Magma Architecture‘s Olympic and Paralympic Shooting Arenas have just been distinguished with a 2013 AIA UK Excellence in Design Award. Driven by the desire to evoke an experience of flow and precision inherent in the shooting sport through the dynamically curving space, the shooting arenas were the only buildings of the London 2012 Games to be selected. While all three ranges were configured in a crisp, white double curved membrane façade studded with vibrantly colored openings, the fresh and light appearance of the buildings truly enhanced the festive and celebratory character of the Olympic event. For more images and information on their award-winning project, please visit here.

Architecture for Humanity-Denver is seeking to raise money for the transformation of a museum parking lot into an outdoor classroom for children in need. The goal of Denver’s Museo de las Americas is to educate the community about the diversity of Latino Americano art and culture from ancient to contemporary through innovative exhibitions and programs, but the museum is lacking the necessary space for its increasingly popular youth summer camp.

Read more about the project and how you can help after the break.

Research shows that students exposed to arts education are 4 times as likely to succeed academically, but the reality is that 29,000 Denver youth have no access to such art programs. Because 85% of the disadvantaged youth in Denver are Latino and the dropout rate for Latino youth has reached a whopping 37%, the Museo de las Americas decided to create and host a summer camp to “teach art as a tool for fostering self-esteem in children and as a vehicle for encouraging understanding of Latino culture among all.” During the camp, children learn about and participate in dance, music, theatre and visual art activities that they then enjoy sharing with their community.

The parking lot is arguably the most attractive area of the museum, with its fresh air, openness to the sky and mountain views. Therefore the goal of the new design is simple: to construct a new permanent fence, gate and surface and a temporary overhead canopy for shading the classroom in the summertime. The space will be flexible enough to still accommodate parked cars when not being used as a classroom and will also be able to host other community events such as movie screenings.

The majority of the materials used for the outdoor classroom are salvaged from a building currently being demolished that would otherwise go to waste. Some of the necessary components, however, could not be repurposed and that’s where AfH-Denver needs YOUR help! Rewards for those who donate to the project are made from the same materials as the classroom, only in the form of earrings, bracelets, rings, necklaces and even fake mustaches – unique keepsakes to remind you of the gift you have given Denver and its disadvantaged youth.

To learn more about the campaign and to donate to the cause, click HERE.

References: Kickstarter, GOOD, AIA Colorado 

Architects: A-001 Taller de Arquitectura
Location: Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico
Architect In Charge: Eduardo Gorozpe Fernández
Project Year: 2013 
Area: 650 sqm
Photographs: Jaime Navarro

 “Casa del Viento” extends the realm of fiction and turns it into a resting and contemplation space. Inspired in the legend of the Tepozteco (A huge volcanic formation in the site), it opens the possibility that the rows of wind and water erosion, indeed where actually made by the people of the town trying to bring down the god of the winds (Ehécatl).

Three imaginary pieces of rock fallen from the volcanic formation and turned into walls; three lines that give place to a house opened to the winds, in a constant exchange with the environment for which it was conceived. Cantilevered structures create transitional spaces between the exterior and interior.

As a form of tribute, “Casa del Viento” faces north to the Tepozteco to fill every interior space with a 180 degrees view of a rock formation that changes personality as the sun journeys the sky. It´s slender form allow harnessing the natural lighting from the south and the view from the north, as well as creating cross ventilation in all the rooms.

A continuous contrast in the use of contemporary vs. regional materials, constructs a reflection of the cultural mix that characterizes Tepoztlan. Cast concrete used in the floors and limestone in the exterior and interior walls gives the house performance a thermal insulation and a low maintenance. The application of sustainability techniques as rainwater capture and use of solar heaters, support maximum energy and natural resources.

It´s architectural layout creates inhabitable spaces in welcoming environments opened to the experience of the country site. “Casa del Viento” hides intimacy corners through sustainable details: a meditation terrace, small balconies that protects the rooms from solar insulation and a pool that _____ day talk with a reflection of the Tepozteco.

Each room wraps the inhabitant in the landscape itself, from which, with his own presence becomes the new sculptor.

Taking place August 28-September 6, the University of Genoa’s San Rocco Summer School (SRSS) will teach you to design buildings by making drawings, copying precedents and talking about corner solutions. Each teacher, who is a member of the San Rocco editorial board, and some friends and colleagues, will participate for two days, taking over the work developed by the colleagues that preceded him in the days before. It is the students who will provide the SRSS with consistency, being the only constant. The building to be designed is the new mosque of Genoa. Applications must be submitted no later than 12:00 on June 10. For more information, please visit here.

