The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has reported that the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) has remained positive in July for the sixth consecutive month, and tenth out of the last twelve months as demand across all project types has continued to increase. The July ABI score was 51.5, down from 52.6 in June, but nonetheless still reflects an increase in design services, as any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings. The new projects inquiry index was 57.5, down from a mark of 58.6 the previous month.
“The uncertainty surrounding the presidential election is causing some funding decisions regarding larger construction projects to be delayed or put on hold for the time being,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD. “It’s likely that these concerns will persist up until the election, and therefore we would expect higher levels of volatility in the design and construction sector in the months ahead.”
As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lead time between architecture billings and construction spending. Regional and sector categories are calculated as a 3-month moving average, whereas the index and inquiries are monthly numbers. Any score above 50 reflects an increase in design services.
The success of a temporary pavilion has seen Danish architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen (SHL) commissioned to realise a more permanent version of their original design. Situated on the HuangPu riverside in the West Bund district of Shanghai, the new arts and events space – dubbed the “Cloud Pavilion” – has been designed to appear as if it is floating along the waterfront. Comprised of two white surfaces and 20, 000 pieces of white rope, the pavilion has a sense of weightlessness and ephemerality which contrasts to the heavy industrial machinery nearby.
Photography by Brian Dixie. Image Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects
In 2013, SHL created a series of pavilions for the West Bund Biennale of Art and Architecture which were initially designed to remain for the two-month duration of the Biennale. The success of the projects extended their stay to two years, at which point a more permanent pavilion was commissioned. The original concept centered around the cloud, and it was requested that this theme be brought forward into the new building.
The 2013 Cloud Pavilion. Image Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects
As well as maintaining the steel structure of the original pavilion, the new arts and events pavilion was to rework the plan to include 100 square meter space for events and small exhibitions and a small kitchen with storage. The illuminated ceiling makes the pavilion particularly experiential at night, as it is reflected in the adjacent water, resembling an “abstract cloud floating along the riverfront.”
Visualisation of the Cloud Pavilion by SHL. Image Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects
Chris Hardie, design partner at Schmidt Hammer Lassen states, “The new pavilion creates a singular space in the form of an extruded glass cloud. The cloud shape in plan directly relates to the cartoon like form associated with how a child would draw a cloud, and how clouds are often seen depicted in traditional Chinese prints. The cloud is considered a symbol of luck in ancient Chinese painting.
Photo of the completed Cloud Pavilion by Brian Dixie. Image Courtesy of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects
The Cloud Pavilion is just one of many projects currently being designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen architects along the Huang Pu River in Shanghai. Other projects include a new 1800 seat Broadway Musical Theatre, a 300 seat live music venue, and the conversion of a cement factory warehouse into a creative Art and Design Hub.
To understand the pavilion’s context and symbolism in greater detail, check out the video below.
From the architect. The assignment is a home for a young family, the lot in the town of Loma Verde in Escobar, in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires, 55 km from the federal capital, on Route 9.
Both members the couple work in Escobar and the construction of their first home in Loma Verde, far from the civic and administrative center of the area implies a change in their lifestyle.
Floor Plan
The lot dimensions are 15m wide x 30m deep. On the terrain there are three large trees that define the location of the house.
The house of 105 sqm is organized on a single floor and around a courtyard that opens onto the garden on one side. The interior height of the house is 2,40m with a living room ceiling of double height as to generate a window that incorporates the existing trees.
Axonometric
Because of a tight economic frame both material and labor-wise, the house was resolved with a traditional load-bearing construction of 18cm ceramic brick with precast light ceiling slabs. This is the construction method and technology that is most utilized around the Greater Buenos Aires. Foundations are solved by a linked beam with piling with a diameter of 20cm going 150cm deep into the ground.
The openings are sliding doors of bent sheet metal and cedar. Along the entire face of the house towards the garden runs a gallery, 1mt wide, that produces a small interspace between facade and an iron enclosure of fencing 2 “x 3/4”, constructed as folding sheets, 50cm wide.
Second Prize Winning Proposal "Rome Concrete Poetry Hall" by Sergey Korobkov, Alexey Yakushev, Evginy Korobskoy and Andrey Tsyplakov. Image Courtesy of Bee Breeders
The prolific Bee Breeder competitions encourage innovative and conceptual responses to charged architectural situations. The latest competition asked participants to consider the expansive material applications (and implications) of one of the world’s most prominent building materials; concrete. Described by Bee Breeders as a “poetic manifestation” of its constituent parts, concrete was then to form the basis for the Rome Concrete Poetry Hall.
