by Eric BaldwinBolzano Museum Quarter. Image Courtesy of Snøhetta
Snøhetta has designed a new Museum Quarter for Bolzano, Italy that will be home to Ötzi the Iceman. Sited atop Virgl mountain, the project would overlook the city and connect to the new Bolzanocable car. As an open landmark, the Museum Quarter was made to serve as a terrace for Bolzano. The elevated museum and park will include exhibition and collection space around the iconic 5,300-year old glacier mummy.
Bolzano Museum Quarter. Image Courtesy of Snøhetta
Designed for the Signa Group, the new Bolzano Quarter combines museum spaces for the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology and the Municipal Museum of Bolzano. It’s proposed site atop the Virgl mountain is an important location for the South Tyrolean capital due to its cultural and historical significance, and with its prehistoric and Roman traces. The building was designed to blend into the surrounding topography and extend the mountain terrain. Arriving from the station, visitors can enter both museums through an open space on the roof and a joint foyer. The squared roof will act as a public space for diverse programs, from open-air markets to concerts.
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Bolzano Museum Quarter. Image Courtesy of Snøhetta
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Bolzano Museum Quarter. Image Courtesy of Snøhetta
“The new Museum Quarter will create a synthesis of city and nature, of history and future, of building and landscape, of culture, leisure and knowledge,” says Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, Founding Partner of Snøhetta. “Visitors can meet Ötzi the Iceman, one of the most important archaeological discoveries, on top of the Virgl mountain – a place with a historic atmosphere. They will literally slip under the skin of the mountain, entering it to see the Iceman. In addition, the new Virgl cable car system and the Museum Quarter will provide spaces of cultural significance and recreational value next to the city center of Bolzano”.
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Bolzano Museum Quarter. Image Courtesy of Snøhetta
The project centers on Ötzi the Iceman, who was preserved in ice at an elevation of 3,210 meters. In 1991, Ötzi was found with his clothing and equipment still intact, providing a unique glimpse into the life of a man of the Copper Age. Through the planned cable car structure and the new Museum Quarter, the Virgl mountain will serve as a cultural and recreational area for the people and visitors of Bolzano. The Museum Quarter aims to establish an open landmark for Bolzano and reinforce the city’s international significance as a cultural destination.
The acutely-shaped units, the design of which was inspired by the forest surroundings, are an extension of an existing hotel situated between fir and larch trees in the forest of the Italian Dolomites. The project will offer two-leveled units of 35-45 square meters per floor, the lower being a reading / lounging area, and the upper for sleeping.
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Tree House Section
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Courtesy of Peter Pichler Architecture
The architecture firm has always been keen on finding innovative, sustainable, and contemporary approaches to integrating nature with architecture, and chose to use local wood for the structure’s material.
“We believe that the future of tourism is based on the relationship of the human being with nature. Well integrated, sustainable architecture can amplify this relationship, nothing else is needed.” – Peter Pichler Architecture
by Eric BaldwinGoldsun HQ. Image Courtesy of Foster + Partners
Foster + Partners revealed their design for a new mixed-use office tower in Taipei. Created for the Goldsun Group, the headquarters building recently received planning approval from city councill The high-rise office block will replace the existing Goldsun factory and create a new mixed-use typology for the city. The tower was formed with a series of blocks around a central courtyard that becomes the heart of the open-air concept.
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Goldsun HQ. Image Courtesy of Foster + Partners
Grant Brooker, Head of Studio, Foster + Partners, said that “It has been a wonderful challenge working with our client to transform this existing industrial site into a unique contemporary urban complex – combining workplace, retail and living spaces around a series of tree-filled courtyards. We hope that it will be a vibrant new social focus that will bring life to the area and form the centrepiece of its regeneration.”
Goldsun HQ is designed with a series of office spaces combined with retail and residential programming. The blocks are staggered around the project’s perimeter to create communal spaces that are lifted off the ground. The design features a series of sky gardens across multiple levels, as well as quadruple-height event spaces with meeting spaces and entertainment areas that look out across the Taipei skyline. The sky gardens are made to let in natural daylight and ventilation as the building opens up to the surrounding context.
