 420 to 40 and now the final five. The European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe announced the finalists of the 2015 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award today in London. Initiated in 1987, the biennial €60,000 prize is one of the... View full entry
While hard to imagine today, Paris’s most iconic monument was largely reviled when it was first built for the 1889 World’s Fair. On February 14, 1887, as construction was just beginning, a group of some of most notable Parisian artists, writers, architects and intellectuals – including... View full entry
MVRDV officially got the green light from the City of Paris for their plans to restructure the Vandamme Nord at Gaîté-Montparnasse in Paris' 14th arrondissement. Built in the early 1970s by French architect Pierre Dufau, the mixed-use complex is located on a triangular island bordered by Rue... View full entry
This week, [Google] is expected to propose new headquarters — a series of canopylike buildings from Heatherwick Studio, a London design firm known for works like the fiery caldron at the 2012 Olympics, and Bjarke Ingels [...]
The project in Mountain View, which Google has not made public but has discussed with members of the City Council, is likely to aggravate an increasingly testy relationship between the company and community leaders who fear the company is overrunning their small city.
— nytimes.com
Both Heatherwick Studio and BIG have gained global success working on an impressive variety of scales, from the infrastructural to the sculptural, and also happen to both have relatively young founders (Heatherwick is 45, Ingels is 40). While details aren't expected until later this week, it feels... View full entry
Spirit of Space, in collaboration with Trahan Architects, has created a short film featuring the award-winning design of the Louisiana State Sports Hall of Fame and Regional History Museum in Natchitoches, Louisiana. The museum was recently awarded the prestigious 2015 AIA Institute Honor Award... View full entry
