News: a proposal by Rem Koolhaas’ firm OMA for a bridge that could accommodate different types of traffic as well as pedestrians and events has been selected by local authorities in Bordeaux, France, as one of two final competing designs.
The proposed design aims to “rethink the civic function and symbolism of a twenty-first century bridge” by creating a platform traversing the river Garonne that could be used by cars, trams, buses, bicycles and pedestrians.
A wide boulevard with a gentle gradient would make the bridge easy to walk across and allow it to be used to host events.
OMA project leader Clement Blanchet said the studio wanted to “provide the simplest expression – the least technical, least lyrical, an almost primitive structural solution. This simplicity allowed us to create a generous platform for pedestrians and public programs, as well as flexibility in accommodating the future needs of various types of traffic.”
Either OMA or French firm Dietmar Feichtinger will be awarded the project in December this year, with completion scheduled for 2018.
OMA leads the final round for Pont Jean-Jacques Bosc international competition in Bordeaux
OMA’s design for a new bridge across the river Garonne in Bordeaux has been selected as one of two final competing projects by the city authorities. OMA’s stripped-down design for the Pont Jean-Jacques Bosc attempts to rethink the civic function and symbolism of a 21st century bridge.
Clement Blanchet, leading the project for OMA with Rem Koolhaas said: “The bridge itself is not the ‘event’ in the city, but a platform that can accommodate all the events of the city. We wanted to provide the simplest expression – the least technical, least lyrical, an almost primitive structural solution. This simplicity allowed us to create a generous platform for pedestrians and public programs, as well as flexibility in accommodating the future needs of various types of traffic.”
Vincent Feltesse, president of Urban Community of Bordeaux made the decision with the deliberation of a jury of 40 people, announcing that the municipality wanted something “bold.”
Image copyright Frans Parthesius
Beyond traditional fascinations with style and technical performance, OMA tried to design a 21st century bridge that exploits state-of-the-art techniques in order to create a contemporary boulevard. A platform 44 metres wide and 545 metres long is stretched beyond the water on either side, creating a seamless connection with the land. The bridge slopes gently, allowing an easy promenade while still giving necessary clearance for boats underneath. Each type of traffic – cars, RBD (tram/bus), bicycles – has its own lane, and is designed to meet changing vehicular needs. By far the largest strip is devoted to pedestrians.
The bridge is designed to cohere with the adjacent St. John Belcier urban redevelopment project. It also attempts to unify the different conditions of the two banks of the Garonne: from the Right Bank, strictly aligned on a poplar-lined meadow, to the urban landscape of the Left Bank, it aims solve the dual challenge of aura and performance in an environment steeped in history.
Image copyright Frans Parthesius
A final decision between designs by OMA and Dietmar Feichtinger will be made in December this year, with the bridge scheduled for completion in 2018.
The project is developed in collaboration with engineers WSP, the landscape architect Michel Desvigne, as well as the consultant EGIS and light design agency Lumières Studio.
News: Italian furniture brand Kartell has announced that it will launch 50 flagship stores across China in the next five years.
Kartell has partnered with Chinese luxury goods company Gold Bond Enterprises, which is helping to manage Kartell’s rapid expansion in the country.
The first store opened in Beijing on 30 May and was designed by Kartell’s artistic director, Ferruccio Laviani, to “emphasize the quality, high design content, richness of materials and glamour associated with the brand.” New stores are scheduled to open in Shanghai and Chengdu over the summer.
“China, because of its size, importance and the complexity as a market required a targeted and wide-ranging plan,” said president and managing director of Kartell Claudio Luti, adding that the partnership with the Chinese company would help to “achieve concrete results in both the residential and the contract areas.”
President and managing director of Kartell Claudio Luti
Kartell in China – 50 single brand stores in 5 years
Kartell announces an intense schedule of single-brand store openings: 50 flagship stores over 5 years in the biggest centres of the Chinese market. The announcement marks the beginning of a partnership with Gold Bond Enterprises, a leader in the Chinese luxury sector. The first city to see the partnership take form is Beijing, where the Kartell flagship store and showroom opened on Thursday, 30 May 2013, in the Sanlitun Village. Summer openings are planned for Shanghai and Chengdu.
