News: American furniture brand Emeco has reached a settlement in its legal dispute with two companies that were allegedly copying the company’s Navy Chair and Kong Chair.
Pennsylvania-based Emeco issued a press statement detailing the agreement, which declares that East End Imports and Sugar Stores will permanently cease “selling, offering, distributing and marketing reproductions from Emeco’s Navy Chair and Kong Chair line.”
Restoration Hardware’s imitation Naval Chair. Main image: Emeco Navy Chair
The agreement also outlined that the two companies will not “copy, import, manufacture, induce the manufacture of, distribute, import, advertise, market, promote offer for sale or sell any chair or article of furniture that is identical to, confusingly or substantially similar to any article of furniture designed and sold by Emeco.”
The financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed. The dispute was first filed in July last year in New York.
The Kong chair, originally designed by Philippe Starck for the Chinese restaurant Kong in Paris, is made by hand-welding 24 separate pieces of aluminium together and costs £2700. Lexmod, one of the subsidiary companies of the accused, has been producing a chair of similar design made from injection-moulded plastic that retails for £50.
Emeco CEO Gregg Buchinder has said his aim is to set an industry standard by continuing to bring actions against any companies who infringe on the company’s trademarks or designs.
News: the latest celebrity to dip their toes into design is hip-hop artist Snoop, who has teamed up with holiday rental website Airbnb to create a pop-up house during next week’s SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.
Currently using the stage name Snoop Lion, the rapper has designed one of three kitHAUS temporary houses to be erected during the SXSW music, film and technology festival.
This image: pop-up interior by Snoop. Main image: pop-up exterior by Snoop
His design comprises two small rooms connected by a partially covered decked terrace. A lounge glazed on two sides opens out onto another platform in front of the structure.
This room will feature a classic Egg Chair by Danish modernist Arne Jacobsen alongside an illuminated sign that reads “BO$$”.
Pop-up exterior by Capital Cities
Snoop’s design will form part of The Airbnb Park, which is also set to host two more pop-ups designed by artists signed to Los Angeles label Capitol Records.
Pavilions by indie duo Capital Cities and soul musician Allen Stone will be a similar size and layout to Snoop’s contribution. All the artists teamed up with designer and TV host Emily Henderson to create spaces “to best convey their personal styles”.
Pop-up interior by Capital Cities
“Musicians spend so much time on the road,” said Amy Curtis-McIntyre, CMO for Airbnb. “We know they appreciate encountering great local experiences as well as the personal comforts of home when they are away from their own for so long.”
The Airbnb Park will also include public spaces such as dining areas and WiFi hot spots, and will be open from 11 to 15 March. SXSW runs from 7 to 16 March.
Pop-up exterior by Allen Stone
Snoop, whose real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Junior and who went by the alias Snoop Dogg until 2012, isn’t the first celebrity to unveil design projects.
Foster + Partners first unveiled plans to build the residential tower at 610 Lexington Avenue in 2005, but was stalled by the 2008 recession. Replacing the old YWCA building, the 61-storey structure will sit alongside Mies van der Rohe’s 38-storey Seagram Building and SOM’s 21-storey Lever House, both of which were completed in the 1950s.
The building’s slender shape is intended by the architects to capture “Mies’s philosophy of rationality, simplicity and clarity”, and will feature a sheer glass facade that will stand in contrast to the dark bronze exterior of the Seagram.
“It’s not simply about our new building, but about the composition it creates together with one of the twentieth century’s greatest,” said Foster + Partners architect Chris Connell. “In contrast to Seagram’s dark bronze, our tower will have a pure white, undulating skin. Its proportions are almost impossibly slim and the views will be just incredible.”
A total of 91 apartments will occupy the tower, with many taking up entire floors, while a glazed atrium will connect the residences with a smaller building accommodating a bar and restaurant, as well as a spa and swimming pool facility.
Connell added: “Simplicity of design is often the hardest thing to achieve but in a sophisticated marketplace, people appreciate the timeless beauty that comes from it. Our design philosophy has always extended through the entire building and we will look to create interiors that blend seamlessly with the exterior approach.”
