eVolo has announced the winners of the 2010 Skyscraper Competition.
The Jury selected 3 winners and 27 special mentions among 430 entries from 42 countries.
Globalization, sustainability, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution, were some of the multi-layered elements taken into consideration.
Vertical Prison The first place was awarded to a project for a vertical prison designed by architecture students Chow Khoon Toong, Ong Tien Yee, and Beh Ssi Cze, from Malaysia. Their project examines the possibility of creating a prison-city in the sky, where the inmates would live in a “free” and productive community with agricultural fields and factories that would support the host city below.
Water Purification Skyscraper in Jakarta The recipients of the second place are Rezza Rahdian, Erwin Setiawan, Ayu Diah Shanti, and Leonardus Chrisnantyo, from Indonesia, whose project ‘Ciliwung Recovery Program’ aims to purify and repair the Ciliwung River habitat. The building is designed as an ingenious habitable machine that would collect garbage, purify water, and provide housing to thousands of people that live in the slums along the river.
Nested Skyscraper in Tokyo The third place was awarded to Ryohei Koike and Jarod Poenisch, from the United States, for their project ‘Nested Skyscraper’ that explores robotic construction techniques for a novel structure of carbon sleeves and fiber-laced concrete. The building is a system of multiple layers of composite louvers which thicken and rotate according to solar exposure, ventilation, and materials performance.
Among the special mentions there are skyscrapers used as bridges that link different territories, cities in the sky powered by renewable energies, instant deployable buildings for disaster zones, skyscrapers that purify and desalinate sea water, or high-rises that commemorate historic dates. Other proposals create new pedestrian layers for existing cities. Some use the latest building technologies and parametric design to configure environmentally conscious self-sufficient buildings, while others create city-like buildings where different programs are mixed in one structure.
Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organization. The award seeks to discover young talents whose ideas will change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.
Architecture Studio 4of7 has developed a project for a pediatric clinic in East Africa. The intent was to create spatial solution which would be able to grow and adapt according to the changing need; or according to varied conditions at different locations. Notionally, if more and more modules were to be added, such configuration could grow infinitely but always confined the circular matrix, defined by three differently sized courtyards.
Responsive solutions in building industry are normally associated with high budgets. In contrast, this is a low-cost application of adaptable architecture. Proposed design is not site specific; it is configured to suite different surroundings and varied demands. For practical reasons, it is based on the use of a single component designed for infinite growth within a recursive geometric pattern.
Proposal for the phase one satellite clinic entails ten modules grouped around two circular courtyards, while phase two configuration will need twenty modules grouped around five circular courtyards.
ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) calls for design solutions in the face of the disaster in Haiti.
In a global appeal following the devastation in Haiti, Icsid has launched a call to designers from all disciplines to unite in an open dialogue with international relief organisations to assess potential design-effective rehabilitation projects. In support of the UN’s efforts to help the Haitian people overcome challenges in relation to the country’s reconstruction plans, designers, academics and design students, as well as experienced developmental workers are encouraged to join the discussion and become a fan of the 'Uniting Designers in Disaster' page on Facebook.
Designers have a strong desire to support the relief effort. This forum is intended to help identify tangible opportunities and empower the design community to contribute to the cause.
"As an international non-governmental organisation with over 50 years experience implementing projects of global appeal, Icsid is poised with the strategic understanding of the processes required by NGOs to develop and implement result-driven and effective initiatives," stated Icsid President Dr. Mark Breitenberg and Provost of California College of the Arts. "What we aim to do with the forum is engage designers to exchange information about initiatives and opportunities where they may contribute their design and problem solving skills. In addition, we are hoping that the dialogue between the design community, development workers and representatives from international agencies will subsequently facilitate relief efforts, such as those currently being prepared by the UN to help the people of Haiti meet long-term stabilisation and reconstruction objectives."
