Hasta La Ideas

This pavilion by London architects Plasma Studio is located at the heart of the 2011 Xi’an International Horticultural Expo, which is currently taking place in China.

The Creativity Pavilion is formed of three angular volumes that cantilever out across the lake, creating a shelter for visitors to walk or sit below.

The shape of the building follows the lines of landscape project Flowing Gardens, also designed by Plasma Studio alongside landscape architects Groundlab, which is a series of jolting pathways directed towards the pavilion.

More stories about the 2011 Xi’an Expo on Dezeen »
More projects by Plasma Studio on Dezeen »

Here are some more details from the press release:

Opening of Xi’an Expo
 Press Release

The next big event in China after the Beijing Olympics and Shanghai Expo with a projected 12 Mio visitors for the coming 6 months, Xi’an International Horticultural Expo has officially opened.

The ancient city of Xi’an- home to the Terracotta Army and many buildings of unique historical significance- is using this opportunity to focus on the current challenges from its recent growth and transformation.
The expo is situated in the Chan-ba Ecological District, a former sandpit where the water was severely degraded in the 1980s. Two decades of work has restored the ecosystem and this expo is able to demonstrate what can be accomplished through the use of the most advanced technology, ideas, and material.
Another challenge that the Expo is starting to address comes from the context of China’s rapid urbanisation process: how to create a sustainable urbanism and provide universal access to open space and nature?

The Creativity Pavilion is located on the edge of the lake as the endpoint to the central axis that starts with the Gate Building, and is the starting point for the water crossing by boat. It ties in with a series of piers that follow the landscape jutting out into the water. The built volume is interwoven with the articulating ground, producing continuities on many levels integrating the landscape and building together.

From this flows the organization of the building massed as three parallel volumes within the landscape, flowing through and underneath, leading to the piers, the volumes themselves hover as cantilevers over the lake. The fluid experience of passing through the landscape continues inside, where all zones are interconnected through the looping system of ramps.

Through its materiality the building again manifests itself as an extension of the ground with its floors and interior walls made from concrete and bronze is used as expression of local identity.

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Garden of 10,000 Bridges by West 8	Tetris Haus by Plasma Studio	Strata Hotel / Königswarte by Plasma Studio

An exhibition of work by London architect Zaha Hadid has opened inside her Mobile Art Pavilion (see our earlier story), which has found its permanent home in Paris having toured New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong since 2008.

The pavilion will remain outside the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and the inaugural exhibition in this location opened at the end of April.

The exhibition, called Une Architecture, includes architectural models, paintings and projections of work produced by Zaha Hadid Architects in recent years.

The exhibition continues until 30 October 2011.

More projects by Zaha Hadid Architects on Dezeen »

The following information is from the architects:

Zaha Hadid une architecture
April 29 – October 30

On 28 April, the exhibition designed by Zaha Hadid inaugurates The Mobile Art Pavilion, a new arts venue installed in front of the Institut du Monde Arabe.

Created by Iraqi born British architect Zaha Hadid for CHANEL in 2007 and commissioned by Karl Lagerfeld, the Mobile Art Pavilion’s opening exhibition showcases a selection of work by the 2004 Pritzker Prize laureate Zaha Hadid, designer of some of the world’s most highly acclaimed projects.

A genuine immersion into the architect’s formal and conceptual repertoire, this exhibition of Hadid’s work is presented within its own architecture.

Translating the intellectual and physical into the sensual and using a wide range of media, the Mobile Art Pavilion unfolds through spatial sequences which engage the visitor in unique and unexpected environments.

The Mobile Art Pavilion, donated by CHANEL to the Institut du monde arabe, will allow the institute to further develop its cultural programmes in the field of contemporary creation.

Mobile Art Pavillon: Historic

“Zaha Hadid” will be the first exhibition held inside the Mobile Art Pavilion since the installation of the pavilion in front of the Institut du monde arabe. CHANEL donated the pavilion to the Institut du monde arabe at the beginning of 2011.

It had previously travelled to Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York since 2007. It will now have a permanent location at the IMA, where it will be used to host exhibitions in line with the centre’s policy of showcasing talent from Arab countries.