Construction is set to complete by the winter of 2017. Approximately 2000-square-metres of the building will be allocated as commercial space.
Here’s the original project description from Foster + Partners:
610 Lexington Avenue New York City, USA 2005
This 61-storey residential tower at 610 Lexington Avenue continues the practice’s investigations into the nature of the tall building in New York, exploring the dynamic between the city and its skyline. Located on the corner of Lexington and 53rd Street, it replaces the old YWCA building in Midtown Manhattan. Formally, it responds to the precedent set by two neighbouring twentieth-century Modernist icons – SOM’s 21-storey Lever House of 1952 and Mies van der Rohe’s 38-storey Seagram Building of 1958. In the spirit of Mies’s philosophy of rationality, simplicity and clarity, the tower has a slender, minimalist geometric form, designed to complement these distinguished neighbours.
The entrance is recessed beneath a canopy that sits harmoniously alongside the entrance and pavilion of the Seagram Building. The entry sequence continues on a single plane from the street to reveal a glazed atrium that joins the tower to a smaller building on the right. The smaller building houses a bar and restaurant, a spa and swimming pool, the tower contains lounge areas and apartment levels. From the floor of the atrium, the tower rises up like a soaring vertical blade, the view up creating a sense of drama and reinforcing the connection between the summit and the ground.
Some of the larger apartments occupy the entire floor area of the higher levels. The tower’s slender form creates a narrow floor plate, allowing the interior spaces to be flooded with daylight and creating spectacular views across the city from every side. An innovative glazed skin wraps around the building, concealing the structural elements which are further masked beneath integrated shadow boxes. To preserve the smooth appearance of the facade, opening vents in the glazing flap discreetly inwards. The effect is a sheer envelope that shines in brilliant contrast to the dark bronze of the Seagram building.
News: British curator Beatrice Galilee has been appointed to a newly created role as curator of architecture and design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Beatrice Galilee, who was chief curator of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale last summer, will take up one of two new positions at The Metropolitan Museum in the department of modern and contemporary art, as part of an expansion that will see the institute move into the Marcel Breuer-designed museum building on Madison Avenue currently occupied by The Whitney.
“Beatrice Galilee will join the staff of our department of modern and contemporary art as it expands to embrace a more global program and mandate,” said museum director Thomas P. Campbell. “She brings to the position her strong international experience in the presentation and study of architecture and design-related work.”
Department chairman Sheena Wagstaff added: “This is a new position at the Museum, and a timely appointment that will enhance a vital area of scholarship as we build the collection and plan our programming for the Breuer project. We are thrilled to welcome a curator with a reputation for her innovative approach as well as a comprehensive knowledge of the field.”
Starting later this spring, Galilee’s position is entitled Daniel Brodsky Associate Curator of Architecture and Design after the museum’s chairman, while a second position dedicated to Latin American Art will be named after Brodsky’s wife and art historian Estrellita B. Brodsky.
News: French studio LAN has won a competition to revamp the Grand Palais exhibition centre in Paris with plans to restore galleries around the Grand Nave and insert a new entrance court.
LAN proposes to restructure and restore the “original coherence and sense of transparency” of the grand Beaux Arts building, which was constructed for the World’s Fair of 1900 at the eastern end of the Champs-Elysées, and which features a barrel-vaulted glass and iron roof.
The first intervention will be to adapt entrances on the northern and southern facades. A pair of gentle ramps will follow the curvature of the existing fountain to lead visitors to the main access on Avenue du Général-Eisenhower, while the riverside entrance will serve as a dedicated arrival point for special exhibitions and the restaurant.
Both entrances will lead through to a new two-storey ambulatory between the Grand Nave and the rotunda of the adjoining Palais d’Antin. Voids in the floorplates will create double-height ceilings and stairwells, allowing the space to function as the connecting area between all exhibitions.
