Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

Architects Snøhetta and AECOM have revealed their latest renderings of a new stadium for NBA basketball team the Golden State Warriors on the waterfront in San Francisco (+ slideshow).

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

Set to replace the team’s existing home at the Oracle Arena in Oakland when the lease expires in 2017, the 67,000 square-metre arena will be constructed in time for the start of the 2017-18 basketball season and will also provide a venue for music concerts, conventions and other cultural events.

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

Snøhetta and AECOM‘s latest design shows a circular building with large areas of glazing around the facade, designed to give visitors a view from outside into the practice facility and the arena during games.

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

Additional high-level windows will allow spectators inside the building a view through the walls to Bay Bridge just beyond.

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

“We believe our new design lives up to the importance of this incredible waterfront site and fuses together the vision of the Golden State Warriors with the landscape of the bay,” says Craig Dykers, architect and founding director of Snøhetta.

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

The Golden State Warriors arena will also accommodate 8000-square-metres of retail, plus a fire station with docks for two fireboats.

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

The large disc-like roof is to be covered with LEDs and will be used for the projection of images and motifs.

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

Construction is expected to take three years and will include $100 million worth of repairs to the piers, where the arena is set to be located.

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

Both Snøhetta and AECOM are also currently involved in the construction of several other major sport and event venues. AECOM has designed the masterplan for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, while Snøhetta is working on an opera house in South Korea and the extension of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

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Here’s more information from the design team:


Golden State Warriors release updated design of new arena on San Francisco waterfront

Today the Golden State Warriors released the updated design of their new sports and entertainment arena on the waterfront at Piers 30-32 in San Francisco.

“This new design by Snøhetta and AECOM builds on the first draft we released to create an arena experience on the waterfront that is unique, community-focused and unlike any other venue in existence around the world,” said Joe Lacob, Co-Executive Chairman and CEO of the Warriors. “The new design creates more open space and accessibility to the waterfront, new berths for fireboats and cruise ships and public views into the arena that will be one-of-a-kind for an NBA venue.”

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

“From the beginning, we’ve said this arena will be world-class, incorporating the best in design, technology and sustainability,” said Peter Guber, Co-Executive Chairman of the Warriors. “Snøhetta and AECOM have done a masterful job designing an arena and public space that will serve as the model for a 21st century digital sports and entertainment center.”

The new arena design now includes a fire station with berths for two fireboats, a deep-water berth for large ships, public access space on the eastern edge of the pier, a sustainable “Gabion Wall” stormwater filtration system and public views that allow visitors to see inside the Golden State Warriors practice facility and into the arena during Warriors games. Additionally, the Warriors have removed nearly 750 seats and several luxury suites to allow fans to view the Bay Bridge from their seats inside the arena during games. The exterior roof of the arena will also feature small LEDs similar to the current Bay Lights art installation that can project images, patterns or shapes.

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM

“We believe our new design lives up to the importance of this incredible waterfront site and fuses together the vision of the Golden State Warriors with the landscape of the bay and the community input we’ve heard over the past several months,” said Craig Dykers, Architect and Founding Partner of Snøhetta. “When people view the new designs, they will see a place that provides for everyone: fans, pedestrians, bicyclists, tourists, local residents and the diverse community of San Francisco.”

“The NBA is thrilled about this new design and excited that the Bay Area’s NBA team will be playing in a unique, world-class facility on the San Francisco waterfront,” said NBA Commissioner David Stern. “Once completed, the Warriors’ arena will provide our fans with one of the most technologically advanced and unique fan experiences in the NBA and all of professional sports.”

“These updated designs show the incredible potential of a new waterfront venue at Piers 30-32,” said San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. “In addition to hosting the Warriors and enabling our city to host major indoor sporting events and concerts, the Piers 30-32 project will provide tremendous public benefits to San Francisco, including a new fire station, berths for large ships and SFFD fire boats and an expansive new civic space for fans, residents and tourists to enjoy.”

Golden State Warriors arena by Snøhetta and AECOM
Proposed site plan – click for larger image

The privately financed arena will be located at Piers 30-32 on San Francisco Bay, south of the Bay Bridge, between the Ferry Building and AT&T Park.

Under the agreement, the City will provide the land and the Warriors will pay to repair the crumbling piers and privately finance the arena project. The cost of repairs alone is estimated at $100-120 million.

The new facility will host the Bay Area’s NBA basketball team, as well as provide a spectacular new venue for top-tier concerts, cultural events and conventions – prominent events the City currently cannot accommodate.

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SO-IL chosen for art museum at University of California

News: New York studio SO-IL has won a competition to design an art museum at the University of California’s Davis campus with plans that will unite indoor and outdoor spaces beneath a large steel roof.

Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art by SO-IL with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Designed in collaboration with architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art is conceived by SO-IL as a landscape of galleries and workshops that reference the flat plains of of California’s Central Valley.

Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art by SO-IL with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

The 4000-square-metre canopy will stretch out across the entire site, creating varying degrees of shelter in different sections. “Its form and its shape are an abstract patchwork of geometric forms that in a way refers to the agricultural landscape and the vast horizon,” says SO-IL’s Florian Idenburg.

Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art by SO-IL with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Beneath the roof, the building will contain galleries for the University of California‘s collection of artworks, as well as temporary exhibition spaces, lectures rooms, studios and artists’ residences.

Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art by SO-IL with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

“I think the museum of the future will be one that needs to be able to accommodate a lot of change,” says Idenburg. “A museum on campus, like here, should be a testing ground for new ideas. We see the building itself offering a stage on which all these different things can happen.”

Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art by SO-IL with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Construction of the museum is set to begin next year.

SO–IL, led by Idenburg and his wife Jing Liu, is based in Brooklyn. Past projects by the studio include the snaking white tent that hosts New York’s Frieze Art Fair and an art gallery draped in chain mail in South Korea. See more architecture by SO-IL.

Here’s a project description from the design team:


Grand Canopy

Davis is an ideal setting for a museum that will sow new ways of thinking about the experience of art. The Central Valley breathes a spirit of optimism. Whether one is influenced by the sweeping views over the flat plains beyond to the horizon, or the sense of empowerment one feels when being able to cultivate and grow freely – the spirit of this place is of invention and imagination. It is precisely this spirit we capture in our architectural proposal for the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.

As an overarching move, the design proposes a 50,000 square-foot permeable cover – a “Grand Canopy” – over both site and building. The distinct shape of this open roof presents a new symbol for the campus. The Canopy extends over the site, blurring its edges, and creating a sensory landscape of activities and scales. The Canopy works in two important ways: first, to generate a field of experimentation, an infrastructure, and stage for events; and second, as an urban device that creates a new locus of activity and center of gravity on campus. The Canopy transforms the site into a field of diverse spaces. At night, the illuminated canopy becomes a beacon within the campus and to the city beyond.

Inspired by the quilted agrarian landscape that stretches beyond the site, the design inherits the idea of diverse landscapes, textures and colors stitched together. Like the Central Valley, the landscape under the Canopy becomes shaped and activated by changing light and seasons. Its unique form engenders curiosity from a distance, like a lone hill on a skyline. Catalyzing exploration and curiosity, the Canopy produces constantly changing silhouettes and profiles as visitors move through the site.

Under the Canopy, the site forms a continuous landscape, tying it in with its context. Lines from the site and its surroundings trace through to shape the design. Interwoven curved and straight sections seamlessly define inside and outside. The result is a portfolio of interconnected interior and exterior spaces, all with distinct spatial qualities and characteristics that trigger diverse activities and create informal opportunities for learning and interaction. Textures and landscape break the program down into smaller volumes to achieve a human, approachable scale. The future art museum is neither isolated nor exclusive, but open and permeable; not a static shrine, but a constantly evolving public event.

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The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Revellers at this year’s Coachella festival in California can visit a silent disco inside a dome of colour-changing balls by Spanish designer Héctor Serrano (+ slideshow).

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Produced by Borealis, the installation arm of Serrano’s studio, The Dome is built from nearly 1000 inflated PVC spheres with LED lights at their centres. “They’re kind of like beach balls,” Serrano told Dezeen.

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Each LED is connected to a computerised system, which relays a combination of around 50 different patterns of light and colour. The program can be downloaded to a smartphone or tablet, making it easy to alter the sequence.

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Cables fix each of the balls around the skeletal framework of the dome.

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Serrano says he originally planned to rent a much smaller structure, but ended up using a dome that Coachella already owned.

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

“It’s four times bigger than our original proposal,” he explains. “We had to have the balls custom made in China to get them ready in time.”

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

The structure was installed for the two weekends of the annual music festival and will be dismantled later this month.

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Héctor Serrano is based in London. Past projects by the designer include a speaker designed to look like a computer icon and a set of accessories for turning balloons into animal heads. See more design by Héctor Serrano.

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Other designs we’ve featured from music festivals include tree-mounted urinals at Roskilde in Denmark and star-shaped lights from Burning Man festival in Nevada.

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Here’s some more information from Héctor Serrano:


The Dome by Borealis for Coachella

Inspired by the Pantheon dome in Rome, the installation resemblance a cathedral of light, an art piece where the visitor is immerse in a 360º unique experience completely surround with light. The dome works as immersive environments when inside and as large scale sculpture when view from outside. The dome is made out of nearly 1000 spheres and LEDs that are used as a pixel, creating a volumetric environment with infinite patterns and possibilities.

The Dome by Héctor Serrano at Coachella

Borealis is the installation division of Hector Serrano. The Dome launches on Friday 12 April and will be open for Coachella two weekends 12-15 and 19-21 and attended by more than 200,000 people. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is an annual three-day music and arts festival, held in Indio, California in the Inland Empire’s Coachella Valley. The event features many music genres, including rock, indie, hip hop, and electronic music, as well as sculpture.

