In Miami, A Lounge Shows FXFOWLE’s Handiwork
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FXFOWLE’s installation at the Miami Project Fair. (Moris Moreno)
At Miami Basel, a digitally fabricated pavilion marries classic origami techniques with advanced technology
For this year’s inaugural Miami Project Fair, the design team at FXFOWLE Architects, led by Sarah Gerber, created a temporary architectural pavilion, the FXFOWLE Lounge, from both cutting-edge technology and good-old-fashioned manual labor. The 24-foot-long pavilion embodies the “duality of this very high-tech and sophisticated fabrication and this very low-tech material and assembly process,” said designer Lucio Santos. Over the next few days, the sculpture will be housed in a lounge and bar area outfitted with beanbag chairs and a carbon fiber bar that FXFOWLE also designed for the event.
In past years, architects such as David Adjaye, Marc Fornes & THEVERYMANY, and Rachely Rotem and Phu Hoang (now of Modu), have designed temporary pavilions for Miami Basel—introducing their work to a wider audience. This project is “a first” Santos said, but this might be changing for FXFOWLE, which is trying to branch out on the digital side of architecture.
Hudson Yards Breaks Ground as Manhattan’s Largest Mega-Development
The towers of Hudson Yards. (Courtesy Related)
Tuesday morning, New York’s top power brokers gathered in a muddy lot on Manhattan’s west side to mark the official groundbreaking of the 26-acre Hudson Yards mega-development. The dramatic addition to the New York skyline will comprise a completely new neighborhood of glass skyscrapers at the northern terminus of the High Line. The South Tower, the first structure to be built and the future headquarters of fashion-label Coach, will rise on the site’s southeast corner at 30th Street and 10th Avenue, where Related CEO Stephen Ross, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others celebrated the first turning of dirt as a large caisson machine bored into the ground.
Obit> Oscar Niemeyer: 1907-2012
Oscar Niemeyer at work in 1972. (Courtesy Oscar Niemeyer Foundation)
Famed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer died on Wednesday at the age of 104, just days before his 105th birthday. He had recently been hospitalized in Rio de Janeiro, fighting pneumonia and kidney failure. After nine decades designing, the architect couldn’t put aside his work and continued on projects during his hospitalization.
Home, Sweet Four-Foot-Wide Home: Warsaw Welcomes A Tiny New Addition
Etgar Keret inside his new home, the Keret House. (Courtesy Dom Kereta / Facebook)
A sliver of a house was completed in late October in the unlikeliest of locations, a leftover space between two buildings in the once Jewish ghetto of downtown Warsaw. At slightly under four feet across at its widest point—and a mere 28 inches at its narrowest—the Keret House, envisioned by Polish architect Jakub Szczensy of Centrala, stands firmly among the world’s slimmest buildings. The unconventional house was commissioned by Israeli writer Etgar Keret, whose mother survived Nazi occupied Warsaw on the very street of the Keret House.
Six Architects & Designers Take Home $50,000 Prizes
Today the United States Artists (USA), a national grant-making and advocacy organization, named fifty artists to receive the USA Fellowships, which includes six in design and architecture whose accomplishments, in everything from landscape architecture to digital technology, have distinguished them in their field. These fellows—hailing from New York, Los Angeles, and Arkansas—will receive unrestricted grants of $50,000 each. Among the winners are two architecture firms, a landscape architect, and an academic.
Architecture Students Build a Pavilion to Engage Detroit’s Empty Space
Empty Pavilion installation in Detroit.
Detroit’s stark unemployment and population loss have spurred plenty of ideas for redevelopment, from new manufacturing to urban agriculture. A recently unveiled piece of public art meditates on one thing the city has in excess: empty space.
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.
SHoP Updates Atlantic Yards Design as Forest City Confirms Prefab
SHoP refines the design of the Atlantic Yards B2 Tower as groundbreaking approaches. (Courtesy SHoP)
On Wednesday, Forest City Ratner made it official: the world’s tallest prefabricated building will be coming to Brooklyn with a groundbreaking date set for December 18. As AN outlined in our recent feature on Atlantic Yards, the SHoP Architects-designed B2 Tower will climb, modular unit by modular unit, 32 stories on a slender wedge-shaped parcel adjacent to the new Barclays Center on the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street.
Renderings released with the groundbreaking announcement also revealed design revisions to the B2 Tower since it was unveiled in November 2011, and Chris Sharples, principal at SHoP, told AN what’s new.
Grow Your Own 3D Printed Protohouse
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Protohouse by Softkill.
Print your next house in 30 separate snap tight pieces
While events like Maker Faire have done a lot to increase the visibility of 3D printing, the London-based generative and 3D design group Softkill has spoken openly about how they still think “3D printing is a specialized, one-off luxury, rich man’s thing.” But they went on to say that “there really is an interesting future for architecture and 3D printing because you have great cost savings and material efficiency, which architects are really interested in. That’s where 3D printing is really pushing the discipline.” Softkill recently tested the limits of the latest in Selective Laser Sintering technology with Protohouse, a ⅓ scale house completely fabricated by a 3D printer.
Long Beach Airport Reimagined as a Locavore Cabana With Fire Pits and Outdoor Seating
Yes, this is an airport. (Courtesy Studio One Eleven)
The days of airport as shopping and entertainment destination are in full swing. Construction of the new 40,000 square foot passenger concourse at the Long Beach Municipal Airport (LGB) will be finished next month. And this is no ordinary concourse. As part of a $140 million modernization project, the two-year renovation not only includes waiting and screening areas, but also two new terminals with 10,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space along with 4,200 square feet of outdoor patio seating containing fire pits, cabanas, and outdoor performance areas.
Another Brick in the Wall: Pink Floyd Drummer Awarded Honorary Architecture Degree
Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason awarded an honorary architecture degree.
British rock band Pink Floyd famously opined, “We don’t need no education,” and maybe they were right. The band was founded by a group of architecture students—Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright—at the Regent Street Polytechnic, now the University of Westminster, which served as the band’s first rehearsal space and performance venue in the early 1960s. As the band gained popularity, the architecture students left school to focus on their music.
Photo of the Day: World Trade Center Spire Adrift at Sea
Part of the World Trade Center’s spire on its way to Lower Manhattan. (Courtesy Port Authority of NY & NJ)
The spire that will one day reach a point 1,776 feet above Lower Manhattan on the ever-progressing World Trade Center is en route to New York via a barge from Valleyfield, Quebec, Canada. The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey put out a statement that the giant antenna embarked on its 1,500-nautical-mile journey on November 16 and is expected to arrive at Port Newark any day now, but a tracking website doesn’t appear to be working. Smaller pieces will be trucked in over the next month. Each segment of the spire weighs from five to 67 tons. Once the spire is on site, construction is expected to take about three months to complete.
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