Existing galleries will be re-planned to allow greater flexibility, while a new exhibition space for contemporary art and live performance will be created within the Palais d’Antin.
Old bay windows and passageways will be opened up throughout the building, plus visitors will be given the opportunity to explore the roof.
“These interventions represent a unique opportunity to rediscover the traces and ways in which the Grand Palais has withstood the test of time,” said the architects. “Our credo for the New Grand Palais is to complete and strengthen its formal logic through interventions that return a sense of modernity to its whole, all the while respecting its traditional identity.”
LAN will also add spaces for logistics and car parking within a new basement storey, install a climate-control system and modernise existing systems to bring the whole building in line with current building regulations.
Here’s a more detailed project description from LAN:
Grand-Palais
The new Grand Palais: an example of modernity
To our contemporary eyes, the Grand Palais is both an idea and a symbol of modernity. It is a hybrid building in terms of its architecture, its usage and its history. Neither a museum nor a simple monument, its architecture has an identity all its own, centred around the notion of a “culture machine”, a spatial means for hosting a vast diversity of events and audiences that exponentially exalts the site’s “universal” and “republican” vocation. The restoration and restructuring of the entire monument affords us the chance to reinforce this aspiration.
The coming restructuring foresees the implementation of a new circulation mechanism centred around the middle building, the restoration of the galleries surrounding the Grand Nave, the installation of a climate control system, the creation of a logistics centre, bringing the entire building up to code, and opening the large bay windows and passageways in order to restore the building’s original coherence and sense of transparency. These interventions represent a unique opportunity to re-discover the traces and ways in which the Grand Palais has withstood the test of time, survived changes in its function, to assert architecture as a point of departure, and the space as nurturing life and society.
Even though the initial reason for building the Grand Palais was to provide a site for presenting and promoting French artistic culture during the World’s Fair of 1900, the plan nevertheless envisioned durability and flexibility from the outset. Even though these many adaptations progressively complicated and depreciated certain parts of the Grand Palais, the intelligence of its general form and its original spatial intent have helped it survive these episodes and change with the times.
Our credo for the New Grand Palais is to complete and strengthen its formal logic through interventions that return a sense of modernity to its whole, all the while respecting its traditional identity.
The Jean Perrin Square and the ‘Jardin de la Reine’
The logical consequence of revamping the northern and southern access points, one of the challenges of the project, is that the middle building lies at the heart of our intervention. Our wish is to reinforce the sense of unity between the Grand Palais and the Palais d’Antin and to make the middle building the meeting point between the two. This approach respects the architects’ original intentions, namely to render the spaces and their development highly legible to users, such that they implicitly signify the building’s function.
The pure geometry of the rediscovered circle creates a new symbol and marker at the urban level for the entrance to the New Grand Palais. It will become a veritable place of its own that can host planned or spontaneous activities. Two ramps, designed on the basis of the geometric matrix provided by the steps and the fountain, will lead visitors from the level of the square at the base of the building towards the entrance. Facing the Seine there will be the entrance for specific audience and the independent access to the restaurant. The latter takes advantage of a large terrace orientated to the south, located below the Jardin de la Reine.
By creating a progressive transition from the urban space to that of the galleries, the first two floors of the middle building contain the ambulatory. It is a majestic, open volume with multiple levels that will allow the public to embrace the Grand Nave and the rotunda of the Palais d’Antin at the same time. In fact, it emphasizes the original east-west axis of the composition. Situated along the lower main level, ‘La Grande Rue des Palais’ organizes the different entrance phases in a clear sequence before leading the public to the various activities offered. The ambulatory will become the connecting platform for all exhibitions at the new Grand Palais. The materials chosen for la Grande Rue des Palais will link the exterior to the interior, the existing to the new. The dichotomy between the building’s foundation wall and the piano nobile, perceptible on the outside because of the change in stone colour, will continue inside the building.