Milan, 14 June 2013 – Kartell is pleased to announce that it recently inaugurated its first single-brand store on Thursday, 30 May 2013 in Sanlitun Village as part of the agreement with the Chinese company, Gold Bond Enterprises.
The Beijing flagship store is the first to have a new luxury look designed by Ferruccio Laviani exclusively for Kartell. The design was created specifically to emphasize the quality, high design content, richness of materials, and glamour associated with the brand. Architects, clients and contractors will also be able to see the entire collection in the nearby 400 square-metre showroom.
The Beijing flagship store is only the first of a long series, and by summer 2013 there will be two more openings in Shanghai (at the APM department store, opening soon, and at the Kerry Center) and one in Chengdu at the ICF Mall.
According to Claudio Luti, President and Managing Director of Kartell, “China, because of its size, importance and the complexity as a market required a targeted and wide-ranging plan. That is why we decided to join forces with a Chinese company, a leader in the luxury sector, such as Gold Bond Enterprises, with a 10-year agreement which will allow us to enter this market with the best approach. The GB Kart Ltd. is the result of the joint venture and will represent our brand and distribute Kartell products (rigorously Made in Italy). We are confident that through these synergies we will achieve concrete results in both the residential and the contract areas.”
Linda Lin, President of Gold Bond Enterprises, adds “Gold Bond Enterprises Ltd. and Kartell have combined their experience and created GB Kart Ltd. which will develop a single brand retail plan together with Kartell and will distribute its products exclusively in China.” Thanks to Linda Hong Lin’s extensive experience in distribution and Claudio Luti’s continuous design research, this joint venture is an important step in introducing Kartell’s iconic and glamour design to the Chinese market. And it will offer a unique experience to Chinese consumers who are always on the lookout for the latest in Italian excellence.
About Kartell
A leading design company, founded by Giulio Castelli in Milan in 1949, and today under the leadership of Claudio Luti, Kartell is one of the companies that has symbolised Made in Italy design for over 60 years. A success story told through an incredible series of products: lamps, furniture, accessories, and interior design items made of plastic which have become part of the domestic landscape if not veritable icons of contemporary design. Today Kartell has a sales network with 120 single brand stores, 200 shops-in-shop and more than 2500 retailers throughout the world.
About Gold Bond Enterprises
Gold Bond Enterprises Ltd was born out of the passion for style and design. The Chinese company established and headed by Linda Hong Lin since 1993 is a leader in the luxury goods sector with a long line of successes in positioning and development of various prestigious Made in Italy brands in a highly competitive market such as the Chinese one. The mission of Gold Bond Enterprises Ltd. has always been to select the companies representing Italian excellence and to make them an integral part of the life of Chinese consumers who are keen for the latest, for elegance and for style. Gold Bond Enterprises Ltd. now has 10 of the most prestigious Italian brands and a sales network of about 130 direct single brand stores in China and Hong Kong.
News: the Pritzker Prize jury has rejected a petition for architect Denise Scott Brown to retroactively receive recognition for the award that her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, won in 1991.
Chair of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Lord Palumbo has responded in a letter to the Harvard students who started the online petition, saying that the way the jury is organised prevents it making retroactive awards.
“Pritzker juries, over time, are made up of different individuals, each of whom does his or her best to find the most highly qualified candidate. A later jury cannot re-open, or second guess the work of an earlier jury, and none has ever done so,” he wrote.
The letter adds that Scott Brown is not disqualified from receiving the prize in future: “Ms. Scott Brown has a long and distinguished career of architectural accomplishment. It will be up to present and future juries to determine who among the many architects practicing throughout the world receives future awards.”
Scott Brown, 81, had been a partner at the couple’s practice Venturi Scott Brown and Associates (now VSBA) for 22 years when Venturi was awarded the prize, which is considered the most prestigious in architecture. She co-authored their seminal 1977 book Learning From Las Vegas and still works at the practice while Venturi, 87, retired last year.
In 2001 Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron shared the award, while male-female duo Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of Japanese firm SANAA became joint-laureates in 2010. This year’s laureate is Japanese architect Toyo Ito.
A bandage pack containing a bone marrow donor registry kit has won a White Pencil at the D&AD Awards (+ movie).
