SHIPBREAKING: A METAMORFOSE DA PAISAGEM

‘SHIPBREAKING’ OU DESMANTELAMENTO DE NAVIOS:
Um fenómeno socio-ambiental do século XXI - Uma questão técnica e um problema humano.

A sessão contará com a abordagem técnica do Eng. José Manuel Gordo e a foto reportagem nos estaleiros do Bangladesh de Pedro Duarte Bento, Arqtº, com o apoio da Fundação Oriente. A sessão será moderada pela Dr.ª Alexandra von Bohm-Amolly.

9 DE OUTUBRO 2007, 18.00h

Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa
Rua das Portas de Stº Antão (Coliseu)
Lisboa

the link you all should pay me for :)

The Park at the Center of the World:

Five visions for Governors Island, NYC.

5 teams:

field operations / Wilkinson Eyre Architects

REX Ramus Ella Architects / Michel Desvigné Paysagistes

Hargreaves Associates / Michale Maltzan Architecture

West 8 / Roger Marvel Architects

WRT / Urban Strategies

link. the competition site

And now, I Proudly Present

James Corner/Field Operations fO

'field operations is a leading-edge landscape architecture and urban design practice based in New York City. Serving an international clientele, our practice is renowned for strong contemporary design across a variety of high profile project types and scales.'

(presented image: The High Line, NYC).

link. field operations

BOOK: Taking Measures Across the American Landscape

Taking Measures Across the American Landscape', by James Corner and Alex MacLean.

A large format book with wonderful aerial photographs of human-induced landscapes across the country (by Alex MacLean), as well as some interesting graphics by landscape architect James Corner, and an essay by Denis Cosgrove.
Yale University Press, 1996 paperback, 186 pages, many color photographs. link

link: the book

Exhibition at COAC

Celebrating the 50th opening anniversary of the Futbol Club Barcelona's stadium, the Camp Nou, the Catalan Col.legi de Arquitects and the Club organized an international competition for the design/remodeling of the stadium's skin and its upgrade of functional spaces and surrounding urban planning.

Tomorrow the exhibition of the competition will open to general public at the premises of the Col.legi de Arquitects, Barcelona.
The ten exhibited projects belong to the following teams: Domingo-Ferre, CRV Arquitectos, Herzog & De Meuron, Foster & Partners, Sanaa, Martínez Lapeña-Torres, MAP-architects, GMP International, Ferrater-Serra-Vives-Cartagena-Arusport, and Claus en Kaan Architecten.

link. (in catalan) COAC Exhibition

New 'Camp Nou'

The final results were presented last Friday. Between 10 proposals, the winning project was designed by Norman Foster and Partners. Among the competitors were names like Map Architects, Herzog&deMeuron, Ferrater and Sanaa.

"The world-famous firm of architects, Foster + Partners, is to undertake the remodelling of the stadium based on the initial concepts of Francesc Mitjans. The renovated stadium will stand as a piece of architecture in its own right and is certain to become an international architectural reference point for the 21st century. According to information released today, the whole building will be contained in a clearly defined space, with a unified external appearance. The additional spaces and facilities will be completely integrated, both functionally and architecturally." link

link. the virtual animation
link. Identity: The concept of the roof and the external façade

DOC: Manufactured Landscapes

Wednesday, June 20, 8:10 show:
Q&A with Filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal
and Photographer Edward Burtynsky

at Film Forum
209 W Houston St, New York, NY 10014

Expo: Ezra Stoller, Buildings of New York

Ezra Stoller©, Buildings of New York
Slide Show of the photographies in Danziger Projects' gallery webpage.

postopolis, the party

And there I was. The man with three feet.

Photo by John Hill of Archidose.

Postopolis New York City

[click to enlarge]

Hosted by the authors of:

BLDGBLOG
inhabitat
SUBTOPIA
City of Sound

Saturday, June 2, Blogger Open House

Building the times

"Building the times" is a photographic work of Annie Leibovitz done between July 2005 and July 2006.

Project Inspiration:

The 1930s photographs of Margaret Bourke-White and Lewis Hine, who documented the construction of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, respectively.

The New York Times Building is a design of architect Renzo Piano and its location is in Eighth Avenue, between West 40th and 41st Streets, NYC.

Building the times, photos by Annie Leibovitz

The Times Tower Project, design Renzo Piano

2007 New Housing New York City /// Competition Awards

Is open to the general public the results and finalists projects of the 2007 New Housing New York City Competition.

Exhibition at the Center for Architecture.

top image by Phipps Rose Dattner Grimshaw (via verde) 1st prize

Semanas Tematicas no Arquitectura.pt

Durante o mês de Maio e Junho o Arquitectura.pt vai promover as Semanas Temáticas de Arquitectura Nacional. Durante o último mês, foram contactados diversos ateliers que decidiram colaborar nesta iniciativa através da publicação online dos projectos que consideraram mais relevantes nas categorias disponibilizadas.
Temas a publicar online e respectivas datas:
Equipamentos - A partir de 14 de Maio /// Urbanismo - A partir de 21 de Maio /// Habitação - A partir de 28 de Maio /// Reabilitação - A partir de 4 de Junho /// Comércio - A partir de 11 de Junho

Cada um dos temas terá um fórum próprio, onde poderão ser consultados os projectos. Juntamente a cada categoria, será criado um tópico para discussão e debate temático permitindo a troca de ideias e impressões, bem como alguns comentários.

Os ateliers que se disponibilizaram para o efeito:
[i]da arquitectos
a.s*
ARQLMP Arquitectos
ateliermob
Bernardo Rodrigues
bpm arquitectura
Cirurgias Urbanas
CNLL
Embaixada
e-studio
Francisco Portugal e Gomes
Inês Cortesão
JSTC & Associados
nbAA
Paulo David
Pedro Campos Costa
Pedro Duarte Bento
Pedro Mendes Arquitectos
Pedro Teixeira de Melo
Promontório Arquitectos
OTO arquitectos

Semanas Temáticas de Arquitectura Nacional

PRESS REVIEW: Attitude magazine

The present issue is dedicated to the city of Barcelona and the new generation of catalan architects and designers.

A complete Seduction.

Attitude Magazine.

Louçã: PM quer entregar às câmaras especulação imobiliária

O dirigente do BE Francisco Louçã acusou este sábado o primeiro-ministro, José Sócrates, de entregar às câmaras municipais a possibilidade de especulação imobiliária com a reforma do urbanismo anunciada sexta-feira no Parlamento.

«Entrega-se às câmaras a possibilidade de especulação imobiliária. Isto é de uma gravidade imensa», afirmou Francisco Louçã na Maia, no encerramento do II Encontro Distrital Autárquico do Porto do BE.

Louçã criticou o facto de os Planos Directores Municipais (PDM) deixarem de ser tutelados por uma autoridade nacional, «politizando-se a facilidade de alterar um PDM».

«As regras anunciadas ontem por José Sócrates são um convite à especulação urbanística. Aquilo que tem sido uma excepção vai passar a ser a regra», referiu, manifestando-se contra o «facilitismo» desta reforma.

Para o dirigente do BE, a «solução Sócrates» é tornar regra «aquilo que os valentins loureiros já têm feito por todo o lado», vendendo à família e aos amigos terrenos não urbanizáveis que «seis dias depois são vendidos por quatro vezes mais», por deixarem de pertencer às reservas agrícola ou florestal.

«É assim que se fazem fortunas gigantescas, manipulando os PDM, permitindo construir onde não se devia construir. É esta a solução Sócrates. Não queremos a cidade cheia de mamarrachos. Já temos sete milhões de casas para 10 milhões de habitantes», frisou.

Diário Digital / Lusa

Simplex chega ao urbanismo

Simplificadas a elaboração e revisão dos PDM
Todos os tipos de planos municipais deixam de ter que ser ratificados pelo Conselho de Ministros, no entanto, as câmaras poderão pedir a ratificação para superar desconformidades com um plano governamental. O controlo de legalidade será feito pela CCDR. As alterações parciais dos PDM passam a ser mais simples.

Planos de Urbanização só nas mãos das câmaras
Deixará de ser obrigatório o acompanhamento pelas CCDR da elaboração dos planos de urbanização e de planos de pormenor. A salvaguarda do cumprimento da lei será garantida por uma conferência decisória de entidades , que reúna os pareceres dos organismos de Estado competentes. Fernando Ruas acredita que a dispensa do Plano Director Municipal ter de ser aprovado em Conselho de Ministros é uma medida "auxiliar de combate à corrupção". A razão é simples e óbvia "Quanto menos pessoas estiverem envolvidas no processo, melhor", argumentou ao JN.
Para o presidente da Associação Nacional de Municípios Portugueses (ANMP), os técnicos é que "devem ser mais responsabilizados". Afinal, defendeu, "se os projectos estiverem bem feitos e em condições, evitam investigações desnecessárias, e os despachos em vez de poderem ser passados numa hora podiam ser num minuto. As vistorias seriam feitas à posteriori. Sem problema nenhum". Há muito que a ANMP reivindicava a agilização dos processos, já a Quercus criticou a facilitação. A associação ambientalista receia que os planos passem a ser alterados "ao jeito de autarcas e investidores" e que os "concelhos comecem a ser vendidos a retalho" pelos ganhos económicos. AI

Pequenas obras sem licença obrigatória
Dispensadas de comunicação e de controlo prévio municipal as pequenas obras de escassa relevância urbanística ou de alteração no interior dos edifícios. A comunicação prévia vai bastar para obras de reconstrução que não afectam fachadas e para construção em áreas abrangidas por loteamento ou plano de pormenor.

Técnicos e promotores mais responsabilizados
Será agravado, para técnicos que assinam projectos e para os promotores, o regime de sanções em caso de incumprimento, quer em termos de responsabilidade civil, quer em termos de responsabilidade contra-ordenacional. Essas sanções poderão chegar à suspensão do exercício da actividade profissional.

Projectos PIN terão um tratamento especial
Passará a existir para os projectos PIN (de Potencial Interesse Nacional) um interlocutor único; uma apreciação simultânea por todas as entidades administrativas envolvidas do processo; uma decisão única e final por parte de uma conferência decisória; e um prazo máximo de decisão entre 60 e 120 dias.

Estatuto acertado também com os municípios
Serão identificados os projectos de importância estratégica que mereçam, não apenas um acompanhamento individual, mas também um tratamento especial. Para isso, será reconhecido esse estatuto por parte do Estado, através de despacho ministerial, depois de serem ouvidas as câmaras municipais.

link

Concurso 'intervenções na cidade-vazios urbanos'

"Decorreu no dia 3 de Abril, pelas 16 horas, no Cinema São Jorge, em Lisboa, o Acto Público do Concurso de Ideias Intervenções na Cidade, tendo o júri procedido ao anúncio dos 15 (quinze) trabalhos seleccionados e à identificação dos respectivos autores. São eles, respectivamente:

- Investimentos Imobiliário de Intervenções – AVZ Projekt
- Antiga Fábrica de Gás da Matinha – Lisboagás – Sofia Brogueira Henriques
- A Cidade como teatro de espectáculos; o vazio como palco de operações – Maria João Fonseca
- Quarteirões Novos para as Avenidas Novas – Tiago João de Castro Simas da Costa Andrade
- Largo Duque do Cadaval/Lisboa – Pedro Alexandre Duarte da Gama Dias
- Praça de Espanha – Ivo Manuel da Silva Poças Martins
- Arquitectura de Ausência – Rudolfo Reis
- Salas de Chuto – Lisboa ao Vazio # 10
- A Segunda Circular – ARNT – Arquitectura Design e Urbanismo, Ldª
- ECO-KIT Praça da Alegria/Lisboa – Moov
- Teatro Romano de Lisboa – Ana Maria Ribeiro Lopes
- Reinterpretação da Praça de Santa Apolónia – João Albuquerque
- Lote na Rua da Bela Vista à Lapa – Pedro Barata Fernandes Gomes de Castro
- Tecto Habitado – Paulo Miguel de Melo
- Doca do Jardim do Tabaco – Marco Alexandre Simões da Silva."

link: Trienal de Lisboa

[Depois do concurso de Paris, aqui vai mais um abraço de felicitações :) do postHABITAT aos MOB]

Countries by carbon dioxide emissions

'This is a list of sovereign states by man made carbon dioxide emissions. Data was collected in 2002 by the United Nations Statistics Division--numbers known to two significant figures at best. Dependencies and territories whose independence has not been generally recognized are indicated in italics under the UN member states they are generally associated with; this article, however, does not take a position in regard to the status of these territories.' Wikipedia

Gulf states gear up to go green

'Can Dubai shake off its gas-guzzling image to become a global model of sustainable design? David Littlefield visits to discover how the emirates and their Middle Eastern neighbours are embracing energy reduction on a massive scale.

“Dubai has had this reputation [of developing unsustainably], but it’s one the emirate is completely fed up with,” says Sinclair Webster, head of healthcare at HOK International. “It’s doing as much as it can to try and turn things round as quickly as it can. It doesn’t like the reputation of being the worst sinner on the planet.”'

The complete article by David Littlefield

British Architect Wins 2007 Pritzker Prize

Three decades after his Pompidou Center in Paris turned the architecture world upside down and brought him global fame, the British architect Richard Rogers has been named the 2007 winner of the Pritzker Prize, the profession’s highest honor.

In the citation accompanying its decision, to be announced on Thursday, the Pritzker jury saluted Mr. Rogers for his “unique interpretation of the Modern Movement’s fascination with the building as machine, an interest in architectural clarity and transparency, the integration of public and private spaces, and a commitment to flexible floor plans that respond to the ever-changing demands of users.”

By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: March 28, 2007

The New York Times

Grand Plans and Huge Spending

THE cultural building boom shows few signs of slowing. Nationwide, art institutions are renovating, adding wings or starting from the ground up. Projects include relatively modest undertakings like the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s $25 million plan to increase its gallery space by moving the museum’s library and administrative offices out of the building, and ambitious ones like the new $208 million home for the Miami Art Museum on Biscayne Bay, designed by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.

By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: March 28, 2007

The New York Times

Gehry’s New York Debut: Subdued Tower of Light

In the year since the concrete frame of Frank Gehry's first New York building began to rise along the West Side Highway in Chelsea, architecture fans have been quarrelling over its design. Are the curvaceous glass forms of the IAC headquarters building, evoking the crisp pleats of a skirt, a bold departure from Manhattan’s hard-edged corporate towers? Or are they proof that Mr. Gehry’s radical days are behind him?

Well, both.

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: March 22, 2007

The New York Times

Carlos Sant'Ana e Henrik Schulte a Roma

Generic People, Specific City

Carlos Sant'Ana /// Henrik Schulte

Génération Europan

Génération Europan recalls 20 years of Europan competitions, which since its creation made emerge on the European scene young talents in the fields of architecture and the urban design. In the course of the eight sessions, 430 sites were proposed with reflections of approximately 40.000 young designers grouped in 15.000 teams. The juries of the Europan competitions awarded prizes to 450 of them. The exhibition redraws the strong moments of this competition series and invited SMAQ and ten other winning teams to present the implementation of their Europan proposals as well as more recent projects that followed after winning Europan.

Exhibitors: Agence Tania Concko, BNR Studio, Bog Wog, Carlos Arroyo, Froetscher Lichtenwagner, Obras, l’AUC, Pierre Gautier Architecture, plattformberlin, S333, SMAQ.

Opening: March 20, 2007, 17:00 - 23:00
Exhibition: March 21 - May 27, 2007

BOOK: 'Los tiempos hipermodernos', de Gilles Lipovetsky

"En este último libro, que incluye una introducción al pensamiento del autor y una entrevista al mismo, Lipovetsky retoma su itinerario intelectual, pero aporta un elemento suplementario: lo «posmoderno» ha llegado a su fin; hemos pasado a la era «hipermoderna». Esta época se caracteriza por el hiperconsumo y el individuo hipermoderno: el hiperconsumo absorbe e integra cada vez más esferas de la vida social y empuja al individuo a consumir para su satisfacción personal; el individuo hipermoderno, aunque orientado hacia el hedonismo, siente la tensión que surge de vivir en un mundo que se ha disociado de la tradición y afronta un futuro incierto. Los individuos están corroídos por la angustia, el miedo se ha superpuesto a sus placeres y la ansiedad a su liberación." anagrama editores link

Only in CAD would you understand

All-Time 100 Movies - Time Magazine

Presenting the All-Time 100 Best films, as chosen by Time's movie critcs.

here

Jean Baudrillard, 1929-2007

"The French critic and provocateur Jean Baudrillard, whose theories about consumer culture and the manufactured nature of reality were intensely discussed both in rarefied philosophical circles and in blockbuster movies like “The Matrix,” died yesterday in Paris. He was 77.(...)

