another "scape"

COLDSCAPES 2013

From the COLDSCAPES design competition earlier this year, an exhibition of the winning designs is currently on display hosted by the Kent State University Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative — a timely event as the weather grows colder in the U.S.

Last Friday's exhibition opening also celebrated the book launch of "COLDSCAPES: Design Ideas for Winter Cities", the sixth volume in CUDC’s Urban Infill Book Series. The COLDSCAPES exhibition will be open for one month at Star Plaza in Cleveland, Ohio.

Below are some images of the exhibition and the top three winning designs.



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Snowball Pavilion - exterior. A single 10’ x 35’ wood frame is designed to accumulate snow, creating an internal warm glow. Photo credit: www.GregoryWilsonPhoto.com

From the COLDSCAPES announcement:

"COLDSCAPES aimed to provoke a critical assessment of idealized representations from warmer seasons and challenge designers to engage more creatively with the unique conditions presented by winter. Submissions explored new visions and emerging possibilities for enhancing livability in cold weather cities. [...]

Over 80 registrants from around the globe participated in the 2013 COLDSCAPES Competition, providing submissions that explored a range of ideas for improving livability in cold weather cities. The esteemed jury, with backgrounds in architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, and public art, narrowed the field to 3 winning submissions and 10 honorable mentions, which convey the most compelling visions for winter cities."

POLAR77 by Wendy Wang and Ryan Ort, Boston, USA


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COLDSCAPES winner: POLAR77 by Wendy Wang and Ryan Ort, Boston, USA. POLAR77 creates a sustainable, cold-friendly space by using shipping containers which can be recycled from globally located seaports and native plants, which will contextualize each individual location.

Project Summary: "More than 50% percent of livable space in the world has an average winter temperature below 15⁰ Celsius. Winter recreation activities and unique winter landscapes are the main attractions for people to go outdoors. In today’s current conditions, it is important to use sustainable materials wherever possible. Sustainability emphasizes the use of recycled materials, locally sourced materials, and in the landscape using native plant species. The design for POLAR77 meets all of these important factors in creating a sustainable, cold-friendly space by using shipping containers which can be recycled from the globally located seaports and native plants which will contextualize each space to each individual location."

Second Hinterlands by Noel Turgeon and Natalya Egon, Chicago, USA


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COLDSCAPES winner: Second Hinterlands by Noel Turgeon and Natalya Egon, Chicago, USA. Second Hinterlands envisions the reinvention of the snow removal process after significant winter storms. The project proposes a strategic lack of snow removal and snow relocation after winter weather events.

Project Summary: "Those who reside in cold and snowy cities know the thrill of a winter storm and the fleeting blanket of white that comes with it. It allows for an appreciated quietness, followed by social and cultural interactions truly unique to the urban environment. Schedules interrupted and plans cancelled, time is quickly filled with spontaneous events borne out of the dramatic shift in the urban landscape. This break in routine, while inconvenient and inefficient to some, is unparalleled in its impact on city dwellers. The experience of the city is altered overnight; for a short while the city transforms from a system of streets, transportation networks, landmarks, and nodes into a landscape of concealment and exposed void, dramatically simplified yet overtly dynamic. “Second Hinterlands” proposes a defined and intentional shift in our current snow collection and clearing practices following the winter storm. Rather than the immediate clearing of the city streets, “Second Hinterlands” identifies a portion of the city that is transformed via the lack of snow removal and strategic snow relocation. Shifting territories every year, each winter brings new forms, drifts, and an entirely unique exposed landscape. Inhabitants actively engage themselves with the newly formed landscape while neighborhood boundaries dissolve as the softscape of snow meets the hardscape of the city."

The Freezeway by Matthew Gibbs, Edmonton, Canada


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COLDSCAPES winner: The Freezeway by Matthew Gibbs, Edmonton, Canada. The Freezeway proposes an 11 km greenway that can be transformed into a skating lane, effectively combating the sedentary lifestyle that can take hold during the bitterly cold winter months.

Project Summary: "The Freezeway’s vision is to create an iconic and vibrant city that forges its identity from embracing its climatic setting. Moreover, it aspires to create communities and a culture that longs for the winter season with excitement and anticipation.

Utilizing Edmonton’s cold climate, which is on average below freezing for 5 months a year, the Freezeway uses a climate adaptive approach to address the way we live, and the way we move in a winter city.

Celebrating the magnificence of the winter season in the urban environment, the 11km year-round greenway, combats the typical sedentary nature of the season by creating a winter skating lane that allows you to skate to work, the Oilers arena, or simply just to have fun. It is an urban design intervention that at its heart addresses the need to promote: winter programming, active lifestyles, sustainable forms of transportation, social activity, an iconic identity.