Help! I’ve Cut Myself and I Want to Save a Life kits, which can be bought over the counter, contain plasters and bandages for covering small cuts, as well as cotton swabs. A small amount of blood from a cut can be caught on a swab and posted to a marrow donor registry in a pre-paid envelope, which also comes in the simple green and white package.
Graham Douglas, a member of creative agency Droga5, came up with the idea after his twin brother was diagnosed with Leukaemia and an unknown bone marrow donor saved his life.
“Unfortunately, the marrow donor registry is one of the most underrepresented donor programs in the world,” says Douglas. “It’s no wonder really – most people think registering as a marrow donor is painful and complicated, when really all it takes is a couple of drops of blood.”
Douglas’ idea aims to catch potential donors when they are already bleeding, and give them all the necessary components to send their sample to a donor registry easily.
He set up the scheme with pharmaceutical company Help Remedies and international marrow donor registry DKMS, and registrants have tripled as a result.
News: Finnish studio ALA Architects has won the international competition to design a new public library in Helsinki with plans that involve a mass of twisted timber (+ slideshow).
Launched in January 2012, the competition asked applicants to come up with a timeless, flexible and energy-efficient building to sit opposite the Finnish Parliament building in the Töölönlahti area of the city.
ALA Architects‘ response is for a three-storey structure comprising a contorted timber volume. Public activities and group study areas will occupy an active ground floor beneath the curving wooden surfaces, while a traditionally quiet reading room will be located above and a contemporary media facility and public sauna will be housed in the middle.
Two main entrances will provide access to the building. A public plaza in front of the western facade is to lead into a main lobby, where a staircase will spiral up to the floors above, while a second entrance will face the railway station to the south and offer an escalator that penetrates the wooden volume overhead.
“The architecture of the proposal is of a very high quality, executed with relaxed, broad strokes, and memorable,” commented the competition organisers.
They added: “The proposal provides excellent premises for the development of a completely new functional concept for the library. The building has a unique appeal and the prerequisites to become the new symbolic building which Helsinki residents, library users, as well as the staff will readily adopt as their own.”
ALA Architects, who is also based in Helsinki, plans to use local materials such as Siberian larch to construct the Helsinki Central Library and it is scheduled to open in 2018.
Here’s some extra information from ALA Architects:
ALA Architects wins Helsinki Central Library competition
ALA Architects have won the design competition for the new Helsinki Central Library with their entry Käännös. The open international two-stage competition attracted 544 entries from all over the world. The 16,000 square metre library building in the heart of Helsinki will consist almost entirely of public spaces and will offer a wide selection of services. It will serve as the new central point for the city’s impressive public library network. The Central Library is slated to open in 2018.
The winning entry is based on the idea of dividing the functions of the library into three distinctive levels: an active ground floor, a calm upper floor, and an enclosed in-between volume containing the more specific functions. This concept has been developed into an arching form that invites people to utilise the spaces and services underneath, inside and on top of it. The resulting building will be an inspiring and highly functional addition to the urban life of Helsinki and the nationally significant Töölönlahti area.
ALA is one of the leading Nordic architecture firms. The office has previously completed the Kilden Performing Arts Centre in Kristiansand, Norway, and is currently working on a number of large public projects in Finland including two theaters, five subway stations, and a passenger ferry hub. Käännös has been designed by ALA partners Juho Grönholm, Antti Nousjoki, Janne Teräsvirta and Samuli Woolston together with the ALA project team, assisted by the engineering experts at Arup.
Description of the winning entry Käännös
Käännös grows from the dynamic between the site and the goals of the library program. The interplay between the building’s three individual floors is the key concept of the entry.
The public plaza in front of the building will continue inside, merging with a catalogue of meeting and experience features. The ground floor will be a robust, busy and frequently updated space suitable for quick visits and walkthroughs. The active, zero-threshold public spaces will be visible, attractive, understandable and welcoming to all visitors.
The traditional, serene library atmosphere can be found on the top floor. This will be a calm area for contemplation, floating above the busy central Helsinki. It will offer unobstructed, majestic views to the surrounding park and cityscape.These two contrasting spaces that perfectly complement each other are created by an arching wooden volume. The spaces inside the volume will be enclosed and more intimate. The wooden volume is stretched vertically to create connections to the open main floors below and above. Soft, curved shapes will be present all around the building.