Mr. Baudrillard was once considered a postmodern guru, but his analyses of modern life were too original and idiosyncratic to fit any partisan or theoretical category. “He was one of a kind,” François Busnel, the editor in chief of the monthly literary magazine Lire, said yesterday. “He did not choose sides, he was very independent.”

quote:

“All of our values are simulated,” he told The New York Times in 2005. “What is freedom? We have a choice between buying one car or buying another car? It’s a simulation of freedom.”

By PATRICIA COHEN NY Times

The Hanging Tower of Jersey City

AFTER a wild development saga involving a dozen legal actions and the hiring of a mega-star architect, the design for a new tower to anchor this city’s arts district emerged last week as, well, kind of wild.

The structure designed by

Rem Koolhaas is 52 stories tall and holds 1.2 million square feet of mostly residential space. Yet, from most angles, it resembles nothing so much as a small child’s precarious stack of blocks. Looking from Manhattan across the river, the skyscraper presents the startling prospect of a giant barbell, standing on end.

Mr. Koolhaas, the Dutch founder of the internationally known Office for Metropolitan Architecture and a professor of urban studies at Harvard, said he took note of the way bare-boned monoliths dominate Jersey City’s modern architecture — “and played with that.”

The building he designed for a two-acre site at 111 First Street here is born of conflict. Displaced artists, Manhattan developers and Jersey City politicians have mixed it up in court for years over the project’s configuration and scale and the basic question of whether it should replace a historic industrial building where artists once lived and worked. Mr. Koolhaas seemed to cast that history into oblivion during an interview after the unveiling of his designs — or at least he tried.

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: March 4, 2007

The NYTimes

Medieval Modern: Design Strikes a Defensive Posture

Not so long ago, architects were obsessed with the notion that globalism, the Internet and sophisticated new building technologies were opening the way for a more fluid, transparent landscape in which walls would simply begin to melt away.

Things didn’t turn out that way. After 9/11, a craving for the solidity of walls reasserted itself. And the wars on terror, and fractious peaces, enforced it. The Green Zone in Baghdad, Jerusalem’s separation barrier, the concrete bollards that line corporate headquarters on Park Avenue — all are emblems of an unintended new mentality.

Four years after the American invasion of Iraq, this state of siege is beginning to look more and more like a permanent reality, exhibited in an architectural style we might refer to as 21st-century medievalism.

Like their 13th- to 15th-century counterparts, contemporary architects are being enlisted to create not only major civic landmarks but lines of civic defense, with aesthetically pleasing features like elegantly sculpted barriers around public plazas or decorative cladding for bulky protective concrete walls. This vision may seem closer in spirit to da Vinci’s drawings of angular fortifications or Michelangelo’s designs for organically shaped bastions than to a post-cold-war-era of high-tech surveillance.

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: March 4, 2007

The NYTimes

The best place in the world to live?

For the second year running in our annual Quality of Life Index, we say: France.

At the other end of the Index, again for year number two, Iraq scores the fewest points and ranks as the world’s worst place to be.

The

European countries always get top scores (with the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, and Luxembourg making it into our top 10 this year), as do the antipodean nations of Australia (second place) and New Zealand (fourth). Argentina, for the first time, makes it into our top 10 (in 10th position).

Before I go further, I should explain, especially for new readers (welcome!), what we’re doing here. Eleven months of the year, we consider the countries around the world where you could live cheaper, pay less tax, enjoy better weather, take advantage of opportunities in emerging markets…places where you could start a new life, start a business, start over…

Then, once a year, every January, we take a different perspective. We consider not only those places that offer particular and timely opportunities for the would-be expatriate…but nearly every nation on earth. This year, our survey looks at 193 countries.

To produce this annual Index we consider, for each of these countries, nine categories: Cost of Living, Culture and Leisure, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health, Infrastructure, Safety and Risk, and Climate. This involves a lot of number crunching from “official” sources, including government websites, the

World Health Organization, and The Economist, to name but a few.

But that’s not all. Once the official data is collected, we also take into account what our local correspondents from all over the world have to say about our findings. They are, after all, working and living in these countries themselves. They point out where the institutional stats are all wet.

The results are distilled into a mammoth survey. The highlights are included here in your issue.

You can find the comprehensive data here. Also, if you are not yet a subscriber to the free IL Postcards, you can become a subscriber to the free IL Postcards and access the complete data.

programas híbridos 04

The Hybrid Country House genetic-map, esta semana, no sítio do costume.

programas híbridos 03

Reichstag de Berlin
Visão provocatória de 'The islamic project' dos AES.

programas híbridos 02

"Num ensaio anterior explorei a ideia de que, num campo como o da arquitectura, a ideia de híbrido implica sempre uma certa ansiedade. Tal ansiedade diz respeito ao receio de se perder a identidade, confundindo-se a prática da arquitectura com práticas que lhe são próximas. É o fantasma que surge da transformação iminente de uma dada cultura. Procurava então explicar-se que, no entanto, esta ansiedade parte de pressupostos errados. O próprio conceito de cultura implica uma troca permanente. Neste contexto, os programas híbridos reflectem a necessidade da própria cultura da edificação se actualizar e adaptar às suas novas circunstâncias.Porém, não é só através da programação que se dá a possibilidade de actualização da própria cultura arquitectónica. Prolongando a metáfora informática, é interessante ir um pouco mais atrás – ou mais à frente – e sugerir que é no próprio código que deparamos com as possibilidades mais excitantes de update da cultura arquitectónica.O potencial da programação enquanto motor de transformação cultural da prática arquitectónica reside, afinal, tão só nas respostas concretas que alguns arquitectos dão a programas híbridos que lhes são impostos a partir de fora. O potencial do código arquitectónico, porém, vive da própria transformação das linguagens, das referências e dos valores através das quais a arquitectura se relaciona de novo com a cultura popular do quotidiano.(...) "

Texto crítico, com o título 'Para Além dos Programas Híbridos: A Arquitectura do Código Aberto' de Pedro Gadanho in arq/a #43, Março '07

programas híbridos 01

"De facto, as grandes clivagens disciplinares da arquitectura contemporânea ainda se constituem tendo em conta uma avaliação do estatuto da arquitectura moderna. E essas divisões disciplinares são resultado de leituras diferenciadas da posição da arquitectura moderna em relação à tradição disciplinar que a antecedeu, uma de continuidade, outra de ruptura. Por um lado, aqueles que valorizam os aspectos de continuidade, entendem a arquitectura moderna como uma evolução natural das concepções tipológicas e espaciais, resultante das novas possibilidades técnicas. Para os adeptos desta interpretação, muito enraizada no meio teórico anglo-saxónico, a arquitectura moderna produziu, acima de tudo, obras singulares que responderam criativamente às solicitações do seu tempo."

Editorial de Luís Santiago Baptista in arq/a, #43, Março '07

a nu

"Na arquitectura como em todas as formas criativas nunca se parte do nada, a invenção raramente existe senão quando novas ferramentas sugerem capacidades nunca experimentadas, mas mesmo nesse caso é difícil distinguir o que gera o quê, se o ovo ou a galinha."*

"É durante o acto criativo que nos expomos abertamente perante os outros; quando a mente e o devir não se excluem um ao outro, mas sim quando se tornam inclusivos (embora, jamais conclusivos). O nosso ser e a nossa praxis estão interligados. Em arquitectura é inconcebível pensar na segunda sem ter recorrido à primeira, da mesma forma que a primeira, isoladamente, é inútil, porque oca."**


*Filipa Cabrita, aluna do 6º ano do dARQ
**Carlos Guimarães, aluno do 6º ano do dARQ
in nu, #29/dez'06

The Islamic Project. AES

'In 1996, the Russian based photo-conceptualist group AES (made up of artists Tatyana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovitch, and Evgeny Svyatsky) launched its "Travel Agency to the Future" with the Islamic Project. Promoting a set of fictitious Grand Tours which would set out in the year 2006 into a radically changed and dystopic landscape, AES drew inspiration from Samuel Huntington's popular political paradigm of the mid 1990s, which anticipated the time when Islamic and Western cultures would come violently into collision. Well before the events of September 11th and well before George W. Bush's "crusade against terror," AES prepared clients for travel to the future through advertising and promotional material that featured fantastic projections of what the new world order would bring. More specifically, AES produced a series of digitally altered images, in the form of postcards, depicting the monuments and spaces of familiar tourist destinations (such as those found in Paris, Rome, Berlin, and New York) invaded, occupied, and altered by Islamic civilization.'

(images: St Peter's Square, Rome and Central Park, NY)

the islamic project web page

/////////////

O interesse do trabalho deste colectivo russo incide precisamente nas questões da metamorfose da paisagem urbana e dos ícones da civilização ocidental, corolário hipotético de uma mudança radical na geopolítica actual. Suportado por uma crítica ao fundamentalismo islamico, 'The Islamic Project' reflecte sobre uma suposta apropriação de alguns modelos teocráticos e fundamentalistas do Islão às sociedades ocidentais, não apenas reinterpretando a arquitectura existente mas também imprimindo algumas características específicas dessas realidades na imagem da cidade/sociedade.

Neste post não se pretendem interpretações de carácter geo-político mas sim compreender até que ponto os ícones da sociedade ocidental estão sujeitos a alterações tendo a política, a religião e o poder como factores decisivos da paisagem urbana.

A Global Warning

America's next president - Waiting for Al

As voters weary of the front-runners, what a chance for Al Gore.

ENOUGH already. The primaries are 11 months away and the race is already growing stale. The citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire are longing for the day when they can visit Denny's without having to meet Hillary or Rudy. And the press is busy recycling the same old stories. Can Barack Obama run for president and give up smoking at the same time? Will Hillary hand her Senate seat to Bill if she wins? Is America ready for a Mormon president? Or a black? Or a woman? Or a man who once dressed as Marilyn Monroe?

There is no shortage of money or ideas: the candidates' treasure chests are overflowing and the think-tanks churn out policy papers. But there is a severe shortage of attention. People will not be able to watch the same soap opera, endlessly repeated on 24-hour cable news and pored over in the blogosphere, for months on end without getting sick of the main characters.

Which means that there is a huge opportunity for somebody to arrive late and steal the show. The late entrant will not only have the advantage of being a fresh face. He or she could also change the whole dynamic of the race, gaining enough momentum to storm through Iowa and New Hampshire.

Step forward Al Gore. Mr Gore has enough of a national profile to command instant credibility. He has rich friends to finance him. He will also command plenty of attention in his own right over the next few months: his film “An Inconvenient Truth” could win an Oscar for best documentary on Sunday, and he may be up for the Nobel peace prize in the autumn.

Mr Gore is the ideal candidate for the Democratic stalwarts who turn out to vote in the primaries. He came out strongly against invading Iraq. He has spent the past six years warning the world about global warming. And he was robbed of victory in 2000 by the man whom the Democrats loathe above all others. What better way of wiping out the Bush era than replacing him with the man who should have been president?

Mr Gore is adamant that he does not want to run again. But will he be able to resist? It would be one of the great dramas of American political history. And James Carville, keen observer of politicians, says that, for them, running for president is rather like having sex for normal people: it is not something that you do just once if you have any say in the matter.

Feb 22nd 2007 WASHINGTON, DCFrom The Economist print edition

Fast Climate Facts

The Larsen B ice shelf, which was about the size of Rhode Island, collapsed over a period of 35 days in 2000.

Scientists agree the Earth's climate is being directly affected by human activity, and for many people around the world, these changes are having negative effects. Records show that 11 of the last 12 years were among the 12 warmest on record worldwide.

The just-released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Summary for Policy Makers — the first volume of the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report — states that scientists are more than 90% confident that human industrial activity is driving global temperature rises. (add your thoughts on the report at RealClimate.org)

Carbon dioxide levels today are nearly 30 percent higher than they were prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution, based on records extending back 650,000 years.

According to NASA, the polar ice cap is melting at the rate of 9 percent per decade. Arctic ice thickness has decreased 40 percent since the 1960s.

The current pace of sea-level rise is three times the historical rate and appears to be accelerating.

The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. The IPCC 4th Assessment Report said that this trend would likely continue.

Droughts in the Sahel during the 1970s and 1980s were found to be caused by warmer sea surface temperatures, and the current drought in the Amazon is suspected to be a result of rising ocean temperatures.

Poverty and food insecurity has also been tied to climate variability. A recent publication shows that providing climate information to vulnerable populations can improve — and even save — lives.

Next Generation Earth - Be Part of the Solution

Top 30 Skylines of The World v 4.0

Hong Kong Skyline

#1) Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong is number one on my list for many reasons: Hong Kong has a whopping 43 buildings over 200 metres tall, 30 of which were built in the year 2000 or later!!! It also boasts four of the 15 tallest buildings in the world… that's all in one city! Hong Kong’s skyline shows a large selection of distinct sky-reaching towers, with beautiful night lighting and reflection. This city exemplifies the post-modern skyscraper and skyline. Finally, the mountain backdrop makes this skyline the greatest on the planet!

Metro/Urban Population: 6.9 million

#2) Chicago, USA

After the 1871 Great Fire of Chicago leveled the entire city, Chicago built its first steel high-rise in 1885, it was not the tallest structure in the world but the first example of a new form of engineering that would change nearly every city on earth. This is the birthplace of the modern skyscraper. Chicago has 19 buildings over 200 meters tall (three of which are among the top 20 tallest buildings in the world, including the tallest in North America). Chicago has some of the finest mid-century architecture and examples of modern skyscrapers.

Metro/Urban Population: 9.5 million

#3) New York City, USA

New York City has one of the densest and most diverse skylines, with a huge collection of buildings and building styles. Thanks to Hollywood’s obsession with the city, it is also the most easily recognizable skyline in the world. New York City has an amazing 47 buildings over 200 meters - the most in the world! The four tallest buildings in NYC were all built in the early 1930s! Home of the famous, now destroyed World Trade Center Towers, the Empire State building, the Statue of Liberty and the United Nations, New York City is the financial capital of the western world.

Metro/Urban Population: 21.0 million

link

Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses And City Planning Today

vs.

"Planning has changed because of Jane Jacobs. Robert Moses’ centralized planning is a thing of the past."

"Planning today is noisy, combative, iterative and reliant on community involvement. Any initiative that does not build consensus -- that is not shaped by the give-and-take of the public review process -- will be an inferior plan and, deservedly, will be voted down and die."

The opposing visions of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses towards city building resonate with many New Yorkers today.

It is certainly clear to me that Jane Jacobs is now the prevailing force. While no one person changed the physical landscape of New York as much as Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs’ legacy and her influence is much more deeply rooted and felt widely by urbanists, planners and elected officials.

That legacy embraces:
- the importance of the relationship of people and the public realm
- the appreciation of networks created by diverse uses

- understanding that blocks are the basic unit of the city
- the primacy of the street as the glue of neighborhood life

Moses may have gotten a lot done, built a great deal in the name of “the people”, but the truth is that he wanted little to do with the people who would live in the city he created. Their voices were dispensable, their homes were dispensable. And that is why he couldn’t conceive of the importance of neighborhoods.

Jacobs, on the other hand, knew that if you neglect neighborhoods, you do so at the city’s peril. People who no longer have faith in the future of the place in which they were brought up or where they are raising a family, will, if they can afford it, leave for a more predictable, safer place.

So understanding and appreciating the integral character of diverse neighborhoods has to be a primary requirement for any planning initiative. The goal of city planners, or how we are looking at the city’s challenges today, is no longer the broad brush, the bold strokes, the big plan.

Make no mistake about it, we have an enormous need to build thousands of units of affordable housing; we must create a broad spectrum of jobs for a rapidly expanding population; we need to reclaim and revitalize our waterfront; and we must lay the foundations to support the growth that is to come and that we welcome.

But it is just not acceptable, or wise, or even possible to undertake these challenges without espousing Jacobs principles of city diversity, of the rich detail of urban life, to build in a way that nourishes complexity.

