Designed by Foster + Partners, the new Winspear Opera House in Dallas offers more access for a wider audience. This opera house features a generous solar canopy which covers a shaded pedestrian plaza, outdoor performance space, and other public spaces. The auditorium has 2,200 seats that wrapped under the rich red glass drum.

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Proposed by BIG for an invited competition, the World Village of Women Sports (WVOWS) in Malmo is a 100,000 m2 project to facilitate the research, education and training in one place. No doubt it will create new landmark for the area. To complete the design work, BIG collaborated with AKT (British structural and civil engineering firm), Tyréns (Swedish consultant) and Transsolar (German climate engineers).

“Considering the special requirements of women of all cultures and all ages, special attention has been given, to provide the sports village with a feeling of intimacy and well being often lacking in the more masculine industrial-style sports complexes that are more like factories for physical exercise, than temples for body and mind.” – Bjarke Ingels, Partner-In-Charge, BIG

Designed by KPF, the Lotte Super Tower 123 is scheduled for completion in 2014 in Korea. When completed it will be the second tallest skyscraper in the world right after the Burj Dubai. It’s mentioned as the truly mixed-use tower designed with ideal “vertical city” in mind. From bottom to top, the use of the building covers public transport connectors, retail, residential, offices, hotel, observation deck, and public space.

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Delian Shide FC to build new stadium in their hometown, Delian in China. The stadium will cover 38,500 m2 area to house about 40,000 spectator, TV broadcasting center, administration areas, VIP lounge, players facilities and public concourse. As you can see in the image, the stadium inspired by the colorful layering and overlapping of the ancient Chinese cuju football.

According to Ben van Berkel, “The design of the Dalian Football Stadium is inspired by the classic Chinese football, which was made by layering colored bamboo. For the stadium design, we appropriated this effect to generate a double-layered roof structure. This structure operates as a double concourse enclosure, encircling the tribunes. Splits and openings in between broad bands of the lattice structure enable views from the outside in and from the inside out.”

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Cleveland Design Competition – Project 2009: Lakefront Station is an international, single-stage ideas competition for a new multi-modal transportation center in Downtown Cleveland between the historic Mall and Lake Erie. Designs for this new transportation center must provide the city with a state-of-the-art rail station ready to support high speed passenger rail service, a facility capable of integrating and balancing the needs of various transportation modes, and a significant pedestrian connection from the Mall to Cleveland’s lakefront. Linked into a High Speed Passenger Rail network, Downtown Cleveland will be an important midwest rail center among a network of connected American cities, a fitting gateway to Northeast Ohio.

Cleveland, Ohio, like urban centers throughout the United States, finds itself at the center of a variety of passenger rail planning proposals. Many of these planning initiatives have been spurred by the recent commitment and investment in rail infrastructure by the federal government. While details in these proposals vary in scope and timeline, all must appropriately consider their role in contributing to a complete national network of sustainable communities. By utilizing rail to strengthen connectivity, these new multi-modal transportation networks – and the facilities that serve them – will help reinforce the social and economic sustainability of the American City.

Registration for Project 2009 will remain open until Decmber 1, 2009 and submissions are due on December 18th, 2009. The awards for Project 2009 are as follows: 1st- $5,000 2nd- $2,000 3rd- $1,000.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Michael Christoff, or Bradley Fink

October 5, 2009

Cleveland Design Competition
info@clevelandcompetition.com

cLEVELAND dESIGN cOMPETITION: lAKEFRONT STATION

Ideas for a 21st Century Multi-Modal Transportation Facility

CLEVELAND – Cleveland Design Competition is pleased to announce the launch of the third annual Cleveland Design Competition – Project 2009: Lakefront Station.

Project 2009: Lakefront Station is an international, single-stage ideas competition for a new multi-modal transportation center in Downtown Cleveland between the historic Mall and Lake Erie. Designs for this new transportation center must provide the city with a state-of-the-art rail station ready to support high speed passenger rail service, a facility capable of integrating and balancing the needs of various transportation modes, and a significant pedestrian connection from the Mall to Cleveland’s lakefront. Linked into a High Speed Passenger Rail network, Downtown Cleveland will be an important midwest rail center among a network of connected American cities, a fitting gateway to Northeast Ohio.

Cleveland, Ohio, like urban centers throughout the United States, finds itself at the center of a variety of passenger rail planning proposals. Many of these planning initiatives have been spurred by the recent commitment and investment in rail infrastructure by the federal government. While details in these proposals vary in scope and timeline, all must appropriately consider their role in contributing to a complete national network of sustainable communities. By utilizing rail to strengthen connectivity, these new multi-modal transportation networks – and the facilities that serve them – will help reinforce the social and economic sustainability of the American City.