The curved ceiling covering the ground floor, the intensive flowing spaces on the middle level, as well as the curving floor surface of the top floor are all defined in the timber-clad mass, which is as functional as it is expressive.
There will be three public entrance points in the building: one in the south for the main pedestrian flow from the direction of the Central Railway Station, one next to the public plaza to the west of the building shielded by an overhanging canopy, as well as a secondary one in the northeastern corner. The top floor can be reached from the southern entrance by an escalator that penetrates the wooden volume, or from the main lobby via a spiraling double-helix stair.
Each floor will be a destination in its own right and a new exciting civic space in the heart of Helsinki. While being a traditional library space, the top floor will also act as a modern, open, flexible platform for a multitude of functions. The middle floor will offer opportunities for learning-by-doing in an environment optimised for contemporary media and latest tools. It will contain workshop spaces for music and multimedia, as well as a public sauna. A multipurpose hall, a restaurant and a cinema will be located on ground floor. The library’s facilities will offer services, as well as places to meet, to discuss, and to present ideas.
The library building will be extremely energy efficient. It will be constructed using local materials and with local climate conditions in mind. Some of the main load-bearing components will be made of timber. The wooden façade will be built from pre-assembled elements finished on-site. 30 millimetre thick Finnish first grade Siberian Larch wood, shaped with a parametric 3D design and manufacturing process in order to achieve a perfect execution of the desired geometry, will be used for the cladding. The appearance of the façade will develop over the years towards a deeper, richer version of its initial hue. The design of the façade is intrinsic to the passive design approach adopted by the project team. Detailed analysis of the façade performance informs the environmental solutions and has allowed the team to minimise any systems required, which in turn facilitates the highly flexible architectural solution.
About the competition and the Helsinki City Library
Helsinki Central Library will serve as the new center point for Helsinki’s impressive public library network. It will be located in the very heart of Helsinki, in the Töölönlahti area, opposite the Finnish Parliament building. As its neighbors it will have some of the city’s most important public buildings; the Helsinki Music Centre, the Sanoma House, the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art designed by Steven Holl, Alvar Aalto’s Finlandia Hall, and the Central Railway Station by Eliel Saarinen, as well as several new office and residential buildings still partially under construction on the site of a former railway yard.
The open international two-stage architectural competition was launched in January 2012, and attracted 544 entries from all over the world. The six entries selected for further development for the second phase of the competition were announced in November 2012. The Central Library is slated to open in 2018.
The goal of the competition has been to find a timeless and energy-efficient design solution that responds to the challenges set by the location. The library building should complement and adjust to the urban fabric of the Töölönlahti area. The building is to express the operational concepts of a library in a way that offers a technically and spatially flexible framework for cutting-edge, adaptable library operations, now and in the future. It will reflect the technical and cultural changes taking place in the society, particularly evident in the media world.
Library operations are statutory in Finland. Basic library services are free of charge and freely available to everyone. The new 16,000 square metre (approx. 172,000 square foot) library building will consist almost entirely of public spaces. The administrative and storage functions of Helsinki Public Library will remain at the main library in Pasila. In terms of services offered, the new library will be the largest public library in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and will most certainly become the metropolitan area’s most popular spot for returns and reservations. It has been estimated that the library will attract 5,000 visitors per day and 1.5 million visitors per year.
The new library will be at the forefront of the renewal of the city’s library services. In addition to the basic operations, there will be a wide range of services available inside the building, as well as an abundance of lounge spaces and auxiliary services that support the operations. The library will enliven and diversify the new urban environment created in the Töölönlahti area. It will offer activities and experiences for all ages. There will be plenty of spaces that enable people to spend time together, free of charge. The role of the clients will evolve from passive media users to active agents, participants and content producers. As a non-commercial open public space, the new Helsinki Central Library will act as a common living room and work space.
A cantilevered exhibition floor and an underwater conference suite feature at this archive and research centre, designed by Italian office Boeri Studio and one of several new buildings on Marseille’s waterfront (photographs by Edmund Sumner + slideshow).