The presence of the new, multi-purpose building in Rome required an awareness of the historic influences bordering the site. A further requirement was the excavation of the ground, a reference to Rome’s archeological past. According to Bee Breeders, the judges favored those projects which thoroughly addressed the “spatial, material, structural, conceptual, and cultural agency of this ever expanding building science.”
First Prize Winning Proposal "Rome Concrete Poetry Hall" by Gino Baldi and Serena Comi. Image Courtesy of Bee Breeders
The first place winning proposal uses a subtractive approach to excavating the ground beneath the site, leaving only a few portals above ground through which pedestrians glimpse what lies beneath. By descending a ramp through one of these portals, the visitor begins a procession through a series of spaces which eventually culminate in the large assembly hall.
This composition of pure spatial typologies – the promenade, the vault, and the dome – are analyzed and deployed to frame the terrestrial plane, instead of the celestial sphere. Through this act of burial, these familiar architectural forms are transformed, creating an abstract mirror beneath the streets of the city. Through their subterranean “sanctuary,” the architects are able to free themselves from the constraints of the architectural object.
Read the full interview with the first prize winning team here.
Second Prize Winning Proposal "Rome Concrete Poetry Hall" by Sergey Korobkov, Alexey Yakushev, Evginy Korobskoy and Andrey Tsyplakov. Image Courtesy of Bee Breeders
The second prize winning proposal subverted concrete’s traditional associations – material and mass – to mine the inherent formal capabilities of the substance. By “exploiting the monolithic” of concrete and it’s effectiveness to form spheres and spirals, a strong, internalized architectural object was formed.
The underground sphere is interlaced with spiral twists which function dually as circulatory elements and dividers of space. The functionality of the floor plan is enhanced by the spiral, as it’s labyrinthine form allows it to be fully occupied. The continuous and layered presence of the spirals alludes to a “continuous unfolding of hidden worlds as the user descends.”
Read an interview with the second prize winners here.
Third Prize Winning Proposal "Rome Concrete Poetry Hall" by Eveline Lam and Dave Holborn. Image Courtesy of Bee Breeders
The third place winning proposal took on the existing context to create a layered narrative, intertwining the site with new spatial sequences. As the scheme unfolds, it acts as a space of transition between the Piazza and the Poetry Hall. Historical and archeological value is added to the proposal by connecting the site to its greater context within Rome.
The proposal allows the Piazza to retain its typological stance as an above ground object, and the new Poetry Hall forms the subterranean element. Formed with layers and layers of concrete stratified from the ceiling downwards, space becomes otherworldly and poetic. The procession from public space to the surreal underground realm is enhanced by small gathering spaces along the path, allowing the users to pause and reflect.
Read an interview with the third prize winners here.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Olivia Kate Peel, Craig Nener
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Michele Fumagalli, Andrea Tommaso Abbado, Andrea Toccolini
Jaime Campos Verdeguer, Maria del Carmen Figueroa Hernandez
In 2014, Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni won the Syria category of the UN Habitat Mass Housing Competition for a housing scheme she developed for the city of Homs, her hometown. Now over two years later, Thames and Hudson has published her bookBattle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria. Throughout all of these events, al-Sabouni has remained in Syria. As the Guardian puts it: “As bombs fell around her, Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni stayed in Homs throughout the civil war, making plans to build hope from carnage.”
In this TEDSummit video, Al-Sabouni argues “that while architecture is not the axis around which all of human life rotates… it has the power to… direct human activity” She believes that the Old Islamic cities of Syria were once harmonious urban entities which advocated for co-habitation and tolerance through their intertwining. However, she posits that over the last century, beginning with French colonization, the Ancient towns were seen as un-modern and were gradually “improved” with elements of modernity: “brutal unfinished concrete blocks, aesthetic devastation and divisive communities that zoned communities by class, creed, or affluence.” This urban condition, she argues, is what created the conditions for the uprising-turned-civil war.
As the Syrian government prepares for the rebuilding of cities following the December 2015 ceasefire, Al-Sabouni hopes to prevent past conflicts from happening again through a renewed urban fabric. This brings up the famous Corbusian rhetoric, “Architecture or Revolution,” but interestingly it seems to be a Corbusian vision of the city that Al-Sabouni is against.
Before the conflict, the city of Homs was the third-largest city in Syria. Home to almost a million people, it was an important industrial center that reflected Syria’s religious diversity composed of Sunni Muslims, Alawites, and Christians. Historically, the city of Homs has always been a diverse place with a number of historic mosques and churches throughout the city. But in the mid 20th century, after France took control of Syria as a result of the Sykes-Picot agreement, Homs was the subject of a Le Corbusier-influenced modernization process.