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Goldsun HQ. Image Courtesy of Foster + Partners
Young Wei-Yang Chiu, Partner, Foster + Partners, said: “We have enjoyed working extensively with the government and local experts to create a self-sustainable mixed-use community within our site. The support we have received from the local authorities and communities has been tremendous and we look forward to bringing the collaborative vision to fruition.” The project’s building blocks were made to interconnect structure and services across six cores. As seen in the renderings, the project will include these “floating volumes” thanks to a series of steel mega-trusses that form the large-span floorplates.
Rwanda’s largest publicly funded project, Bugesera International Airport is on track to be the first certified green building in the region. A few pieces of this net zero emission complex include: a 30,000 square metre passenger terminal, 22 check-in counters, ten gates, and six passenger boarding bridges. Funded by Public Private Partnership, the project is cost estimated at $414 million USD. The international hub was only one of several initiatives discussed by the AfricaGreen Growth Forum (AGGF) in Kigali at the end of last year.
Over 1,000 of Africa’s investors, policy makers, and financial specialists gathered at the AGGF to discuss green growth and climate resilient strategy, based on best practices internationally. General of Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) Director, Frank Rijsberman asserts green building is the optimal way to handle climate change.
The airport is currently under construction, with phase one completion expected for 2020.
Studio NAB has released details of their proposed Superfarm project, a six-story exercise in indoor urban farming that “focuses its production on the culture of foods with a high nutritional value.” The project is founded on the principles of pragmatic implementation, high-yielding foods, reducing health risks, promoting short circuits, reviving economies, energy self-sufficiency.
The scheme is a response to the projections that by 2050, 80% of the earth’s population will live in urban centers, demanding an area of farmland 20% more than is represented by the country of Brazil. By moving farm systems indoors, Superfarm represents an “ecological transition” that is resilient, human-sensitive, and technologically advanced.
The scheme departs from the traditional urban farm typology, often limited to salads, fruit, and vegetables, broadening its attention on the production of foods such as fish and honey. The project also seeks to recreate an ecosystem in an urban environment, including seaweed culture, beekeeping, insect farming, aquaponics, and various greenhouse and outdoor cultivations.
The scheme manifests as a thirty-four meter high, six-story building erected on water. Over six levels, the vertical farming scheme contains a variety of vehicles for production, including open soil and soilless cropping techniques, seaweed, insects, fish from aquaponics, berries, honey from hives, and plants such as Ginseng or Aloe Vera. A highly-controlled environment reduces health risks, with a ban on pesticides, and the recycling and recovery of water produced by plants’ evapotranspiration.
Embedded within the city, the scheme seeks to restore the link between producer and consumer, bringing them in closer proximity and enabling easy access to sales areas through a pedestrian footbridge. On a neighborhood scale, the scheme aims to lead to sustainable jobs and an ethical, responsible citizen contribution to the city economy. It also seeks to create a collective awareness by federating inhabitants and local partners around a common goal.
Schmidt Hammer Lassen has announced details of their second U.S. project: the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, Massachusetts. An adaptive reuse project that will bring new life to Boston’s Commonwealth Pier, the 68,500-square-meter mixed-use project seeks to reactivate a historic maritime hub to create a new waterfront destination.
The largest pier building in the world when completed in 1901, the Commonwealth Pier will be reactivated with the introduction of new materials, increased daylight, and new points of connectivity. The exercise in adaptive reuse will contain flexible office space, dynamic event space, new retail, dining, and public amenities.
Central to the SHL scheme is the iconic Headhouse structure, is the preservation of rich historic architecture. Stone arches and cornices of the Headhouse will remain intact, while columns and column connections will be exposed. A northern extension will see the addition of curtain walls and other lightweight materials to allow the building to integrate seamlessly into its neighborhood context.
Throughout the development, 15,200 square meters of enhanced outdoor space will include courtyards, walkways, green spaces, and a grand plaza. To the southwest, a 2,300-square-meter waterfront plaza will become a central node for the pier, accommodating year-round events with dotted tree planting, custom seating, and moveable fixtures.