The building sits at the water’s edge and was designed by Stefano Boeri as “a place of thought and research that physically embraces the sea”.
“I have always been obsessed with harbour architecture,” says Boeri, describing his interest in naval stations, silos, observation towers and dry docks. “Villa Méditerranée is a construction that combines the characteristics of civic architecture with those of harbour infrastructure and off-shore platforms.”
The architect used a combination of reinforced concrete and steel to create the angular structure of the building, then added glazing across the front and rear elevations to allow views right through.
Porthole windows face out into the sea from the conference centre, which occupies an entire floor below ground level, while the third-floor exhibition gallery is contained within a 36-metre cantilever that frames and shelters a waterfront piazza.
A triple-height entrance hall connects the two main floors. Windows are dotted randomly across its facade, reappearing as skylights and transparent floor panels elsewhere around the exterior.
Villa Méditerranée, Centre International pour le dialogue et les échanges en Méditerranée, Marseille, France
Villa Méditerranée, Centre International pour le dialogue et les échanges en Méditerranée is a circa 9.000 square metre multipurpose building, overlooking the Port of Marseille’s docks, destined to house research activities and documentation spaces on the Mediterranean.
The sea is the main unifying element of the Mediterranean world, sailed by the innumerable travels, migrations and trade; it enhances the meeting and the exchange of the communities that live in its coast.
The sea is the central element of the project: the water square enclosed in the building’s interior is the new public space representing the institution.
It is not simply a basin with ornamental intentions, but rather the union, the means of contact that orients, animates, and organises the building as a whole.
The new Villa Méditerranée, Centre International pour le dialogue et les échanges en Méditerranée is articulated between earth and sea.
The water of the Gulf of Marseilles enters between the building’s two horizontal planes (that of the conference hall and exhibition centre) creating a water square capable of harbouring fishing boats, sail boats or simply serving as a swimming pool and moorings for small pleasure boats.
The building has been thought as a place in dialogue with the surrounded landscape (earth, city, sea…) revealing the site’s values and opening up to the Mediterranean.
A cantilever of 36m is suspended at 14m from the sea level hosting an exhibition area of ca. 1500 sqm, it is enlighten by side windows, roof-lights and walkable glasses in the floor.
A conference centre of 2500 smq is located underwater; here the contact with the sea is possible through portholes. A big vertical entrance hall links together the main spaces and other smaller rooms which host offices, restaurant and other services.
The new construction combines an apparent simplicity with a real richness of spaces, paths and functions. The patio is a fundamental element of the mediterranean architecture and it has been chosen as the central element in the design process. Its ability to create at the same time an interior space and a filter towards the exterior is the key point to read and dialogue with the esplanade j4 and with the entire port. The result is a generous place, flexible and multifunctional, capable to host the unexpected.
Architecture: Boeri Studio (Stefano Boeri, Gianandrea Barreca, Giovanni La Varra) Ivan di Pol, Jean Pierre Manfredi, Alain Goetschy, AR&C; Design Team: Mario Bastianelli (Project Leader), Davor Popovic (project leader building phase), Marco Brega (project leader competition phase) Collaborators: Alessandro Agosti, Marco Bernardini, Daniele Barillari, Fabio Continanza, Massimo Cutini, Angela Parrozzani
Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in our first movie from the German capital, DMY Berlin founder Joerg Suermann shows us around his favourite neighbourhood of Kreuzberg and tells us why he believes the relaxed atmosphere and low cost of living that attracts many designers to the city can also trap them there.
Our MINI Paceman outside Berlin Tempelhof Airport
“Berlin is a never-finished city. The living cost is not so high here, which means the people have time to think and time to make experiments,” says Suermann. “This is quite a comfortable situation for the designers.”
“But we have also problems,” he continues. “We have not so much industry in Berlin, we have not so many companies that need design. But we have a lot of creative people and so the competition is really hard here.”
Berlin Wall East Side Gallery
Suermann moved to the city in 1993, three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which had divided the city for nearly 30 years. Ten year’s later, in 2003, he founded DMY International Design Festival Berlin.
He says the lifestyle of Berliners has only recently started to change. “I think now, after 20 years [living in Berlin], it’s changed a bit. Now the money is also coming to Berlin, we can feel it. The rent is going much more expensive. But it has also a positive side: for the designers they get more contracts here, they have more work.”