The approximately 10 acre site for Project 2009: Lakefront Station is bound by the Memorial Shoreway (State Route 2) to the north and west, East 9th Street to the East, and the Cleveland Mall and Convention Center to the South. Currently located on the site is an existing Amtrak Station, the East 9th Street Waterfront Line Station, and a small pedestrian bridge between the north side of the Convention Center and Cleveland Browns Stadium. The current site configuration creates a confusing juxtaposition of infrastructure, smaller transit facilities, rail lines, and largely un-useable residual land. Solutions for a new multi-modal transportation facility must evaluate the relationships between infrastructure, facility, adjacent development opportunity, and pedestrian wayfinding to develop uniquely integrated design and planning strategies. Important adjacent cultural institutions and attractions include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Great Lakes Science Center, and Cleveland Browns Stadium.

Project 2009: Lakefront Station submissions must be made no later than 5:00pm (EST) on Friday, December 18th, 2009. $8,000 in cash prizes will be awarded to First, Second, and Third Placed Submissions as selected by a distinguished panel of jurors. Prizes are presented by the 2009 Awards Sponsor, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Entries will be featured as part of a public exhibition and publication at the conclusion of the competition. The Jury for Project 2009 will be announced on the competition website on October 23rd, 2009. Information on the juries for the two prevous years can also be found on the competition website.

For more information about the competition, please visit www.clevelandcompetition.com.

Formerly known as HOK Sport Venue Event, Populous was selected to design the 2014 Winter Olympic stadium in Sochi, Russia. The project is prepared to house 40,000 people when the stadium is full, but currently the plans are still unclear.

“The main stadium design, in addition to the venue overlay plan we have prepared for the 2014 Games, delivers a wonderful vision for the winter Olympics, and a lasting sustainable legacy for Sochi,” said John Barrow, Populous Senior Principal.

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Today UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization) announced its recognition of batik as a unique hallmark of Indonesian heritage at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, held this week in Abu Dhabi. UNESCO’s list describes Indonesian Batik as: The techniques, symbolism and culture surrounding hand-dyed cotton and silk garments known as Indonesian Batik permeate the lives of Indonesians from beginning to end: infants are carried in batik slings decorated with symbols designed to bring the child luck, and the dead are shrouded in funerary batik.

Related to the issue, I want to mention the Jogja Hypermart building which adopts and implements Batik as Skin Architecture. Description: Located on intersection between Malioboro and Gajah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Hypermart is a medium Scale Shopping center [21000sqm] 4 storey and 2 level of basement, the design undergoes Batik as Skin Architecture. The idea came from Batik Kawung which is another very old design consisting of intersecting circles, known in Java since at least the thirteenth century. For many years, this pattern was reserved for the royal court of the Sultan of Jogjakarta.

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This small, two-story, one bedroom house sits quietly out of sight behind a two story apartment building on a narrow residential street in Venice, California.

Facing the back of the apartment building, the front facade is playfully fragmented into distinct parts making a comfortable scale for this close area. A redwood deck, with random boards stained pearly gray, stretches between the house and the apartment and provides additional space for work and relaxation. From the second story bedroom, French doors look down on this area, giving the deck a curious stage-like quality. Higher still, a portion of the roof deck juts out to dramatic effect.

Once inside the recessed corner doorway, the intimately scaled entry gradually opens to a spacious living room. At one end of the living room, an angled wall of doors and windows gives a generous view of the deck. From a corner of the living room, three steps lead up to the kitchen/breakfast area which overlooks the living room and the deck beyond. A long horizontal window frames a wide view in the opposite direction, and allows morning and afternoon light to reach deep into the interior.

The second floor bedroom is reached by a series of steps, the final steps gently illuminated by a large translucent skylight high above. Exposed wood ceiling joists and beams add warmth. Corner windows and French doors provide the bedroom with views, light, and ventilation. A few steps up from the bedroom is a small study with its own view of the deck below. Beyond the study, winding interior steps continue an easy romp to the roof deck with its big view of the surrounding neighborhood.

Grafted to the back façade, the angled, gable-roofed volume of the breakfast area contrast with the flat backdrop of the main façade. This cantilevered volume hovers a few feet above the ground and lends a mood of levity to this elevation. Clad in green lap-siding, this gabled fragment stirs a memory of earlier Venice homes. A skylight, looking like an askew brick chimney, sits jauntily atop the gabled volume and lights the breakfast area below. A small wood deck, with plenty of morning sun, serves as a back porch entry and a place for morning coffee.

The clients’ main desire was for a new two story house with light, open, airy rooms to replace a smaller 1918 one story house in desperate need of repair. The approach was to group the kitchen, baths and stairs into one compact group to allow for a large living room and bedroom. The house was restricted to one bedroom.