ION Architecture - NEWS

It's been a tumultuous few weeks, no doubt. While you can always find the latest pandemic updates relevant to the architecture and design community in Archinect's news section and social media channels ( Twitter , Facebook , LinkedIn ), it can be nice sometimes to take a little break and simply marvel at some stunning and inspiring architectural projects. That's what our Instagram feed is for. Whether you're already one of @archinect 's 61.6k (and counting) followers or not (yet), we have compiled the most popular posts of the past three months, highlighting outstanding designs from various firm profiles on Archinect as well as from here, our news section . Should you be looking for the latest architecture firms hiring right now , don't forget to follow our dedicated @archinectjobs account. 9. Caroline's Place in London, UK by GROUPWORK / @groupwork_arch with Webb Yates Engineers / @webbyates , Photo: @timothysoarphotographer View this post on

The new Tupelo shelters are designed to be easily and strategically combined with additional rigid-walled Tupelo shelters as well as soft tent shelters. [...] the new shelter’s dynamic design can adapt to fit needs in healthcare for treatment and testing, and perhaps in the evolving classroom setting as well. The shelter can be “flat-packed,” meaning the shelter walls can be stacked on top of each other for high-volume, rapid transportation to affected areas. Rhode Island-based Core Composites , a leading company that has built and designed advanced composite-based, rigid-wall shelters for the U.S. military, is working to quickly develop an easily deployable shelter that can be used for COVID-19 testing and treatment, and to aid over-capacity hospitals. Justine Testado via Archinect - News https://bit.ly/2UJRBD6

Les surfeurs le savent : il faut se rendre à Hawaii en hiver pour y trouver les plus beaux tubes. C’est à cette époque de l’année que les vagues sont les plus grosses – elles peuvent atteindre 9 mètres de haut – faisant de l’archipel un spot de surf incontournable. Dans sa série intitulée “Winter Surf” , la photographe Marina Weishaupt , établie dans le sud de l’Allemagne, a capturé les côtes prisées de l’île de Maui. À travers son objectif, elle a immortalisé les tubes, la mousse, les surfeurs et les rayons de soleil hivernaux. Images : © Marina Weishaupt , Pauline, via Fubiz Media https://bit.ly/3bGImuA

The end of the semester is approaching and with many students preparing for their final reviews, the reality of presenting virtually has set in. I had the pleasure to attend my first digital mid-review this past week at Woodbury University . It was a fun and engaging experience and the projects were great. The virtual environment seemed to provide some unique opportunities for the student not so different from a typical in-person presentation. Here are 3 tips for architecture students to capitalize on in their virtual presentations this semester. In " Complexity over clarity? " we looked at an important lesson from the renowned theoretical physicist Richard Feynman to consider the trap of trying to sound too smart in architectural discourse. Photo: Richard Feynman Craft a tight narrative In any presentation, the narrative is vital. What are you trying to tell your audience? Perhaps a presenter's most important question. If you're presenting virtually, in a pow

Across the country, some state mandates have shut down all nonessential business and request that employees work remotely wherever possible, and shelter-in-place orders have kept people from leaving their homes aside from vital errands. At the same time, even in some of the cities and states with the most stringent shutdowns, construction continues. A number of US States have ordered all non-essential construction projects to halt in an effort to flatten the curve among workers. But of course, "essential" is a fluent term and interpretations vary from state to state. Construction Dive took a look at a few ongoing megaprojects and how they managed to keep construction running, including the new HKS-designed NFL SoFi Stadium for the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers in Inglewood as well as the growing Amazon HQ2 Campus designed by ZGF Architects in Virginia, among others. Alexander Walter via Archinect - News https://bit.ly/2R1Swhh

Check out this place @iris.thorsteinsdottir found. The former railway car in Powys, Wales is known as “Under the Oak” and was used for many years for nothing more than storage. Fittingly, it now houses a collection of weird and wonderful objects that its owner Jim has collected on his travels around the world as a cameraman. Now that both the car and the owners have settled a little, the transformation from railway carriage to living space has been completed. The car’s original ironwork has been used to make some of the fittings and the dark wood, also remaining from the original construction, gives a lovely rich feel. The car has a gas burner, a camping toaster and a BBQ, plus a firepit and log seats outdoors. The washing up sink, prep area, fridge and other gas ring are outside, undercover at the end of the car. Under the Oak is tucked between two barns and screened by trees from Jim and Jude’s other project, Under the Ash, a converted showman’s car. Each h

