Studio Gang’s Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo. Image © Hedrich Blessing

Studio Gang has been selected to design next year’s installation of the Summer Block Party at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. The temporary exhibition will be the latest in the Museum’s annual series, after this year’s ICEBERGS by James Corner Field Operations, and previous installations like Snarkitecture’s The BEACH in 2015, and Bjarke Ingels Group’s BIG Maze in 2014. 

Studio Gang's Masonry Variations. Image © Jim Tetro

We are delighted to embark on a new collaboration with Studio Gang over the next year, said Chase W. Rynd, executive director of the National Building Museum. With their creativity and impeccable design credentials, they are poised to reimagine the possibilities of this series.

The concept for the new exhibition is currently in development, and will be announced in early 2017.

The installation will open to the public on July 4, and will remain on display until Labor Day 2017.

News via The National Building Museum.

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© Nelson Kon

• Architects: SPBR Arquitetos
• Location: Orlândia, SP, Brazil
• Area: 382.87 sqm
• Project Year: 2012
• Photographs: Nelson Kon

• Project Team: Angelo Bucci [principal], João Paulo Meirelles de Faria, Juliana Braga, Tatiana Ozzetti, Nilton Suenaga
• Collaborators: Victor Próspero, Fernanda Cavallaro, Lucas Nobre
• Structure: Ibsen Puleo Uvo
• Lighting: Ricardo Heder
• Landscape: Raul Pereira
• Constructor: Paulo Balugoli

© Nelson Kon

A proper balance as a goal
Two activities: live and work. Its two corresponding spaces, house and studio, have been shaped historically, as two quite clear architectonic typologies. 

© Nelson Kon

Our first goal to this project was to combine both in a single small building, firstly keeping their programmatic independence and secondly achieving a proper balance in the whole [not a house with a studio appended, neither a studio with an added house].

© Nelson Kon

It means, we would like to integrate both programs in such a way that both could live together with no conflicts. The studio should not be disturbed when the house is empty. In the same way, the house should not be degraded by an uninhabited studio.  

© Nelson Kon

Studio
The studio was disposed 1m lower the street level as a strategy to change the typical perception of a full-story building, then its function does not dominate the building.

© Nelson Kon

Moreover, it is turned to the site’s rear.  In particular, a transparent façade enables the studio to benefit from a small garden conceived there. 

Planta

In between the studio and the house there is an empty space that clarifies the independence of the two programs.

© Nelson Kon

House
At the west plot limit, the house entrance leads to a single-floor house, spread in the second level slab. The bedrooms are situated at the front side and the living room towards the rear. Connecting bedrooms and the living-room are the kitchen and service areas.

© Nelson Kon

This program arrangement creates an inner court making an opportune use of the studio’s roof slab as a reflecting pool 

© Nelson Kon

The reflecting pool mitigates the severe local weather and multiplies the light in the house patio. In addition, it assures the impermeability of the concrete slab, free of any membrane, and works as thermal insulation for the studio.

Planta

Planta

The house’s design aimed for no evident architectonic elements like doors and windows. Thus, its function is not apprehended at first glance in order to not prevail over the studio.

© Nelson Kon

Two major construction materials
Both programs are being built with few major materials: glass and concrete.
This conciseness is a strategy to keep construction process and costs under control. 

© Nelson Kon

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Courtesy of Maison Edouard Francois

Maison Edouard François, in partnership with ABC Architectes, has won the competition for the requalification of the former Ray Stadium into housing, landscaped gardens, shops, sports facilities, and parking, beating other competing firms like Herzog & de Meuron and Rudy Riciotti. 

Located in Nice, France, the project aims to provide its swiftly growing neighborhood with a “new green lung” by mimicking the form of a vegetated hill and incorporating elements of classic Niçois architecture like white stone and wood. The reinvented stadium becomes a bridge between the urban and natural landscapes, linking new constructions of the Boulevard Gorbella with the new Ray Park.

Courtesy of Maison Edouard Francois

Courtesy of Maison Edouard Francois

This new park will additionally be integrated into the city block on one level, stretching over all the buildings and covering the façades and roofs. Furthermore, the façades will host climbing, flowering plants and the rooftops will be entirely planted.

Courtesy of Maison Edouard Francois

A construction in the interior of the city block will be raised and placed on pilotis, in order to broaden and extend the presence of nature. Underneath this garden object, the spaces that have thus been freed up will be accessible and open to the public, for new domestic and leisure activities – explains the architects in a press release. 

Courtesy of Maison Edouard Francois

Learn more about the project here.

News via Maison Edouard François. 

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Courtesy of William McDonough + Partners and GXN

William McDonough + Partners and GXN have teamed up to develop a master plan for the Agro Food Park (AFP), a hub for agricultural innovation near Aarhus, Denmark. Aiming to serve as a benchmark for future global food industry development, the project will combine urban density with agricultural test fields in a collaboration of academic and commercial business.

Over the next 30 years, the current AFP—which was opened in 2009 and spans 44,000 square meters with nearly 1,000 employees—will expand by an additional 280,000 square meters.

We are privileged to have been chosen by GXN to collaborate on what will become an entrepreneurial ecosystem for addressing the future of food and plant resources, said William McDonough, founder of William McDonough + Partners and co-author of the text, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

Courtesy of William McDonough + Partners and GXN

Five focus areas have been identified to improve AFP through the new expansion: healthy materials, clean energy, increased biodiversity, healthy air, and clean water.

Courtesy of William McDonough + Partners and GXN

We are in the ecological century. After decades of unthinking destruction of climate, water and land, now is the time to restore and replenish the biological resources of our planet for all of Earth’s species, stated McDonough. A carbon positive city demonstration at the Agro Food Park can be the embodiment of this new century – its clean water, air, soil and energy serving as a continuous source of economic and ecological innovation and regeneration, redefining how we can enact a positive and abundant future.

Courtesy of William McDonough + Partners and GXN

Courtesy of William McDonough + Partners and GXN

In combining urban and agricultural development into one larger concept, AFP aims to create economic value within the urban and agricultural infrastructure.

Courtesy of William McDonough + Partners and GXN

The master plan of the project will be composed of three main elements—the Lawn, a central communal green space, the Strip, AFP’s main street, and the Plazas, which will bind together clusters of buildings with individual neighborhood identities.

News via William McDonough + Partners and GXN.

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