Zaha Hadid: About Mobile Art

“I think through our architecture, we can give people a glimpse of another world, and enthuse them, make them excited about ideas. Our architecture is intuitive, radical, international and dynamic. We are concerned with constructing buildings that evoke original experiences, a kind of strangeness and newness that is comparable to the experience of going to a new country. The Mobile Art Pavilion follows these principles of inspiration.” states Zaha Hadid.

Arousing one’s curiosity is a constant theme in the work of Zaha Hadid. The Mobile Art Pavilion is a step in the evolution of Hadid’s architectural language that generates a sculptural sensuality with a coherent formal logic. This new architecture flourishes via the new digital modelling tools that augment the design process with techniques of continuous fluidity.

Zaha Hadid explains this process, “The complexity and technological advances in digital imaging software and construction techniques have made the architecture of the Mobile Art Pavilion possible. It is an architectural language of fluidity and nature, driven by new digital design and manufacturing processes which have enabled us to create the Pavilion’s totally organic forms – instead of the serial order of repetition that marks the architecture of the industrial 20th Century.

Design of Mobile Art

The Mobile Art Pavilion which has been conceived through a system of natural organisation, is also shaped by the functional considerations of the exhibition. However, these further determinations remain secondary and precariously dependent on the overriding formal language of the Pavilion. An enigmatic strangeness has evolved between the Pavilion’s organic system of logic and these functional adaptations – arousing the visitor’s curiosity even further.

In creating the Mobile Art Pavilion, Zaha Hadid has developed the fluid geometries of natural systems into a continuum of fluent and dynamic space – where oppositions between exterior and interior, light and dark, natural and artificial landscapes are synthesised. Lines of energy converge within the Pavilion, constantly redefining the quality of each exhibition space whilst guiding movement through the exhibition.

Content

The exhibition thematically explores a series of research agendas conducted by Zaha Hadid Architects in recent years. Different media is used to show the work; architectural models, silver paintings and projections. A variety of projects from all over the world will be shown, these will include: the Soho Central Business District in Beijing, the Spiralling Tower for the University Campus in Barcelona, the Guggenheim project in Singapore, the recently completed CGMCMA Tower in Marseille and the Pierres Vives building of the department de l’Herault in Montpellier, currently in construction.

The exhibition will also showcase architectural projects from the Arab world such as the Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Centre in the United Arab Emirates, the Nile Tower in Cairo Egypt, the Signature Towers in Dubai and the Rabat Tower in Morocco. Furthermore the exhibition showcases Zaha Hadid Architects’ design research within the parametric paradigm. The parametric towers research project aims to develop a conceptual framework for the design of a prototype tower to be used as the basis for a set of parametric tools that can be applied to a multitude of different specific conditions.

Individual elements such as massing, skin, core, void, and structure are modulated individually and in concert. The final result is a fully malleable system that can differentiate families and fields of towers in response to user input or environmental considerations. Applications of the research into architectural practice are exemplified via a series of Tower competition entries on large urban scales.

The visitor is invited to experience the work of Zaha Hadid Architects on three different levels, by discovering the Mobile Art pavilion (building), viewing the exhibition design (scenography) and seeing the work of the practice (exhibits).

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Rabat Grand Theatre by Zaha Hadid Architects	Zaha Hadid and Suprematism in Zurich	Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum by Zaha Hadid

The Serpentine Gallery in London has unveiled designs for this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion: a walled garden by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.

Zumthor’s design will be the 11th temporary summer pavilion to be built on the lawns in front of the gallery in Kensington Gardens. See all our stories about Peter Zumthor.

See details of Jean Nouvel’s 2010 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion here. See our story about Serpentine Gallery Pavilions from 2000 to 2009.

Images are © Peter Zumthor. Here’s the press release from the Serpentine Gallery:

Revealed: Peter Zumthor’s design for 11th Serpentine Gallery Pavilion July – October 2011

The Serpentine Gallery is delighted to reveal the plans for the Serpentine Gallery

Pavilion 2011 by world-renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. This year’s Pavilion is the 11th commission in the Gallery’s annual series, the world’s first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind. It will be the architect’s first completed building in the UK and will include a specially created garden by the influential Dutch designer Piet Oudolf.