Meanwhile, a paved pedestrian path will run the entire perimeter of the project, with views of downtown, East Boston, and Boston Harbor. Throughout the path, niches cut into the building’s façade will create unique public seating areas, with shelter, signage, and connectivity to retail and dining.
The Seaport World Trade Center has a rich history and the ambition to become a central component of the rapidly developing Seaport District. This project is about more than redesigning a building. It becomes a masterplanning task as thousands of people will utilize the building and its surrounding plazas, courtyards, and walkways each day.
-Kristian Ahlmark, Partner and Design Director, Schmidt Hammer Lassen
The scheme was developed in collaboration with developer Pembroke Real Estate LLC, executive architect CBT Architects, and landscaping by Sasaki. Construction is expected to begin in 2020.
Construction on the future largest hotel in the Benelux just reached another milestone: the behemoth 25-floor, 650-room nhow Amsterdam RAI Hotel, designed by OMA/Reinier de Graaf, has reached its highest point of construction at a height of 91 meters (nearly 300 feet).
“The shape of the 91-metre building draws from the triangular advertising column on the Europaplein which was once so prominent on the site but now has been overtaken by the many office buildings that have been erected in its vicinity,” explains the project description.
Photograph by Walter Herfst, Courtesy of OMA
The new gastronomy complex is located near the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center and connected via an underground concourse.
OMA won the architectural competition for the hotel in 2015 with Reinier de Graaf and Rem Koolhaas as partners-in-charge.
It would seem that in London when it rains, it pours. Mere weeks after designs for the London Centre for Music were announced, efforts to bestow the city with another world-class concert venue have come to the fore. The WimbledonConcert Hall, which currently has American architect Frank Gehry attached to the project, would add a 1,250-seat space for music and performance to the London suburb best known for tennis.
Plans for the project are being led by Anthony Wilkinson, founder and director of the Wimbledon International Music Festival, an event comprising 200 concerts in various local churches. Wilkinson’s struggles to find satisfactory local venues – not to mention London’s notorious lack of acoustically-suitable spaces – encouraged him to pursue his own project.
“To have a Frank Gehry designed concert hall in Wimbledon would be a total transformation of London concert life,” explains Esa-Pekka Salonen, director of Philharmonia and patron of the project, in a statement on the Wimbledon Concert Hall website. “It would have a global effect. With these buildings, the influence goes way beyond the art form.” Gehry is widely credited with kicking off the 21st-century icon movement after his Guggenheim Bilbao captured (and sustained) global interest. He also has experience with music venues: the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Millenium Park Bandshell in Chicago, and recently the Pierre Boulez Saal, a small and understated venue built within an existing Berlin building.
Though the proximity of the two major concert hall projects would seem to render one redundant, Wilkinson and Gehry are both quick to emphasize that the two would, in fact, complement each other. “One doesn’t have to negate the other,” said Gehry to the Observer. The London Centre for Music is expected to have nearly double the seating capacity of the Wimbledon venue, and as such will be able to host the big-ticket items that Wimbledon can neither host nor afford. Wimbledon, by contrast, will be “small enough that it could attract creative stuff to happen that probably couldn’t be afforded at the Barbican.”
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Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s designs for the London Centre for Music. ImageCourtesy of DS+R
Indeed, it’s this opportunity for creative flair that’s attracted both Wilkinson and Gehry to the project. Wilkinson, a former filmmaker who lived for years in Los Angeles, recalls Frank Gehry’s architecture with the same energy with which he speaks of his music festival. “…His architecture has a sense of humor and a soul to it,” said Wilkinson to The Guardian. Gehry, for his part, seemed equally piqued. “I’ve always wanted to do a concert hall in London,” Wilkinson recalled Gehry saying in an early planning phone call. “Let’s talk about it.”
The project is, for all the fame and fortune behind it, still very much just a hope. A note on the project’s website states: “There is still a lot of hard work to do. While we are drawing up detailed proposals for the Council we also need to demonstrate support from the community and community music groups in the area.” Locals interested in the project are welcome to submit their signature and a comment stating their support for the project.