Gotham Gazzette

by Amanda BurdenNovember 6, 2006

Charles de Gaulle Airport, Terminal 1, 1967-1974

"The planning and construction phase of what was known back then as Aéroport de Paris Nord (Paris North Airport) began in 1966. On March 8, 1974, the airport, renamed Charles de Gaulle International Airport, began service. Terminal 1 was built to an avant-garde design consisting of a ten-floor high circular building surrounded by seven satellite buildings each with four gates. The main architect was Paul Andreu, who was also in charge of the extensions during the following decades." wikipedia



O Terminal 1 do Aeroporto Charles de Gaulle é uma das primeiras grandes obras do arquitecto francês Paul Andreu, apelidado de 'arquitecto dos aeroportos' e genericamente conhecido pelo seu projecto do 'Arch de la Defénse' em Paris.
Neste projecto, Andreu resolve a circulaçao e o acesso às plataformas com a colocaçao de 7 núcleos-satélite, cada um com 4 plataformas ('gates') à volta da planta circular que define o aeroporto com todos os seus serviços. O edifício é em estrutura de betao, com formas sinuosas inspiradas no futurismo de Eero Saarinen e sobretudo no seu projecto para o terminal da TWA em Nova Iorque.
Nas décadas seguintes Andreu continuou os projectos de ampliaçao do Aeroporto Charles de Gaulle (terminais 2 e 3).

As imagens apresentadas no topo sao referentes à 'imagem de marca' do terminal 1, a complexa estrutura de passagens pedonais mecanizadas que se desenvolve em vários níveis e que mais de uma vez serviu de cenário cinematrográfico.



Paul Andreu Architectes

the hybrid country house

"A casa de campo busca a sua identidade híbrida, no sentido figurativo em que 'híbrido' será aquilo que participa de dois [ou mais] géneros diferentes. Assim, a casa de campo é híbrida geneticamente, sendo o seu fenótipo a mistura de dois genótipos distintos: o instintivamente tradicional e reconhecível do vernáculo e o racionalmente funcional do modernismo."

>>genótipo da arquitectura primitiva // genotype of primitive architecture

AWARD: Young catalan architect award

On Friday the second of January, at the Catalan council of architect (COAC), Barcelona, came together the jury assigned by the association of young architects of Catalonia (AJAC) to awarded laureates of the fifth edition of the price for young Catalan architects.

The price aims to value and diffuse the work of new generation Catalan architects awarding projects designed during the period 2004 -2005. Adding, to the four existing categories, a new one, awarding for best graduation project in the last edition of the AJAC award is given fair recognition to the student's architectonic production. The laureates were chosen between the 111 projects competing for the price.

Built projects
PATH + ROC by Jordi Hidalgo + Daniela Hartmann
06108 by David Lorente, Josep Ricart, Xavier Ros iRoger Tudó
Taste lab by Patricia Meneses + Iván Juárez

Unbuilt projects
Oionos, Ethos, Aoikos i Elpis by Fabrizio Barozzi + Alberto Fernández Veiga
TCV by Amadeu Santacana i Umberto Viotto
VdK by Anna Renau Permanyer + Sara Bartumeus Ferré
03:25 by Joan Carles Castro, Ana Caffaro Rossi.

Papers and research
Casuals by David Hernández Falagán + Isabel Aparici Turrado
BRUS by Carlos Cachón Martínez

Essays:
6107 by Emiliano López Matas
Valentina Tereshkova by Isabel Casanellas Jurnet

Graduation projects:
BÑS 79 by Elena Fontal Aira
MMdP by Aleix Gimeno Font
Across Acropolis by Alexis Cogul Lleonart

read more

2015 : La Défense rajeunit

Le projet "Défense 2015", dirigé par l'Etablissement public pour l'aménagement de La Défense (Epad), prévoit de moderniser le site afin de lui permettre de conserver sa place de premier quartier d'affaires européen.

Car La Défense vieillit, malgré son succès croissant depuis sa création en 1958. Image © Epad

Bernard Bled, directeur de l'Etablissement public pour l'aménagement de La Défense, a répondu à questions sur le projet "Défense 2015" le 16 juin en chat:

A quoi sert l'EPAD ? Qui en fait partie ?

L'EPAD est un établissement public d'aménagement pour le secteur de La Défense, qui a mis en place le premier quartier d'affaires d'Europe. L'établissement public est géré par un conseil d'administration dont le président est Nicolas Sarkozy. Il est constitué d'une centaine de collaborateurs.

En quoi consiste exactement le projet Défense 2015 ?

Quels sont les différents axes du projet ? A la demande du gouvernement, et plus précisément du ministre de l'Equipement Monsieur de Robien, j'ai été chargé de proposer un plan de relance pour le secteur de La Défense, qui se concrétise par la construction de 850 000 m² de bureaux et de logements nouveaux, dont un grand projet architectural qui pourrait être une très grande tour d'environ 400 m de haut. Bien entendu, ce grand projet qui installerait La Défense durablement au rang des grands quartiers d'affaires d'Europe et du monde, serait accompagné de nouveaux aménagements privilégiant l'environnement, le cadre et la qualité de la vie à La Défense. Il prévoit aussi une amélioration des transports en commun, notamment par l'arrivée sur le site d'un nouveau RER, qui serait le RER E (Eole). Enfin, ce plan audacieux transformait le site de la Défense en un espace de vie où l'on pourrait trouver une animation permanente culturelle, festive et événementielle.

Pourquoi ce projet ? Y a-t-il vraiment menace de saturation?

Ce projet s'inscrit naturellement dans une politique gouvernementale animée du désir de développer l'activité économique et l'emploi. La Défense constituant le premier quartier d'affaires d'Europe, il était évident qu'il fallait optimiser ses capacités en atteignant 4 millions de m² de bureaux et en créant entre 40 000 et 50 000 emplois dans les 15 ans qui viennent. La situation économique et les capacités d'investissement tant en France qu'à l'étranger étant encourageantes, la décision de relance s'imposait d'elle-même. Il n'y a donc aucun risque de saturation en matière d'offre de bureau, c'est même probablement le contraire, et si saturation il y a, ce ne pourrait être qu'en matière de conditions de transport, sujet que nous avons déjà abordé et qui se trouverait résolu par l'arrivée d'Eole à La Défense.

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Haute couture, haute architecture

Vue de nuit de la Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création.

Illustration de Didier Ghislain, d'après le projet de Frank Gehry © Didier Ghislain / 2006

Frank Gehry se lance dans la haute couture. Ce n'est pas vraiment une nouveauté : ses bâtiments asymétriques, volumes enchevêtrés et enveloppes brillantes, concaves et convexes, ont la même extravagance que des tenues de défilé de mode, élégantes et déstructurées. Même décalage, même provocation, même créativité : les bâtiments de Frank Gehry sont aussi remarquables - dans tous les sens du terme - que du Louis Vuitton. Démonstration à Paris en 2010, avec la Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création.

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Pavillons dans le vent

Le dernier projet de l'architecte américain Michael Jantzen, baptisé "Wind Shaped Pavilion", est une structure légère de 6 étages articulés autour d'un axe central, qui a la particularité d'être en permanence façonnée par le vent. Ces mouvements génèrent en même temps l'énergie consommée par le bâtiment. © Michael Jantzen / Humanshelter

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Climate paper prompts call to act

The latest UN report on climate change says mankind is "very likely" to be the cause of global warming and predicts a rise in temperature of between 1.8-4C (3.2-7.2F) by 2100. The report, produced by a team tasked with assessing the science of climate change, was intended to be the definitive summary of climatic shifts facing the world in the coming years. The agency said that it would use stronger language to assess humanity's influence on climatic change than it had previously done.

In 2001, it said that it was "likely" that human activities lay behind the trends observed at various parts of the planet; "likely" in IPCC terminology means between 66% and 90% probability. Now, the panel concluded that it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet's surface.

The EU said it was the starkest warning yet, while the UK said climate change threatened world peace and prosperity. The US administration said the report was "valuable", but rejected mandatory controls to reduce greenhouse gases. The report, by more than 2,000 top scientists, says world temperatures could increase by 3C by 2100. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also projected that sea levels were most likely to rise by 28-43cm, and said global warming was likely to influence the intensity of tropical storms. The findings are the first of four IPCC reports to be published this year.

BBC News

Expansive Vistas Both Inside and Out

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART

This is not a friendly place for architecture. Four decades ago the completion of a City Hall in Brutalist concrete sent the city’s cultural guardians into a panic. Since then, with a few exceptions like the John Hancock Tower, the city’s architectural aspirations could generally be summed up in one word: brick.

The new Institute of Contemporary Art, which opened here on Dec. 10, is likely to change all that. Designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro of New York, its taut glass-and-steel forms at the edge of Boston Harbor are a startling expression of public-spiritedness. Conceived as an extension of a 43-mile boardwalk along the water, its ability to interweave art and civic life makes it the most important building to rise here in a generation. It is also a milestone for Elizabeth Diller and Richard Scofidio, a duo who have dwelled largely on the fringes of the architecture profession since they opened their practice in the 1970s.

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: December 8, 2006

The NY Times

Complex, Contradictory Robert Moses

Parks Department Photo Archives

Few shows force you to rethink an urban legend. That’s the challenge posed by “Robert Moses and the Modern City,” a sweeping, scholarly exhibition that breathes fresh air into one of the most tired, overworked and misunderstood subjects in the city’s history.

Shown at three New York locations, the exhibition traces Moses’ remarkable career as parks commissioner from 1934 to 1960 and as a leader of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority from 1934 to 1968, when he oversaw a radical transformation of New York through the construction of bridges, expressways and public parks and vast slum clearance projects. It paints a nuanced portrait of a man who, in the public imagination at least, has become a caricature of the ruthless bureaucrat.

The joy of this exhibition is that it recognizes that the issues facing cities today are more complex than choosing between a respect for the past and an embrace of the future. Moses, once a symbol of reckless change, is now part of our history too. We can see the beauty in some of his projects without denying the destructiveness of others.

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: February 2, 2007

The NY Times

a 'casa' (portuguese edition)

Concordo essencialmente com este texto do jMAC no que respeita à redundância da 'crítica de arquitectura' por parte de Jorge Figueira (JF). Segundo me parece pelo que li no hardblog (pois não li o texto no 'Mil Folhas'), JF elabora que o projecto 'Casa em Azeitão' (dos arqts Miguel Beleza, José Martinez) é uma resposta à desintregração do vernáculo(?) face aos paradigmas abundantes e ultra-copiados do "neo-modernismo". Será isto, pergunto. Por que se for, então é mais do que compreensível a exclamação de jMAC: "Façamos uma digressão pelas plantas, vejamos o piso 0 e embasbaquemos com a “planta livre” vers une architecture". Erro crasso do crítico que cai na própria ratoeira, ou seja, pela forma a casa é a repulsa, pela função é a analogia.

Contudo, não concordo com a apreciação feita por jMAC ao projecto em si ao ponto de rotulá-lo de - e cito - "mais uma reprodução dos ícones mais glamorosos que as revistas do “estrangero” nos anunciam."

Fico sem perceber: a crítica exposta é ao texto do crítico ou por seu turno é também ao projecto baseada no texto do crítico?

É que lidamos aqui com duas questões fundamentais: Por um lado há uma intenção de reflexão (melhor ou pior) da parte do critico, mas por outro há uma intenção de projecto por parte dos arquitectos. Será que os autores do projecto se revêem na análise de JF? Ter-se-á o crítico baseado na memória descritiva do projecto?

Ou por outro lado é uma interpretação subjectiva que o crítico aponta para algo que não era a intenção dos autores?

Do ponto de vista formal - a utilização da forma primitiva e amplamente reconhecida como a 'Casa' - é um exercício muito desenvolvido depois do Movimento Moderno. É a reaproximação aos moldes e paradigmas mais reconhecíveis da arquitectura vernácula. Venturi fazia-o nos anos 60, Herzog e deMeuron nos anos 80/90 (Frohlich House, Blue House e Rudin House) tal como Paulo Gouveia no Museu dos Baleeiros nos Açores; os MVRDV faziam-no anos depois nas casas de Ypenburg tal como Sergison Bates em Stevenage e por último o japones Sou Fujimoto vai mais longe ao transportar o modelo vernáculo europeu para o Japão. Mínimos exemplos entre muitos outros.

Assim, se por um lado o crítico JF transforma o projecto da Casa em Azeitão num arauto para fim do pastiche neo-modernista 'que corrói a arquitectura portuguesa', jMAC transforma-o numa reprodução dos ícones mais glamorosos.

No final fica tudo na mesma. Mas como reprodução de ícones continuo a ver mais 'coberturas planas' nas revistas do que telhados de duas abas.

Foto: polaroide de casa de emigrante suíço, Lardosa, Beira-Baixa, Dezembro 2006 ©pdb [genótipo da arquitectura primitiva]

Dublin under 40: A2 Architects

"A2 Architects was established by Peter Carroll and Caomhán Murphy in 2005. The practice is based in the former Thin Lizzy jamming studios in Great Strand Street in Dublin City Centre. Both partners are members of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland since 1999 and have been members of the Architectural Association of Ireland since 1989.Since graduating from University College Dublin in 1995, both partners have gained experience both at home and abroad."

A2 Architects

EXPO: 4 under 40

The exhibition seeks to offer the visitor an original architecture experience taking place in a private house as opposed to the conventional architecture exhibitions. The event provides a focused look at several innovative works that engaged with domestic extensions.
The pratices involved A2 Architects, Lotus Architects, Simon Walker and Architecture Republic to whom will be give randomly a room of the house to create an exhibition of their own.
Accompanying the exhibition will be a full-colour book published by Architecture republic, based on drawings, models and photographes together with texts .

4under40

CONTEMPORARY JAPAN: TEZUKA ARCHITECTS

Matsunoyama Natural Science Museum
'The 120m-long Cor-ten steel tube designed to resist 1000 kg / ㎡ pressure to observe life under the 4m deep snow. Walking through the building, the visitor experiences the light and colors under the different depths of snow from 4m deep to 30m above the ground. To be completed 3/2003.'
slide show


Sandou House
'This is a house located 5m from the Inland Sea. The torii gate of Itsukushima Shrine floats out in front of the large opening. The floor has a stepping shape so as to make the sea visible from every space. The big door is closed during typhoons.
total floor area：118.20㎡'
slide show


TEZUKA ARCHITETS

Celebrity Architects Reveal a Daring Cultural Xanadu for the Arab World

Zaha Hadid’s design for a performing arts center for an island in Abu Dhabi.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 31 — "In this land of big ambition and deep pockets, planners on Wednesday unveiled designs for an audacious multibillion-dollar cultural district whose like has never been seen in the Arab world. The designs presented here in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and one of the world’s top oil producers, are to be built on an island just off the coast and include three museums designed by the celebrity architects Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Tadao Ando, as well as a sprawling, spaceshiplike performing arts center designed by Zaha Hadid.

Mr. Gehry’s building is intended for an Adu Dhabi branch of the Guggenheim Museum featuring contemporary art and Mr. Nouvel’s for a classical museum, possibly an outpost of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Mr. Ando’s is to house a maritime museum reflecting the history of the Arabian gulf.

The project also calls for a national museum and a biennial exhibition space composed of 19 pavilions designed by smaller names and snaking along a canal that cuts through the island. Art schools and an art college are also planned."

By HASSAN FATTAH
Published: February 1, 2007

The NY Times

EXPO: ALEJANDRO DE LA SOTA. MAQUETES

"Exposició de l'obra d'Alejandro de la Sota en maquetes a diferents escales. La mostra és el resultat d'un treball investigador de la càtedra de Projectes i Patrimoni del professor Víctor López Cotelo, de la Facultat d'Arquitectura de la Technische Universität de Munich.
La mostra està concebuda com una exposició itinerant que ja ha estat exposada a l'ETH de Zurich, a la Universitat d'Stuttgart i la TU Kaiserslautern abans d'arribar a Espanya, on ha itinerat per diferents ciutats, sent Barcelona l'última escala abans d'iniciar un recorregut pel centre d'Europa."

del 25 de enero al 22 de febrero de 2007
Col.legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya

Wuerth Congress and Convention Centre Competition

"David Chipperfield Architects has won the International Competition for the Wuerth Congress and Convention Centre in Kuenzelsau-Gaisbach, Germany. The project consists of a large concert and multi-purpose convention hall, a chamber music hall and a congress and seminar centre. The complex will be also include a library and art museum and a large sculpture garden."

in NEWS, David Chipperfield Architects 31.01.2007

2007 AIA HONOR AWARDS

2007 American Institute of Architects Honor Awards

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) announced in January 12th the 2007 recipients of the AIA Institute Honor Awards, the profession’s highest recognition of works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interior architecture, and urban design. Selected from nearly 700 total submissions, 29 recipients will be honored in May at the AIA 2007 National Convention and Design Exposition in San Antonio.

Eleven worthy projects were selected as the 2007 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture recipients. Schools and educational facilities made a remarkably strong showing, receiving 8 of the 11 awards.

“Experiencing such a broad spectrum of outstanding work from the nation’s architectural community was a special privilege for all. The exterior aspects, the quality of the interior spaces, site considerations, environmental issues, and social relevance were all factors in distinguishing the final selections,” said Jury Chair, Richard A. Logan, AIA. “If anything, this year’s collection of projects demonstrates that bold, sculptural expressions of form can be as captivating as ever, yet rational, elegant solutions to structural, programmatic, community and environmental issues can be equally compelling. The range of winning projects demonstrates both the power and diversity of great architecture.”


Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin, Germany
Eisenman Architects
This five-acre memorial sits along the East Berlin side of the former Berlin Wall and is now filled with a grid of 2,711 concrete pillars, or stelae, each 95 centimeters wide and 2.375 meters long and varying from zero to four meters high.

Spencertown House, Spencertown, New York
Thomas Phifer and Partners
This private residence is situated on a rolling meadow and commands dramatic views of an agricultural valley and the distant Catskills in rural upstate New York. The home’s primary organizational element is a six-foot-high concrete wall that retains the earth on the uphill side and defines a large entry court in the middle.

Canada’s National Ballet School: Project Grand Jeté, Stage 1: The Jarvis Street Campus, Toronto, Canada
Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects/Goldsmith Borgal & Company Limited Architects in Joint Venture
This ballet school is the only institution in North America to offer on one site an integral program of professional dance training, advanced academic education, and residential living.

Meinel Optical Science Research Building, Tucson, Arizona
richärd + bauer architecture
This 47,000-square-foot research lab is both an expansion and renovation of the university’s optical department and contains teaching and research labs, classrooms, interaction areas, and offices. Within the simple volume, daylight is introduced by a series of apertures, interacting and modulating the spaces within.

World Birding Center Headquarters, Mission, Texas
LakeFlato Architects
The Lower Rio Grande Valley is one of the richest bird habitats in the world. On the major migratory pathway for most North American species, the area has become a primary destination for birding enthusiasts.

University of Michigan, Biomedical Science Research Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Polshek Partnership Architects, LLP
This 435,000-square-foot building provides 250 biomolecular research labs for theuniversity’s 1,000 users. The building forms a connection between the main campus and the medical school and serves as the med school’s new front door.

Palo Verde Library/Maryvale Community Center, Phoenix, Arizona
Gould Evans Associates, L.C. + Wendell Burnette Architects
The aim of this project was to reinvigorate “the heart of Maryvale” with a library and community center building that incorporated an existing public pool and recreational park and saved a large ball field for local schools.

University of California, Merced Central Plant, Merced, California
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
This complex is part of the first phase of a new University of California campus. It is composed of three elements: a three-story plant building, a 30,000-ton-hour thermal storage tank, and a telecommunications building.

Solar Umbrella, Venice, California
Pugh + Scarpa
Inspired by Paul Rudolph’s Umbrella House of 1953, the Solar Umbrella provides a contemporary reinvention of the solar canopy—a strategy that provides thermal protection in climates with intense exposures.

Dr. Theodore T. Alexander Jr. Science Center School, Los Angeles, California
Morphosis
The hybrid campus of primary education and scholastic research serves as a gateway to the greater University of Southern California/Exposition Park and establishes a community foothold in the heart of South L.A.

School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa (above image)
Steven Holl Architects, with associate architect Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck Architecture
This art and art history building presented special conditions: an existing 1937 brick building with a central body and flanking wings located along the river, a lagoon, and a connection to the organic geometry of nearby limestone bluffs that form the edge of the city grid.

AIA 2007 LINK

PRESS REVIEW: DD21

DD Publishers, n21
Didier Fiuza Faustino / Bureau de Mesarchitectures

Artista y arquitecto portugués. Se diploma en la Escuela de Arquitectura de París Villemin en 1995. Es cofundador del Laboratoire d’Architectures Performances et Sons (LAPS, París, 1996), del Taller Multidisciplinario “Le Fauteuil vert ” (París, 1997), de la revista de estética Numeromagazine (Lisboa, 1998), y del Bureau des Mesarchitectures, junto con Pascal Mazoyer (París, 2001). Trabaja entre Lisboa y París desde 1996 y desarrolla una actividad polimorfa como arquitecto y artista, combinando performances, vídeos, exposiciones y escritos con sus investigaciones arquitectónicas. Entre sus obras mejor conocidas se encuentra Body in transit, expuesta en la Bienal de Venecia de 2000, y consistente en una maleta acondicionada para el transporte aéreo de un inmigrante ilegal. En 2001 presenta en el Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (exposición “Traversées”), un suelo acuático, sobre el cual se invitaba al público a andar. Su obra cuestiona la percepción de “la inestabilidad visual y física”, que hace de la arquitectura un interfaz activo entre nuestro cuerpo y su integración en el espacio-tiempo. En 2001 obtuvo el “Premio Tabaqueira” (Lisboa, Portugal) y en 2001-2002, su Bureau des Mesarchitectures fue galardonado entre los nuevos álbumes de arquitectos jóvenes (París, 2002). Participa en la Bienal de Valencia de 2003. [bio link]

Design Document Series 21

Competition

//// Europan 9

Next Monday 5 February will be launched the ninth session of Europan.

The generic theme of Europan 9 – European urbanity, sustainable city and new public spaces - specifically involves collaboration with the cities and urban developers in the organising countries. Indeed, the ultimate aim of the European vision of the city is to make society, in other words to bring together people of all conditions and origins. However, the dominant trend towards individualisation, the quest for autonomy, cannot be ignored. This is precisely the contradiction that Europan addresses: on the one hand wanting the city and on the other side wanting intimacy, privacy, home and the immediate circle.

CALENDAR

05 02 2007 Launching
31 05 2007 End of registrations
28 06 2007 Entries
18 01 2008 Results

Europan 9

Lord Foster prepares to sell his practice

“Lord Norman Foster has appointed bankers to examine the possible sale of his world-leading architectural practice.”
“Last week Foster told a small group of senior staff he was considering bringing in outside investors, but he is understood to be anxious to avoid giving the impression that he is leaving soon and has not made up his mind about whether to retain a stake in the business.
"He's looking at his options, some of which include a sale and some of which don't," said one person close to the company. "Some would leave him with control." Whatever happens, he is said to be planning to remain involved for some time.

Foster, who is 71, is believed to be advised by a specialist corporate finance boutique in London called Catalyst Investment. One source said bankers were hoping the business would fetch between £300m and £500m.”

Article by By Dan Roberts and Sylvia Pfeifer, Sunday Telegraph, January 21 2007

Rem's Boycott

Paradoxal statement of starchitect Rem Koolhaas by promoting and encouraged a boycott in International Competitions to his fellows starchitecs.
After Norman Foster and Rafael Viñoly walked off the jury that appointed RMJM the winner of the Gazprom Headquarters (gazprom competition post here) in St. Petersburg, Koolhaas condemned the competitions systems as “hideous” and a drain on resources and influence.
Koolhaas, that made “his name by entering international competitions including Seattle Library, Porto’s Casa da Musica and the CCTV headquarters in Beijing” was also on the short list.

A bad looser?


Koolhaas campaigns to overhaul star-studded design competitions after Gazprom HQ controversy
/// Article by Ellen Bennett

above image in MARK magazine

BOOK: Sweet Earth

SWEET EARTH - EXPERIMENTAL UTOPIAS IN AMERICA
Joel Sternfeld [link]

"While the early social theorists were largely European, it was in the fluid environment of America that true utopian communities were built and utopian experimentation flourished. In the years between 1810 and 1850, hundreds of secular and religious societies bravely tried to build a "perfect" life for their members. In the twentieth century experimentation began again, reaching a fever pitch in the turbulent days of the Vietnam War. The 1990s and the early years of the new millennium have become yet another hotbed of social experimentation. The Co-Housing movement is sweeping America with at least 70 communities fully completed and occupied and numerous others planned. At the same time, the rapid global expansion of sustainable communities known as Ecovillages has been widely adopted in America. In Sweet Earth, Joel Sternfeld has selected sixty representative historic or present American utopias. A photograph of each is accompanied by a brief text that summarizes the most salient aspects of the history or organization of the community. Neither a conventional history nor a conventional book of photography, Sweet Earth brings together what might otherwise seem disparate, individualized social phenomena and makes visible the community of communities. As laissez-faire market forces sweep the globe and the earth's future seems endangered, the dream of living in concert with nature and with one another is increasingly essential."

Demographia

Most Populous Urban Agglomerations

The 26 most populous cities in the world (those having a population over eight million). Data are estimates from late 2005. All population figures for the world's largest urban areas are simply estimates. Link Matt Rosenberg list based on Demographia

1. Tokyo, Japan - 34,100,000
2. Mexico City, Mexico - 22,650,000
3. Seoul, South Korea - 22,250,000
4. New York, United States - 21,850,000
5. Sao Paulo, Brazil - 20,200,000
6. Mumbai, India - 19,700,000
7. Dehli, India - 19,500,000
8. Los Angeles, United States - 17,950,000
9. Shanghai, China - 17,900,000
10. Jakarta, Indonesia - 17,150,000
11. Osaka, Japan - 16,800,000
12. Kolkata, India - 15,550,000
13. Cairo, Egypt - 15,450,000
14. Manila, Philippines - 14,850,000
15. Karachi, Pakistan - 14,100,000
16. Moscow, Russia - 13,750,000
17. Buenos Aires, Argentina - 13,400,000
18. Dhaka, Bangladesh - 13,100,000
19. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - 12,100,000
20. Beijing, China - 11,950,000
21. London, United Kingdom - 11,950,000
22. Tehran, Iran - 11,800,000
23. Istanbul, Turkey - 11,400,000
24. Lagos, Nigeria - 11,000,000
25. Shenzhen, China - 10,450,000
26. Paris, France - 9,900,000
27. Chicago, United States - 9,750,000
28. Guangzhou, China (Canton) - 9,400,000
29. Chongqing, China (Chungking) - 9,200,000
30. Wuhan, China - 8,950,000
31. Lima, Peru - 8,500,000
32. Bogota, Colombia - 8,250,000
33. Washington-Baltimore, United States - 8,100,000
34. Nagoya, Japan - 8,050,000

::The Demographia World Urban Areas (PDF) - All Countries

::City Population website

One of the most interesting aspects of this list is, for example, compare the 19,700,000 people of Mumbai (within a surface area of approximately 700 km2) to the population of Los Angeles (17,950,000) in a surface area of 5.457km2.

Martin Berdugo Winery

The Martin Berdugo Winery, design of Maria Viñé (Zurich) and Vicky Daroca (Barcelona), won the Bauwelt Preis 2007 in the category 6 - "Konstruktion". This project was also nominated for the AR Award 2005.

Project link

BKK3 Architects

"BKK-3 are the third formation of a collective that began in the 1980s under the name of BKK (literally Baukunst Kollektiv, the Art of Building Collective, which went on to call itself BKK-2), residing in Vienna and led by Johny Winter and Franz Sumnitsch. From a position of political activism, almost, the collective posits an architecture of participation with the user and with institutions. Heirs of the long Viennese tradition of housing co-operatives that goes back to the well-known Höffe of the 1920s, their work makes a special point of new forms of collective living by endowing housing groups with a set of services that reinforce the inhabitants sense of community."

BBK3 architects

Detail Prize 2007

"The prize winners of the DETAIL Prize 2007 have now been announced:
Out of the 264 entries from 30 nations, jury members have chosen the winning project and the special prize winners in the following categories: wood, concrete, plastic, energy efficient building and students.

The prizes will be handed over to the winners at the DETAIL Symposium on 18 January 2007, held during the BAU 2007 trade fair in Munich, where high-profile speakers will provide a comprehensive overview of current and future architecture, building materials, technologies, new materials and material research. The renowned architect Ben van Berkel (UN Studio) from Amsterdam will be present at the DETAIL Symposium as a special guest."

//////////////

Prizewinners

DETAIL Prize 2007
to Dietz Joppien Architekten
Frankfurt am Main for the UFO loft and commercial building in Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Special Prize for Concrete
to David Chipperfield Architects
London/Berlin for the Literaturmuseum der Moderne in Marbach, Germany

Special Prize for Wood
to Niizeki Studio
Tokyo for the Residence in Yachimata in Chiba-Pref, Japan

Special Prize for Plastic
to NAP Architects
Tokyo for the Lanvin Boutique Ginza in Tokyo, Japan

Special Prize for Energy Efficient Building
to Dietrich Schwarz
Zurich for the Alterswohnen project in Domat/Ems, Switzerland

Special Prize for Students
to Bergit Hillner Zurich for the Schaum (Foam) projectto Dorothea Kind und Mathias Stritt Zurich for the Shaxi Tempel project in China

Special Prize
to Kengo Kuma
Tokyo for the Chokkura Plaza Project in Takanezawa-City, Japan

Arquitectura Contemporánea en España

'El Pabellón Villanueva del Real Jardín Botánico (CSIC) expone la exposición del MOMA de Nueva York sobre arquitectura española. Se trata de la primera exposición colectiva sobre arquitectura contemporánea en España.'

'El objetivo de esta iniciativa es dar a conocer tanto la arquitectura contemporánea española como las contribuciones de arquitectos de gran renombre internacional en España desde el año 2000.La exposición, que se presenta bajo el título “On-Site: Arquitectura en España, hoy”, se completa con conferencias e itinerarios que brindarán al espectador la posibilidad de conocer el desarrollo arquitectónico del país. Las obras de la muestra que se puede ver en el Real Jardín Botánico, la más importante que sobre arquitectura se ha realizado en nuestro país, han sido seleccionadas por el conservador jefe y director de Arquitectura y diseño del MOMA, Terence Riley, quien inauguró la exposición el pasado 21 de septiembre.'

OMA in MoMA

OMA in Beijing: China Central Television Headquarters by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren
November 15, 2006–February 26, 2007

'The international architectural partnership Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) won the competition for its design in 2002, and the project broke ground in 2004, with OMA partner Ole Scheeren leading its design and execution. The immersive installation explores the project's internal complexity and richness, its integration of public and private uses, and its structural innovation through an array of graphics, renderings, and explanatory texts as well as large- and small-scale models,many of them presented publicly here for the first time. A selection of architectural drawings from MoMA's collection will situate the project as one of the most visionary undertakings in the history of modern architecture. ' link

on site

On-site is a platform from which to take a look at contemporary architecture through three distinct and combined forms: On-Site EXPO, an exhibition of projects, ON-SITE TOUR, themed guided tours, and ON-SITE TALK, a series of conferences.
ON-SITE studies the architecture of the Region of Madrid in depth, showcasing buildings and significant projects as well as providing a voice to architects that have developed their work in the region of Madrid.

NEWS: Gazprom HD Competition - St Petersburg

The shortlist for the international competition 'Headquarters of Gazprom in St.Petersburg' was a who's who of international architecture:
Massimiliano Fuksas, Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Jean Nouvel, RMJM Architects.

The UK firm RMJM Architects, with their proposal of a coloured dynamic tower [image above], was the winner.

'UK-based international architectural firm RMJM has been appointed to design the new headquarters of one of the world’s largest companies – Russian gas giant Gazprom. RMJM’s winning proposal is a 396 metre high twisting, glass needle which echoes the spires across the city of St Petersburg. RMJM beat off 5 other internationally-renowned architects for the commission to develop proposals for the tower in the historic heart of the city, close to the Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge and Smolny Cathedral.' link

All projects [link]
Article in Archinet [link]

BOOK: Suburban Nation

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck

The Five Components of Sprawl
'If sprawl truly is destructive, why is it allowed to continue? The beginning of an answer lies in sprawl's seductive simplicity, the fact that it consists of very few homogeneous components - five in all - which can be arranged in almost any way. It is appropriate to review these parts individually, since they always occur independently. While one component may be adjacent to another, the dominant characteristic of sprawl is that each component is strictly segregated from the others.' [book excerpt]

continue brief reading in radical urban theory

The Apprentices

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of architecture’s most outlandish figures, a man who famously pranced around in a cape and ran off with a client’s wife. So a book like “The Fellowship” was probably inevitable. Written by Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman, it is a tawdry, often malicious and occasionally entertaining romp through Wright’s long life, focusing with particular glee on the cunning manipulations of his wife Olgivanna, their sex-starved daughter, Iovanna, and his many apprentices, who, according to the authors, ranged from sexual predators to doe-eyed innocents yearning to be exploited for the cause of Architecture.

The authors’ biggest insight, if you want to call it that, is that creative geniuses can also be abusive and self-absorbed. Their second biggest insight is that, isolated for years on end in the countryside, healthy, hard-bodied young men end up having a lot of sex, sometimes with one another.

Wes Duvall
THE FELLOWSHIP
The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship.
By Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman.
Illustrated. 689 pp. Regan/HarperCollins Publishers. $34.95.

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: November 26, 2006

The NYTimes

A Defiant Architect’s Gentler Side

LOS ANGELES — Can it be that Thom Mayne, the architect of confrontation, has gone soft?