Crack in one of the remaining sections of the Berlin Wall
However, there are still many areas of the city where the cost of living is still low compared to other cities, Suermann says. One such example is Kreuzberg, the central Berlin neighbourhood where he lives and works, which was formerly bordered by the Berlin Wall. “Nobody wanted to live in Kreuzberg, so a lot of foreigners moved here because the rent was really, really cheap,” he says.
Bridge over the river Spree into Kreuzberg
“Now a lot of creative people also come into this area [and] the mix is really interesting. It’s quite lazy – it’s really nice that you can have this easy neighbourhood so near to the centre [of the city].”
Famous Kreuzberg punk club SO36
“We have a lot of galleries here, studios, clubs, bars, cafes,” Suermann continues, pointing out SO36, one of the first German punk clubs to emerge in the 1970s, as well as Burgermeister, a burger restaurant located under a railway bridge in a former public toilet.
Burgermeister restaurant in a former public toilet
“You can start on Friday evening with your party and then continue until Monday morning,” he says. “For Berlin it’s typical; there are a lot of people going out after breakfast.”
But Suermann sounds a note of caution to those young designers expecting an easy ride once they arrive in the city. “A lot of young people come to Berlin and they think, ‘okay, I’m now in the hotspot and I [will] get successful here.”’ he says. “But after a while they find out it’s a really hard fight here.”
River-side bar in Kreuzberg
“If you don’t go outside [of Berlin] you will [get] stuck here. You can have a nice life here, but you have a low income and you’re stuck. And then it’s really complicated to come out of this situation.”
“Most of the successful designers have their studios here, they live here, but they’re working with companies outside from Berlin. I think that’s really important.”
Volcanic rubble is scattered across the curved rooftops of these villas by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma on Jeju Island, South Korea (+ slideshow).
The “art villas” form Block D of the Lotte Jeju Resort, a development of houses designed by different architects, including Dominique Perrault, Yi Jongho and Seung H-Sang.
Kengo Kuma used locally sourced volcanic rocks for the exterior of his buildings, as a reference to over 300 volcanoes and lava cones, called oreums, that are scattered across the island.
“When I visited Jeju Island for the first time, I was so much inspired by this dark, porous volcanic rock and wanted to translate its soft and round touch into architecture,” says Kuma. “As the result, the entire house emerged as a round black stone.”
A neat lattice of timber creates the arching profiles of the rooftops. The volcanic rubble is spread thinly over the surfaces, stretching down to the ground at intervals and receding to make way for rectangular skylights over various rooms.
Kuma explains: “Our intention was [for] the light to come through the black pebbles. Light highlights the texture of the stone, and the ambiguous roof edge can connect the roof with the ground.”
The villas are available to rent or buy and are available in two sizes – 210 and 245 square metres.
When I visited Jeju Island for the first time, I was so much inspired by this dark, porous volcanic rock and wanted to translate its soft and round touch into architecture. As the result, the entire house emerged as a round black stone. From distance, the house appears like a single pebble and when you are close, you notice that many parts of the house are of the black stone.
The stone eaves should be the principal detail for this house. Our intention was the light to come through the black pebbles. Light highlights the texture of the stone, and the ambiguous roof edge can connect the roof with the ground. The detail, placing the black stone on a steel mesh, enabled us to realise such vague and subtle edge.
New York designer Joe Doucet created this mirror that makes the viewed look as if they’re immersed in water as a tribute to victims of Hurricane Sandy.
The blue lower half of the circular mirror refracts the light slightly compared to the total reflection of the top, so a small portion of the visage appears in both. The effect is similar to looking through a glass tank that’s half-full of water.
Joe Doucet‘s studio is located in Lower Manhattan, one of the areas worst affected by the storm, and he designed the piece to be a daily reminder of the natural disaster.
“The mirror came about by my thinking that it had been less than six months since Sandy and I almost never thought about it,” he says. “I was struck by how quickly we forget tragedy.”
Named after the unit of measurement for water depth, the one-off Fathom Mirror was created for an exhibition and auctioned off with work by other New York designers to raise money for disaster relief.
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