Section C – click for larger image
The exhibition spaces
The restructuring of the National Galleries seeks to take into account the interdependence between comprehending a work and its formal and conceptual presentation. This becomes a unique opportunity to develop a vast range of diverse “situations” in terms of volumes, light, materials, and their relationship to the outside. It’s not simply a question of making the volumes flexible, but of giving them the ability to become an event in and of themselves. This process is not confined to the galleries; it can happen anywhere in the building, wherever the structure allows for it. By integrating innovative museographic concepts into the institution, the museum will be able to host works that, until now, have only been seen in alternative spaces for brief periods of time, and which have in fact not been commented on or valued enough.
The Palais de la Découverte will expose the public to other forms of culture, such as exhibitions, contemporary art, or high-quality live performances. Conversely, the public visiting the Grand Nave and the galleries will be exposed to new experiences upon visiting the Palais de la Découverte. The new temporary gallery in the Palais de la Découverte has been conceived with this in mind, as its central location concretises the link between these two realities.
For this project to become an effective way to hosting very diverse events and publics, it first of all demands a clear, flexible, and adaptable structuring of the spaces at hand. More than simply managing current needs, our proposal opens the door to the future evolutions of these needs. What is at stake is formulating a vision that in the long term can accept new parameters, evolutions in technology, and paradigm shifts.
The program led us to create an underground level, which will host the logistics spaces and the associated parking and loading spaces. These technical works will permit an increase in visitor capacity to the Grand Palais. The Grand Nave will thus be able to accommodate more than 11,000 persons compared to the current 5,200, and this will increase its total visitor capacity from the current 16,500 to more than 21,900 persons.
From the Grand Palais to the city – the flow of tourists and the observatory
The movement of visitors within the Grand Palais represents an opportunity for “showing off” the architecture. By drawing the visitor’s attention, these views will frame “details” in the architecture and the landscape, thereby giving them emphasis. These views reveal themselves progressively as one walks through the space. They disclose the connection of the spaces that allow visitors to locate themselves within the building and in relation to the city. The internal tourist itinerary continues outside, along the rooftop of the Grand Palais, allowing visitors to discover the roof, and it will provide them with unobstructed, totally new vistas of Paris.
The monument to the dawn of sustainable development
We made use of a philosophy based on five main design values: Effectiveness, Sobriety, Strengthening Cultural Heritage, Minimal and Passive Intervention, and Remaining at the Service of Users. By analysing what is already there, the project is able to resolve and transform the challenges into strengths while at the same time identifying and preserving the quality of the inherited resources. Users (and future uses) have been placed at the heart of the design process by attempting to understand the many activities exercised and also by taking into account comfort and environmental requirements, be they climatic, acoustic, lighting-related, hygrothermic, and so forth. This intersection of situations, inherited resources, practices and activities, comfort and environmental requirements constitute the multi-faceted basis for this intervention. To reveal what is already there means to draw on the inherited resources to construct micro-contextual responses. One must in the end be hyper-contextual.
“They needed a unifying idea, regardless of whether you’re an archivist in white gloves taking care of treasures in film, or a Steven Spielberg type,” said 180LA’s chief creative officer William Gelner.
The famous silhouette of the golden statue presented to award winners sits within the “A” in “Oscars” and is also used inversely on a gold triangle to stand for “Academy”.
A sans-serif typeface was chosen as the unifying font, used in all capitals and coloured gold. This font will be used on the envelopes concealing winners’ names during the event this weekend.
Previous logo of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science
The previous logo, which also features the statuette, had been in use by the Academy since the 1920s.
The eighty-sixth Oscars will take place on Sunday 2 March at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre in LA.
News:NASA is developing robots made from a tensile system of interlocking rods and cables that can transform from flat components into a ball shape then tense and flex to roll around the surface of planets.
Researchers at the Intelligent Systems Division of NASA‘s Ames Research Center in California designed the Super Ball Bot robots as a more flexible and robust alternative to conventional probes, which can be damaged by the impact of landing on a planet’s surface.
“Current robot designs are delicate, requiring combinations of devices such as parachutes, retrorockets and impact balloons to minimise impact forces and to place a robot in a proper orientation,” said the research team led by Vytas SunSpiral and Adrian Agogino.