His acclaimed design for Paris’s tallest office building, chosen on Dec. 1, is an elegant silhouette draped in a diaphanous skin, a far cry from the sharp corners, violent eruptions and fragmented forms that led some to call him the architect of dislocation.

“I’ve shown a softer side; my wife is really teasing me,” Mr. Mayne, 62, said in an interview at Morphosis, his firm in Santa Monica. “The sensuousness of Paris found its way into the project.”
He likened the building, the Phare Tower, to a “layered dress” or a woman’s slip. “The skin becomes primary, the body secondary,” Mr. Mayne said. “It becomes metabolic, the skin. It moves.”

The centerpiece of a rethinking of La Défense, a coldly received office district on Paris’s western outskirts, his eco-friendly tower seems to rise organically from its base, sloping gently upward before peaking in delicate fragments that will serve as wind turbines.

Mr. Mayne triumphed over some of the hottest architects in the world in this competition: Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron; Rem Koolhaas and Jean Nouvel. In The New York Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff commended the choice, calling the tower “a work of sparkling originality that wrestles thoughtfully with the urban conflicts of the city’s postwar years.”

By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: December 19, 2006

The NYTimes

MOB // Honourable Mention

PRESS RELEASE:

"The architectural, design and urbanism Portuguese office MOB, was awarded with an honourable mention on the International Ideas Competition for the Paris Courthouse (TGI) - Concours d'idées international pour l'implantation du noveau Palais de Justice de Paris.
According to the organization, 200 proposals from all over the world were submitted. The competition was held for a void space on the centre of Paris in the France National Library area.
MOB's proposal, entitled "Jusqu'ici tout va bien…" and inspired by the recent France events named "La revolte de la banlieue", makes a reflection about the building typology originally associated to the idea of the Courthouse as the representation of power.
Due to the characteristics and centrality of the urban spaces, the proposal focused on plotting a new urban open space, with designed topography without visual and physical barriers, concluded by a border building that includes the renewal of the existing industrial building.In this times when ultra-security alarmism conduces for the construction of new walls (Israel 2005, EUA 2006) this urban open space is proposed as a stage for dwelling the most diverse experiences for social integration. One open layout with no walls that is designed in front of the TGI building that fulfils the issue to state the citizen's power."

[*take a look at the project]


[Parabéns do postHABITAT :)]

Shanghai- Under Construction

Shanghai, China:The biggest city in People's Republic of China and the fastest growing one.
A short visit here will show a city growing in a crazy pace in the middle of an almost apocalyptic scenery. Skyscrappers are built "from day to nigth" and neon lights confuse the distracted passenger, sometimes to the point of ignoring its surroundings.
Walking through the streets of the city one feels in a post war scenery where constant noises from the construction sites blend with the sounds of people from a lost culture begging, selling, trying to survive in an emergent economy where there is no place for the poor.
In the middle of dust and rubbles young artists flourish, visible influenced by the cultural revolution.
The city needs time, but not much. Its rythm is fast and compassed. Until the EXPO 2010 it will make a great effort to show its place in the capitalist world.
But in this mutation, something will be lost. Something that probably is lost already.

American Masters: Paffard Keatinge-Clay

"Practicing architecture in San Francisco from 1960 until 1975, Paffard Keatinge-Clay left behind a legacy of architectural work in the Bay Area, some of which is realized, others of which only paper documentation exists. These buildings and projects are indices of a career marked in equal measure by synthesis and ambition and which is characterized by a series of apprenticeships with major architectural figures that were active between late 1940 and early 1960: Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. He also shared an association with a host of other notable designers including: Myron Goldsmith, Mies ver der Rohe, Sigfried Gidieon, Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, Erno Goldfinger, and Rafael Soriano."

link-wikipedia
link San Francisco Art Institute

cityphonics

Sound landscapes of urban areas, illustrated with visual itineraries.
Cityphonics

EXPO: Monoespacios 13, COAM

"En 1972, la apertura de una gran brecha en la trama urbana de Nueva York, con la demolición de una serie de edificios para la construcción de una avenida, dejó al descubierto fragmentos de la vida de los habitantes desalojados, en forma de habitaciones seccionadas, huellas de recuerdos colgados en paredes pintadas o empapeladas, tramos de escaleras sin destino, patios interiores al descubierto. Gordon Matta-Clark, en su proyecto Walls, generó un registro de imágenes de los diversos muros resultantes en esta acción. Como un cuidadoso científico, fotografió cada una de las estancias ahora a la vista, mostrando la riqueza de matices de los muros descubiertos. En un segundo momento reconstruyó la memoria de estos muros en una serie de instalaciones titulada Wallspaper, donde sumaba las reproducciones de estos documentos, construyendo una nueva realidad, un nuevo muro, a partir de las huellas registradas. monoespacios es un registro de huellas. monoespacios13 muestra una colección de acercamientos desde la diversidad de disciplinas del estudio Solid, formado por Javier Maroto y Álvaro Soto. Una investigación desarrollada con la herramienta científica, registrando los lugares y desarrollándolos como parte de un proceso natural evolutivo, deteniendo en un momento intermedio la construcción, continuando por tanto la vida en los paisajes."

Monoespacios 13
Del 30 de noviembre al 9 de febrero 2007
Sala de exposiciones Fundación COAM

Autores:
Javier Maroto y Álvaro Soto / sotomaroto

PRESS REVIEW: Dwell Magazine

Building Blocks, Office of Ryue Nishizawa
"On a double suburban lot in Tokyo, the Office of Ryue Nishizawa built a neighborhood-scaled, flexible-format minimalist steel prefab compound for Yasuo Moriyama—a very private individual with a powerful social bent—and six rental tenants. Every room is its own building—even Moriyama’s bath is a freestanding box. Here, tradition and innovation interweave to create a new kind of community. "

Dwell Magazine

EXPO: Gonçalo Byrne, Geografias Vivas

"A exposição baseia-se na participação do arquitecto Gonçalo Byrne na VI Bienal Internacional de Arquitectura de São Paulo, em 2005. São seis projectos em maquetas, painéis, desenhos originais e fotografias. Até 25 de Fevereiro de 2007 no Centro Cultural de Belém.

Os projectos reflectem preocupações relativas às transformações da paisagem urbana: Requalificação da Zona Envolvente à abadia de Santa Maria de Alcobaça (1991 - 2005); Clube Naval e Cais do Carvão no Funchal, Madeira (1993-2005); Centro de Coordenação e Controlo do Tráfego Marítimo do Porto de Lisboa (1997-2001); Casa da Província do Brabante Flamengo, em Louvaina, Bélgica (1998-2003); Grande Espaço Coberto de Assembleias e Presbitério do Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima (1998); e Parque Forlanini, em Milão, Itália (2002).

A estes projectos foram acrescidos mais três que reflectem o mesmo tema: Plano de Pormenor da Alta Universitária da Cidade de Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra(1997 - ); Recuperação e Arranjo Paisagístico da Cava de Viriato e Envolvente, Viseu (2002 - ) e Estudo e Projecto Urbano para o Parque Urbano de Siena, Itália (2003-2004). A acompanhar os materiais expostos é ainda projectado um filme com conversas entre Gonçalo Byrne e várias personalidades ligadas à arquitectura, à política e ao urbanismo."

in PUBLICO.PT

Urban Design Now: A Discussion

"SAUNDERS: The definition of urban design seems up for grabs. The question of how and where and even if urban design happens is a matter of debate.

So that we won’t be too general, I’ll begin by asking you to talk about specific places where urban design has happened. Alex Krieger’s essay in the last Harvard Design Magazine was helpful in defining the great variety of ways that urban design occurs (even though it may not be called urban design)—through planning, through private real-estate development, etc., and so we needn’t just say, “OK, urban design is what happened to Trafalgar Square when Norman Foster got involved.”

Using your own sense of urban design, please talk about places created in the last decade that you find particularly strong or instructively weak, and why."


complete interview at Harvard Design Magazine. Urban Design Now Number 25, Fall 2006/Winter 2007

International Competition 'Hacemos Ciudad'

The spanish Ministerio de Vivenda, (Government Housing Department), presented the results of the International Competition of Ideas for the development of seven urban areas, providing more than 5680 housing units. The urban areas are located all over Spain, from Asturias to Ceuta.

The Competition Site Results.
The Competition images. [PDF]


Image: Juan José Mateos Bermejo, Camila Aybar // La calle se arruga

It's all about the BRIC's

You may not have heard of BRIC — the acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China — but you’ve heard its buzz. These emerging powers are where investors are sending capital, architects are rejiggering skylines and cognoscenti are mining for cultural talent. BRIC, in other words, is changing where, and how, we travel.

Just follow the money: In the past two years, according to the 2006 Merrill Lynch Asia-Pacific Wealth Report, India’s affluent class jumped almost 20 percent; savings in China nearly doubled; and Brazil and Russia are close behind. “India has Bollywood, Brazil has the rain forest, there’s the 2008 Olympics in China, and you can’t walk past a yacht in Cannes without hearing a Russian accent,” says Martin Raymond, the founder of Future Laboratory, a London company that forecasts trends. So as economies boom and middle classes swell, everyone gets wanderlust and the world shrinks a little bit more. “There’s a cultural exchange in place,” Raymond says.

Meanwhile, BRIC nations are building like ancient pharoahs. China keeps throwing up major works of architecture — the new Suzhou Museum by I.M. Pei, Rem Koolhaas’s CCTV tower in Beijing — and hotel companies are jockeying for prime spots, from the Tibet border (where there’s the new Banyan Tree Ringha) to the island of Hainan (where Ritz-Carlton is developing a resort). Luxury-goods houses are also rushing in: Dolce & Gabbana just opened a Shanghai flagship on the Bund. Russia has landed Sir Norman Foster to build the eco-correct Moscow City Tower, while the Grand Hotel and Spa Rodina (www.grandhotelrodina.com) just opened near Vladimir Putin’s summer house on the Black Sea. In Rio de Janeiro, Rogério Fasano hired Philippe Starck to design his Ipanema hotel (www.fasano.com.br), and in the state of Minas Gerais, the new arts center Inhotim (www.caci.org.br) brings works by Paul McCarthy and Olafur Eliasson to the heart of Brazil. India is bolstering its travel infrastructure, with four major airports and new hotels in the works, including lodges in India’s game parks, a joint venture between the safari company CC Africa and Taj hotels (www.indiasafaris.com).

By DANIELLE PERGAMENT
Published: November 19, 2006

NYTimes TStyle Magazine - Travel

The New New List: Winter ’06

A “Best of” guide for up-and-coming destinations, travel books, bratwurst, a new airplane design, organic restaurants and Shanghai’s new spin. A cheat sheet to the season’s up-and-coming destinations.

BEST ISLAND
Saint Lucia is the new Turks and Caicos. Hoteliers have gone island hopping again: among Saint Lucia’s many new properties is the swank Discovery at Marigot Bay (www.discoverystlucia.com). Cambodia is so ... Angelina 2004. Bagan, Burma, has over 4,000 temples and ruins dating to the 11th and 13th centuries, and they’re virtually celebrity-free.

BEST WORLD WONDER
Bagan is the new Angkor Wat.

DIVING
Micronesia is the new Belize. Micronesia has miles of sunken ships and teeming reef life and waters that hover around 80 degrees all year. The newly renovated Palau Pacific Resort on Palau (www.palau.panpacific.com) is a good home base.

BEST NEW YEAR'S EVE
Ushuaia is the new Times Square. The southernmost Argentine city is drawing adventurous revelers to its sunny New Year’s Eve fete. There’s a new hotel, too: Los Acebos (www.losacebos.com.ar).

BEST FILM FESTIVAL
Berlinale is the new Sundance.This Berlin event (Feb. 8 to 18) is getting hot — Altman and Chabrol squared off this past year. Where to stay? Rocco Forte’s new Hotel de Rome (www.hotelderome.com).

NYTimes T Style Magazine - Travel
Published: November 19, 2006

Green Dreams

"Clean-energy fever is being fuelled by three things: high oil prices, fears over energy security and a growing concern about global warming. The provision of energy, the industry's cheerleaders say, will change radically over the coming decades. Polluting coal- and gas-fired power stations will give way to cleaner alternatives such as solar and wind; fuels derived from plants and waste will supplant petrol and diesel; and small, local forms of electricity generation will replace mammoth power stations feeding far-flung grids. Eventually, it is hoped, fuel cells running on hydrogen will take the place of the ubiquitous internal combustion engine. It is a bold vision, but if it happens very slowly, or only to a limited extent, boosters argue that it will still prompt stupendous growth for firms in the business."

"This is excellent news for society. More private-sector investment in green technologies will mean cheaper clean energy, lower fossil-fuel consumption and a greater chance of averting serious climate-change. It may not, however, be such good news for investors."

The Economist, November 18th-24th, 2006

Architect Richard Rogers talks to Carrie Gracie on The Interview

Richard Rogers has designed some of the most iconic buildings of our age. He also has a passion and a vision for shaping the cities that surround them.

Before the end of this decade a majority of the world’s inhabitants will be living in cities, many of them huge.

Making them places that work on all levels - environmentally, structurally and socially - is what keeps Richard Rogers driven.

He talks about the best and worst examples of urban living, and how politics often gets in the way...

BBC World Service/ Radio

NET: Archfarm n09

Released yesterday, the ninth issue of Archfarm.org (non-periodical fascicles on architecture), is a reflexion of Peter Yeadon about nanotechnology and its impact in society. Yeadon is an architect and teacher settled in New York City.

Editorial:
"One of the more significant technological advances of this century is being developed at a tiny scale, invisible to the human eye. Nanotechnology, though, can fundamentally change the ways we design, envision and built architecture."

Archfarm.org

Michael Sorkin Studio

The Michael Sorkin Studio is a New York based architectural practice devoted to both practical and theoretical projects at all scales with a special interest in the city and in green architecture. Recent projects include planning and design for a highly sustainable 5000-unit community in Penang, Malaysia, master planning for Hamburg, Visselhoevede, Leipzig, and Schwerin, Germany, planning for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, urban design in Leeds, England, campus planning at the University of Chicago and CCNY, studies of the Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfronts, housing design in Far Rockaway, Vienna, and Miami, a resort in the desert of Abu Dhabi, and a park in Queens, New York. The Sorkin Studio is active in research in issues of urban morphology, sustainability, and equity and has been the recipient of numerous awards from, among others, Progressive Architecture, ID, and the New York AIA.

Michael Sorkin is the Director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at the City College of New York. From 1993 to 2000 he was Professor of Urbanism and Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Previously, Sorkin has been professor at numerous schools of architecture including the Architectural Association, Cooper Union (for ten years), Columbia, Yale (holding both Davenport and Bishop Chairs), Harvard, Cornell (Gensler Chair), Nebraska (Hyde Chair), Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan (Saarinen Chair) and Minnesota. In 2005 -2006, Sorkin is directing studio projects for the post-Katrina reconstruction of Biloxi and New Orleans. Sorkin lectures widely and is the author of many articles in a wide range of both professional and general publications and is currently contributing editor at Architectural Record and Metropolis. For ten years, he was the architecture critic of The Village Voice. His books include Variations on A Theme Park, Exquisite Corpse, Local Code, Giving Ground (edited with Joan Copjec), Wiggle (a monograph of the studio's work), Some Assembly Required, Other Plans, The Next Jerusalem, After The Trade Center (edited with Sharon Zukin), Starting From Zero, Analyzing Ambasz, and Against the Wall. Forthcoming in 2006 are Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, Work on the City, All Over the Map, and Indefensible Space.

Michael Sorkin Studio

Terreform

Terreform is a nonprofit organization and philanthropic design collaborative that integrates ecological principles in the urban environment. The group views ecology in design as not only a philosophy that inspires visions of sustainability and social justice but also a focused scientific endeavor. The mission is to ascertain the consequences of fitting a project within our natural world setting. Solutions range from; green master planning, urban self-sufficiency infrastructures, community development activities, climatic tall buildings, performative material technologies, and smart mobility vehicles for cities. These design iterations seek an activated ecology both as a progressive symbol and an evolved artifact.

link

BOOK: El animal público

Qué es lo urbano sino una forma de vida hecha de sociabilidades minimalistas, pactos sobre la marcha, vínculos precarios que proliferan y se conectan entre sí hasta el infinito? La sociedad urbana no la conforman comunidades homogéneas, congruentes, atrincheradas cada una en su respectiva cuadrícula territorial, sino los actores desconocidos de una alteridad que se generaliza. Por ello, se plantea aquí la urgencia de una antropología que atienda a todo lo que en una ciudad puede ser visto flotando en su superficie, estructuras líquidas, ejes que organizan la vida social en torno suyo, pero que raras veces son instituciones estables, sino una pauta de fluctuaciones, la labor interminable de una sociedad sobre sí misma. Una antropología así concebida sería una disciplina que estudiara los espacios públicos, esas extensiones en las que se dan todo tipo de trenzamientos y bifurcaciones, escenificaciones que no se debería dudar en calificar de coreográficas. Su objeto: el animal público, ese personaje de múltiples rostros que pasa su tiempo desplegando ardides, confundiéndose con el terreno, aprovechando los accidentes de los paisajes por los que transita. [...]
Espacio público: espacio rigurosamente vigilado por todos los poderes, por ser el espacio predilecto de las emancipaciones y las estampidas.