Architects: LPzR architetti associati
Location: Andreoli 18, Milano, Italy
Architect In Charge: Gabriele Pranzo-Zaccaria
Design Team: Gabriele Pranzo-Zaccaria, Luca Gobbo, Chiara Pranzo-Zaccaria
Year: 2007
Photographs: Chiara Pranzo-Zaccaria, Gabriele Pranzo-Zaccaria

Construction Supervisor: Gabriele Pranzo-Zaccaria
Assistant To Construction: Chiara Pranzo-Zaccaria
Structural Engineering: Nicola Boreatti
Volume: 1,570 m3
Client: MD Group
Main Contractor: NICA costruzioni s.r.l.

Context
The building is located in Milan (Italy), inside the industrial Bovisa Quarter. Here new housing buildings coexist close to warehouses, gasometers, chimneys and workshops

Project
The project concerns the residential transformation of a warehouse. The client, a real estate developer, required a young and up-to-date look for his new apartments. The design made by LPzR architects keeps the former building perimeter and adds a new livable floor. Four apartments are placed at the ground floor and four at the first floor.

Architectural design
The main building volume is a simple red parallelepiped. An apparently random pattern of windows is applied, generating dynamic effects on the main façade. The asymmetries of the solid white frames give the façade a unique three-dimensional look.

The Baku White City Office Building Proposal by ADEC – Azerbaijan Development Company just received the awards for Office Architecture and Office Development at the Asia Pacific Property Awards event last week. A development of an international level, Baku White City Office Building features offices and commercial areas. A beautiful plaza is planned in front of the building where the foundation stone of Baku White City is situated, and which will become a beginning of a vibrant promenade along the Nobel Avenue. More images and information on the award-winning project after the break.

With 429 awards bestowed upon 260 companies from 23 countries in the region, it was the biggest International Property Awards regional event in the awards program’s 19-year history. Lord Bates from the House of Lords in British Parliament presented the winning companies with special plaques during awards presentations.

The smooth silhouette is achieved by means of modern materials. The design height of this 10-storey building occupying 2 hectares is 50 meters, total area – 20 thousand square meters. Baku White City Office Building provides an installation of high-speed elevators, as well as the use of double-façade sound and thermo-insulation. Baku White City Office Building includes underground and a guest parking estimated for up to 365 cars. Along with landscaping, installation of solar as an alternative energy solution indicates the project’s environmental sustainability.

At its initial design stage, Baku White City Office Building became well-known among architects on the international arena and was repeatedly nominated as ‘The Best Project of the Future’ at international exhibitions while the whole project was the winner MIPIM Asia Awards 2011 in the category “Best Project of the future of Central and West Asia” and also received the award for “Best Urban Project” at the exhibition Cityscape Global 2011.

As a result of the government’s initiative to improve environment in Azerbaijan and in the capital particularly, Baku White City project was initiated with sustainability as its core value, where phenomenal architecture was a bonus.

Construction of the building began in February 2012 and will last 32 months with completion planned for July 2014.

Projected onto the façade of the Musées d’art et d’histoire de Genève, Onionlab‘s ‘Evolucio’ is a piece that revolves around the graphic and sound abstraction of the concept it is named after: evolution. Created with 3D projection mapping techniques, It is construed as transformation, construction and alteration of reality through time; evolution as a discontinuous creation process as well. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Taking the evolution concept even further, Evolucio was conceived as an open transformation process so that it can also be adapted to different façades and projection surfaces, and so that it can continue its transformation process. Available for further projections, it can be adapted to various physical formats, e.g. indoor structures, or different façades.

Design and Production: Onionlab
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Organized by: Mapping Festival and Les Musées d’art et d’histoire de la Ville de Genève
3D Artists / 2D Composing / Coding: Carles Munné, Mike van der Noordt, Pepe Vega, Natalia Reyes, Directed by: Aleix Fernández
Producer: Joel Mestre
Music and Sound Design: Leiko
Evolució Technical Direction: Jordi Pont
Mapping Festival Technical Direction: Adrien Boulanger
Technical Implementation: Lumens 8
Thanks to: Bordos (Bordos Artwork), Ana Ascensio (Mapping Festival), Linda Cavaliero and Co., Gregor (Sound engineering), David (Art and History Museum)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Architects: Patricio Cortese Opazo
Location: Maitencillo, Chile
Area: 250 sqm
Year: 2012
Photographs: Courtesy of Patricio Cortese Opazo

The work is emplaced in a hillside of strong slope and south orientation, in a hill located at the inside of Maitencillo locality. By one side, the site (place) have an spectacular view to the inner Puchuncavi Valley, and by the other side, it has many sunlight problems as a consequence of its orientation.

