Massive Project by Norman Foster could Transform Toronto
Proposed redevelopment of the Metro Toronto Convention Center. (Courtesy Oxford Properties)
Starchitects are descending on Toronto. First it was Frank Gehry with his plan for three 80-story skyscrapers on top of an art museum, and now Norman Foster with a massive plan to redevelop the Metro Toronto Convention Centre area adjacent to the CN Tower and Rogers Centre Stadium. Developed by Oxford Properties Group and dubbed Oxford Place, the plan calls for upgrades to the current convention center and four new towers for housing, office space, a hotel, and a casino surrounding a five-and-a-half acre park spanning a railroad.
2012 World Architecture Festival Winners Boldly Reinvent the Urban Landscape
Garden by the Bay. (Craig Sheppard/Courtesy Wilkinson Eyre)
Several large-scale, eco-friendly projects at the intersection of landscape, architecture, and urbanism were honored at this year’s World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Singapore. Building of the Year was awarded to London-based Wilkinson Eyre’s Gardens by the Bay (above), designed in collaboration with landscape architects Grant Associates in 2003 for a competition to develop a reclaimed 250-acre site adjacent to a marina in downtown Singapore. Among the other top honorees were AECOM’s Heart of Doha Masterplan, winning Future Project of the Year, and Atelier Dreiseitl’s Kallang River Bishan Park, which took Landscape Project of the Year.
Unveiled> OMA Designs an Academic Village Under a Single Roof in Suburban Paris
Entrance to École Centrale from Metro Station (Courtesy OMA)
OMA has won the design competition for the new École Centrale Engineering school in Saclay, France, a suburb of Paris. The final design calls for an enormous block composed of smaller buildings creating an open plan grid. According to OMA, the concept behind the design is a “lab city” where multiple events can take place while all being simultaneously observed.
Doha Tower Named World’s Best by Council on Tall Buildings
Doha Tower façade (Jean Nouvel)
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat held its 11th annual awards symposium Thursday, bestowing architect Helmut Jahn and structural engineers Charles Thornton and Richard Tomasetti with lifetime achievement recognition and awarding Doha Tower the title of 2012’s Best Tall Building.
Ateliers Jean Novel’s cylindrical landmark for the burgeoning Qatar capital is the first tall building to use a diagonal grid of reinforced concrete columns in a cross shape. This innovation leaves open the central core, creating a stunning space at the tip of the tower that makes perhaps the best use of the building’s intricately detailed facade.
Datagrove weaves a tangled electronic web at ZERO1′s Art + Technology Biennial
 |
 |
Datagrove installation at ZERO1′s Art + Technology Biennial in San Jose, CA. (Future Cities Lab)
Use of cell phones is strongly encouraged for tech devotees flocking to Silicon Valley’s ‘social media whispering wall’
As its name implies, Datagrove is literally a grove of data or a “social media ‘whispering wall,’” if you will, that aggregates locally trending Twitter feeds and parrots them out of speakers and LCD displays woven into the digital branches of the installation. Nonprofit art/technology network ZERO1 commissioned the installation from San Francisco–based experimental design company Future Cities Lab for its Art + Technology Biennial in San Jose, CA, now on view through December 8, 2012. The theme of this year’s Biennial is “Seeking Silicon Valley,” which seems like a particularly appropriate place to plunder data normally hidden away in smartphones and amplify it for all to hear using custom sensors, text-to-speech modules, LEDs, and LCDs capable of responding directly to people in the immediate vicinity.
Slideshow> Foster Won, But Check out Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, & Richard Rogers’ NYC Visions
Norman Foster’s winning design. (Courtesy Foster + Partners)
Park Avenue in Manhattan is ready to grow taller, and a starchitect-filled competition won by Lord Norman Foster revealed the first of what’s likely to be many new towers along the corridor. But what of the three runners up? Renderings from all four finalist—Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers, OMA, and Norman Foster—have now been released by L&L Holdings and Lehman Brothers detailing four distinct visions for the future of the New York skyscraper.
Foster’s final winning design will be presented at the Municipal Arts Society’s Summit for New York City, which begins on Thursday, October 18 (Foster will present on Friday at 9 a.m.). Also during the two day summit, an exhibition displaying the work of all four finalists’ designs will be on view.
