Unveiled> Farshid Moussavi Designs a Wavy Apartment Tower in Montpellier
Jardins de la Lironde, Lot 2 (Courtesy Fashid Moussavi Architecture)
London-based Farshid Moussavi Architecture has won a competition to design a residential tower in Montpellier, France. The so-called “Lot 2″ project will be the first of 12 new buildings in the Jardins de la Lironde brownfield development in the city’s Port Marianne district, with construction set to begin in 2014.
Unveiled> Bjarke Ingels Designs an Entire City Covered in Green Roofs Near Paris
EuropaCity (Courtesy BIG)
The Bjarke Ingels Group, along with Tess, Transsolar, Base, Transitec, and Michel Forgue, have revealed their winning design for EuropaCity, a 200-acre urban cultural and commercial destination located between Paris and Roissy. Combining the forms of a dense European city with an open landscape, EuropaCity is set to be a retail, cultural, and leisure city of unprecedented scale. Modeled on the European urban experience and equipped with cutting edge green technologies, the development will serve as a retail and cultural hub for the region as well as a laboratory and showcase for sustainable design.
Norman Foster Turns the World on Its Head With Mirrored Pavilion in France
(Nigel Young / Courtesy Foster+Partners)
Norman Foster has hoisted a slender sheet of mirror-polished stainless steel above a plaza on the edge of Marseille’s historic harbor, creating a new pavilion that reflects the activity of the bustling public space overhead. Foster + Partners’ “Vieux Port” pavilion officially opened over the weekend in the French city. The pavilion roof measures 150 feet by 72 feet, tapering at its perimeter to create the illusion of impossible thinness and is is supported by eight thin stainless steel columns inset from the pavilion’s edge.
Oy, Tannenbaum! Modern Christmas Tree Causes A Stir in Belgium
ABIES-Electronicus, a modern XMAS tree. (Courtesy 1024 Architecture)
A modern interpretation of a Christmas tree designed by French firm 1024 Architecture lighting Grand Place, the main public square in Brussels, Belgium has some locals seeing stars. Standing 82 feet tall, ABIES-Electronicus, as the modern tree installation is named, is billed as an eco-friendly equivalent of chopping down a living tree, but some politicians in the city say it represents a “war on Christmas” as the symbols of the holiday are abstracted away from tradition. The mayor dismissed the charges, noting this year’s holiday theme was about light, and noting that a nativity scene is set up nearby.
A Glowing Moonscape in France is Skateable Art
Otro, a glow-in-the-dark skate park in France. (Courtesy L’Escaut Architectures)
In the middle of a lightly populated island in the middle of a French reservoir—the Ile de Vassivière—an eerie green glow rises from the crest of a hill at dusk, indicating that you’ve found OTRO, a phosphorescent skate park of sinuous bowls and tunnels. Designed by artist Koo Jeong-A, L’Escaut Architectures, and skateboard consultants Brusk and Barricade, the project is described as “skateable artwork” and located near a large chateau housing the International Center of Art and Landscape, a light house designed by Aldo Rossi, and a humanoid piece of land art only visible from high above.
Unveiled> Bjarke Ingels Builds an Arch Filled With Culture for Bordeaux, France
Rendering of MÉCA as seen from Bordeaux. (Courtesy BIG)
Bjarke Ingels has again thrown us for a loop, this time in Bordeaux, France. Ingels’ firm BIG has revealed its latest competition-winner called the Maison de l’Économie Créative et de la Culture en Aquitaine, or, for the rest of us, MÉCA. As AN noted in April, BIG won the commission working with Paris-based FREAKS freearchitects, beating out the likes of SANAA and Toulouse-based W-Architectures, but the renderings have been kept under wraps until now. Ingels’ explained the design using his signature diagram-based narrative as an array of three visual and performing arts agencies arranged around a 120-foot-tall arch-shaped building.
Unveiled> A BIG Glassy Box for Paris, Sort Of
BIG's design for the University of Jussieu in Paris. (Courtesy BIG)
In Bjarke Ingels‘ traditional style, what started as a standard box of a building for Paris’ Université Pierre et Marie Curie has been lifted, bent, and deformed to maximize light, sight lines, and air flow for a cramped urban site. Ingels’ firm BIG and Paris-based OFF recently won won a competition to design the new multidisciplinary research center called Paris PARC to reunite the university’s campus with the surrounding city including Jean Nouvel’s adjacent Institut du Monde Arabe and the nearby Notre Dame Cathedral.
Video> Bourges’ Unbreakable Cobblestone
(Courtesy Atelier Raum Architects)
A sidewalk in France adds a bounce to your step. Atelier Raum Architects recently released their streetscape intervention La Ville Molle in Bourges, France, part of the city’s 5th annual Biennale of Contemporary Art. During their 2010 artist residency at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges (ENSA), the architecture firm developed the urban design project in conjunction with La Box, the ENSA student gallery, and the FRAC Centre (Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain).
Situated in a medieval town square, the raised patch of cobblestone vacillates under spectators’ shifting weight. The installation is intended to alter the pedestrians’ urban experience and sense of gravity while the buoyant surface juxtaposes the apparent strength of a cobblestone plaza with the instability of walking on a balloon. Thus, the design demands contemplation on whether the traditional French city should embrace contemporary design as its modernization. (Via noquedanblogs.)
Pictorial> Steven Holl′s New Oceanic Museum in Biarritz
(Photo: Iwan Baan)
Steven Holl’s new Cité de l’Océan et du Surf in Biarritz, France is at once rugged and ethereal. Designed in collaboration with the Brazilian artist Solange Fabiao, the building includes an accessible concave plaza roof covered in cobblestones, pierced by two milky “glass boulders,” or pavilions housing a restaurant and a “surfer’s kiosk.” The boulders offer views out to the ocean, while the plaza directs the eye to the sky above. The museum “explores both surf and sea and their role upon leisure, science, and ecology,” according to a statement from the firm.
The landscape beyond is scooped out to reflect the building’s concave form and create a new gathering place for the city. The museum opens to the public on June 25.
High Speed Railing in Anaheim
One of China's many High Speed Rail trains
More than 300 architects, planners, and developers had their minds blown and their ambitions frustrated at last week’s California High-Speed Rail TOD Marketplace in Anaheim, produced by the Urban Land Insitute’s California District Councils. Read More
Brad Pitt Thinks This Is A Game
The $70 million Pitt-Jolie estate in the south of France, which doubles as a stress reliever for the hunky actor. (Courtesy sawf.org)
Or a puzzle. At least that’s what New York mag said the would-be-architect said to Parade mag this weekend. To be more precise:
Architecture is like play to me. As a boy, you play with Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, Legos, and you get interested in how things are made, like cars and drills and all that. Years later you come back around to what interested you as a boy. Now, if I have something that I’m dealing with that’s causing me a lot of stress, my mind goes to architecture. I walk around the yard and start thinking about what I need to do to the house structurally. It’s similar to puzzles in that way, like a crossword puzzle or anything else I can put my mind into. It’s a relief for me.
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