Among its key mission statements, Icsid strives to provide an international platform for the design community to be heard as a powerful voice. Although active participation and contributions will continue on the Facebook page, in an effort to take immediate action, all information posted via the forum will be actively reviewed in order to select opportunities for immediate international activities.
"This is a call to think in order to act," stated Breitenberg. "Our immediate goal is to gain a better understanding of the relief efforts needed in order to facilitate the development of design-led solutions that impact Haiti's quality of life."
For more information, please contact: Andrea Springer t: +1 514 448 4949 ext. 232 e: aspringer@icsid.org
Norway has perhaps the best conditions in the world for utilizing offshore wind power. Its coastline is the longest and windiest in Europe and largely unsaturated with turbines. The oil industry has given the country vast expertise in offshore foundations, as well as immense investment capital. It has half of Europe's hydropower to couple wind power.
The EU commission has committed to deriving 20% of its total energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020. Norway has the capacity to surpass this goal and become an exporter of the EU's newest tradable good, renewable energy.
Norway has already begun speculation on such venture, yet offshore wind farms are meeting strong resisitance, mainly due to misinformation and ungrounded skepticism. What Norway needs to propel wind power is a flagship wind farm to promote and celebrate its newest investment.
Possible typologies
Location: Off the coast of Stavanger, Norway - 31,500 sq. meters (hotel, museum) Project by Joao Vieira Costa, Leon Rost, Don Lawrence, Tudor Vlasceanu OnOffice is an international practice, based in Porto, Portugal.
The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents an exhibition (now in Chicago) with 99 actions that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world. Seemingly common activities such as walking, playing, recycling, and gardening are pushed beyond their usual definition by the international architects, artists, and collectives featured in the exhibition. Their experimental interactions with the urban environment show the potential influence personal involvement can have in shaping the city, and challenge fellow residents to participate.
The 99 actions featured include projects related to the production of food and possibilities of urban agriculture; the planning and creation of public spaces to strengthen community interactions; the recycling of abandoned buildings for new purposes; the use of the urban fabric as a terrain for play such as soccer, climbing, skateboarding, or parkour; the alternate use of roads for walking, or rail lines as park space; the design of clothing to circumvent urban barriers against resting on benches or sliding on railings; among others.
The Table Tennis Fence subverts the fence as a dividing element. A built-in ping pong table can be opened for neighbours to play with each other, transforming the fence into a meeting place. Share Fence is a related project with cut-outs in the shape of gardening tools like trowels and a watering can. Neighbours can hang tools to be shared in fence holes where they are accessible from both sides. Droog Design was founded in Amsterdam in 1993 by Bakker and Renny Ramakers. NEXT Architects was founded by four graduates from the Delft University of Technology.
The city of Turin saved 30,000 euros by using sheep to mow lawns at three public parks. In Pasture in the City, cows were also used during the experimental first year, but because they produced too much manure they have not returned. Traffic is diverted for the herd of sheep to enter the city. After the animals are rotated through fenced-off parks for two months, they return to the Alps for the remainder of the summer. The sheep aerate and fertilize their temporary pastures.
A proposal made to the city of Seville for legislation to assist in the temporary transformation of public and private solares – vacant lots walled off for security – into public spaces for at least six months. Wall rubble is incorporated into the design, and elements of car and pedestrian barriers are used to construct benches, see-saws, swings, and bike racks with readily available plastic materials like concrete. Instruction sheets were produced to allow residents to construct their own furniture. The project is designed to minimize material movement, cost, and other barriers to change. Santiago Cirugeda is an architect based in Seville who has proposed semi-legal strategies for housing and urban renovation under the name Recetas Urbanas, or “urban prescriptions,” since 1996. He inhabits gaps between laws, exploiting overlap and oversight to practice autonomous architecture.