Glendale’s Neon Museum Gets Reprieve
(Shimoda Design Group)
Shimoda Design Group’s Museum of Neon Art, whose future had been placed in Jeopardy with the closing of California’s redevelopment agencies, has been saved, says the Glendale News-Press. Last week an oversight board composed of various Glendale officials voted to leave the museum’s contract in place. The two-story, 7,300 square foot building with an adjacent 5,000 square foot plaza is anticipated to become the southern anchor for Glendale’s emerging arts and entertainment district. It will contain, among many other items, the Virginia Court Motel Diver, a large, bright red and white marquee dating from the 1940’s that will be placed on the museum’s roof; and a 20-foot-tall Clayton Plumbers Sign, with its giant neon faucet and neon blue drips, which will be located in the open air plaza.
Cornell Unveils New Renderings of NYC TECH Campus
Morphosis’ design for the first Phase of the Cornell Technion campus on Roosevelt Island. (Courtesy Kilograph)
This morning Cornell University unveiled more detailed renderings of their NYC Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. The latest plans for the graduate campus include a five story eco-friendly academic center designed by Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne and a campus layout by Skidmore Owings & Merrill. The roomy organization of this campus hub brings to mind the vast, expansive interiors of Silicon Valley, putting a priority on shared communal space over isolated classrooms.
Fondant Foundations: Brooklyn’s Barclays Center Transformed into a Cake
(Courtesy B Cake NY)
It’s probably best to eat before you get to the to the new Barclays Center—a can of Red Bull and a bag of chips will set you back almost $12. But at a recent sneak peek of the arena guests were treated to complimentary hors d’oeuvres, an open bar, and an up-close look at the intricate and oddly sweet-smelling building model—wait, that’s no model, that’s a cake! The confection was a tour de force by Brooklyn-based BCakeNY, who carefully rendered the delicious-looking Core-ten exterior in chocolate and cinnamon, “Your cake looks better than the actual building!” wrote one of BCakeNY’s Facebook fans. Take note architects—a model of devil’s food rather than foam core might be just the thing for your next community board meeting.
Last Weekend To See London Design Festival’s Parametric KREOD Pavilion
|
|
An easy to build structure brings advanced parametric design together with Kebony’s revolutionary EcoTimber
For the next 48 hours the busy plaza located in London’s Greenwich Peninsula by the O2 Arena (where the Olympic gymnastics were held this summer) will house the modular, geometrically sophisticated pavilion KREOD. Developed by Chun Qing Li of Pavilion Architecture, KREOD is a sturdy, secure, and weatherproof structure built as an exhibition space for London Design Festival. The three interchangeable pods that make up its body can be arranged in a variety of configurations for a number of purposes, from a temporary pavilion to an outdoor bike shed to free standing meeting pods or dining areas. Read More
What would Mies do?
Rendering of proposal to add to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. (Courtesy Mies van der Rohe Society)
The Freelon Group showed off renderings for their renovation of Mies van der Rohe’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington, D.C. Presented to the library’s Board of Directors as part of a long-running discussion over what to do with the central library, the scheme includes a four-story atrium, two additional floors for new tenants, a landscaped public roof garden, and a new ground-level café. According to developer Jair Lynch, the project would cost $175 to $200 million.
League of Shadows Will Invade SCI-Arc
(Courtesy P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S)
We just got our first look at next year’s SCI-Arc graduation pavilion, League of Shadows, by Los Angeles-firm P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S. Whoah. The pavilion, which will seat 1,200 people, will be built in the SCI-Arc parking lot for graduation events in spring 2013. The three-fingered structure will be made up of multi-story, angled frames (ahem) patterned with dark, vaulted, and layered multi-colored fabric strips, with seams like sails. The pavilion’s significant height will provide long shadows (hence the project’s name) and its location on the south end of the SCI-Arc parking lot will make it a sign for the school. Entries from the four competing architects will be on display in the SCI-Arc Library Gallery from October 19 to December 2.
Advertise on The Architect's Newspaper.
Archives
Categories
Architecture
Design
East Coast
Midwest
National
Planning
Shft+Alt+Del
Sustainability
Transportation
West Coast