El Animal Público,
Manuel Delgado, Ediciones Anagrama.

Michael Sorkin Smells the Sulphur of Megacities

Then Sorkin took a seat onstage to begin perhaps the spiciest address delivered within the building since Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez called George Bush the devil, at least, that is, if you’re into urban planning.

The focus of humanitarian aid can be a bandage, he said, without any ironic pause that his talk was hosted at the headquarters of an organization responsible for distributing that aid. But his greater concern was that the destructive practices of the “first world,” or U.S., have been regarded by aspiring nations as the model of progress.“What is needed … is for us to learn to do with less, the presumption that those of us who are so rapidly robbing the planet of its future have no sacrifices to make, that the transfer of technology of and knowledge of how to live should proceed from us to them is exactly backwards,” Sorkin said.

The planet is suffering a crisis of overdevelopment, he said.Extreme times call for extreme measures, Sorkin seemed to be saying when he suggested that the “footprint” of consumption could be reduced if the world were to go vegan tomorrow, freeing the people, in part, from “corporate nutrition-delivery systems.”He pulled no punches, citing rising heart disease in Japan as cheeseburgers and fries assault traditionally healthy diets, and as his Japanese colleagues looked on.

Sorkin also said Americans are “wedded” to their motorcars and that the automotive industry “has become virtually psychotic” in how they do business and disregard the gas crisis.Sedentary lifestyles, motorcars emitting toxic hydrocarbons, “the first world leads the way,” he said.Sorkin warned that others see unchecked consumption as a model.China’s appetite for cars while banning bicycle traffic reminded him of the kind of dangerous escalation of destructive behavior and thinking of the Cold War arms race.But the realized trademark of contemporary urbanism is the rise of the megacities (those over 10 million), he said.“Like systems and organizations of many other types, cities too can reach a scale at which they are simply unable to perform coordinated movements,” Sorkin said, adding that rising beyond a certain size they become unmanageable and insurmountable for poor residents to raise their status.

He continued to pick up speed, declaring that the rise of these cities must be stopped along with their proponents, because the solutions will be local. “Our economy directs the major portion of our urban investment and development, not to traditional urban areas but to the endless periphery of the multinational globapolis. Unfortunately, this unbridled growth has also acquired a large cadre of enthusiasts who range from the usual laissez faire creeps to mindless architectural exponents of bigness, eager to be caught up in the wave of hyper-growth.”“One of the cultural resistances that must be overcome by a sustainable urbanism is our own inclination to think in terms of technical solutions,” he said, clarifying that technology must not be shunned, but used properly. “Think of technology as an instrumentality that confound and secure the benefits of the local.”

From this point Sorkin, under the crunch of time, skipped large sections of his speech while increasing the pace of his reading. The audience remained mostly engaged, if not slightly distracted.Sorkin called an end to sprawl by suggesting clear city boundaries.

-- Diversity is crucial to renewal and to health.

-- Starbucks on every corner is the enemy.

-- The green city will be delimited. The only cure for sprawl is to call a halt to it. To build cities where boundaries are clear to enable them to properly monitor their resources.

-- The green city will be body-based. The city must be conducive to the mental and physical health of its inhabitants. The requirements of the body are the single most crucial measure for urban design.

-- Mobility. Low architecture. 5-6 stories is the natural limit. Mobility will influence horizontal and vertical axis.

-- Propinquity. Providing for the coincidental and intentional meeting of bodies. The physical right to the city is fundamental.

-- Respiration. Indisputable motto: Stadtluft macht frei. “Only however, if you can catch a breath of it.”

-- The green city will be green.

On a final point, Sorkin said the sustainable city will be “eutopian,” adding that he changed the spelling of the word, adding an ‘e’, to change its meaning “from no place to a better place” and to suggest that its building must be collective “and their forms shifting and mysterious.”

by David Paul

archinet

starchitects' hair style

Golden Lion Awards at the La Biennale di Venezia

Official Awards of the 10th International Architecture Exhibition
Teatro Malibran, Venice
November 8, 2006

The President of the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia Davide Croff and the Director of the 10th International Architecture Exhibition Richard Burdett are glad to announce that, for the first time ever, the awarding ceremony took place during the final part of the exhibition. This is one of the most important changes introduced on occasion of this 2006 edition, since in the past years the ceremony was held during the official opening. On November 8, at the Teatro Malibran in Venice, 15 prizes and three mentions were awarded in the presence of 500 international guests. Among them, the representatives of the participating countries, exhibitors and professional architects.

Whilst on September 10, during the official opening to the public in the Giardini della Biennale, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement was awarded by the Board of La Biennale di Venezia to Richard Rogers (Florence, 1933), on November 8 the international Jury of the 10th International Architecture Exhibition awarded the following official Prizes: three Golden Lions for national pavilions, for cities and for urban projects and a Special Award for schools of architecture. The Juries in charge for Cities of Stone and City-Port awarded new prizes: 7 Stone Lion Awards for the Venice section and Portus Architecture Award for the Palermo section. Moreover, the Jury of the Italian Pavilion awarded three prizes to a young designer, a theorist and a critic.

Golden Lions and Special Awards
Cities. Architecture and society
The Jurors, Richard Sennett (President), Amyn Aga Khan, Antony Gormley, Zaha Hadid, awarded the following prizes:
Golden Lion Award for cities
Golden Lion Award for national pavilions
Golden Lion Award for urban projects
Special Award for schools of architecture

Escandalos urbanisticos - el mapa de la corrupcion municipal

Cada día se transforma en España una superficie de suelo similar a la que aproximadamente ocupan tres campos de fútbol. Nuestro país, el que más viviendas construye de la Unión Europea, va también en cabeza en lo que se refiere a corrupción urbanística.

En el 'paraíso del ladrillo' los escándalos inmobiliarios se suceden a una velocidad pasmosa, sobre todo desde que salió a la luz el 'caso Malaya' en Marbella y con el definitorio horizonte de las elecciones municipales y autonómicas cada vez más próximo.

Los ayuntamientos están bajo sospecha. A la corrupción le gusta el Mediterráneo, pero seduce por igual a todos los signos políticos. Éstos son sólo algunos de los numerosos casos surgidos, denunciados o investigados en los últimos meses.

Los ayuntamientos se han convertido en la china en el zapato de la ordenación del territorio. O al contrario. Entre el 35% y el 40% del presupuesto de las corporaciones locales procede del ámbito urbanístico, y esta dependencia, unida quizá a un exceso competencial y a la simple codicia, hace muy difícil negarse a autorizar un proyecto que indefectiblemente va a repartir suculentos beneficios.

El pasado viernes, la vicepresidenta, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, reclamó "tolerancia cero" contra la corrupción urbanística, al tiempo que la Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias (FEMP) se decidía a impulsar un acuerdo con los grupos políticos, las comunidades autónomas y el Ejecutivo para que las corporaciones locales dejen de estar en el punto de mira. Mientras eso llega, éstos son algunos de los escándalos recientes:

here:

El Mundo

Actualizado lunes 23/10/2006 14:47 (CET)
Con información de Luis Ángel Sanz (Madrid); Manuel Becerro Pérez (Andalucía); M. A. Ruiz (Baleares); A. Rubio, H. Sanjuán y M. González (Comunidad Valenciana); Antonio García (Castilla y León); Nando García (Cataluña); Begoña P. Ramírez (Galicia); sección de Documentación y Olga R. Sanmartín.

After Glow

Living Fall 2006 - The NY Times Style Magazine

In Paris, Photographing a City That Has No Bad Side

Ateliers Robert Doisneau

"Paris Photo, celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, is a tyke compared with Arles and a lightweight in the age of megafairs like Art Basel and Basel/Miami. Populated mainly by galleries from Europe, with a select group from New York but only one this year from Los Angeles, it seldom presents as much first-rate vintage material as is offered annually by the Association of International Photographic Art Dealers in New York. Nor do its 120 or so exhibits match the contemporary and antiquarian scope of Fotofest in Houston."

"But Paris Photo has one irresistible selling point that none of the more than 20 other international photography festivals can hope to lay claim to. It has Paris."

By RICHARD B. WOODWARD
Published: November 5, 2006

The NY Times

Ojo de Pez, documentary photography magazine

In the documentary photography Ojo de Pez, the theme of this issue is dedicated to the Fall of the Nature. The presented works reflect the mutations in the landscape operated by man, the fast 'urbanisation' in China or the phenomenon of rural exodus wich generates tribal confrontations in the big cities. Among the portfolios are the studies of Edward Burtynsky, several times referred in postHABITAT. The edition of this issue was a choice of Tina Ahrens, a senior photo editor of GEO magazine.

On her Editorial:
"Can you imagine several hundred million people from within one country moving from their villages to the city? Can you imagine the amount of additional housing and the infrastructure needed to accommodate this vast amount of people? And if there were only 30 years to deal with such a looming disaster...
This is the situation China currently faces. In the next three decades, more than 400 million Chinese will leave their villages in hopes for a better life in the city. The world's most population nation is urbanising at record speed. The Yangtze delta is the fastest growing urban area in the world. [...]

In 2007, for the first time in human history, the majority of people will be living in the cities rather than countryside.[...]

This incomprehensible large cities represent the future of urban living lead by Tokyo with a record population of 35 million. Citizens of Tokyo, living in the largest urban conglomeration in the world, have to share a square kilometer of their city with 13.092 other people. Such a lack of space has produced absurdities, such a 18 square meter houses, built behind advertising billboards and driving schools on rooftops."

Ojo de Pez

Peter Smithson (1923-2003)

Peter Smithson, in Architecture Magazine, U.S.A

BOOK REVIEW

'Los ojos de la piel. La arquitectura y los sentidos', de Juhani Pallasmaa

'Este libro incide sobre la importancia que tiene el sentido del tacto en nuestra experiencia perceptiva del espacio y en nuestra comprensión del mundo, pero también pretende crear una especie de cortocircuito conceptual entre el sentido dominante de la vista y la modalidad sensorial del tacto, esta última reprimida en la percepción de nuestro entorno. Junto a la crítica de la hegemonía que ha tenido la visión en la historia de la arquitectura, este estudio reconsidera también la esencia misma de la vista. Todos los sentidos, incluida la vista, son prolongaciones del sentido del tacto; los sentidos son especializaciones del tejido cutáneo, y todas las experiencias sensoriales son modos de tocar. Nuestro contacto con el mundo tiene lugar en la línea limítrofe del yo, a través de partes especializadas de nuestra membrana envolvente.'

Link GG Editores

partipação e alienação

Do livro referido no post anterior.

a questão do 'pensar em 3D'

´Normalmente, el ordenador se considera una invención únicamente beneficiosa que libera la fantasía humana y que facilita un trabajo de proyecto eficiente. Me gustaría expresar mi seria preocupación al respecto, al menos en lo que se refiere al actual papel del ordenador en el proceso proyectual. Las imágenes por ordenador tienden a aplanar nuestras magníficas, multisensoriales, simultáneas y sincrónicas capacidades de imaginación al convertir el proceso de proyecto en una manipulación visual pasiva, un viaje de la retina. El ordenador crea una distancia entre el autor y el objeto, mientras que el dibujo a mano, así como la confección de maquetas, colocan al proyectista en un contacto háptico con el objeto o el espacio. En nuestra imaginación, el objeto se sujeta con la mano y se mantiene simultáneamente dentro de la cabeza, y nuestros cuerpos modelan la imagen figurada y proyectada físicamente. Estamos dentro y fuera del objeto al mismo tiempo. La obra creativa exige identificación, empatía y compasión corporales y mentales.'

in 'Los ojos de la piel. La arquitectura y los sentidos', de Juhani Pallasmaa. GG Editores

Na sua generalidade o livro é sustentado, (no que toca à arquitectura, pois também reflecte sobre outras matérias) pela dicotomia arquitectura vernácula, tradicional/arquitectura contemporânea, na perspectiva das diferentes reacções que ambas provocam no olhar e consequentemente na análise inconsciente da imagem projectada. É sobre esta base, e com exemplos dos dois lados, que Pallasmaa vai fundamentando o seu discurso, referindo que a arquitectura de hoje se dirige ao olhar, 'à retina', à contemplação e a passada ao tacto, 'às mãos', à utilização.

Relativamente à metodologia, parece-me que no parágrafo acima copiado do seu livro, Pallasmaa não é justo nem tão pouco conhecedor com causa própria. Neste curto trecho revela-se como um purista e por conseguinte, como todos os puristas, exagerado. Ou seja, o desenho por computador, ou 'pensar em 3D' é um modo tão eficiente de criação espacial como o desenho 'à mão' e a maqueta. Quem utiliza simultaneamente os três processos vê claramente que não existe qualquer tipo de 'distanciamento entre o autor e o objecto' ao preferir um em relação a outro. São, isso sim, complementares. O desenho em 3D vem como uma ferramenta adicional fundamental e, como tal, tem um resultado justamente oposto ao que descreve Pallasmaa.
Mas é assim, o livro é bom e só por isto não é muito bom. Por um purismo, eu diria.

Nieto y Sobejano Arquitectos

'Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano son Arquitectos titulados por la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid y por la Universidad de Columbia de Nueva York, USA. Son profesores de Proyectos de la Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad Europea de Madrid (UEM) y de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM), respectivamente.Sus obras y proyectos han sido publicados en diversas publicaciones españolas e internacionales, y han formado parte de distintas exposiciones, entre otras la Biennale di Venecia 2000 y 2002 y la Bienal Española de Arquitectura 2003.' link

Sus premios más recientes son:
1er Premio Concurso Centro Temático del Vino. Logroño. 2005
1er Premio Concurso Museo de San Telmo. Donostia-San Sebastián. 2005
1er Premio Concurso Palacio de Congresos de la Expo 2008. Zaragoza. 2005
2º Premio Concurso Torre del Agua. Zaragoza. 2004
3er Premio Concurso Sede Consejerías Junta de Extremadura. Mérida. 2004
1er Premio Concurso Museo de Arte Contemporáneo en Moritzburg. Halle (Alemania). 2004
Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura. 2004
1er Premio Concurso Centro Cultural Medioambiental. Cáceres. 2003
1er Premio Concurso Club Deportivo Montecarmelo. Madrid. 2003
VII Bienal Española de Arquitectura Edificio de Viviendas en Sevilla. 2003
1er Premio Concurso Museo Canario. Las palmas. 2003
2º Premio Concurso Internacional Palacio de los Deportes de las Palmas. 2002Biennale di Venezia (Italia).2002
Accesit Concurso Internacional Museo Tomihiro (Japón). 2002
2º Premio Museo de la Lengua. Alcalá de Henares. Madrid. 2001

Nieto y Sobejano webpage

Architecture of the Future

Archi-Tectonics

After a pause, she added: "But architecture is a mix between art and science, so we are always in between two things."

The line between cutting-edge architecture and performance or installation art is not always clear. To what category does a building constructed out of empty wine bottles — stacked by a robot over a period of 10 years — belong? Or a tent-house, erected with energy harnessed from a Thai water buffalo? Architecture or punch line?

These projects –– only the latter of which came to fruition –– are part of an exhibition at the Frederieke Taylor gallery in Chelsea focusing on five architecture firms from New York, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Ljubljana, Slovenia. While some of the designs may seem outré, the architects, all relatively young, are already stars in their field. Some have work in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Each one, Ms. Taylor said, has the potential to someday be one of architecture's superstars.

The exhibit is called P.A.N. (Progressive Architecture Network), although the network is informal. The lead organizer is a New York architect, Winka Dubbeldam, who had a solo show at Ms. Taylor's gallery in 2002. Ms. Taylor, one of the few gallerists in Chelsea who exhibits architecture, later asked Ms. Dubbeldam for another project. Her suggestion was a group show of forward-thinking architects she knew through an annual conference in Orléans, France. Included in the exhibit is Ms. Dubbeldam's firm, Archi-Tectonics, as well as Jürgen Mayer of Berlin, Sadar Vuga Arhitekti of Ljubljana, R&Sie(n) of Paris, and IaN+ of Rome.("They have such impossible names," Ms. Taylor said good-naturedly, as she struggled to pronounce the last of these.)