At the heart of Peter Zumthor’s Pavilion is a garden that the architect hopes will inspire visitors to become observers. Zumthor’s says his design ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again – maybe not.’ The design emphasises the role the senses and emotions play in our experience of architecture.With a refined selection of materials Zumthor creates contemplative spaces that evoke the spiritual dimension of our physical environment. As always, Zumthor’s aesthetic goal is to customise the building precisely to its purpose as a physical body and an object of emotional experience.

Zumthor has stated that ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’

Materials have always played an evocative as well as an essential role in the buildings designed by Zumthor. The 2011 Pavilion will be constructed of a lightweight timber frame wrapped with scrim and coated with a black paste mixed with sand. Exterior and interior walls with staggered doorways will offer multiple paths for visitors to follow, gently guiding them to a central, hidden inner garden. The covered walkways and seating surrounding this central space will create a serene, contemplative environment from which visitors may look onto the richly planted sunlit garden, the heart and focus of the building.

With this Pavilion, as with previous structures such as the famous Thermal Baths at Vals, Switzerland, or the Bruder Klaus Chapel in Mechernich, Germany, Zumthor has emphasised the sensory and spiritual aspects of the architectural experience, from the precise yet simple composition and ‘presence’ of the materials, to the handling of scale and the effect of light.

The Serpentine’s Pavilion commission, conceived in 2000 by Gallery Director Julia Peyton-Jones, has become an international site for architectural experimentation and follows a decade of Pavilions by some of the world’s greatest architects. Each pavilion is sited on the Gallery’s lawn for three months and the immediacy of the commission – a maximum of six months from invitation to completion – provides a unique model worldwide.

Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Serpentine Gallery, said: “It is an honour and a great joy to be working with Peter Zumthor on the 11th Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. The commission allows us allowed to connect with best architects in the world and each year is an exciting and completely new experience. Zumthor’s plans will realise an exquisite space for the public to enjoy throughout the summer.”

Zumthor’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion will operate as a public space and as a venue for Park Nights, the Gallery’s high-profile programme of public talks and events. Park Nights will culminate in the annual Serpentine Gallery Marathon in October, now in its sixth year. In 2006 the Park Nights programme included the renowned 24-hour Serpentine Gallery Interview Marathon, convened by Hans Ulrich Obrist and architect Rem Koolhaas; in 2007, by the Serpentine Gallery Experiment Marathon presented by artist Olafur Eliasson and Hans Ulrich Obrist; in 2008, Obrist led over 60 participants in the Serpentine Gallery Manifesto Marathon. This was followed in 2009 by the Serpentine Gallery Poetry Marathon and in 2010 by the Serpentine Gallery Map Marathon.

Peter Zumthor

Born in Basel in 1943, Zumthor trained as a cabinetmaker at the shop of his father, as a designer and architect at the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel and at Pratt Institute, NewYork. In 1979 he established his own practice in Haldenstein, Switzerland. Major Buildings: Protective Housing for Roman Archaeological Excavations, Chur, Switzerland, 1986; Sogn Benedetg Chapel, Sumvitg, Switzerland, 1988; Therme Vals, Switzerland, 1996; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, 1997; Swiss Sound Box, Swiss Pavilion, Expo 2000, Hanover, Germany, 2000; Kolumba Art Museum, Cologne, Germany, 2007; Bruder Klaus Field Chapel,Wachendorf, Germany, 2007.

Major Awards: Carlsberg Architectural Prize, Copenhagen, 1998; Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture, Barcelona, 1998; Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award, Wood in Culture Association, Finland, 2006; Praemium Imperiale, Japan Art Association, 2008; The Pritzker Architecture Prize, The Hyatt Foundation, 2009.