Dubbed the Syrian revolution’s “fallen capital,” much of Homs remains in rubble today following the retreat of rebel troops in the area and the ceasefire of 2015. During the hostilities, the government launched a major offensive on the district of Baba Amr, which was predominantly occupied by Sunni Muslims, to suppress rebel groups. Al-Sabouni cites the slum-like conditions in predominantly Sunni Muslim areas to be the root of sectarian conflict in Homs.
As the conflict halts, the sitting government in Syria is planning a rebuilding of Homs, and in particular the Baba Amr neighborhood. Their urban plan proposal consists of tall tower blocks, and wide open freeways—the kind of Middle Eastern urbanism that is best exemplified by rich cities such as Dubai, and which Al-Sabouni opposes.
Marwa Al-Sabouni's proposal for Baba Amr. Image Courtesy of Render (Marwa Al-Sabouni & Khaled Komee)
In her effort to create an architecture that “gives back” to the public she, along with Team Render, formulated an urban design inspired by trees which is capable of growing and spreading organically, echoing the traditional bridge hanging over the old alleys, and incorporating apartments, private courtyards, shops, workshops, places for parking and playing and leisure, trees and shaded areas. While Al-Sabouni’s proposal gained international recognition, the sitting government in Homs has rejected her plan for Baba Amr.
Marwa Al-Sabouni's proposal for Baba Amr. Image Courtesy of Render (Marwa Al-Sabouni & Khaled Komee)
Al-Sabouni recognizes that there are many ways to rebuild the city. As for her plan, she states: ”It’s far from perfect, obviously. I drew it during the few hours of electricity we get. And there are many possible ways to express belonging and community through architecture. But compare it with the freestanding, disconnected blocks proposed by the official project for rebuilding Baba Amr… We can learn from this. We can learn how to rebuild in another way, how to create an architecture that doesn’t contribute only to the practical and economic aspects of people’s lives, but also to their social, spiritual and psychological needs.”
Marwa Al-Sabouni's proposal for Baba Amr. Image Courtesy of Render (Marwa Al-Sabouni & Khaled Komee)
From the architect. Flowing with the natural inclination of the terrain, general movement on the campus finds access to the array of services that are offered in the General Services Building. There can be found the Auditorium, Library and Nursery, as well as restaurants and exhibition rooms.
Courtesy of Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos
Plan
Courtesy of Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos
The expressive will that appears in the ways connecting the main courses on the campus with the General Services Building generates a facility that has a singular, organic shape in consonance with its uses. Such uses -library, museum, cafeteria, and so on- open to free open spaces that are at a lower level than the general height of the site and are delimited by elm plantations.
Courtesy of Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos
Courtesy of Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos
The most significant volume in the building corresponds to the Auditorium. The Auditorium has a capacity of 1,000 people and is appropriately equipped to host any kind of event that the Universidad de Granada might programme (lectures, plays, auditions, etc.), thus having a multi-functional nature.
Carla Bechelli Arquitectos has created an exhibition of its multiple-residence project, Las Piedras Villas & Houses, a 2015 recipient of an International Property Award, which is currently on display at the 2016 Venice Biennale, at Palazzo Bembo.
Located in the suburbs of Buenos Aires in Argentina, the project consists of a series of small-scale buildings around a central lake intended to create a dialogue with the single-family housing in the surrounding neighborhood.
Courtesy of Carla Bechelli Arquitectos
As the urban plan moves away from the lake, building heights and density increase, resembling rings rippling outwards.
Courtesy of Carla Bechelli Arquitectos
Courtesy of Carla Bechelli Arquitectos
The project further incorporates nature into its core through a central park area, to which all units, expansion areas, and terraces are provided views, through which the classical concept of an Italian villa—closed off and shielded from the outside—is reinforced.
Courtesy of Carla Bechelli Arquitectos
Furthermore, the villas are terraced, “to widen the overall inner space of the project and give the units enhanced natural sunlight and 180-degree views for their top levels.”
Courtesy of Carla Bechelli Arquitectos
The exhibition at the Venice Biennale is a large-scale, tridimensional installation, and utilizes layering to express changes in time, movement, and space, particularly through imagery of vegetation. “This 3D artwork subtly demands the viewer to walk past it, as architecture unveils through nature.”