By KATE TAYLOR
Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 30, 2006

At-a-glance: The Stern Review

The world has to act now on climate change or face devastating economic consequences, according to a report compiled by Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK government.

Here are the key points of the review written by the former chief economist of the World Bank

TEMPERATURE
Carbon emissions have already pushed up global temperatures by half a degree Celsius.

If no action is taken on emissions, there is more than a 75% chance of global temperatures rising between two and three degrees Celsius over the next 50 years.

There is a 50% chance that average global temperatures could rise by five degrees Celsius.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Melting glaciers will increase flood risk

Crop yields will decline, particularly in Africa

Rising sea levels could leave 200 million people permanently displaced

Up to 40% of species could face extinction

There will be more examples of extreme weather patterns

ECONOMIC IMPACT
Extreme weather could reduce global gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 1%

A two to three degrees Celsius rise in temperatures could reduce global economic output by 3%

If temperatures rise by five degrees Celsius, up to 10% of global output could be lost. The poorest countries would lose more than 10% of their output

In the worst case scenario global consumption per head would fall 20%

To stabilise at manageable levels, emissions would need to stabilise in the next 20 years and fall between 1% and 3% after that. This would cost 1% of GDP

OPTIONS FOR CHANGE
Reduce consumer demand for heavily polluting goods and services

Make global energy supply more efficient

Act on non-energy emissions - preventing further deforestation would go a long way towards alleviating this source of carbon emissions

Promote cleaner energy and transport technology, with non-fossil fuels accounting for 60% of energy output by 2050

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
Create a global market for carbon pricing

Extend the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EETS) globally, bringing in countries such as the US, India and China

Set new target for EETS to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2020 and 60% by 2050

Pass a bill to enshrine carbon reduction targets and create a new independent body to monitor progress

Create a new commission to spearhead British company investment in green technology, with the aim of creating 100,000 new jobs

Former US vice-president Al Gore will advise the government on the issue

Work with the World Bank and other financial institutions to create a $20bn fund to help poor countries adjust to climate change challenges

Work with Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica to promote sustainable forestry and prevent deforestation.

BBC News

Stern Review Summary

Alison and Peter Smithson: "From the house of the future to a house of today"

Alison and Peter Smithson 1952 - 2002
Location: Sevilla/A. Convento Santa María Reyes (C/ Santiago)
Dates: 7 Oct - 30 Nov
Alison and Peter Smithson were among the most influential and controversial British architects of the mid-20th century. This exhibit focuses on their works from 1952 - 2002, specifically on the domestic dwelling, or more simply stated, the home. Through photos, drawings and sketches, videos and original furniture, two of the works most prominently featured are the House of the Future and Hexenhaus, a rural home constructed in Germany.

En el mundo de la arquitectura ha habido algunos visionarios y adelantados a su tiempo como Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto o Fran Lloyd Wright. En este club podrían incluirse otros nombres como los de los británicos Alison y Peter Smithson, dos de las figuras más influyentes de finales del siglo XX. Por eso se estrena en España la exposición «Alison y Peter Smithson: de la Casa del Futuro a la casa de hoy», que se podrá ver hasta el próximo 30 de noviembre en el antiguo convento de Santa María de los Reyes de Sevilla.

Esta muestra se nutre del archivo personal de Alison y Peter Smithson y de otras colecciones privadas para centrarse en su obra sobre el espacio doméstico desde 1952 hasta 2002. Las estrellas de la exposición son la Casa del Futuro (1956) y el proyecto «Hexenhaus», una casa construida en la Alemania rural.

Maquetas, vídeos y muebles
A través de maquetas especialmente construidas para este fin, croquis, fotografías, planos, imágenes de vídeo y muebles originales, la muestra perfila un fascinante y atractivo relato de la labor de esta pareja de arquitectos y pensadores cuya obra marcó la evolución de la arquitectura del Movimiento Moderno después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Alison y Peter Smithson se situaron desde los inicios de la década de los 50 en el epicentro de la vanguardia en la arquitectura británica por el alto contenido experimental y ético de sus proyectos, contribuyendo al debate sobre la trayectoria que debía tomar la arquitectura moderna. Sus polémicos diseños, en los que abordan cuestiones tan candentes como el surgimiento de la sociedad de consumo y la orientación del urbanismo, sentaron las bases del Nuevo Brutalismo y del Movimiento de Arte Pop de los años sesenta.

Impresión de glamour
La Casa del Futuro es una de las siete casas que se presentaron formando el «pueblo de hoy y de mañana» en la exposición de la Casa Ideal organizada por el periódico Daily Mail en 1956. Los Smithsons recrearon e imaginaron cómo podría ser una casa normal dentro de 25 años. En vez de diseñarla con un jardín alrededor, todas las habitaciones se distribuían en torno a un patio. Los tabiques divisorios entre habitaciones están formados por armarios y estanterías empotradas o zonas de servicio. Se presta una atención especial a la cocina y sus anexos. Los revestimientos de las paredes crean formas orgánicas con esquinas redondeadas que permiten que las habitaciones fluyan las unas en las otras. Según las propias palabras de Alison Smithson, la impresión general que debe dar la casa es de glamour.

La «Casa de brujas»
Otro de los proyectos más interesantes que crearon los Smithson fue la denominada «Hexehaus» o «Casa de brujas», que surgió de la transformación de la casa del fabricante de muebles alemán Axel Buchhauser, con quien colaboró el matrimonio de arquitectos.
Sobre un bloque de estructura de madera situado en la ladera de una colina, los Smithson fueron añadiendo ventanas o balcones articulados en cada apertura de los muros, claraboyas o varios pabellones.

Paralelamente a esta exposición se ha organizado además un ciclo de conferencias. La primera de ellas será el próximo día 26 a cargo de Max Risselada, comisario de la exposición.
El arquitecto Xavier Costa participará el 9 de noviembre, y la británica Louisa Hutton, el 30 de noviembre.

ANDRÉS GONZÁLEZ-BARBA in ABC, Lunes, 9 de octubre de 2006

Affordable Europe

"Live well, spend less. It’s a nice concept — but one that’s often hard to pull off when you are an American tourist traveling through Europe and struggling to find ways to offset the weakness of the dollar. Here is some help: money-saving tips on everything from hotel rooms to cultural events from New York Times correspondents and contributors in 16 major European cities."

here

Humans living far beyond planet's means: WWF

BEIJING (Reuters) - Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday. Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report.

"For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.

"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing.

People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said. Australia was also living well beyond its means. The average Australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their developed lifestyle, ranking behind the United States and Canada, but ahead of the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Japan.

"If the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in Australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste," said Greg Bourne, WWF-Australia chief executive officer.

Everyone would have to change lifestyles -- cutting use of fossil fuels and improving management of everything from farming to fisheries.

"As countries work to improve the well-being of their people, they risk bypassing the goal of sustainability," said Leape, speaking in an energy-efficient building at Beijing's prestigous Tsinghua University.

"It is inevitable that this disconnect will eventually limit the abilities of poor countries to develop and rich countries to maintain their prosperity," he added.

The report said humans' "ecological footprint" -- the demand people place on the natural world -- was 25 percent greater than the planet's annual ability to provide everything from food to energy and recycle all human waste in 2003.
In the previous report, the 2001 overshoot was 21 percent.

"On current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out by then," the latest report said.

"People are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources."

RISING POPULATION

"Humanity's footprint has more than tripled between 1961 and 2003," it said. Consumption has outpaced a surge in the world's population, to 6.5 billion from 3 billion in 1960. U.N. projections show a surge to 9 billion people around 2050. It said that the footprint from use of fossil fuels, whose heat-trapping emissions are widely blamed for pushing up world temperatures, was the fastest-growing cause of strain. Leape said China, home to a fifth of the world's population and whose economy is booming, was making the right move in pledging to reduce its energy consumption by 20 percent over the next five years.

"Much will depend on the decisions made by China, India and other rapidly developing countries," he added.

The WWF report also said that an index tracking 1,300 vetebrate species -- birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals -- showed that populations had fallen for most by about 30 percent because of factors including a loss of habitats to farms. Among species most under pressure included the swordfish and the South African Cape vulture. Those bucking the trend included rising populations of the Javan rhinoceros and the northern hairy-nosed wombat in Australia.

By Ben Blanchard, REUTERS - Yahoo News

Days of Oris

"Days of Oris" is the international symposium of architecture held on the last weekend in October. It has been organized by Arhitekst, the publisher of Oris magazine, for six years in a row.

"Days of Oris" is a two-day series of lectures by eminent architects who present their works, creative approaches and concepts, exploring the topic of construction through the lenses of different creative approaches. Visitors can hear at first-hand lectures by some of the most significant architects of our time, providing insight into a wide range of recent architectural research and practice. The high criteria for lecturer selection guarantee the relevance of "Days of Oris" as a valuable cultural contribution in Croatian and international contexts. Moreover, the symposium has established itself as a gathering place for the regional architectural scene.

As well to present major achievements of world architecture, "Days of Oris" wishes to show and promote local contemporary architecture, presenting one of the leading figures from the Croatian and Slovenian architectural scenes at each symposium.

The large number of architects and those interested in architecture that come together is perfect for the presentation of new technologies, materials and trends in the areas of architecture, civil engineering, interior design and similar. This is confirmed by the sponsors of "Days of Oris", since there have been more and more of them each year.

The steadily growing crowd of symposium participants is the best proof of success that "Days of Oris" has had in its promotion of contemporary architecture, attracting much attention from the professional and wider public. In fact, the event has had to change its venue accordingly: from the Small Hall of "Vatroslav Lisinski" (300 visitors), the Big Hall of the Faculty of Economics (700 visitors) and the Congress Center of the Zagreb Fair (1200 visitors), to the Large Hall of "Vatroslav Lisinski" (1800 visitors) this year.

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POR QUE TU VIVENDA CUESTA TANTO?

"Hace sólo unos días, a raíz de la proliferación de nuevos casos de supuesta corrupción urbanística en España relacionados con la recalificación masiva de suelo rústico y el presunto pago de comisiones ilegales multimillonarias, la Fiscalía Anticorrupción se dirigió a Conde-Pumpido para que hiciese gestiones ante el Gobierno de manera que se adscriban a funcionarios expertos en corrupción urbanística."

"Los delitos urbanísticos están ligados habitualmente a la redacción de nuevos planes generales donde se incluyen crecimientos residenciales en suelos que pasan de rústicos, con un valor pequeño, a urbanizables, lo que genera unas plusvalías multimillonarias debidas fundamentalmente al alto precio de la vivienda en Madrid."

"Conde-Pumpido cursó ayer esta petición a Justicia. Fuentes fiscales aseguran que, en estos momentos, Anticorrupción necesitaría de al menos dos técnicos expertos en urbanismo dedicados a tiempo completo a la fiscalía."

JULIO M. LÁZARO - Madrid

EL PAÍS - España - 24-10-2006

links

articulo

Informacion Relacionada

http://escandalosurbanisticos.blogspot.com/

El PSOE planea que el Estado vuelva a intervenir en el ordenamiento urbanístico

Edificios de la urbanización en construcción en Seseña que contará con más de 13.000 viviendas. Uly Martin

Los escándalos urbanísticos

ANABEL DÍEZ - Madrid

EL PAÍS - España - 23-10-2006

El PSOE presentará hoy un decálogo de medidas contra el "desarrollo urbanístico salvaje" y promoverá cambios legislativos para que el Estado intervenga, en colaboración con comunidades autónomas y ayuntamientos, en la ordenación del territorio. Para lograr ese objetivo, los socialistas aprovecharán la reforma de la Ley del Suelo, en tramitación en el Congreso, y su programa para las próximas elecciones municipales y autonómicas. En su oferta electoral incluirán la propuesta de crear comisiones mixtas formadas por el Estado, comunidades autónomas y áreas metropolitanas.

Además de la reforma de la Ley del Suelo presentada por la ministra de Vivienda, María Antonia Trujillo, el pasado mayo y que se encuentra en el Congreso en fase de presentación de enmiendas, el PSOE prepara un bloque de propuestas, que detallará en su programa electoral municipal, para frenar "el urbanismo especulativo". Esa parte del programa, dirigida por el responsable de Ciudades, Álvaro Cuesta, cuenta ya con numerosas aportaciones para perfilar "una nueva política urbanística y del territorio". La cúpula del PSOE estima que están saliendo a la luz escándalos de corrupción porque el Gobierno ha activado mecanismos "dormidos o inexistentes" para combatirla.

El comité permanente de la ejecutiva federal estudiará hoy un decálogo contra la corrupción urbanística, que será presentada por el secretario de Organización, José Blanco. El PSOE no se dirigirá al PP para ofrecerle un pacto en torno a este asunto, sino que confía en que las medidas para atajar la corrupción urbanística sean asumidas por todas las fuerzas políticas.

Los socialistas quieren llevar con cautela el debate sobre la intervención del Estado en la ordenación del territorio porque se trata de un asunto delicado, en el que las competencias las tienen las comunidades autónomas y a los ayuntamientos les corresponde la elaboración de los planes urbanísticos. En la Conferencia Política de hace cuatro semanas, el PSOE aprobó un texto que ahora desarrollará, con vistas a incluirlo en el programa para las elecciones municipales de 2007.

Coordinar administraciones

En ese primer documento se advierte de que "hay que dar una respuesta organizativa para potenciar las áreas de influencia urbana o metropolitana para fines específicos". Y esas áreas necesitan "una respuesta supramunicipal" para la "planificación urbanística y los servicios de interés metropolitano, tales como el transporte, el ciclo hidráulico, la gestión medioambiental y de residuos, la vivienda, la seguridad y el desarrollo económico local".

Para esta tarea se hace necesario, según los socialistas, "una acción coordinada entre la Administración del Estado, las comunidades autónomas y los ayuntamientos". Así, proponen crear en cada área metropolitana "una comisión bilateral integrada por la representación del Estado, y la de la comunidad autónoma y el área metropolitana respectiva".

La responsable federal de Desarrollo Rural y Medio Ambiente, Soraya Rodríguez, resalta que "las comunidades autónomas tienen que asumir su responsabilidad plena en la ordenación del territorio exigiendo planes territoriales supramunicipales que fijen criterios, orientaciones y límites razonables al desarrollo urbanístico en el ámbito municipal".

En el decálogo que hoy presentará José Blanco se incluye la potenciación del fiscal especial con atribuciones en ordenación del territorio, medio ambiente y patrimonio histórico. También se propone reforzar las medidas disciplinarias de los ayuntamientos contra las actuaciones ilegales sobre suelos no urbanizables, y reforzar las incompatibilidades de los responsables políticos y administrativos relacionados con la gestión urbanística.

Los socialistas piden a las autonomías que "la colectividad participe en el aprovechamiento urbanístico atribuido al suelo urbano, cuando se generen plusvalías derivadas de una mayor edificabilidad concedida por el planeamiento". Y les reclaman que estén asegurados, por parte de las administraciones competentes, los servicios y dotaciones imprescindibles para que "el crecimiento urbanístico contribuya a mejorar el bienestar de la población".

A los ayuntamientos se les pide que eviten "la ocupación indiscriminada del territorio" y que establezcan "límites racionales al crecimiento urbano". Estos límites derivarán de la dotación de servicios e infraestructuras y de las demandas económicas y demográficas reales.

El fin del "todo urbanizable"

Los escándalos urbanísticos destapados en estos días tienen, según los socialistas, un culpable, además de la condición humana: la Ley del Suelo de 1998, promovida por el Gobierno del Partido Popular. La propuesta del actual Ejecutivo para reformar esa normativa, pendiente de que presenten enmiendas los grupos parlamentarios en el Congreso, será una de las más relevantes de este periodo de sesiones por los cambios que introducirá.

El hecho de que la ley de 1998 declarara urbanizable todo el suelo está en el meollo de los problemas actuales. Esa liberalización permitió la compra de grandes superficies de suelo a precio muy bajo, para su posterior venta a precio de terreno urbanizable, con plusvalías desmesuradas y comisiones ilegales de por medio.

La futura ley cortará ese circuito, porque se vuelve a la distinción entre suelo rural y urbanizado. Además, se atribuirá al suelo el valor de su situación actual, y no en función de la expectativa de su desarrollo futuro, como si ya estuviera urbanizado. Ahora, el propietario recibe plusvalías importantes sin que haya invertido nada en los servicios y equipamientos necesarios en un suelo urbanizado.