From this two premises (situations), the house raises as a volume that break away from the hill, creating an intermediate place between this and the work, which finality is to capture de northern sun as a passive thermic control system. This spot (space) against the hill establish a new transversal relation between the site borders, generating new flows and perspectives in the place.

The lower volume raises three recognizable situations. By one flank (broadside) it has a glazed circulation that captures the sun like a greenhouse. By the other, are located all the bedrooms with a privileged view to the inner valley. In its upper , it raises a great oriel (balcony, glazer) that open itself to the emptiness creating a relation between the work and the valley like a distant (faraway) context.

Architects: OMBRA Arquitectos
Location: Alboraya, Spain
Architects In Charge: Pablo Peñín Llobell, Diego Carratalá Collado, Francisco Miravete Martín y Carmen Mellado Vera
Area: 2,200 sqm
Year: 2008
Photographs: Courtesy of OMBRA Arquitectos

Construction Company: Secopsa Construcción S.A.
Property: EGUSA.S.L.
Budget: 2.580.863,00 €

The Emergency Station houses in a single building the Alboraya Emergency services (Police, Civil Protection and Ambulance service). The site is somewhat hidden, located between property walls of an industrial park – Polígono de la Mar – close to the city ring road. The proposal aims, therefore, to make the installation more visible while creating a small public space that provides it with identity, kindness, a “place”. On this basis, we configured a functional building with industrial aesthetics.

The large cantilevered volume marks the main access from the entrance square. On the ground floor the large glazed surface invites the user in to the reception area. The building is structured around an interior courtyard of 10 x 7 m which provides light and ventilation to the different spaces. The stairwell and wet areas are located to the sides, thus liberating the rest of the floor plan and allowing a flexible distribution with the use of screens.

The public scale is solved via the double façade. The large glazed windows are protected by a perforated steel sheet that enables the views from the inside out, while providing sun protection and a good degree of privacy from the exterior. This kind of façade turns the building into a giant lantern at night. The back façade, facing south, consists also of two layers, but in this case separated enough to form a patio between the façade itself, and the protection skin.

The Tel-Aviv White City Forum winning proposal by Kimmel Eshkolot Architects is an exhibition center, part of the huge Tel- Aviv wholesale market project currently under construction. Comprising thousands of apartment units, a mall, a school and a sports complex, the Forum will be a platform for genuine urban celebration. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The project is located in the city center, and is built on the grounds of the former market, recently removed to the outskirts. The architects hope to create a place that provides an exciting urban experience, attracting the public not only to exhibitions but also to its diverse and bustling urban space.

The neighboring residential project creates a unique urban situation of a park on the upper level, 8 meters above street level. This park is surrounded on all sides by buildings – a kind of hidden garden. The Forum develops this upper level as its’ main urban level and “pulls” the park to the front , thus enhancing its presence in relation to the city.In this way a comprehensive inviting urban space is created that can operate independently during 24 hours of the day as befits “the City that never sleeps”.

The chosen Architectural syntax is of a vertical large-scale White City, and is derived from the desire for a visual quiet environment that allows good neighborly relationship with the powerful presence of the Wholesale Market Project. In contradiction to the exhibition halls which require big windowless “black boxes”, the building’s circulation system is transparent and offers the vertical roaming space consisting of an escalator system, large viewing windows and balconies.

Visitors of the building will enjoy panoramic views of the city at 360 degrees and at different heights. In addition, there will be a roof- terrace cinema and bar, in the tradition of the Tel-Aviv open cinemas of the past.

All transparent parts of the building are protected by shading systems which contain arrangements of LEDs which project advertising on huge screens. The rest of the buildings’ envelope is made of double skin panels.

Architects: Mathias Klotz
Location: Patagonia, Argentina
Project Architect: Mathias Klotz (KLOTZ & asociados)
Area: 650 sqm
Photographs: Courtesy of Matías Klotz

Collaborators: Alejandro Beals
Structural Engineer: Luis Soubie
Surface: 9409 sqm

The Techos House is a vacation house located on the shore of the Nahuelhuapi Lake, south of Argentina, near Villa la Angostura. The land is a 200 year old bamboo stick forest next to the lake.

One of the issues we faced was how to fulfill a local standard, in which the roof had to have a minimum slope of 26ª, allow for the sun to come in and have views of the forest and the lake from inside the house.