A new report from the American Institute of Architects ( AIA ) indicates that the COVID-19 crisis has not only thoroughly impacted the day-to-day functions of the architecture industry, but that it has also imperiled its short-term economic future. Between March 17 and 24, AIA collected survey responses from 387 architecture firms in order to assess the potential short-term impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. According to survey, 50% and 59% of firms have seen design contracts and new project inquiries decrease, respectively, in recent weeks, a figure that sharply counters the relatively upbeat Architecture Billings Index ( ABI ) report documenting February's business activities that AIA published just as the crisis was taking root mid-March.  Previously on Archinect: " Architecture Billings Index rose in February. That was then. " Achitecture Billings Index numbers paint a positive economic picture prior to the outbreak of COVID-19.Image courtesy of Pixabay / streco

Editors’ Choice 2019 Skyscraper Competition Arman Salemi, Laura Clark United States This project aims to speculate on the potential future of incentivized zoning in New York City. The proposal is for the tallest building in Manhattan, surpassing the new World Trade Center and the slender towers in midtown. This proposed site for this project is Billionaire’s Row, located in midtown Manhattan – an area known for its extreme wealth. Though New York City is a diverse urban landscape, this area is known for its extreme gentrification, resulting in a neighborhood that is largely commercialized that lacks affordable housing, public space, and a sense of community. The proposal aims to build a Vertical City, one that reflects the diversity of New York City into a single tower. The resulting tower has bespoke villas for the eight richest men in the world – Bill Gates, Amancio Ortega, Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Michael Bloomberg. Each of

On a weekly basis, Archinect is highlighting a selection of firms just as one little way to showcase the variety of hard-working practices that shape this community . Need a starting point to look for your next architecture job? We encourage you to check out these firms' Archinect profiles to learn more about them and their current job opportunities . Based in Palm Springs and Los Angeles, Studio AR&D Architects strives to design projects that engage with the public in a meaningful, poetic way. Their Southern California-dominant portfolio spans from Palm Desert to the Hollywood Hills. Desert Palisades Guard House by Studio AR&D Architects. Photo: Studio AR&D Architects. Founded by a University of Virginia professor and his three best students in 1976, VMDO Architects ' work specializes in K-12, higher education, and athletics + community. The practice has over 70 employees in their Charlottesville, VA and Washington D.C. offices. Buckingham County Prim

Do you have a project formed by an innovative use of stone or new material? Enter it in the Architecture +Stone or Architecture +New Materials categories for the 8th Annual A+Awards . A new exhibition at London’s Building Centre explores the potential of stone as a modern construction material. Entitled “New Stone Age” , the exhibit “celebrates the sustainability, practicality, and inherent beauty of stone.”  The New Stone Age exhibition; Photo by Chris Jackson New Stone Age demonstrates the extent to which stone can be used in contemporary construction and design. As stated by the Building Centre: “In the light of the climate crisis the materials that make up our built environment need more than ever to prove their worth. Stone has serious sustainability credentials; with the ability to reduce a project’s embodied carbon by an incredible 90 per cent compared to typical steel or concrete frames.” The exhibition reinforces this point by displaying a number of recent internati

The sudden transition to online learning and teaching has presented students, faculty, and staff at many institutions of higher learning around the world with enormous challenges — technological, organizational but also on a human and inter-human level. Archinect asked for responses from its global community via the ongoing survey  How is your school dealing with the coronavirus outbreak?  to learn how students and educators in the architecture field were dealing with the transition. In our first analysis , we looked at the main challenges as well as opportunities of working online versus onsite at school. Today, we are focusing on the emotional impact this ongoing new situation is having on the architectural academic community. Mood 1: Good (or trying to stay positive) While some responses did share a positive, or at least somewhat hopeful, sentiment, these answers were clearly in the minority. " All good... Bored mostly haha," was the upbeat response from a student