This seven-storey residential building is integrated into a row of commercial and office buildings located at the former east port (Osthafen) in Berlin. Its grounded and at the same time graceful appearance makes the volume resemble a stranded ship, coloured in a luminous white. Every detail of the building relates to the form of an arc as the main theme, which is reflected in rounded outer and inner edges, in the ornamental lines of the façade as well as in the wave-like form of the balconies.
In addition to the almost continuous glazing the distinctive shapes of the balconies underline the horizontal structure of the façade with an integrated mineral thermal insulation system. Rounded angles combined with the interaction of the retracted and protruding parts give the building an extremely plastic appearance. Moreover, the form of the balconies in each apartment provides a panoramic view over the river.
The trapezoid ground plan of this reinforced concrete cross-wall construction opens towards the street with a glazed atrium. The spacious entrance hall is wheel chair accessible. The arcades provide access to the apartments. The staircase and elevator are located next to the main entrance in Hafenstraße. Soft light shines through the multilayered transparent foil roof of the atrium. In the middle of the space an abstract steel sculpture of a ship propeller is fixed on fin cables.
The sizes of the 68 two to four room apartment are varying from 48 till 125 square meters. Utility and storage rooms as well as 38 parking lots are located under the raised ground floor while the other 23 parking spaces are outside the building. The area between the building and the river is designed as a public green area with two children’s playground spaces, thus contributing to the housing quality for inhabitants as well as for pedestrians.
There is the vacant house which has formed local community. “House of Komajii” in Komagome of Tokyo opened as a place where local people stay in October, 2013. Because originally this vacant house was a dormitory, the space was divided finely. Therefore about half of the building was a storeroom. When I received the request of the design, The client expected that I released the space of the storeroom in the area, and made the structure for “House of Komajii” to become independent, and rotate. (It is run now without almost taking the fee for use by the kindness of the owner.) I plan to break a wall and enlarge the space, and more people can gather in the first floor and convert the second floor to share office as source of profits.
I visited the building several times before beginning design. The state of the building was bad and the outdoor stairs got rusty and died, and the finish of the inner wall had come off. But many people gathered in such the building for some reason. It is the place that everybody can spend from a neighboring child to the elderly freely. It sometimes overflows with a person so that there’s no place to stand in. The community has formed spontaneously by the owner releasing the vacant house in the area. I think the scene like that the community was formed by people gathering for TV in old times when there was only one TV in the town is near that. It is not the “made” public that the government provides administratively, but the new public by “self-build” of citizen.
I collected all the expenses of the renovation from a local user. In addition, I had local people participate in DIY, and the thought of the individual has been left to the building. And I gave priority to that I enlarged the space without spending money. Therefore the things of the different character are simultaneous in one space, for example the rough space that was only dismantled, the Japanese-style room which was just left, newly finished white wall, the old fixtures which I transferred and reused, the pillar that the heights of children were carved , the switchplate which a neighboring foreign student made with cardboard, the signboard which grandfather of the owner handcrafted, and ranma which an old craftsman made. I mix such different things without order and aim at letting them exist in a natural state. I design the architecture which does not make “made” feeling by accumulation of the “self-build” of many people.
From the architect. The project involved the redevelopment of three tired 1980s buildings at Monash University’s Clayton campus. The intention was to establish new informal and engaging learning hubs within the three buildings and to clarify campus wayfinding by creating new pedestrian ‘walks’.
JCB’s response was to reinforce the main campus intersection with a formal gesture incorporating folding and twisting concrete canopies, a theatrical stair and seating platforms. The canopies provide shelter, entrance identity and a dramatic engagement with the student realm, allowing for moments of congregation, observation and contemplation from the vantage of the stair.
1st Floor Plan
2nd Floor Plan
3rd Floor Plan
Themed interiors and informal furniture with complimentary material selections were used to de-institutionalise the interior spaces. The Student Services Desk is sculptural in form, eliminating the traditional linear counter anticipated within this type of facility.
A variety of work tables were designed for self-directed study or collaborative activities. Writable surfaces throughout encourage group learning. Throughout the building, visual links to the surrounding landscape and walks are maximized.
The upper floor schemes took the existing layout of a central corridor with perimeter offices and turned it inside out; open plan office areas, meeting rooms and ancillary spaces have been arranged in bays through the centre of the plan while the new circulation spaces run along the north and south facades, creating break-out spaces and informal seating areas along the perimeter.
The new facades were developed as a colourful ‘kit of parts’ to address solar shading, building identity and transparency. Mild steel shading loops and coloured fins were used to enliven and reinforce the existing structural rhythms of the buildings while the external colour scheme across the precinct sought to both reflect and abstract the surrounding landscape.
Sig Nordal 