The program consists in two floors, family in the main level leaving visits and services to the ground level.

The roof issue is solved starting from a series of small roofs according to the standard, allowing the entrance of the sun at the same time and with views to the lake and forest with a double bay scheme. A generous central circulation distributes a succession of patios to the enclosures located in both sides.

The pool has been located at the far east of the main level so it can guarantee the sun exposure and the views.

In the access zone, we designed the caretaker’s house (Techitos), as a prototype of the main house so the construction aspects were solved in a 1/1 model.

Concrete, wood and copper were used so the architecture was integrated with the context.

Architects: Meir Lobaton Corona, Ulli Heckmann
Location: Chaumont Sur Loire, France
Landscape Consultant: Julia Pankofer
Structure Consultant: Hector Triana
Area: 40 sqm
Year: 2013
Photographs: Fabio Ferrario

The sense we trust the most is the sense which exposes us the least. The sense that will bring us into direct contact with life is used the least. The first is to see. What we see, we believe, but it is what we don’t see that holds the truth of what is because then it remains undistorted by our interpretation.

We think that all perception is locked within our body: The sense of seeing from the eyes, the sense of hearing from the ears, the sense of smelling from the nose, the sense of tasting from the mouth, and the sense of touch primarily from the hands. Our garden, entitled ‘outside-in’, is conceived as a visual paradox, as device that enhances such conditions in order to make the audience realize how by relying only on sight we rely on imagination, that is to say, on interpretation.  In other words, how the sense of vision can become a shield that precludes us the possibility of having a holistic experience of life, one that involves the entire body and that extends beyond it.

The experience of the garden begins when the visitor finds himself confronted with a seemingly void space, only the sound of his footsteps walking on top of the red sand surface and a minimalist white box mysteriously levitating sixty centimeters above the ground complement his experience.

The weightless, five meters wide by eight meters long, semi-cubic volume –defined by a translucent white skin– takes almost one third of the extension of the garden and works as a floating canvas where a monochrome world of shadows is casted suggesting the presence of what seams to be a tiny and inaccessible chunk of forest confined within. Only when gazing inside –either by crouching down and looking under it or peeking through one of the peepholes scattered on top of the white surface– the visitor is drawn into an illusory space in which trees and plants vanish into the distance. An effect attained by the fact that the four interior faces of the volume are covered with two-way mirrors and thus create a seemingly infinite forest reflected in all directions.

Like the scene in ‘Alice in Wonderland’, in which Alice peers through the keyhole of a tiny door onto a beautiful garden only to realize that she is unable to enter, this inverted experience of peeking inside to actually look outside, is meant to be both engrossing and frustrating. This voyeuristic experience allows for the viewer’s presence never to interrupt the tableau: the forest remains infinite and trapped inside this solipsist hall of mirrors while the visitor is confronted with the paradox of being looking inside a box where the contained space is actually larger than its container.

‘Outside-in’ is a garden within a garden, a contemplative space, a small universe where landscape and architecture are fused to create an experience capable of raising questions rather than answering them, a live mechanism whose aim is to make us reflect on the contrast between what we know and what we see, demanding us to constantly negotiate the gap between physical reality and visual perception. It is a meditation on space, light, and the possibility of infinity as seen through the limitless reflections of a trapped narrative meticulously fitted inside a world of two-way mirrors.

Architects: Ippolito Fleitz Group
Location: Hamburg
Architect In Charge: Ippolito Fleitz Group
Design Team: Peter Ippolito, Gunter Fleitz, Tilla Goldberg, Christian Kirschenmann, Tim Lessmann, Alexander Fehre, Christine Ackermann, Roger Gasperlin, Katja Heinemann
Area: 520.0 sqm
Year: 2011
Photographs: Zooey Braun

The SPIEGEL Group, whose stable includes Germany’s most important news magazine Der SPIEGEL, moved into its new publishing house in Hamburg’s HafenCity development. We were commissioned to create a new, 520 sqm large employees’ canteen for the building. The legacy building’s famous canteen was designed in 1969 by Verner Panton. This inheritance represented a particular challenge.

The employees’ canteen was and is a calling card of the SPIEGEL Group, reflecting its journalistic philosophy as much as its culture of dialogue. It is a space that meets all functional demands while creating a strong visual impact to form a truly distinguishing space. In so doing it supports the mature culture of communication within the company and in a grand gesture transmits these values to the outside world.