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Commission

There is no budget for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion commission. It is paid for  by sponsorship and sponsorship help-in-kind, as well as the sale of the finished structure which does not cover more than 40% of its cost. The Serpentine Gallery collaborates with a range of companies and individuals whose support makes it possible to realise the Pavilion. The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion commission is an ongoing programme of temporary structures by internationally acclaimed architects and designers. The series is unique worldwide and presents the work of an international architect or design team who has not completed a building in England at the time of the Gallery’s invitation. The Pavilion architects to date are: Jean Nouvel, 2010; Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, SANAA, 2009; Frank Gehry, 2008; Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen, 2007; Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup, 2006; Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura with Cecil Balmond, Arup, 2005; MVRDV with Arup, 2004 (un-realised); Oscar Niemeyer, 2003; Toyo Ito with Arup, 2002; Daniel Libeskind with Arup, 2001; and Zaha Hadid, 2000.

Arup

Peter Zumthor will collaborate with engineering firm Arup to realise the 2011 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. The Arup team, led by David Glover, Ed Clark and Chris Neighbour, will provide all engineering and specialist technical advice for the project. Arup Director Ed Clark commented: “It is a privilege to support the Pavilion again in 2011. This is our tenth year of commitment to the programme which reflects our belief in the project and the positive experience our teams get from working with some of the most renowned architects of our time. It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity. We look forward to working with Peter and helping him to deliver his first building in the UK.”

Stanhope

Peter Rogers, Director of Stanhope, will donate his expertise to all aspects of the Pavilion. He said: “The Serpentine Pavilion is a unique project whose innovative and challenging designs transcend normal building projects as well as fusing art and architecture in an exciting built form.”

Mace

Stephen Pycroft, Chairman and Chief Executive at Mace, said: “I am delighted that Mace is involved with the construction of the Serpentine Pavilion for a third year and look forward to working with Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner. This is a prestigious annual project in London and is an important part of Mace’s arts and culture portfolio, playing to our strength of delivering complex projects.”

This pavilion by Italian firm stARTT has won the first international edition of the MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program and will be installed outside the Zaha Hadid-designed MAXXI museum in Rome this June. See this year’s New York installation in yesterday’s story.

As inaugural winners of the YAP_MAXXI award stARTT’s installation, entitled Whatami, will feature a series of mini hills around the concrete plaza with pools of water in between.

The artificial landscape will be littered with clusters of funnel-shaped canopies representing flowers.

WHATAMI will open in June this year at the same time as Interboro Partner’s winning design for their installation in the courtyard of the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre in New York. (See our earlier story)

See all our stories on past winners of the Young Architect Program »

Here’s some more information from The Museum of Modern Art:

stARTT SELECTED AS WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL YOUNG ARCHITECTS PROGRAM AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF XXI CENTURY ARTS (MAXXI) IN ROME

stARTT’s WHATAMI to open in the Courtyard of MAXXI in June

NEW YORK, February 16, 2011—The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, and the National Museum of XXI Century Arts of Rome announce Interboro Partners of Brooklyn, NY, as the winner of the 12th annual Young Architects Program in New York, and start, of Rome, as the winner of the first annual YAP_MAXXI Young Architects Program in Rome.

Now in its 12th edition, the Young Architects Program at MoMA and MoMA PS1 has been committed to offering emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design and present innovative projects, challenging each year’s winners to develop highly innovative designs for a temporary, outdoor installation at MoMA PS1 that provides shade, seating, and water. The architects must also work within guidelines that address environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling.

For the first time, MoMA and MoMA PS1 are partnering with another institution, MAXXI in Rome, to create the first international edition of the Young Architects Program. stARTT has been chosen from among five European finalists to create an innovative event space in the MAXXI piazza opening in June.

WHATAMI by stARTT is based on the manufacturing of an artificial archipelago-hill, generating smaller green areas in the garden and potentially outside the museum. The hill works as a garden, injecting “green” into the concrete plateau of the museum’s outdoor space, allowing it to serve as a stage and/or parterre for concerts and other events, or as a space to rest and look at the museum itself.

The artificial landscape will be punctuated by large “flowers” providing light, shadow, water, and sound. The materials proposed for the installation involve a two-fold recycling process, the supplying of the materials for the construction (straw, geo-textile, plastic) and the dismantling of the “hill” (turf, lighting).

