Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

On the week commemorating American-Chinese architect I.M Pei’s birthday, Delhi-based photographer and photojournalist, Nipun Prabhakar, has shared with us a series of images of I.M Pei & Partners’ building, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. The firm was commissioned in 1968 by Cornell University to build the university’s museum that would also serve as a teaching facility and cultural center for the educational community. The building was completed in 1973 and was awarded the American Institute of Architects Honor Award in 1975.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge

Two years ago, Nathaniel Rich published Losing Earth, his account of the pivotal decade from 1979 to 1989 when the political consensus around climate change somewhat miraculously formed and then collapsed, hardening into an impasse that’s now more than three decades old. Though not explicitly a sequel, Rich’s new book, Second Nature: Scenes From a World Remade, is a follow-up of sorts.

In a competition organized by Shenzhen Airport, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) and China Northeast Architectural Design & Research Institute (CNADRI) have won a competition to design the Terminal 4 Bao’an International Airport in Shenzhen, China. The winning design offers a new 400,000 sqm building with connections to existing and new transport infrastructure, as well as a space that promotes passenger interaction and wellbeing, all while maintaining a safe post-pandemic environment.

Slovenia's contribution to the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale explores interior public spaces as vital social infrastructure through the lens of the local cooperative centre typology. Titled "The Common in Community", the exhibition curated by Blaž Babnik Romaniuk, Martina Malešič, Rastko Pečar and Asta Vrečko details the architectural spaces of social interaction built after WWII in rural and suburban Slovenia, which continue to serve their purpose as local community centres to this day.

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The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia was awarded to Spanish architect, educator, critic, and theoretician Rafael Moneo. Selected by the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation of the Curator of the Biennale Architettura 2021, Hashim Sarkis, the acknowledgment will be awarded to the architect on Saturday, May 22nd, 2021 together with the Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in memoriam to Lina Bo Bardi.

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“No, I’m not homeless. I’m just houseless. Not the same thing, right?" Questioning the notion of home and house, Nomadland tells the story of a sixty-year-old woman who loses everything during the great recession, leaving her hometown after the collapse of the sole industry that supported the rural settlement and the death of her husband. She decides consequently to embark on a journey and experience life as a modern-day nomad, setting off in her van through the vast landscape of the American West.

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Titled "Composite Presence", the Belgian pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, will explore the complex love-hate relationship between architecture and cities of Flanders and Brussels under the theme of "memory as a design studio". Curated by Bovenbouw Architectuur in collaboration with Flanders Architecture Institute, the national pavilion will be on display from 22 May until 21 November 2021.

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The internationally-acclaimed architecture firm Snøhetta has recently been selected to design two new art spaces in Australia and United States. Snøhetta will create the new Heysen Art Gallery in Adelaide- a rammed earth structure blending into the landscape and housing the works of renowned artists Hans and Nora Heysen. The studio was also selected to lead the expansion and re-design project for Dartmouth College Hopkins Center for the Arts, a vital creative hub for the New England Region.

Designed in the late 70s by MSGSSV, the Terraces of Manantiales (Terrazas de Manantiales) is a summer house complex by the Atlantic Ocean built in Punta del Este, Uruguay.

In theory, parking spaces serve only one function: park a car safely until it is used again, and in terms of design, car garages are flexible and straightforward, requiring minimal design interventions. However, parking spaces nowadays are no longer considered one-function buildings. The emptier the space, the more potential it has to integrate additional functions. Architects and urban planners have redefined traditional parking lots, adding recreational and commercial facilities to the structure. Instead of a typical structured grid plan with yellow and white markings on the floor, we are now seeing inviting structures that incorporate green facades and rooftop playgrounds, car washes, cafeterias, and work/study zones.

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Ennead Architects have won the international competition to design a dynamic 32-floor commercial tower in the heart of Shenzhen’s high-tech Nanshan District. The architecture studio’s aim was to create a platform that “embraces creative exchange and the sharing of human experiences and ideas”, so they developed a design that offers a flexible working environment with a subtle use of color and materials, complimenting the spatial and functional needs of Chinese tech company ByteDance. The tower, which is expected to be completed by 2024, will employ co-working spaces, commercial, and recreational facilities in a dynamic-looking structure overlooking Shenzhen Bay.

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The Chilean organization Ruta Pais Foundation has invited international architects and local artisans to design a series of architectural interventions in order to create 3 artisan routes in the Chilean Central Valley: Wicker Route in Chimbarongo, Clay Route in Pomaire, and Stone Route in Pelequén.

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The winners of the design contest for the Nervión Riverside Park in Galindo Este (Barakaldo, Spain) have been announced. Organized by BILBAO Ría 2000, the competition invited participants to submit proposals for a space along the banks of the Nervion River that Baracaldo residents could utilize. Currently, the majority of Galindo Este (Urban-Galindo) is developed, however, space along the riverbanks provided a number of opportunities for growth. The goal of the contest was to lay out an integral design that would blend with and build on the already-existing space around it.

Snøhetta has unveiled a new Central Campus Building for Ford Motor Company, part of the transformation of its Research & Engineering (R&E) Campus in Dearborn, Michigan. As the result of a 3-year research and planning process, the project was created in collaboration with IBI Group as the Architect of Record, Ghafari as the Engineer of Record, and Arup leading sustainability and engineering.

The United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm announced the winners of the 2021 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Decathlon, a competition that challenges architecture and engineering college students from around the world to design and construct high-performance buildings powered by renewable energy. 72 competing teams hailed from 12 countries and designed energy-efficient residential and commercial spaces, nine of which were constructed and presented in the Solar Decathlon Virtual Village on the National Mall, a first of its kind, in Washington, D.C.

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After an extensive renovation, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) completes the transformation of the Willis Tower observation deck and inaugurates a new interactive exhibition showcasing how architecture shaped Chicago’s identity through the city’s history. Now reopened to the public, the Skydeck is part of SOM’s ongoing design stewardship of Willis Tower, which started with the building’s conception and continued in 2009 with the addition of the Ledge.

The City Prosperity Index, CPI, set by UN-Habitat, evaluates urban prosperity according to five parameters as productivity, infrastructure development, environmental sustainability, quality of life, and equity/social inclusion. To a greater or lesser extent, these five factors are represented in the street pattern of every city in the world. Streets have multiple functions as the mobility of people and goods, the supply of energy, water, and information, the collection of waste, the growth of trees, plants, insects or birds, the shadow and sun radiation, the bench where to sit, the place to salute and talk with your neighbors, a playground, or the access to the bakery where you buy the bread. In this sense, streets are public and vibrant spaces, which can perform multiple functions and activities.

The rising popularity of mass timber products in Canada and the United States has led to a rediscovery of fundamentals among architects. Not least Indigenous architects, for whom engineered wood offers a pathway to recover and advance the building traditions of their ancestors. Because timber is both a natural, renewable resource and a source of forestry jobs, it aligns with Indigenous values of stewardship and community long obscured by the 20th century’s dominant construction practices.