The ceiling design is the distinguishing moment of the space. It is formed of 4,230 circles made of micro-perforated aluminium. The tables are placed within the space in three large groups in loose arrangements and so provide an organic counterpoint to the polygonal floor plan. Through a zigzagging glass façade a separate area can be formed at one end for discrete events.

Brooklyn-based architect and Harvard GSD alumni Gia Wolff has been awarded the $100,000 Wheelwright Prize for her proposal Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats. Now in its first edition, the Wheelwright Prize is a travel grant issued by Harvard University in an effort to foster new forms of architectural research led by cross-cultural engagement.

Mohsen Mostafavi: “The positive response to the Wheelwright Prize has been extraordinary. It is inspiring to see so many talented architects with clear agendas and visions. I am delighted for Gia Wolff, the winner of the prize. Her proposed investigations at the intersection of design, performance, and temporality will surely provide us with new insights and new directions for the future of architecture.”

At 35, Wolff has acquired an impressive list of credentials. Her past work with Acconci Studio, LOT-EK, Adjaye Associates, and Architecture Research Office (ARO) has guided her to establish an “innovative” and “multifaceted” practice that focuses on “performance and its use of space and objects to convey narrative, form, and emotion,” in her words. 

Alongside her work, she is currently an assistant professor adjunct at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union and a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute. In addition, she has been collaborating with the Phantom Limb Company on set designs for productions.

Wolff’s winning proposal, Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats, proposes the study of the tradition of parade floats – elaborate temporary and mobile constructions that are realized annually in carnival festivals in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Goa (India), Nice (France), Santa Cruze de Tenerife (Spain), and Viarreggio (Italy). As Wolff describes in her essay, “The float transforms the city. Its scale makes exterior streets into interior rooms of street theater… This research ties into contemporary interests in performance and architectural notions of mobility, temporality, spectacle, urban space, and community-based design.”

The jury was enthusiastic about the strong continuity between Wolff’s existing body of work and her proposed area of study. The following comments emerged during the final premiation: “Wolff embodies a new way to think about practice”; “Though her work deals with impermanence, it engages with contemporary architectural concerns with flexibility, modularity, mobility, art”; “With her interest in the community-based creative production of carnival floats, Wolff’s proposal has a social dimension that resonates with the current preoccupation with local fabrication and maker economies”; and “Her research promises to touch on ideas that will help the analysis of the city.”

The $100,000 grant will fund Wolff’s research over the next two years.

The Wheelwright Prize Jury – Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Yung Ho Chang, Farès el-Dahdah, K. Michael Hays, Farshid Moussavi, Zoe Ryan, and Jorge Silvetti – selected Gia Wolff among 231 applicants from 45 countries.

via Harvard University, Wheelwright Prize

Architects: Clavienrossier Architectes
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Year: 2012
Photographs: Roger Frei

The site is located on the edge of a residen- tial zone on the outskirts of Geneva, flanked on its southern border by a forest and opening out to fields to the west. It sits right on the line between the city and nature.

The building, backed by a paved access ramp, is placed in the north east corner of the site. The space between the building and the forest allows for a swimming pool and a large open garden.

The program includes two apartments of differing size, a continuous party wall sepa- rates the two.

A pitched roof over a diamond shaped plan, allows each apartment to have its own orien- tation. This distinct geometry allows for a greater degree of privacy for the residents and when viewed from the outside, gives the impression of a single unit.

The split geometry of the facades makes it difficult to get a grasp of the real size of the building, giving each individual facade a more domestic scale.

The exterior envelope of the building is entirely composed of integrally-coloured concrete, including the roof. Loggias built out of larch, perforate the facade and the roof of the building.The building conforms to very high energy standards.

There is something soothing, even easy about vernacular architecture. It’s the territorial and spatial equivalent to Muzak. It evades and pre-dates the self-conscious identity of glitzy, cutting-edge architecture we are so familiar with today. There is an innocence to the vernacular. These are the buildings and environments of childhood.

This is apparent in the exhibition, In Focus: Ed Ruscha, currently showing at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. What captivates about the shots is that they dare to curate buildings that are usually just part of the background. They become objects of curiosity, spectacles, even.

When framed in Ruscha’s black and white photographs the vernacular takes on more weight and it then becomes apparent how this defines Los Angeles more than any singular work of high architecture could. Los Angeles is its background.

Ed Ruscha wielded his camera in ways that dramatized this background Los Angeles: people are absent, night scenes, angular views, towering palm trees (not native to the city). They seem ironic counterpoints to Julius Shulman’s highly-conscious and scripted lens, for example. Julius Shulman frame space as unthreateningly cinematic, like stage sets. Ed Ruscha, in contrast, is more an innocent bystander, a witness to an endless crime scene of the informal, the ad hoc, played out along Los Angeles’ boulevards.