Furthermore in a changing climate, land-based skating (vs pond-based), will be more resilient since it requires far thinner ice. As soon as it’s cold enough for ice it can be up an running, creating a refreshing and warming new approach to living in a cold climate."


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Snowball Pavilion - interior. Photo credit: www.GregoryWilsonPhoto.com

"14 design projects selected as winners and honorable mentions in the COLDSCAPES Competition will be on display inside the Snowball Pavilion for one month in Star Plaza.

The Snowball Pavilion is designed to accumulate snow and lit from the interior, creating a warm glow on cold winter nights."


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Snowball Pavilion - rendering.

interesting house...i love glass usage

Salt Creek Rural Retreat / ARKit

Courtesy of ARKit

Architects: ARKit
Location: Salt Creek, Woorndoo VIC, Australia
Land Area: 20 acres
Area: 53 sqm
Year: 2007
Photographs: Courtesy of ARKit



Courtesy of ARKit


From the architect. The Salt Creek Rural Retreat, completed in 2007 is a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom sustainable accommodation that was prefabricated offsite in finished sections. It also features a combined sauna and shower room, and a concealed stormwater system. The structure uses ARKit’s panelised system which provides end users with a superior quality internal environment, and a beautiful external finish. Unlike most prefabricated construction companies who only use readily available products by other companies, ARKit’s panelised systems combine a durable external cladding, ultra-efficient insulation and dependable structural integrity to extremely high tolerances. Other sustainable features of the rural retreat include:Courtesy of ARKit

Supplementing passive performance with proven, high efficiency technology.Courtesy of ARKit

Incorporating a water life cycle approach in the design of the building and selection of water systems.Courtesy of ARKit

Utilization of materials and construction techniques based on embodied carbon and life cycle analysis.

Utilization of materials and finishes with low levels or no Volatile Organic Compounds to ensure good quality internal air environments for the life of the building.Courtesy of ARKit

Lucid Stead by artist Phillip K. Smith III illuminates Joshua Tree

Now here's a little weekend inspiration. "Lucid Stead" is an art installation by Phillip K. Smith, III in the beautiful desert landscape of Joshua Tree in California.

With some mirrors, LED lights, custom built electronic equipment, and Arduino programming, Smith transformed a 70-year-old homesteader shack into an architecture piece that complements and contrasts with its peaceful environment throughout the entire day.

The project was intended to be revealed to a couple viewers during a two-day event last month, but instead became a two-weekend event with over 400 visitors. Since then, Lucid Stead has received plenty of national attention.




Lucid Stead by Phillip K. Smith, III. Photo: Steve King.

"After the long, dusty, bumpy, anxious trip out into the far edges of Joshua Tree, you open your car door and for the first time experience the quiet of the desert. It’s at that point that you realize you are in a place that is highly different than where you just came from.


Lucid Stead is about tapping into the quiet and the pace of change of the desert. When you slow down and align yourself with the desert, the project begins to unfold before you. It reveals that it is about light and shadow, reflected light, projected light, and change."




Photo: Steve King.


"In much of my work, I like to interact with the movement of the sun so that the artwork is in a constant state of change from sunrise to 9am to noon to 3am to 6pm and into the evening. With Lucid Stead, the movement of the sun reflects banded reflections of light across the desert landscape, while various cracks and openings reveal themselves within the structure."




Photo: Steve King.


"Even the shifting shadow of the entire structure on the desert floor is as present as the massing of the shack itself, within the raw canvas of the desert.The desert itself is as used as reflected light…as actual material within this project. It is a medium that is being placed onto the skin of the 70-year old homesteader shack. The reflections, contained within their crisp, geometric bands and rectangles contrasts with the splintering bone-dry wood siding."




Photo: Lance Gerber


"This contrast is a commonality in my work, where I often merge highly precise, geometric, zero tolerance forms with material or experience that is highly organic or in a state of change…something that you cannot hold on to...that slips between your fingers."




Photo: Steve King.


"Projected light emerges at dusk and moves into the evening. The four window openings and the doorway of Lucid Stead all become crisp rectangular fields of color, floating in the desert night."




Photo: Steve King.


"White light, projected from the inside of the shack outward, highlights the cracks between the mirrored siding and the wood siding, wrapping the shack in lines of light. This white light reveals, through silhouette, the structure of the shack itself as the 2x4’s and diagonal bracing become present on the skin of the shack."




Photo: Lou Mora


"The color of the door and window openings are set at a pace of change where one might question whether they are actually changing colors."




