For some the plazas will conjure the alienating public spaces found in de Chirico paintings and Antonioni films. And one of Ms. Hadid’s aims over the years has been to rehabilitate those kinds of empty expanses, which went out of favor in the 1970s and ’80s. The difference is in her ability to convey a sense of bodies in motion. — New York Times
Nicolai Ouroussoff who will soon be replaced by Michael Kimmelman has a review of the new Guangzhou Opera House designed by Zaha Hadid. He finds that while the quality of construction (mostly done by unskilled migrant workers) and location/context (generic new business district at the outer edge... View full entry
An alley between an old tenement block and a tower block in Warsaw, Poland, will be the location for the skinniest house in the world.
The four-storey home will have a bedroom, lounge, bathroom and kitchen, stretching back nearly 40ft, but instead of the traditional staircase, each floor will be accessed by a ladder.
It will take over from the world's current official narrowest house, The Wedge, on the island of Great Cumbrae.
— dailymail.co.uk
Olly Grant talks to some of the people behind a new BBC Two series on turning crumbling buildings, laden with history, into sleek modern homes. — telegraph.co.uk
How do you turn a 100-metre-tall incinerator in the heart of Copenhagen into a social and cultural hub? By building a ski slope on the roof, of course. — guardian.co.uk
We also published news of this project back in January. View full entry
Glen Small's visionary urban projects of Detroit 1966-69: KERN BLOCK VERTICAL ROAD MASS TRANSIT DETROIT THE GREAT STADIUM View full entry
starrchitect relates a story about an acquaintance who "spent three years working in Petey's office, but when the interviewer looked at her resume, he discounted the three years as not being real office experience." Hawkin like others thinks the story doesn't add up writing "I think this post is fake/trolling." However elinor thinks "i believe it. architecture is rife with factions, and so many architects will use any excuse they can get to put down another."
For Archinect's latest Working out of the Box feature we interview Igor Siddiqui, Architect-turned-Product Designer. Describing his current practice he writes "At this moment, in both practice and teaching, my work primarily considers the contemporary interior as a framework for encounters... View full entry
I was always attracted to the emptiness of architecture schools during summer break. In fact when I was a student, that was the time I set up my shop in a choice place in school and worked on my projects. The whole place was wide open, I could pick and choose from furniture, equipment, and even... View full entry
Danish Henning Larsen Architects have shared with us their finalist competition entry for the new University Hospital & Faculty of Health Sciences in Odense, Denmark. As part of a team consisting of Friis & Moltke, TKT, Cowi, Rambøll Danmark, SLA Landscape and NNE Pharmaplan, Henning Larsen Architects named their proposal 'Aurora' – as a symbol of renewed hope and a new beginning. Aurora was one of three finalist proposals; the competing consortium Medic OUH won the competition. — Bustler
And here's another one from Henning Larsen Architects: the Copenhagen-based firm has just been announced winner of the international competition for the planned rebuilding of Siemens' corporate headquarters on Wittelsbacherplatz in Munich, Germany. The winning proposal was chosen for its comprehensive approach to sustainable design. — bustler.net
Adrian Smith, senior Design Partner at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture in Chicago, is the 2011 winner of the Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat for his extraordinary contribution to the supertall building typology. — bustler.net
As the architect of such curvaceous London landmarks as "the Gherkin" and the City Hall building described as a "glass testicle", it is something of a Damascene conversion, but Ken Shuttleworth has called time on strangely shaped edifices. — telegraph.co.uk
Architecture firm Populous is now playing for both sides in the contest to bring pro football back to Southern California.
The firm, already the architect of record for the 75,000-seat NFL stadium planned for east Los Angeles County, has been hired to do work on a rival proposal that sports and entertainment firm AEG wants to build on downtown Los Angeles' convention center campus, AEG said Wednesday.
— mercurynews.com
Raumlabor just completed construction on "The Big Crunch" - a recycled building made from a heap of discarded objects. The mound of materials is condensed in a theater plaza from all over the area, seemingly to move like a small wave cresting on the Georg-Büchner-Platz grounds in Darmstadt, Germany. — Inhabitat
Peter Zumthor's first completed building in the UK opens this Friday, July 1: the 2011 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. The concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. One enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. — bustler.net
With its strips of glass windows and clean geometric structures, the building paved the way for a modernist style which became the trademark of the Bauhaus. The factory still produces shoe lasts, the forms used to mould shoes, to this day. — Der Spiegel
Walter Gropius' Fagus Factory has long been considered a frontrunner of modernist architecture. Now, a century after it was designed, the building in the German state of Lower Saxony has been added to the prestigious list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. View full entry