It’s architectural photography, but then again it’s not. It’s more like tourist Instamatic snapshots from the rolled down window of a car. The tourist may or may not get out of the car. Maybe there is no need. It’s the gaze of the obsessed observer. But it is also a loving gaze. Gentle, even. It reminds me of Moby’s blog. The way of the tourist. A light touch.

It’s as if the photographs are shouting, “Hey! This exists!” And we know it exists because it is everywhere and these buildings from the sixties are in many cases still part of the city. You can retrace his steps. This grounds the viewer in a deeper history and territorial memory.

Ruscha calls to mind a seedier, darker version of David Hockney’s Los Angeles. But this is partly the unintended consequence of the photographic medium. Despite this, Ruscha’s photographs manage to display a sense of playfulness with space and architecture that is strikingly similar to Hockney.

The vernacular defines the spatial experience of most of our lives. Cutting-edge architecture, for the most part, consists of those tiny points, bells, alarms, whistles, and flashing lights that dot, here and there, the landscape of this more expansive everyday.

Ruscha’s evidence reminds us that the shores of capital “A” architecture are often far away in physical terms—more in the space of text and the imagination for ordinary people. The endless parade of imagery that curates and documents the relatively rare instances of contemporary architecture speaks to the appalling dearth of such buildings in the true environments we must gracefully endure daily. What Ruscha’s photographs do is soften this blow by re-enchanting the normal, the mundane, the non-architectural.

There is a strange joy in identifying with the vernacular, the landscape of endless iterations of wood and plaster, gas-stations and themed apartment buildings. In Los Angeles the vernacular reflects the people who came and continue to come here. It’s a pastiche of this and that jumbled together and then eminently recognizable as something of Los Angeles, of “home”.

Architects: Arquitetos Associados
Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil
Architects In Charge: Bruno Santa Cecília y Carlos Alberto Maciel
Collaboration: Enara Paiva, Michelle Andrade, Fernanda Rabelo
Area: 750 sqm
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Eduardo Eckenfels, Leonardo Finotti

In a complex topography and geological situation, this building is situated in a slope with a two floor underground open plan. An office that allows the use of piles at a street level. In the upper volume, five duplex allows a flexible use of the place.

The superposition of two different types of structures – concrete structure with flat slabs in the first three levels and structural brick masonry in the two superior levels – defines the main formal aspects of the building over mass and emptiness, openings and surfaces.

The structure is mainly defined by a series of four piles in V-form, a design strategy to reduce the size of its foundations.

The intentional absence of walls and fences reinforces the openness of the piles, as an attempt to redefine the relationship of the building with the open space.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected the six recipients of the 2013 Housing Awards. The AIA’s Housing Awards Program, now in its 13th year, was established to recognize the best in housing design and promote the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit and a valuable national resource. All the winners, after the break.

One/Two Family Custom Housing:

The One and Two Family Custom Residences award recognizes outstanding designs for custom and remodeled homes for specific client(s).

Eagle Ridge; Eastsound, Washington / Gary Gladwish Architecture

This project consists of a combined kitchen-dining-living area, study, master suite, art studio, and storage area, with the flexibility to add bedrooms or an apartment. To meet the client’s requirement that the house be highly efficient, it is constructed of structural insulated panels (SIPS). This method allows for a faster construction time, less waste generation, tighter construction, and better insulation. All the windows and doors are designed to surpass energy code requirements, and all of the lighting is either LED or compact fluorescent to reduce energy consumption. The siting and design of the house maximize passive solar benefits to reduce the energy load.

Halls Ridge Knoll Guest House; San Francisco / Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

The building is carefully detailed in stone, timber, and glass to respond to the site’s rolling topography, a forest of ancient live oaks and manzanita, and panoramic views of the San Clemente Mountains and Los Padres National Forest beyond. A stone wall anchors the building to the sloping site and screens the house and pool. A simple timber-framed shed roof springs from the stone wall, supporting naturally weathered zinc roofing over cedar-clad volumes. Expansive windows provide natural lighting throughout the house, and a broad overhanging roof provides shade from the intense summer sun. Sliding doors and operable hopper windows throughout the house use the prevailing winds for natural ventilation, while also providing expansive views of the mountain range.

