South Australia's Office for Design and Architecture hosted the Royal Adelaide Hospital Design Competition in a process to redesign the historic Royal Adelaide Hospital site, which will be vacated by 2016.
The jury awarded one First Prize and a joint Second Prize. Thousands of public voters picked a People's Choice Award, and a Students Competition winner was also awarded.
— bustler.net
Designs from the competition will formulate the site's strategic framework and masterplan. Here's a glimpse of the three prize-winning proposals (videos included below):First prize: SLASH with Phillips/Pilkington ArchitectsSecond prize and People's Choice Award: NICE Architects with Mulloway... View full entry
Notes on the Year: This year Los Angeles entered fresh civic territory as a range of initiatives across the city helped fuel an urban reawakening. — latimes.com
Three expert candidates who hope to participate in the Audi Urban Future Award 2014 have presented three different ideas that explore this year's theme: how far data can be used as a planning tool for urban mobility in the future. As part of the Audi Urban Future Initiative, the biennial award searches for visionary ideas in urban mobility. — bustler.net
The public will pick their favorite idea by Speed Pitch Voting online before the winner is announced on Jan. 6 by Audi CEO Professor Rupert Stadler -- right before the opening of the International CES in Las Vegas from Jan. 7-10. You can check out this year's Award trailer and each candidate's... View full entry
Ready, Set, Hike! A Trial Trek to MetLife Stadium
The officials planning Super Bowl XLVIII want it to be the Super Bowl of public transportation. They are not just discouraging fans from walking to MetLife Stadium on game day in February — they are forbidding it.
— The New York Times
A reporter attempts to walk to MetLife Stadium. Most likely the reason one won't be allowed to walk into the Super Bowl is "terror"-related, but the article raises again the question of why our pedestrian environment is so degraded. Why have we allowed our cities to be built in such a way... View full entry
Results were recently revealed for Homemade Dessert and Liepaja City Council's 'Brutalist Facelift' and 'Ghost Town Challenge' — two related competitions in a series to revive the cityscape of Karosta, a former Soviet military town outside of Liepaja, Latvia.
Each jury selected three winners — who won prize money and media attention — for each competition.
— bustler.net
Hosted by Homemade Dessert Architecture Competitions, Brutalist Facelift had entrants redefine the image and future of the historically debatable brutalist-style architecture for Karosta.For Ghost Town Challenge, participants submitted their visions for a new city cultural center.Brutalist... View full entry
While the projects had wildly different end products, they both had a similar starting point: focusing on how to ease people’s lives. And that is a central lesson at the school, which is pushing students to rethink the boundaries for many industries.
At the heart of the school’s courses is developing what David Kelley, one of the school’s founders, calls an empathy muscle.
— New York Times
"The organization, to be called Bloomberg Associates, will act as an urban SWAT team, deployed at the invitation of local governments to solve knotty, long-term challenges, like turning a blighted waterfront into a gleaming public space, or building subway-friendly residential neighborhoods...In a twist on the traditional business model of consulting, clients will not be charged". — NYT
Michael Barbaro reported that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is creating a high-powered consulting group, Bloomberg Associates, to help him reshape cities around the world long after he leaves office. The work will be a continuation of sorts for the Innovation Delivery Teams, a $24 million... View full entry
"During that time, Ireland allowed a kind of honor code building inspection. The result is that many people paid high prices for houses that are fire hazards or sinking in bogs or are built with faulty foundations or missing drainage systems, a problem that is even harder and more expensive to solve." — NYT
Suzanne Daley examines how Ireland is addressing the problem of ghost estates, unfinished leftovers from the booming days of the Celtic Tiger. Government has embraced demolition as one solution, especially for homes which were never finished and which would cost too much to complete. However... View full entry
Architects Jarrik Ouburg and Laura Alvarez sent us their "Hortus conclusus" scheme in the recently concluded E12 of the Europan Norway competition. This year's theme focused on the future development of three Oslo-region municipalities projected to grow within the next 25 years: Bærum, Asker, and Ås.
Alvarez's and Ouburg's collaborative entry won second prize in the Ås category.
— bustler.net
The municipality of Ås, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and the architects will discuss the proposal in early 2014 to develop a new and more detailed masterplan of the specific site. Here's a glimpse of the proposal: View full entry
"are the skyscrapers that tower over the Corniche, Doha's Waterside Drive, and it's an amazing skyline...There's a building that looks like a great blue cylinder whose top...It looks like Darth Vader helmet at the top of it...a building that looks like a big pickle with a toothpick stuck out of the top and another that's kind of like a vase on a potter's wheel...it looks as if it was a huge architectural competition and everybody won and everybody got to design a building." - Robert Siegel — All Things Considered - NPR
In a piece about Qatar's National Food Security Program, Robert Siegel examines the challenges and opportunities of food and water security in the Gulf nation. While visiting Doha to speak with Fatah al-Attiya, director of the program, Mr. Siegel reflects on the wealth/success/growth for... View full entry
The city of Los Angeles is cracking down on pedestrians who sneak across streets when the traffic signal says “don’t walk.” But when you put a price on bad behavior, like being in a public street illegally, you see clearly what a city values.
The cheapest parking ticket in Los Angeles (pdf) is $58, and the one most commonly issued for parking in a prohibited zone is $73. Jaywalking—the term of art for a pedestrian crossing against the light—will cost you $197.
— qz.com
While still fresh in our minds, architecture in 2013 had as much to do with culture and technology as it did design. We saw technology’s influence expand enormously -- through design, production, clients and criticism -- simultaneously enriching and conflicting our relationship to the built... View full entry
Increasingly, young tech talent wants to live and work in cities. As a result, the hottest tech companies, from Google to Twitter to Uber, are setting up shop in San Francisco, a long drive north of Silicon Valley, the traditional stronghold of the computer game. In the cutthroat world of tech recruiting, catering to the demands of the talent is everything, and even Apple isn’t immune to the first rule of real estate: location, location, location. — wired.com
“What hides behind the literary aspect of this report are deep reflections on the lessons, errors, approaches and paths of China’s previous urbanizations efforts,” concluded an editorial in the newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily. The state-controlled People’s Daily gushed: “If we want high rises, we even more need the fresh mountain waters. Only by seeing the past can we grasp the future.” — qz.com
Below are Archinect's 13 predictions for 2014. For a full list of all of our top 13 lists for 2013, click here. .... Click here for Archinect's full 13 Top 13 for '13 list! View full entry