I find it interesting that theaters are so resilient. They can have many lives. [...] For architects, set design can be a lesson in the fact that nothing is permanent. Permanence can be a little restricting, it turns out. Theater isn’t permanent. It exists when there is an audience. Michael Kimmelman shares an interview with architect David Rockwell, who talked about some of his favorite historic Broadway theaters in NYC while the two went on a walk recently. Rockwell talks about the influence that theater had for him as a child, a few theater design projects his firm worked on, and not to mention some valuable, heartfelt lessons that the world of musical theater can teach during these uncertain times. Justine Testado via Archinect - News https://bit.ly/2QU9spW

Editors’ Choice 2019 Skyscraper Competition Layton Reid United Kingdom Ethos This project seeks to use the detritus and waste elements of production to create an attractor, both economic and social, a free territory for the dispossessed, offering accommodation, leisure, employment, and health. Typology The building takes the form of a series of ribbons rising from the landscape to a stoa above this augmented market of interchange, celebration and shared hope, self-administrated, a patria of the air. Concept The issue of inequality plagues the world, and refugees and migration receive little credit for their life-giving entrepreneurs, This project creates a vessel for an opportunity, a new territory forged from the industrialized world’s detritus, a land above borders which cleans and links the oceans, a  new tech business-focussed Dubai-Vegas, where the ethos of the migrant can be celebrated, a  yearning for freedom and a search for success. New User The removal of work p

In an effort to rapidly boost effective medical response to the devastating COVID-19 outbreak , an international network of architects, engineers, doctors, military experts, and NGOs have developed an open-source solution to convert shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Units. A first prototype is currently being developed in Milan, Italy where the pandemic has hit especially hard. The project, called CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments, and also "cure" in Latin), was initiated by Italian architect, engineer, and director of MIT's Senseable City Lab Carlo Ratti with fellow Italian architect Italo Rota. Image courtesy of CURA/Carlo Ratti Associati. "CURA is a compact Intensive-Care pod for patients with respiratory infections, hosted in a 20-foot intermodal container with biocontainment (thanks to negative pressure)," explains the project description. "Each unit works autonomously and can be shipped anywhere. Individual pods ar

The United States Army Corps of Engineers this week issued Southwest Valley Constructors a contract modification worth $524 million for design-build services on a barrier wall replacement project in Tucson, Arizona, at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The change brings Southwest's contract amount for the project to almost $1.2 billion when combined with the May 2019 initial contract's award of $646 million for the same project. While construction of all non-essential projects in several US states has been ordered to stop to contain the spread of COVID-19, planning of fortification elements along the US-Mexican border near Tucson, Arizona is going ahead with full steam, as Construction Dive reports. Alexander Walter via Archinect - News https://bit.ly/2QUJ4MC

As the tragic nature of the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to take shape in New York City, reports have surfaced indicating that the city's hospitals and municipal departments are anticipating that regional morgue facilities will reach or exceed their designed capacity.  CNN reports that New York City officials have begun setting up makeshift morgues in refrigerated trailers outside of Elmhurst Hospital in Queens and New York Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, where a large number of COVID-19 related deaths have occurred.  Previously on Archinect: " US Army Corps of Engineers has a plan to convert hotels into “ICU-like” facilities ." The Army Corps of Engineers has developed a standard plan for converting hotels into makeshift hospital wards. Shown: The Army Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons / AgnosticPreachersKid. The development marks the first time that the city has set up such temporary facilities since the

Michael McKinnell, a co-designer of Boston's  love-it-or-hate-it Brutalist City Hall, has passed away from pneumonia following a positive diagnosis for  COVID-19 . McKinnell was born in 1935 in Manchester, England and grew up during World War II. He earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture in 1958 from the University of Manchester in England and later attended Columbia University as a Fulbright scholar, earning an M.Arch degree there in 1960. Two years later, McKinnell and Columbia assistant professor Gerhard Kallmann joined forces to enter a competition for the design of Boston's new city hall. Their unexpected victory, both were unlicensed and neither had designed a building on their own at that point, served as a launching pad for  Kallmann McKinnell & Wood , a practice that would go on to practice for decades to wide acclaim. The Boston Globe reports that in 1969 McKinnell, describing his vision for the city hall building, told a reporter, "This isn’t a b