House in the Mountains; Colorado / GLUCK+

Roof planes appear as native mountain meadows, making the structure practically invisible from the road above. These green roofs not only provide a super-insulated envelope but also preserve and highlight the original view from the existing house. Continuous clerestory windows wrap around the interior, screening out the road and revealing a spectacular mountain panorama. This clerestory creates a completely daylit space, with lighting necessary only at night. Solar panels are incorporated in the building façade. A retaining wall, clad in Cor-ten steel and cement board, slices diagonally across the site, capturing one side of the solar courtyard and, on the other, forming a private sunken court adjacent to the main living area.

Lake View Residence; Austin, Texas / Alterstudio Architecture LLP

The 5,900-square-foot house emphasizes views and a dynamic spatial sequence. A rich palette of materials on the interior, including mahogany cabinetry and longleaf pine floors, combines to create a warm environment. Oriented for optimal cross-ventilation and protection from the sun without eschewing the view westward, this project also features geothermal HVAC systems, a photovoltaic array, reflective TPO roofing, cellular foam insulation, tankless water heaters, and FSC-certified and reclaimed woods. The house also takes advantage of the tree canopy to provide additional shading, and carefully placed skylights bring diffused daylight to the interior and help reduce reliance on electric lighting.

Multifamily Living:

The Multifamily Housing award recognizes outstanding apartment and condominium design. Both high- and low-density projects for public and private clients were considered. In addition to architectural design features, the jury assessed the integration of the building(s) into their context, including open and recreational space, transportation options and features that contribute to livable communities.

Via Verde – The Green Way; Bronx, New York / Dattner Architects and Grimshaw Architects

This mixed-use complex provides healthy, affordable urban living for low- and middle-income residents of the South Bronx. Built on a former brownfield site, the project comprises three building types: a 20-story tower, a 6- to 13-story midrise duplex apartment component, 2- to 4-story town houses, 222-unit complex includes. Large windows, typically on two exposures, allow cross-ventilation and provide abundant daylighting. The garden begins as a courtyard on grade and steps up through a series of south-facing roof terraces. The terraces, many of which are accessible to residents, feature a small apple orchard and plots for growing vegetables while also providing storm water control, enhanced insulation, and mitigation of the urban heat island effect. Rainwater is collected and recycled for irrigation.

Specialized Housing:

The Special Housing award recognizes outstanding design of housing that meets the unique needs of other specialized housing types such as single room occupancy residences (SROs), independent living for the disabled, residential rehabilitation programs, domestic violence shelters, and other special housing.

West Campus Housing – Phase I; Seattle / Mahlum Architects

Providing housing for 1,650 students in five buildings this project is the first phase of a student housing expansion for the university. The project has created a new walkable, transit-oriented neighborhood. To ensure the project is woven into the fabric of the city, it includes a number of publicly accessible spaces, including a 116-seat restaurant, 7,000-square-foot grocery store, café, conference center, academic support center, health and wellness center, and two retail spaces. The exterior material palette was kept simple and economical: imperial-sized brick, white vinyl windows, wood, and weathering steel. Interior materials—mostly recycled, with no VOC content—were selected on the basis of reducing the energy required for shipping and manufacture.

2013 Jury: 

• Kathleen Dorgan, AIA, Chair, Dorgan Architecture & Planning
• John Isch, AIA, RWA Architects, Inc.
• R. Thomas Jones, AIA, California Polytechnic State University
• Stephen Sharpe, Hon. AIA 
• Charles L. Travis, AIA, The Housing Studio, P.A.

See who was honored with the 2013 AIA/HUD Housing Awards here! 

News via AIA

Architects: David Baker + Partners Architects
Location: Union City, California, United States of America
Developer: MidPen Housing Corp
Year: 2012
Photographs: Bruce Damonte

Contractor: Barry Swenson Builder
Landscape: Fletcher Studio
Lighting Designer: Horton Lees Brogden
Structural Engineer: Tipping Mar + Associates, FBA Structural Engineers
Mechanical Engineer: Timmons Design Engineers
Civil Engineer: Mark Thomas & Company
Muralist: Mona Caron

Station Center is at the heart of Union City’s vision to create the Station District, a vibrant city center bustling with neighborhood retail, community parks and high-quality housing.

Enabled by the Proposition 1C TOD voter-approved bond program, Station Center Family Housing is the affordable inclusionary component of the Union City Master Plan, which calls for Union City BART Station to be revamped into an intermodal station.

The LEED for Homes Platinum development stands on a former brownfield site sandwiched between the existing commuter and freight lines and currently cut off from the BART station by tracks.

The workforce housing comprises 157 affordable rental units in two buildings that frame a public playground and overlook a new plaza and eventual direct connection to the BART station.