Photo: Lance Gerber


"One might see blue, red, and yellow…and continue to see those colors. But looking down and walking ten feet to a new location reveals that the windows are now orange, purple and green."




Photo: Lance Gerber


"This questioning of and awareness of change, ultimately, is about the alignment of this project with the pace of change occurring within the desert. Through the process of slowing down and opening yourself to the quiet, only then can you really see and hear in ways that you normally could not."

The top five finalists for The Battery Conservancy’s Draw Up A Chair

The Battery Conservancy is one step closer to finding the winning outdoor chair design of their Draw Up A Chair competition for The Battery park in New York City.

The competition began with 679 submissions in July 2012. Then the jury selected the Top 50 designs, which were exhibited for the public to see and use over the past six months.

The top five designs are:

• Fleurt by ­ Andrew Jones Design: Andrew Jones (Toronto, Canada)
• Maple Chair by ­ Maria Camarena Design: Maria Camarena Bernard (Zapopan, Mexico)
• Pivot Chair ­ by Independent Design Group: Simon Kristak & Aidan Jamison (Brooklyn, USA)
• South Chair ­ by Jason Bird (Redwood City, USA)
• U Rock ­ by Pitanga: Davi Deusdara, Érica Martins, Tais Costa & Rafael Studart Alencar (Falcão, Brazil)

Check out some images of each design below.

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Fleurt by ­Andrew Jones Design: Andrew Jones (Toronto, Canada)

Click above image to view slideshow
Maple Chair by ­Maria Camarena Design: Maria Camarena Bernard (Zapopan, Mexico)

Click above image to view slideshow
Pivot Chair­ by Independent Design Group: Simon Kristak & Aidan Jamison (Brooklyn, USA)

Click above image to view slideshow
South Chair ­by Jason Bird (Redwood City, USA)

Click above image to view slideshow
U Rock ­by Pitanga: Davi Deusdara, Érica Martins, Tais Costa & Rafael Studart Alencar (Falcão, Brazil)

Full-scale prototypes of each finalist design will be developed by The Battery Conservancy, followed by an exhibition at the Castle Clinton National Monument from April-June 2014.

Announcement of the winner will be in June 2014. The winner will receive a US$10,000 cash prize, and of course, their design will be fabricated for use in the Battery Green at The Battery Park, New York City.

The jury features: Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art; Allison Arieff, design writer, The New York Times, Editor, The Urbanist;Fernando Campana and Humberto Campana, designers, Sao Paulo; Rob Forbes, Founder of Design Within Reach and CEO of Public Bikes; and Mario Schjetnan, Co-Founder & Director of Mario Schjetnan/Grupo de Diseño Urbano, Mexico City

Santiago Calatrava

I wanted to post him as he is one of my favorite architect. He is extremely good at organic forms which are absolutely interesting for me. Turning Torso and his bridge in Venice are my best products.

The Santiago Calatrava: The Metamorphosis of Space exhibition celebrated its grand opening at the Braccio di Carlo Magno in Vatican City today. 

Curated by Micol Forti of the Vatican Museums, the special exhibition presents over 140 artistic works of Calatrava, including his never-before-seen architectural models, sculptures, and watercolor drawings.

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Rome, Università Degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, 2005. Model of the Palasport (scale 1:250), 2005 Wood, Plexiglas, Polystyrene, metal, cm 194 x 154 x 76. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

"The selected core of architectural models is accompanied by the corresponding preparatory studies, but also by watercolor paintings, which were generated by a creative inspiration completely independent from the genesis of the same projects. In addition, there is a rich anthology of sculptures, both monumental and in a more reduced size, made out of bronze, marble, alabaster, and wood."

Cathedral St. John the Divine, New York, 1991. Model, front view (scale 1:100). Wood, Plexiglas, Polystyrene, metal, 214/120/220 cm. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

Model of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, 2013. New Model in progress (scale 1:20). Wood, Plexiglas, Polystyrene, metal, cm 210.5 x 130.5 x 135. Photo of an existent model (scale 1:100). Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

Puente de la Mujer Bridge – Buenos Aires, 1998-2001. Model (scale 1:100), 2013. Wood, Plexiglas, Polystyrene, metal, cm 183 x 103 x 72. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

Turning Torso - Malmö Tower, 1999-2005. Model (scale 1 :150), 2004. Wood, Plexiglas, Polystyrene, metal, cm 87 x 61 x 142. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

Infinite Spirit, 2013. Lime Wood, cm 330 x 30 x 300 cm. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

Morphing Yellow, 2009. Aluminium, cm 183 x 13 x 183. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

Cascade, 2009. Rosewood, cm 65 x 15 x 68. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

Endless Light, 2008. White alabaster, cm 30 x 30 x 30. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

No title [Trees with yellow background], 2011. Watercolor on handmade paper, cm 102 x 153. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

Near the Parthenon, 2011. Watercolor on Japanese paper, cm135 x 69. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

No title [Geometrical face on red background], 2011. Watercolor on cardboard, cm 77 x 56. Property of Studio Calatrava © Santiago Calatrava

"The combination of works pertaining to different artistic codes, although closely related, directs the observer's gaze to different levels of interpretation of the architectural volumes, and of the vision of space and shapes, typical characteristics of Calatrava's artistic path."