It is, once again, the time of year where we look towards the future to define the goals and approaches that we will take for our careers throughout the upcoming year. To help the millions of architects who visit ArchDaily every day from all over the world, we compiled a list of the most popular ideas of 2018, which will continue to be developed and consolidated throughout 2019.
Over 130 million users discovered new references, materials, and tools in 2018 alone, infusing their practice of architecture with the means to improve the quality of life for our cities and built spaces. As users demonstrated certain affinities and/or demonstrated greater interest in particular topics, these emerged as trends.
Below, we present the trends that will influence urban and architectural discussions in 2019, with the year-over-year growth rates (YoY) that compare to the statistics of searches from 2017 to 2018.
1. Ways of Living: Greater Interest in Small Scale Homes
The Tiny Houses (+75% YoY) concept emerged strongly at the beginning of 2018. Whether it is a movement in response to ideological or financial situations, architects have become more involved in the development of practical and innovative solutions for small spaces. We can also include the interest for- living in dense urban centers, leading to the challenge of designing basic housing programs for spaces under 40 m2. (Searches related to Small Apartments increased by 121% in 2018).
Accessibility (+108% YoY), Universal Design(+116%) and Inclusive Architecture (+132%) were some of the most searched concepts on ArchDaily in 2018. In previous years the focus was mostly on architecture for children and reduced mobility, whereas this year we saw more searches related to Architecture for the Elderly(+78% YoY) and different capacities related to mental health (Architecture & Mental Health +101% YoY; Space Psychology +210% YoY) and visual impairments (Architecture for the Blind +250% YoY).
3. The Middle-East: Underrepresented Territories in Evidence
Just as we saw increasing interest in emerging practices in Latin America (+103.82% YoY) in the last two years, in 2018 we also saw an increase in searches related to the Middle East (+124% YoY). The conflict in Syria (+93% YoY) placed architects’ focus on Rebuilding (+102% YoY). In addition, global events peaked the interest of architects due to the magnitude of the structures involved. Both the city of Dubai (+104% YoY), which will be the host of World Expo 2020, and Qatar (+220% YoY), which will host the next soccer 2022 World Cup, increased considerably in search queries. Hashim Sarkis (+236% YoY), the Lebanese architect who was appointed curator of the Architecture Exhibition for the next Venice Biennial (2020), was one of the most searched persons during 2018.
4. Construction Industry: The Digital Future of Infrastructure
Work within Construction Sites (+378% YoY) is changing rapidly due to the implementation of new technologies that improve productivity and efficiency. The influence of BIM systems(+50% YoY), modular construction (+75% YoY) and prefabrication (+99% YoY) allow for the realization of controlled processes Off-Site (+200% YoY). Meanwhile, 3D printing(+70% YoY), Automation (+118% YoY) and Artificial Intelligence(+234% YoY) make us think, without astonishment, of a future in which construction sites will be free of humans.
5. Gender Equality: A Major, Ongoing Moment of Public Debate
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Courtesy of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates Inc.. ImageDenise Scott Brown in front of The Strip, Las Vegas, NV, US, 1966
Architecture is inextricably linked to the social and political contexts in which it resides and as the participation and visibility of women was ever more strongly positioned in public debate, searches linked to Gender Equality (+244% YoY) and Women in Architecture(+70%) in ArchDaily throughout 2018 increased considerably. The discussion of Gender (+128% YoY) in recent years has openly incorporated the concept of sexual identity, which in a way has had an impact on the field of architecture, increasing the amount of searches for the term Transgender (+95% YoY) in our search engine.
6. Transport: Increase in Speed and Comfort of Urban Trajectories
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Courtesy of Subarquitectura. ImageTram stop in Alicante / Subarquitectura
Interest in matters related to Public Transport (+206% YoY) and Mobility (+143% YoY) increased over those related to private means of transport. The main points of interest were mainly self-driving cars(+160% YoY) and electric cars(+177% YoY).