“Instead, we propose to develop a radically different robot based on a ‘tensegrity’ built purely upon tensile and compression elements.”
Concept drawing of the Super Ball Bot structure
Constructed from a network of rods and cables that surround and protect the scientific payload at its centre, the lightweight collapsible design is developed using the principles of tensegrity pioneered by American architect and engineer Buckminster Fuller in the 1960s.
Instead of employing wheels or tracks, the robots move by using a system of motors to shorten and lengthen cables connecting the rods, which changes the balance of tension in the structure and causes it to jerk and roll across the ground.
Super Ball Bot mission concept
The flexibility of the system enables the different points that touch the ground to adjust according to what they’re interacting with, allowing the robots to navigate across hills, debris and uneven terrain.
The robots could be flat-packed for transportation and unfold into a three-dimensional configuration in preparation for landing on a planet’s surface, at which point the structure would compress to absorb the energy of the impact.
Super Ball Bots could be deployed from a spacecraft and would bounce to a landing before exploring the planet
“These robots can be lightweight, absorb strong impacts, are redundant against single-point failures, can recover from different landing orientations and are easy to collapse and uncollapse,” the researchers added. “We believe tensegrity robot technology can play a critical role in future planetary exploration.”
Groups of dozens or even hundreds of probes could be launched onto a planet and operate as a coordinated and interactive team to gather samples.
The scientists have constructed prototypes using poles around one metre in length to demonstrate their principles, but claim that much larger versions could be built to carry larger scientific instruments.
News: alternatives to the current United Kingdom flag presented by a national flag charity have provoked a debate about whether a new design should be commissioned if Scotland chooses independence in its upcoming referendum.
The union jack flag with gold St David’s cross added
The Flag Institute, an independent charity dedicated to the study and documentation of flags, asked experts and members of the public to design new versions of the union jack that would reflect Scotland’s independence.
Design exchanging the blue of Scotland’s cross of St Andrew with the black of Wales’ cross of St. David
The designs were proposed by people responding to a survey conducted by the Flag Institute, in which 65 percent of respondents claimed the Union Flag should change if Scotland becomes independent.
Design with a colour change from blue to black and symbols representing the different (current) home nations
The United Kingdom’s current flag features the saltire of St Andrew representing Scotland, the English cross of St George and the red saltire of St Patrick for Ireland.
Design incorporating the green of the Welsh Dragon flag
Suggestion for a possible new flag included replacing the saltire with colours or shapes representing Wales, which was part of the English kingdom when the flag was originally designed.
Design with black and gold from the St. David flag
One proposal showed the blue saltire of St Andrew replaced with the black ground and yellow cross of the patron saint of Wales, St David.
Design combining elements from the existing flags
Other designs employed the red, white and green colours of the Welsh Dragon flag, or featured the dragon itself. A design by John Yates fragmented the colours and crosses of each nation into a pattern of overlapping shapes, while others integrated royal iconography.
Modern interpretation of the flag with the colours of St David’s flag and the Scottish blue
The Flag Institute’s chief executive Charles Ashburner pointed out that the organisation is neither encouraging nor discouraging a change to the flag, but is “simply here to facilitate and inform the debate if there is an appetite for such a thing.”
Design with the Royal Coat of Arms added and surrounded by a garland of items symbolic of the Commonwealth nations
“As this subject has generated the largest post bag of any single subject in our history ever, there clearly is such an appetite,” Ashburner added.
Design with the white of St Andrew’s saltire removed and a crown and Royal Standard included
Design with elements of the Welsh Dragon flag (Y Ddraig Goch)
The Scottish public will vote on the issue of independence on 18 September 2014, however the College of Arms, which oversees matters relating to flags and heraldry and acts under Crown Authority, told British broadcaster ITV that there are no plans to change the Union Flag if Scotland becomes an independent state.