The exhibition will run until Feb. 20, 2014

Top 10 Urban Elevators

Irregular topography has always been an obstacle to the free circulation of people and goods, as well as a challenge to architects and city designers. Stairs and ramps can be used, but dramatic changes in elevation demand a more extreme approach. Urban elevators have turned out to be an interesting solution and are considered a public means of transportation, like trains, buses, or trams.

Want to know more? Check out our Top 10 examples of  urban elevators from around the world: Up we go toward the top floor — oops, we mean, top position!

10. Shanklin Cliff Lift – Isle of Wight, England

Shanklin Cliff Lift

We start off with this lovely elevator/lift located in a popular British seaside destination. Also known as Cliff Lift or Esplanade Lift, Shanklin Cliff Lift has been in operation since the 1960s. It provides alternative transportation to overcome the 45-meter change in level between the cliff path and the esplanade along the beach.

9. Katarina Lift – Stockholm, Sweden

Katarina Lift

Katarina Lift connects Slussen (the lock area) to the heights of Södermalm. However, visitors can only access the platform today, as the elevator has been closed since 2010 due to safety issues. Despite this, we believe Katarina deserves a position in our rank for historic reasons: It’s current structure dates back to 1935, but the original elevator and bridge were built in 1881!

8. Ascenseur des Marolles — Brussels, Belgium

Ascenseur des Marolles

Ascenseur des Marolles links the upper part of the city to the lower. From Brueghel L’Ancien Square, visitors take the lift up to Place Poelaert to enjoy a view of important landmarks of the city, such as the Basilica, the Hotel de Ville, and the Atomium.

7. Oregon City Municipal Elevator – Oregon City, United States

Oregon City Municipal Elevator

The elevator itself is not that pleasing aesthetically, but the flying saucer appearance of the observation deck does give the Oregon City Municipal Elevator a very cool look! Linking two neighborhoods of Oregon City, the elevator is 40 meters high and was built in 1954-55.

6. Ascensor Polanco — Valparaíso, Chile

Ascensor Polanco

Ascensor Polanco was inaugurated in 1916 and connects Simpson street with Polanco Hill. Overcoming a difference in level of about 60 meters, this charming elevator was declared a National Monument of Chile in 1976.

5. Bad Schandau Elevator — Bad Schandau, Germany

Bad Schandau Elevator

This historic elevator of 52 meters links the town of Bad Schandau to the village of Ostrau. It was built in 1904 by Kühnscherf & Söhne (responsible for the lift itself) and Kelle & Hildebrandt (responsible for the amazing art noveau steel framework).

4. Asansör — Izmir, Turkey

Asansör

Asansör (the Turkish word for “lift”) is an elegant elevator that links the coastline to the hillside of Izmir, transporting passengers through the steep cliff. It was built in 1907 and is 51 meters tall.

3. Hammetschwand Elevator – Bürgenstock, Switzerland

Hammetschwand Elevator

Hammetschwand is the highest exterior elevator in Europe, standing at an impressive 153 meters. Located in the famous mountain of Bürgenstock, the lift transports visitors between a stunning rock path and a plateau that overlooks Lake Lucerne and the Alps.

2. Elevador Lacerda — Salvador, Brazil

Elevador Lacerda

Elevador Lacerda was the first urban elevator in the world, inaugurated in 1873. It is 63 meters high and links the upper and lower towns of Salvador, connecting the squares of Cairu and Thomé de Souza. The lift was designed by Augusto Frederico de Lacerda and overlooks All Saints’ Bay — a breathtaking view!

1. Elevador de Santa Justa — Lisbon, Portugal

Elevador de Santa Justa

Also known as Elevador do Carmo, Elevador de Santa Justa was inaugurated in 1902 and links Rua do Ouro and Largo do Carmo. Designed by architect Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard, the gorgeous lift is 45 meters high and was decorated in neo-Gothic style.

Urban elevators are a successful solution to difficult terrains, applied all over the world as a vertical transport system. Most of them have become relevant elements within the urban context, turning into popular tourist attractions, as well as holding local historic importance.