Pecha Kucha Night

Pecha Kucha Night, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dythan (http://www.klein-dytham.com/), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network and show their work in public. The key is its patented system for avoiding gettin trapped in intensive, looooog conversation. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds, each giving 6 minutes and 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keep presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

For young designers, or any designer, is an opportunity to promote yourself in a relaxed environment while enjoying your drink. The event is not restricted to Tokyo, it is already a world scale event, through cities like Amsterdam or Bangalore.

18th october pictures

http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

People's Architecture

People's Architecture was founded on October 1st, 2005 in Beijing, China. A non-profit organization headquartered in New York City with a regional office in Beijing, People's Architecture is a multi-disciplinary forum for the exchange of ideas, with the goal of facilitating a better global understanding of China's architectural, infrastructural, cultural and economic development. People's Architecture brings together perspectives from a range of disciplines-from design to linguistics to social science-in a series of public lectures, publications, exhibitions, and collaborative projects.

In addition, People's Architecture will use its website as a portal for the dissemination and exchange of information, and as a meeting point for potential collaborators on future initiatives. Through these means, People's Architecture facilitates the sharing of experience and knowledge between institutions, individuals, research centers, universities and corporations.

link

A Razor-Sharp Profile Cuts Into a Mile-High Cityscape

"DENVER — For those who admired Daniel Libeskind’s early work, his recent trajectory has been painful to watch. After soaring to stardom in 1999 with the evocative zigzagging form of his Jewish Museum in Berlin, he has suffered humiliation in his role as master planner at ground zero, not so much for his design as his consistent refusal to stand up for it. And his worst buildings, like a 2002 war museum in England suggesting the shards of a fractured globe, can seem like a caricature of his own aesthetic."

"The new addition to the Denver Art Museum captures all of the contradictions within Mr. Libeskind’s oeuvre. Its bold, often mesmerizing forms reaffirm the originality of his talent, yet its tortured geometries make it a daunting place to install or view art — hardly a minor drawback. And for all its emotional power, the building seems eerily out of date, and its flaws readily apparent."

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: October 12, 2006

The NYTimes

Kazakhstan’s Futuristic Capital, Complete With Pyramid

Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times

ASTANA, Kazakhstan — The peak of Lord Foster’s pyramid here rises 203 feet above an unnatural elbow of the Ishim River. It was, like much else here, built in a rush — barely 22 months from conception to construction — for a triennial congress of world religions, the second of which was held in September, even before the building was really finished. The pyramid’s apex is glazed with doves fluttering in a blue sky beneath a yellow sun — blue and yellow being the colors of Kazakhstan’s flag. It is not subtle, but little is here in Astana, a new capital rising self-consciously out of the treeless steppe of Central Asia.

Other countries have built futuristic capitals in remote outposts, Brasília most famously, and other cities have experienced feverish, transformational construction, like Dubai or even the imperial capital that once ruled Kazakhstan: Moscow. But none have sprung up quite like Astana, from the ambition to create not only a national capital but also a national identity shaped almost exclusively by a single man: the country’s president since its inception, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev.

“The chief architect is really the president himself,” Yerzhan N. Ashykbayev, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at the ministry’s new building, which opened in April 2005. “Every project, every building is approved by him.”

By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: October 13, 2006

The NYTimes

RIBA Stirling Prize 2006: Barajas Airport, Madrid

RIBA Stirling Prize in association with The Architects' Journal 2006

winner: Barajas Airport, Madrid

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida

RIBA Stirling Prize 2006 announced Barajas Airport in Madrid, designed by Richard Rogers Partnership, has won the 11th RIBA Stirling Prize in association with The Architects’ Journal. The presentation of the UK’s premier architectural award took place at a glittering awards ceremony this evening (Saturday 14 October) at the Roundhouse, London and was televised live on Channel 4 at 8.10pm. Barajas Airport, Madrid, beat off competition from five other shortlisted buildings, selected from this year's RIBA award winning buildings

Barajas Airport by Richard Rogers Partnership

Brick House by Caruso St John Architects

Evelina Children’s Hospital by Hopkins Architects

Idea Store Whitechapel by Adjaye/Associates

National Assembly for Wales by Richard Rogers Partnership

Phaeno Science Center by Zaha Hadid Architects

here

Towards a 2000 Watt Society

"The "2000 Watt Society" is a radical model of efficient, high-quality living being pushed by the Swiss Council of the Federal Institute of Technology. Worldwide average energy consumption per capita is about 17,500 kilowatt hours, working out to a continuous consumption of 2000 watts. But as we all know, that per capita consumption is not evenly distributed. Switzerland, efficient for Europe, uses around 5000 watts per capita; Europe as a whole, about 6000 watts per capita. Developing nations use substantially less -- the average for Africa as a whole is about 500 watts per capita. The US, conversely, runs about 12,000 watts per person. The Swiss Council wants to move the nation as a whole towards a 2000 watts per person goal, not by cutting back on the Swiss standard of living, but by dramatically improving the energy efficiency of all aspects of life."

links:

world changing

ETH

Man Made Marvels

"From Rome to Kyoto, our pick of 12 landmarks that will change the way you see the world. "

Taj Mahal

Emperor Shah Jahan, in 1632, commissioned this most famous of all mausoleums for his favorite wife, Mumtaz. One of the greatest examples of Moghul architecture—a marriage of Hindu, Persian, and Islamic design—the Taj sits amid serene pools that reflect its unmistakable profile.www.tourismofindia.com

Brasília

In 1960, President Juscelino Kubitschek moved Brazil's government from Rio to its new capital, a futuristic fantasyland where monumental buildings by Oscar Niemeyer march down the immense axis of Lucio Costa's master plan, defining the Modernist urban landscape.www.braziltour.com

Altes Museum, Berlin

The Old Museum, one of the first purpose- built museums to house a royal collection, was designed in 1823 by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The façade's peristyle of 18 Ionic columns, inspired by the Stoa of Attalos, in Athens, demonstrates Schinkel's interest in ancient architecture and epitomizes Neoclassical style and 19th-century museum design.www.smb.spk-berlin.de

Pantheon, Rome

This monumental temple, in use throughout its history, was erected by the Roman consul Marcus Agrippa in 27 B.C., rebuilt by Hadrian after a fire in about 125 A.D., and consecrated as a Christian church in 609 A.D. It stands as a pure expression of classical proportions; the coffered dome—with a heaven-gazing oculus at its apex—and colonnaded portico have inspired generations of architects.www.romaturismo.com

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

The dome atop Constantinople's Church of Divine Wisdom, erected in 532 A.D., was the largest in the world until St. Peter's was completed 1,000 years later. In 1453, the conquering Ottomans turned the Byzantine church into a mosque, adding minarets and plastering over its elaborate mosaics. This confluence of cultures is now a museum—with its mosaics resplendently restored. www.turizm.gov.tr

Chichén Itzá, Mexico

The tropical lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and northern Central America are dotted with Mayan and Toltec ruins. Few are as grand as Chichén Itzá. The site's pyramids, ball courts, and palaces, grouped around grand plazas, leave no doubt of the sophisticated civilization that thrived centuries before Columbus arrived.www.mayayucatan.com

Sir John Soane's Museum, London

Architect John Soane, designer of the Bank of England and the Dulwich Picture Gallery, rebuilt three adjacent town houses from 1792 to 1823 and filled them with his treasures—an Egyptian sarcophagus, Roman marbles, Hogarth's The Rake's Progress. Displayed chockablock, they now form part of a connoisseur's legacy in a museum that retains the character of a private house while its clever design accommodates a collector's zeal.www.soane.org

Barcelona Pavilion

The Barcelona chair, an icon of 20th-century design, was born in a sleek, equally iconic masterpiece of Modernism in Montjuïc Park: the German National Pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. Mies van der Rohe designed both, and the pavilion's space—enclosed by walls of glass, travertine, green marble, and golden onyx—embodies his concept of open- plan, while its colors and materials define the period's ideal of elegance. www.miesbcn.com

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

Soon after it opened in 1997, critics hailed the dynamic, swirling titanium mass as one of the 20th century's great buildings. As the catalyst for the regeneration of this Basque city, the structure claims an intimate yet fluid connection with its setting: it hugs the curves of the Nervión River, its silvery "tail" emerging beneath a bridge like that of a giant metal fish.www.guggenheim-bilbao.es

Vals Spa, Vals, Switzerland

In a remote valley in southeastern Switzerland, the contemporary architect Peter Zumthor has elevated the ancient thermal bath to the realm of the sublime. Contrasts between light and shade, especially in otherworldly grottoes of quartzite shrouding softly lit pools, inform the experience. Incomparable Alpine views from outdoor spaces serve as a reminder that nature is the preeminent architect.www.therme-vals.ch

Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto

The former Imperial capital is filled with temples and gardens, but late-15th-century Ryoanji ("Temple of the Peaceful Dragon") stands out for its stark simplicity. Its walled-in courtyard contains nothing more than 15 large mossy rocks surrounded by a sea of raked gravel, the quintessential Zen garden.www.ryoanji.jp

Fallingwater, Bear Run, Pennsylvania

In 1991, the American Institute of Architects voted this 1939 house "the best all-time work of American architecture." Frank Lloyd Wright built it atop a rocky outcropping and extended the floors to reflect the ledges around it, redefining how architecture could be integrated with nature. The showstopper: a terrace daringly cantilevered over a rushing waterfall. www.fallingwater.org

By Raul Barreneche, Travel+Leisure

Link

Design in the World : An Interview with Detlef Mertins

Detlef Mertins, Chair of the Department of Architecture at the School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, was recently interviewed for the website Archinect by Geoff Manaugh.

"The discussion includes the changing nature of architectural education: what teaching strategies, points of reference, and technologies (such as robotic assembly and 3D printing) can be used most effectively in the classroom. The interview also includes dialogue ranging from Mies van der Rohe vs. Toll Brothers to the use of algorithms in architectural design; from LEED certification and green building practice to comic books, Archigram, and the use of narrative fiction in student presentations. Student projects are featured in numerous images."

Detlef Mertins holds a B.Arch from the University of Toronto (1980), and a PhD from Princeton University (1996). After teaching at the University of Toronto from 1991 to 2002, he moved to Philadelphia to join the University of Pennsylvania. Mertins has been a visiting professor at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton and Rice universities; and he is well-known for his revisionist essays on the history of modernism, featured in Mies in Berlin, Mies in America, NOX: Machining Architecture, and Phylogenesis: FOA’s Ark – not to mention The Presence of Mies and the English edition of Walter C. Behrendt's The Victory of the New Building Style. Elsewhere, he has published on Zaha Hadid, Natalie de Blois, Walter Benjamin, optical instrumentation, and the spatiality of modern events.

links:

Archinet

School of Design, UPenn

Press Review: 2G Architectural Magazine

2G Dossier:
Portugal 2000-2005 - 25 buildings of the 21th Century.

“La arquitectura ha sido uno de los índices culturales más optimistas de Portugal en las últimas décadas del siglo pasado y se mantiene como uno de los signos más esperanzadores de su futuro. Pero la escena portuguesa de los años recientes ya no puede entenderse a partir de la lírica de la llamada ‘Escuela de Opuerto’ y el pragmatismo profesional de Lisboa. (…)”

link

New Girona Public Hospital // Arch International Competition

The winner project was announced yesterday on the local press. The new building, with approximately 85.000m2, was designed by Josep Lluís Mateo/ MAP architects and IDom. Among the competitors were names like Arata Isozaki and Foreign Office.

'últimas reportagens' newsletter // October 2006

New projects on 'Últimas Reportagens', recent photographic work by Fernando Guerra.

www.ultimasreportagens.com

Filmoteca del Raval opens in 2009

New building for the Filmoteque of Catalonia in Raval, Barcelona.
First Prize won by Josep Lluis Mateo/MAP architects two years ago.

"The building for the new Filmoteca de Catalunya has been conceived as something between an industrial premises and a building under construction, pure technique almost without any finish.It will be located in the Raval district of Barcelona, which in spite of its “sventramentos” retains its dense, popular and asphyxiatingly Mediterranean port character.
To respect the scale of the district, part of the programme has been designed to be underground, specifically the projection areas."

Project

An Oracle of Modernism in Ancient Rome

Chris Warde-Jones for The New York Times

"ROME — The opening of the Ara Pacis Museum should have been cause for celebration. The first major civic building completed in the historic center of Rome in more than a half-century, it trumpets this city’s willingness to embrace contemporary architecture after decades of smugly turning its back on the present."

"That the building is a flop is therefore a major disappointment. Designed by Richard Meier for a site at the edge of a Fascist-era piazza overlooking the Tiber River, the museum boasts a muscular main hall built to house the Ara Pacis, an altar erected as a symbol of Roman peace — that is, military conquest — from around 9 B.C. The building’s glistening glass and travertine shell has all of Mr. Meier’s usual flourishes, from the expansive use of glass to obsessive grids."

"But in its relationship to the glories of the city around it, the building is as clueless as its Fascist predecessors. The piazza, designed in the 1930’s, was a blunt propaganda tool intended to invest the Fascist state with the grandeur of imperial Rome; Mr. Meier’s building is a contemporary expression of what can happen when an architect fetishizes his own style out of a sense of self-aggrandizement. Absurdly overscale, it seems indifferent to the naked beauty of the dense and richly textured city around it."

"That kind of insensitivity tends to reinforce the cliché that all contemporary architecture is an expression of an architect’s self-importance. The building is bound to give ammunition to architectural conservatives who clamor that there is no room for bold new architecture in the eternal city."

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: September 25, 2006, The NY Times

Ruins with a View

Abelardo Morell/Bonni Benrubi Gallery, NYC

"For all our war memorials and our golden-oldies radio, you could argue — convincingly, I believe — that as a nation, we have an uneasy relationship with the past. Among the latest standard-issue versions of the American dream is an updated iteration of the house in the suburbs, with a two-car garage, a “country” kitchen paved with floorboards resurrected from a local barn, a wireless audio system, flat-screen televisions and a cupola or a fan-light window or a gabled roof — some quaint historical feature that quietly invokes an indeterminate era more gracious than our own. The past exists for us in old movies and scrapbooks, in “vintage” clothing and “classic” cars, in the sanitized restoration of selected landmarks. Meanwhile, the derelict buildings in our deserted inner cities are waiting to be torn down and replaced by the latest exercise in urban revitalization. It would never occur to us to put them in the same category as, say, the Colosseum. The Colosseum is a “ruin,” and ruins, to our minds, are picturesque and foreign, dignified by centuries — venerated relics of some vanished civilization. But, as a handful of recent books attest, this definition is more convenient than it is useful.'

By HOLLY BRUBACH
Published: October 8, 2006

The NY Times

The Gleaming Towers of Gehry

Hotel Marqués De Riscal Elciego Alava, Spain

(Photo by Martin Allen)

"Who could overlook gigantic buildings resembling scrap piles? Ever since the opening of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum back in 1996, the controversial designs of Frank Gehry have become an international sensation. Big city developers have adopted a new motto: "Build a Gehry and the crowds will come." Fans sport Gehry's silly watches and relax on his cardboard chairs. So, what's the secret of this knight's success? Starting with messy drawings, Gehry and his associates assemble miniature models. Then, using high-tech scanning methods, they digitize the models into full-scale blueprints -- making even the most crumpled buildings possible. But his designs, opponents say, are just ugly gimmicks with gargantuan glares that overpower each building's surroundings. Nevertheless, the constant demand for Gehry stands strong with several projects including another Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi and the Bridge of Life museum in Panama City."

The Spark of Yahoo!

By Arnold Chao

Fri, October 6, 2006, 12:01 am PDT

Suggested Sites...
arcspace.com: Gehry Partners, LLP - can’t get enough of Gehry’s crazy edifices? Get your fix here.
Sketches of Frank Gehry - documentary exploring the genius of the superstar architect.
Starwood: Hotel Marqués de Riscal - now you can spend a night inside Gehry’s huge pile of multicolored metal sheets in Spain.
Thomas Mayer Archive: Frank Gehry - photo gallery of the architect's projects, his studio, and models.
The New York Times: Vuitton Plans a Gehry-Designed Arts Center in Paris - $127 million glass monument projected to open by 2009

Tokyo Cityscapes I

Spiral Building, Aoyama, Architect Fumihiko Maki Prada, Aoyama, Herzog & de Meuron

Chloé & Cartier Shops, Aoyama

Omote Sando Hills, Omote-Sando, Tadao Ando Acrylic Shop, Hiroo, Klein & Dythan architects Roppongi Hills, Roppongi, Mori co.

Louis Vuitton Shop, Roppongi, Aoki Jun

* All Photos courtesy from Architect Alfredo Joel Martiz Jaén