7. Urban Design and Resource Management: Greener and More Collective Cities
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Courtesy of Turenscape. ImageQunli Stormwater Wetland Park / Turenscape
Natural resources such as water (Water Management +84% YoY) and soil have taken center stage in urban discussions, and the concept of Landscape Urbanism(+103% YoY) is positioned firmly amongst them. Permaculture (+101% YoY) is positioned as a system of design principles that originate from the agricultural, social, political and economic fields. From this, other movements also emerge, such as Urban Farming (+60% YoY) and Urban Agriculture(+84% YoY), as well as the recovery of Public Spaces (+99% YoY) through Activations (+226% YoY) managed by the Community (+76% YoY) itself.
8. Recycling Spaces: The Continuing and Increased Importance of Reuse
Recycling (+145% YoY) and Ecological Awareness (+103% YoY) have not been absent from the debate surrounding the industry with one of the largest carbon footprints in the world: Construction. Faced with this concern, some architects have identified solutions within the Sustainable City (+165% YoY) systems that stop growing (Degrowth +208%) through renovation (+82% YoY) and rehabilitation (+68% YoY) of spaces, and through the design of Adaptive Re-Use Projects (+154% YoY).
9. Materials: Focusing on Details and Local Techniques
Related to the environmental consciousness of the previous item, this year we will continue to see a preference for the use oflocal materials (+83% YoY) and techniques, as well as interest in low cost materials (+260% YoY). Regarding systems, last year we noticed an increase in construction details(+110% YoY), indicating a concern to better address all parts of a project.
10. The House of the Future: Robotics and Automation for Domestic Life
Interest in smart cities has been around for quite a while, but the last year has seen the strengthening of a particular trend within the concept: Smart Houses (+160% YoY) or Smart Homes (+166% YoY). Technologies associated with Automation (+118% YoY), Robotics (+208% YoY) and Algorithms (+190% YoY) join architecture to bring us solutions that increase comfort within our homes, through Domotics (+450% YoY).
11. Renewable Energy and Environmental Awareness: New energy to face Climate Change
We already know that Environmental Awareness (+322%) and Climate Change(+115%) are concerns that affect architects. As a way to face the carbon emissions caused by the life cycle of any completed building, renewable energy(+300% YoY) plays an important role in the debate, with emerging architectural models that not only work based on renewable energy sources, but that are also capable of generating new energy. The concept of the Powerhouse (+77% YoY) and “Energy Positive” buildings (+65% YoY) arise, which, during their operational phase, generate more energy than what was used during their construction; or “Zero-Energy” (+61% YoY) and“Net Zero” (+49% YoY) houses, which produce more energy than they consume, to achieve appropriate comfort levels.
The Harvard Graduate School of Design has relaunched its free online course entitled “The Architectural Imagination.” Directed by the school’s Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory, K. Michael Hays, the course seeks to teach students “how to understand architecture as both cultural expression and technical achievement.”
The free 10-week program runs until July 2019 and is carried out through the online edX platform, a Harvard/MIT system that specializes in high-quality massive open online courses. During the course, students will engage with the social and historical contexts behind major works of architecture, basic principles to produce drawings and models, and the pertinent content for academic study or a professional career as an architect.
The course will be introduced by the idea of architectural imagination, exploring perspective drawing, and the challenges in writing architectural history. Students will then address technology as a component of architecture, discovering how innovative technology can enable and promote new aesthetic experiences. Finally, the course will confront architecture’s complex relationship to its social and historical contexts and its audiences, achievements, and aspirations.
Architecture is one of the most complexly negotiated and globally recognized cultural practices, both as an academic subject and a professional career. Its production involves all of the technical, aesthetic, political, and economic issues at play within a given society. Join us as we examine how architecture engages, mediates, and expresses a culture’s complex aspirations.
-Harvard Graduate School of Design
The course from Harvard GSD joins other architectural courses hosted on edX from institutions including MIT, ETH Zurich, and TU Delft. Now open, the course is free, but students can receive a verified certificate of completion of the course for an additional $99. Members of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) who earn a verified certificate may be eligible to receive AIA Learning Units (LUs).
The course will be delivered by K. Michael Hays, alongside Harvard colleagues Erika Naginski (Professor of Architectural History), Antoine Picon (G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology), and Lisa Haber-Thomson (Instructor in Architecture).
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