News: British designer Thomas Heatherwick has unveiled plans to create a new art gallery at the V&A Waterfront museum in Cape Town by hollowing out sections of a grain silo complex.
Presented at the Design Indaba 2014 conference this week, Heatherwick Studio‘s proposal is to give the V&A Waterfront a building dedicated to contemporary African art within the cluster of 42 concrete tubes that make up a historic grain silo structure.
“How do you turn 42 vertical concrete tubes into a place to experience contemporary culture? Our thoughts wrestled with the extraordinary physical facts of the building,” explained Thomas Heatherwick.
“There is no large open space within the densely packed tubes and it is not possible to experience these volumes from inside,” he continued. “Rather than strip out the evidence of the building’s industrial heritage, we wanted to find a way to enjoy and celebrate it. We could either fight a building made of concrete tubes or enjoy its tube-iness.”
A elliptical section will be hollowed out from the centre of the nine-storey building to create a grand atrium that will be filled with light from a glass roof overhead. Some silo chambers will be carved open at ground level to accommodate exhibition galleries, while others will accommodate elevators.
Heatherwick added: “Unlike many conversions of historic buildings that have grand spaces ready to be repurposed, this building has none. The project has become about imagining an interior carved from within an infrastructural object whilst celebrating the building’s character.”
Layers of render and paint will be removed from the existing facades to reveal the raw concrete of the silos, while windows will be created from bulging transparent pillows.
“Thomas Heatherwick understood how to interpret the industrial narrative of the building, and this was the major breakthrough,” said V&A Waterfront CEO David Green. “His design respects the heritage of the building while bringing iconic design and purpose to the building.”
Named Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), the building will be a partnership between V&A Waterfront and entrepreneur Jochen Zeitz, whose art collection will provide the museum’s permanent exhibition within some of the 80 proposed galleries.
Education facilities and sit-specific exhibition areas will be provided within the existing underground tunnels. Other features will include a rooftop sculpture garden, an art conservation facility, bookshops, and cafe and restaurant areas.
Heatherwick will partner with local firms Van Der Merwe Miszewski, Rick Brown Associates and Jacobs Parker on the delivery and fit out of the museum.
Read on for the press release from V&A Waterfront:
V&A Waterfront unveils architectural plans by Heatherwick Studio for the historic Grain Silo Complex
Imagine forty‐two 33-metre high concrete tubes each with a diameter of 5.5 metres, with no open space to experience the volume from within. Imagine redesigning this into a functional space that will not only pay tribute to its original industrial design and soul, but will become a major, not-for-profit cultural institution housing the most significant collection of contemporary art from Africa and its Diaspora.
The brief given to Heatherwick Studio was to reimagine the Grain Silo Complex at the V&A Waterfront with an architectural intervention inspired by its own historic character. The project called for a solution that would be unique for Africa and create the highest possible quality of exhibition space for the work displayed inside.
The V&A Waterfront’s challenge to repurpose what was once the tallest building on the Cape Town skyline caught the imagination of internationally acclaimed designer Thomas Heatherwick and his innovative team of architects.
This was a chance to do more than just appropriate a former industrial building to display art, but to imagine a new kind of museum in an African context.
The R500‐million redevelopment project, announced in November 2013 as a partnership between the V&A Waterfront and Jochen Zeitz will retain and honour the historic fabric and soul of the building while transforming the interior into a unique, cutting‐edge space to house the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA). Considered the most extensive and representative collection of contemporary art from Africa, the Zeitz Collection has been gifted in perpetuity to this non‐profit institution by ex‐Puma CEO and Chairman, Jochen Zeitz. The collection will be showcased in 9,500m2 of custom‐designed space spread over nine floors, of which 6,000 m2 will be dedicated exhibition space.
Heatherwick Studio, based in London, is recognised internationally for projects including the UK Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, The London 2012 Olympic Cauldron, the New Bus for London and the redevelopment of Pacific Place, a 640,000m2 complex in the centre of Hong Kong.