The building is ringed with active edges: The elevation along the main thoroughfare is lined with retail arcade that is soon to house a corner caféand a market. Along the smaller residential streets, additional public and private entryways connect to the sidewalk. At the rear, the housing “wraps” the neighborhood-serving garage, shielding it from view. The garage serves to buffer the housing from the sound of the adjacent rail line.

Inside, the central community room connects to a fitness center and pool deck, and opens entirely to a grand courtyard, creating a large indoor-outdoor gathering space.The courtyardfeatures allotment gardens for residents, formal and informal seating areas, and a play yard populated by playful concrete gorillas.The Bay-Friendly Rated landscape design will save 193,282 gallons of water per year compared with a conventionally landscaped property.

The main entry is framed by a towering portal that is adorned with a community-sourced mural visible from the neighborhood and train line. The mural, inspired by an intrepid local plant pushing through the broken concrete, reaches to the sky, while the flower is “rooted” at ground level in multi-lingual messages of welcome contributed by new residents.

Says one nine-year-old who lives in the building: “Everyone here has roots in different parts of the world, and together we grow and blossom as a community.”

OMA has broke ground on a 27,000 square meter, mixed-use development on the banks of Copenhagen’s historic waterfront in the culturally rich Slotsholmen district. Upon its completion in early 2017, Bryghusprojektet will become the new headquarters for the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC), while also providing housing, offices, retail, a restaurant, and an urban park. These programs will be stacked over and under the busy Christians Brygge, providing city dwellers direct and uninterrupted access to the water’s edge.

OMA Partner-in-charge Ellen van Loon explained: “Instead of stacking a mixed-use program in a traditional way, we positioned the DAC in the centre of the volume, surrounded by and embedded within its objects of study: housing, offices and parking. The urban routes reach into the heart of the building and create a broad range of interactions between the different program parts and the urban environment.”

More images and the architects’ description after the break…

Bryghusprojektet is the missing link between the city centre, the historic waterfront and the culturally rich Slotsholmen district of Copenhagen. Located at the intersection of these disparate quarters, this project formally and programmatically mediates between them, drawing them together. The Bryghusprojektet consists of a mix of homes, offices, shops, restaurants and a new headquarters for the Danish Architecture Centre.

Situated among landmarks in the history of Danish architecture, Bryghusprojektet shares with the indigenous modernism tenets of simplicity, monumentality and urbanity. The site is bound by a cluster of historic monuments, including the Christiansborg Palace and the Old Brewery, but shares the riverside with many other bold, contemporary interventions. This architectural and historical complexity became an important influence on OMA’s design.

For Bryghusprojektet, OMA rejected a familiar stacked section in favour of a heaped organisation. This allows the programmatic elements to intertwine and interact, fostering a strong community within. At an urban level, the unpredictable mass oscillates between the heterogeneity of its neighbours and the large rectilinear industrial buildings on the opposite riverbank. Allowing such variety permits limitless readings depending on one’s location. The programme has also been adjusted for permeability at street level – encouraging visitors to the social and cultural amenities, embedding Bryghusprojektet in the life of the city.

The design for Bryghusprojektet is governed by a conscientious and thorough sustainability manifesto, ensuring that the final building consumes only minimal resources during construction and use. A target for energy consumption has been set at 52 kWhrs/m2, which is significantly below the Danish average. OMA’s plan for sustainability encompasses societal and economic factors, such as long-term financial viability for Bryghusprojektet’s commercial tenants. The public programme, urban routes and the Danish Architecture Centre within will encourage a cohesive atmosphere both for residents and visitors. Such a mix of program within the building is unique – for the first time an architecture centre will be embedded within its own key subjects of study and research – housing, offices, public space and parking.

When completed, Bryghusprojektet will be an important catalyst in the invigoration of this otherwise underused part of Copenhagen. The mix of private spaces and cultural institutions infuses the area with a new economic and civic vitality for the benefit of the whole city.

Architects: OMA
Partners In Charge: Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon
Associate In Charge: Adrianne Fisher
Client: Realdania Byg
Engineering: Arup, Cowi
Cost & Risk Management: Davis Langdon
Local Architect: C. F. MøllerFaçade: Arup Façade Engineering
Sustainability: Arup
Landscape: Kragh & Berglund
Lighting Design: Ducks Scéno
Scenography: Ducks Scéno
Acoustics: DHV
Carpark Consultant: Alectia
Renderings: Bloomimages, Robota
Animation: Neutral
Area: 27,000 m2
Year: 2017
Photographs: Courtesy of OMA