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Dominic Owen’s Z-Boys: Cardboard skateboards by the London-based illustrator celebrate a legendary crew of Southern Californian misfits

Dominic Owen's Z-Boys


Home to many of our favorite drawers, London seems to be boiling over with talented illustrators as of late. The most recent to catch our eye is the young and restless Dominic Owen. His character-driven illustrations…

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Neon Waterfalls in Long Exposure

Une superbe série photographique « Neon Waterfalls » de la part de Sean Lenz et Kristoffer Abildgaard qui ont placé dans des cascades et chutes d’eaux en Californie des bâtons lumineux. Une utilisation brillante de la longue exposition, pour capturer l’univers et la lumière. Plus d’images de ce projet dans la suite de l’article.

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Foster’s Apple campus nearly $2 billion over budget

Foster's Apple campus $2 billion over budget

News: the estimated cost of Apple’s Foster + Partners-designed campus in Cupertino, California, has reportedly spiralled from $3 billion to nearly $5 billion over the last two years.

Apple has been working with British firm Foster + Partners to try to cut $1 billion from the budget before proceeding – an undertaking that has caused expensive delays, according to a report by Bloomberg citing five people close to the project.

Foster's Apple campus $2 billion over budget

Costs have also been pushed up by the unique features specified by Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs, who insisted on having no visible seams or gaps in the construction, using polished terrazzo rather than cement flooring and harvesting all interior wood from a certain species of maple.

The building’s curved glass exterior will reportedly require six square kilometres of glass to be bent and shipped over from Germany by manufacturer Seele GmbH, which has doubled the capacity of its plant to supply the Apple project.

Originally scheduled for completion in 2015, the move-in date for the campus has now been pushed back to 2016.

Foster's Apple campus $2 billion over budget

Many of Apple’s rivals are also building new headquarters in California, with Facebook last week given the go-ahead for its Frank Gehry-designed open-plan office and Google revealing plans for a 100,000-square-metre campus in San Francisco Bay.

Last week it was reported that the highly anticipated Apple television, set to launch later this year, will be operated with a digital “iRing” worn on the finger – see all news about Apple.

Foster + Partners recently completed a new airport terminal in Amman, Jordan, inspired by Bedouin tents – see all architecture by Foster + Partners.

Images from Cupertino City Council.

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Xetum Kendrick Collection: Modernist automatic movements made in the spirit of the California sun

Xetum Kendrick Collection


Jeff Kuo founded Xetum to create watches with fresh, California-inspired, modern design and old school Swiss craftsmanship. Launched in 2009, the watches are immediately recognizable, marked by…

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Facebook asks Gehry to design “more anonymous” headquarters

Facebook asks Gehry to design "more anonymous" headquarters

News: Facebook asked Frank Gehry to “tone down” his original plans for its new Silicon Valley campus, according to a partner at the architect’s firm.

Early proposals for the campus, which was given the go-ahead by Menlo Park City Council last week, envisioned a bold, curving facade reminiscent of well-known Gehry buildings such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

“They felt some of those things were too flashy and not in keeping with the kind of the culture of Facebook, so they asked us to make it more anonymous,” said Craig Webb, a partner at Gehry’s practice.

“Frank was quite willing to tone down some of the expression of architecture in the building,” he told the Mercury News, explaining that they plan to disguise the white stucco building with a rooftop garden: “Our intent is that it almost becomes like a hillside, with the landscape really taking the forefront.”

Facebook asks Gehry to design "more anonymous" headquarters

According to one Facebook employee, the 40,000-square-metre building will house 2,800 engineers in a single warehouse-like room.

“Just like we do now, everyone will sit out in the open with desks that can be quickly shuffled around as teams form and break apart around projects,” said Facebook’s environmental design manager Everett Katigbak in a blog post.

“The exterior takes into account the local architecture so that it fits in well with its surroundings. We’re planting a ton of trees on the grounds and more on the rooftop garden that spans the entire building,” he added.

An underground tunnel will connect the Gehry-designed building with Facebook’s existing campus over the road.

Facebook asks Gehry to design "more anonymous" headquarters

Gehry was brought in to design the campus last summer, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating at the time that he wanted an office with “the largest open floor plan in the world”.

The social networking site’s former Palo Alto headquarters was completed by San Francisco firm Studio O+A in 2009.

Facebook isn’t the only Californian technology company expanding into larger headquarters currently, with construction now underway on Apple’s ring-shaped campus in Cupertino designed by Foster + Partners, while Google recently revealed plans for a 100,000-square-metre campus in San Francisco Bay.

Images are by Gehry Partners LLP.

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California Waves

Coup de cœur pour le travail du photographe David Orias qui nous propose de superbes clichés de vagues, prises sur les plages de Californie. De belles images et des couleurs incroyables capturées avec une grande patience et beaucoup de talent. L’ensemble est à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.

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G. Colton Flea Market: Joel Levinson’s ’70s-era photography inspires a weekend bazaar at the LA store

G. Colton Flea Market

About six months ago, Garrett Colton of G. Colton (formerly Standard Goods) discovered the photography of Joel D. Levinson. Colton—who fills his Los Angeles store with new designs alongside vintage objects, magazines and books—was taken with the images in Levinson’s book “Fleamarkets,” which reveals an intimate look at California’s…

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