For the Zeitz MOCAA project, Heatherwick Studio will partner with three local delivery partners; Van Der Merwe Miszewski (VDMMA), Rick Brown Associates (RBA) and Jacobs Parker. Jacobs Parker will be the lead designer for the Museum fit out.
The key challenge has been to preserve the original industrial identity of the building, which is heritage listed, and to retain choice pieces of machinery to illustrate and maintain its early working character. Heatherwick Studio has met the brief with characteristic boldness and creative flair. The final design reveals a harmonious union of concrete and metal with crisp white spaces enveloped in light.
The solution developed by Heatherwick Studio was to carve galleries and a central circulation space from the silos’ cellular concrete structure to create an exceptionally spacious, cathedral‐like central atrium filled with light from an overhead glass roof. The architects have cut a cross‐section through eight of the central concrete tubes. The result will be an oval atrium surrounded by concrete shafts overhead and to the sides. Light streaming through the new glass roof will accentuate the roundness of the tubes. The chemistry of these intersecting geometries creates an extraordinary display of edges, achieved with advanced concrete cutting techniques. This atrium space will be used for monumental art commissions not seen in Africa until this construction.
The other silo bins will be carved away above ground level leaving the rounded exterior walls intact. Inside pristine white cubes will provide gallery spaces not only for the Zeitz MOCAA permanent collection, but also for international travelling exhibitions. Zeitz MOCAA will have 80 galleries, 18 education areas, a rooftop sculpture garden, a state of the art storage and conservation area, and Centres for Performative Practice, the Moving Image, Curatorial Excellence and Education. Heatherwick Studios have designed all the necessary amenities for a public institution of this scale including bookstores, a restaurant and bar, coffee shop, orientation rooms, a donors’ room, fellows’ room and various reading rooms. The extraordinary collection of old underground tunnels will be re‐engineered to create unusual education and site specific spaces for artists to dialogue with the original structure.
Cylindrical lifts rise inside bisected tubes and stairs spiral upwards like giant drill bits. The shafts are capped with strengthened glass that can be walked over, drawing light down into the building.
The monumental facades of the silos and the lower section of the tower are maintained without inserting new windows. The thick layers of render and paint are removed to reveal the raw beauty of the original concrete.
From the outside, the greatest visible change is the creation of special pillowed glazing panels, inserted into the existing geometry of the grain elevator’s upper floors, which bulge outward as if gently inflated. By night, this transforms the building’s upper storeys into a glowing lantern or beacon in the harbour.
News: international architecture firms IND and Powerhouse Company have won a competition to design a 100-metre-tall broadcast and observation tower in Çanakkale, Turkey, with a design that resembles a continuous ribbon.
Planned for a forested hilltop on the outskirts of the historic city of Çanakkale, the proposal by IND (Inter.National.Design) and Powerhouse Company is based on an undulating loop that rises above the ground and stretches upwards to create the tower.
The competition brief called for a building that provides recreational facilities including exhibition spaces and observation decks, as well as the communications mast.
“The design of the new Çanakkale Antenna Tower resolves these paradoxes by uniting all the different functions and spatial requirement into one spatial gesture,” said a statement about the winning design.
Visitors will be able to wander along a raised path that will loop around the site and lead to the visitor centre, which will be built above the treetops on the edge of the hill facing the city.
The tower is deliberately located away from the visitor centre to reduce the danger of radiation from the transmitters fixed to its surface affecting visitors or staff, and is designed with a simple form that will enable it to accommodate future technologies.
“The antenna tower is formed by joining the two vertical paths, creating a gracious gateway under which the visitors enter the premises,” added the statement. “This gesture creates a strong visual identity; an iconic appearance from afar that is transformed into an elaborate scenic experience when up close.”
By lifting the structure off the ground, the architects aim to minimise its impact on the surrounding forest. The space surrounded by the looping pathway will be dedicated to use as a park that visitors will be able to access at points where the path touches the ground, and from a staircase beneath the viewing deck.
The architects collaborated with infrastructure and engineering firm ABT on the design of the winning proposal.
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