Richard Reynolds, or Richard 001, as he is known in the Guerillagardening.org organization, descends on traffic islands, forgotten parks, public gardens, and roadway edges with troops around the world; he transforms ignored spaces into beautiful gardens. Other troops focus on productive planting, encouraging vegetable and fruit farming in the city. Although Richard 001’s little war against mundane landscaping began in 2004 when he became fed up with the sorry condition of the yard in front of his apartment building, the guerrilla gardening movement can be traced back to at least the 1970s, when artists like Liz Christy and Gordon Matta-Clark used the term to describe illegal, and often nocturnal, horticulture missions.
Jihyun Ryou, Design Academy Eindhoven graduate, did his Master Thesis about food preservation. By accumulating traditional oral knowledge, he looked at a feasible way to bring the knowledge into everyday life.
"Through the research about the current situation of food preservation, I’ve learned that we hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, refrigerator. We don’t observe the food any more and don’t understand how to treat it.
Therefore my design looks at re-introducing and re-evaluating traditional oral knowledge of food, which is closer to nature. Furthermore, it aims to bring back the connection between different level of living beings, us as human beings and food ingredients as other living beings."
Verticality of Root Vegetables -carrot, raddish, leek...etc. Keeping roots in a vertical position allows the organism save energy and remain fresh for longer time. This shelf gives a place for them to stand easily, using sand. At the same time, sand helps to keep proper humidity.
Dryness of Spices Rice absorbs the humidity easily. The spice container with rice inside helps spices stay dry without forming into a mass.
Humidity of Fruit Vegetables -zucchini, aubergine, pepper...etc. We tend to think zucchini, aubergine, cucumber, etc. as vegetables. But they are biologically fruits. This shelf gives them a space to be outside the fridge. Also through the ritual to water them everyday, they will stay fresh.
Green Furniture Design focuses on the concept of sustainable design,
which centers not only around a responsible use of materials and
methods of manufacture but also on issues of object life span, energy
usage, and recycling/disposal. The exhibition explores how 21st-century
furniture makers seek to modify our aesthetic expectations—especially
when it comes to forms that are multifunctional, recyclable, or made of
alternative materials. Work by contemporary artists is featured
alongside historical objects, exploring roots of the green idea in
furniture design.
The exhibition curators also strive to achieve a level of "green curating" that cuts down on this exhibition's carbon footprint. The team is scaling back the use of paper in design, planning, and writing practices related to the show; incorporating local objects and materials that do not require crating and shipping from far away places; and using bicycle transportation for objects from as far away as Madison and Green Bay. In the gallery, the design team will use recycled materials for labels and platforms. Electronically activated lighting will control energy consumption, as well.
'Softseat' made from kraft paper and recycled cardboard (by Molo)
'Adjustable folding chair' made only from small wood scraps-- recycled and renewable (by Hongtao Zhou)
'Soft Rock' seat reusing sweatshirt and other recycled materials (by Tanya Aguiñiga)
This exhibition is curated by Ethan Lasser and guest curator Hongtao Zhou. Photo credit: Hongtao Zhou
Exhibition 'Green Furniture Design'' Milwaukee Art Museum From November 12 to March 14 2010
Young Polish designer Maciek Wojcicki designed an interesting, cutting edge stride toy. Designed as a children vehicle which moves forward driven by the child's hips and body movements, it can be also used as light movement malfunction rehabilitation tool for 5-6 years old as well as for adults in a larger scale.
The brief was to design an attractive toy which, helps to stimulate motor development and improves movement coordination of the child through ideal postural alignment, postural muscle strengthening and active rehabilitation by playing and having fun. Designed movement types based on postural muscle strengthening movements are proven to contribute to positive physical and emotional health balance of the child. Functioning of it is strictly connected with the child's emotional and physical development. Movement characteristics have been described in Maciek's paper entitled "Types of movement driving children vehicles - deliberations". Designed in co-operation with academic physiologists in Gdansk (Poland).
The toy has been shortlisted for President of the Republic of Poland Design Award and also for Selected Works programme finals of INNOVATION RCA in London this year.