Opened in May 2010, MAXXI was designed by Zaha Hadid and awarded Royal Institute of British Architect’s (RIBA) Stirling Prize for architecture, and has already gained a place among the elite international contemporary art and architecture museums.

The other YAP_MAXXI finalists were Raffaella De Simone/Valentina Mandalari (Palermo); Ghigos Ideas (Lissone/Mi, Davide Crippa, Barbara Di Prete and Francesco Tosi); Asif Khan (London, United Kingdom); and Langarita Navarro Arquitectos (Madrid, Spain, María Langarita and Víctor Navarro).

Pippo Ciorra, Senior Curator of Architecture at MAXXI, explains, “We’re very happy with the results of this program for three main reasons. First, the collaboration with MoMA proved as effective and productive as we hoped, finally allowing us a surprising insight into the most recent research in terms of architecture, public space, and landscape.

Second, we were able to discover an unexpected positive quality of answers by the Italian and European young (under 35) architects involved in the project, all proposing fascinating, innovative and well developed proposals. Third, we’re delighted that we were able to choose a winning proposal which incorporates a MAXXI_specific approach to the issues of ecology, recycle, and public space.”

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Holding Pattern by Interboro Partners	Afterparty by MOS at P.S.1	Mexican Pavilion for Shanghai Expo 2010 by Slot.

London studio David Kohn Architects and artist Fiona Banner have won the A Room For London competition to design a temporary one-bedroom apartment on top of London’s Southbank Centre.

The winning design resembles a boat beached on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

A Room for London was a design competition instigated by Living Architecture and arts organisation Artangel, as part of London 2012 Festival, to create a room for two people to spend the night on a visible site or building in London. Visitors will be able to stay in the room during 2012 and bookings can be made from 8 September this year.

Images are courtesy of David Kohn Architects and Fiona Banner.

See also: Skyroom by David Kohn Architects.

All our stories on the Living Architecture project »

Here’s some more information about the project:

David Kohn Architects and artist Fiona Banner have been selected to design A Room for London, a temporary installation that will sit on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall at Southbank Centre, London and be part of the London 2012 Festival.

The design competition for A Room for London, which attracted entries from around 500 architects and artists from across the world, was instigated by Living Architecture, and Artangel, in association with Southbank Centre. The brief was to create a room on one of the most visible sites in the British capital, where up to two people at a time could spend a unique night in an exemplary architectural landmark.

Kohn and Banner’s winning design is for a boat which, perched on the Queen Elizabeth Hall roof, will appear to have come to rest there, grounded, perhaps, from the retreating waters of the Thames below. From the lower and upper ‘decks’ of this beautifully crafted timber structure, there will be extraordinary views of a London panorama that stretches from Big Ben to St Paul’s cathedral.

On arrival ‘aboard’, a nautical flag will be raised to signal occupation, with the visitors invited to fill in a logbook on the ‘bridge’ of the boat, detailing what they have experienced during their stay, out of the window as much as within themselves. This is contemporary architecture at its most playful, beguiling and thought-provoking.

Alongside public booking, the Room will play host to a guest programme of special visitors – artists, writers and cultural commentators of all kinds. These ‘thinkers-in-residence’ will be invited to stay and encouraged to muse on the city at a moment in time, through writing, image-making, online postings or live webcasts from the Room itself as their own idiosyncratic entries in the logbook. Some contributions will be instantly experienced by the public; others developed slowly during the course of the year. All visitors will be offered a chance to share experiences of a night in the Room.

Bookings for A Room for London – for no more than one night – will be available through the website from 1 January – 31 December 2012 with advance bookings going live on the website from 8 September 2011.

A Room for London is a cultural collaboration between Living Architecture and Artangel in association with Southbank Centre and the London 2012 Festival. The London 2012 Festival is the finale of the Cultural Olympiad. It will be a 12-week UK-wide cultural celebration from 21 June 2012 that brings leading artists from all over the world together to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games through dance, music, theatre, the visual arts, film and digital innovation.

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Skyroom by David Kohn Architects	Studio East by Carmody Groarke	Nomiya temporary restaurant by Pascal Grasso