Maciek is a recent Royal College of Art, Design Products, MA course graduate.
Continuing in the Scandinavian tradition of working with wood, Tom Rossau is working on the birch veneer prototype of the classic architects light. With this model Tom is demonstrating his affinity for natural materials and his drive to re-think traditional designs. Check out his other designs on his website.
MetaboliCity is the name for a vision of a city that metabolises its resources and waste to supply its inhabitants with all the nourishment they need and more.
As a participatory design research project it explores how designers can intervene sensitively within local urban food growing cultures by providing a design thinking and crafting that may help to sustain these initiatives and catalyse larger positive changes in the surrounding environment.
The team has installed urban grow-kits accompanied by a set of guidelines to be tested and developed at a broad sample of communities in London, UK and Brussels, Belgium. This is a design-service system that integrates both traditional and hi-tech industrialized agricultural techniques into the fabric of the built environment whilst simultaneously being rooted in an ethical systems thinking.
The project is led by Rachel Wingfield of Studio Loop.pH based at Central Saint Martins, London and funded by the Audi Design Foundation.
MetaboliCity is about empowering people to grow food in the most challenging of urban spaces, be it indoor window farms or vertical green cladding that clings to the buildings. Design studio Loop.pH has been developing lightweight, architectural structures together with soilless growing techniques for the project. The rigid 3D lace provides support for plants and irrigation and can be retro-fitted to buildings or become free standing vertical gardens for indoor or out.
The agenda is driven by how design can be used to bring about positive change. Recognizing that it is social innovation and open collaboration that is needed to address some of the most pressing problems of today. Rather than favoring single solutions for diverse and complex problems the outcome of MetaboliCity is a diverse portfolio of solutions to empower city-dwellers to create sustainable human habitats.
The project explores how designers can work in multiple ways, taking on different roles within an interdisciplinary context, mediating between experts and amateurs in the field of urban agriculture and regeneration. The initial case study, based at Central Saint Martins, School of Art and Design, is to test the feasibility of urban agri-tecture kits with a broad spectrum of participants that covers four main city activities for small-scale amateur growing; Restaurants, Community and public spaces, Workplaces such as offices and schools and Housing both social and private.
The role of the designer in this project is that of a facilitator, mediator and co-researcher working alongside the participants, offering designerly ways of thinking, documenting and crafting within each case. A new collective imagination of the city is cultivated through workshops and the weaving and planting of temporary grow spaces within each of these local contexts. The participants of MetaboliCity share their experiences via a collaborative online platform to create a live journal for the project and knowledge ecology. This is a dynamic space to document activities, create a library of resources and support discussions.
A series of MetaboliCity Workshops and instruction sessions are underway with the participants to provide a think tank for UA initiatives and a structured platform to discuss possible future, long-term developments.
Swedish design student Rickard Hederstierna from Lund University wins Electrolux Design Lab 2009 with his concept 'Cocoon', the meat and fish maker.
'Cocoon' is a sustainable response to the world’s growing population and its desire to consume meat and fish. Similar to heating popcorn in a microwave, Cocoon prepares pre-packaged meat and fish dishes by heating muscle cells identified by radio frequency identification (RFID) signals. The signals detect the specific dish and then suggest the required cooking time. This process uses science to create food, lifting a burden on the planet by reducing the need for further intensive farming and fishing.
Jury's motivation: “Cocoon addresses a controversial issue that is very real: humankind’s continued desire to eat meat and fish. A great design concept polarizes opinion, and this is exactly what Cocoon achieves by exploring this issue. An inviting, tactile design, the Cocoon resembles a gemstone with a metal accent reflecting the heritage of the Swedish art-glass industry. Cocoon meets all of the brief’s criteria: it is daring, cutting edge and truly innovative in its focus on social and environmental issues.”
The Electrolux Design Lab 2009 award is a prize of EUR 5,000 and a six-month paid internship at one of Electrolux global design centers.
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