Colliding tectonic plates, deep canyons, craggy overhangs, and other heroic topographic features are often evoked in the architecture of Morphosis, the Los Angeles-based firm. But the architects’ first project in China, Giant Group Pharmaceutical Campus, has allowed them to push that exploration even further, says Morphosis principal Thom Mayne. “In China, you can do things formally you just can’t do in the U.S.—aggressive, uncompromised, out-there ideas.” Image courtesy Morphosis The architects wanted to create a “lifted landscape” where the enormous building connects seamlessly with the 3.2-hectare site. Sited on 3.2 hectares in Shanghai’s western outskirts, Giant’s new corporate headquarters, slated
Historically a manufacturing town, Milan has transformed itself in recent years into a global city defined by the three Fs: finance, fashion, and furniture. Porta Nuova, now a giant construction looming over the high street Corso Como, will reflect the new Milan. Image courtesy Porta Nuova The Porta Nuova development in Milan includes two Stefano Boeri-designed towers that will be covered in plants. The 71-acre, mixed-used project is rising around the Garibaldi train station, at the foot of Milan’s arts district, Brera. When Porta Nouva, or “new gate,” is completed in 2012, a highlight will be Città della Moda e
Rafael Viñoly Architects, founded in New York in 1983, has completed its first project in the UK: Curve, a 140,000-square-foot theater in Leicester, England.
With a history tied to nomadic civilizations and a New York City-sized population spread over more than two million square miles of territory, Kazakhstan may not seem like the most probable site for ambitious urban architecture. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen went so far as to depict the country as a backward nation of ramshackle hovels in his 2006 film Borat. But the reality of contemporary Kazakhstan may be more accurately embodied by the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a glass pyramid rising above Astana, the Central Asian state’s capital.
When the Wall Street bailout plan initially failed to pass in the House of Representatives in late September, Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell quickly amended it with sweeteners to attract more congressional votes. Among the sweeteners were several energy-related tax incentives that had previously stalled, primarily because the House and Senate couldn’t agree on how to fund them. The revised bailout bill, H.R. 1424, officially known as the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008,” did pass and includes several items of interest to architects and their clients. One is a five-year extension, to 2013, of the portion of
Construction activity is falling fast and will head down again next year. The rate of decline could slow, but only if the government bank rescue and planned economic stimulus work. That’s the discomforting scenario described by McGraw-Hill Construction, the parent of ENR and Architectural Record, during the Outlook09 Executive Conference in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 23. Image courtesy McGraw-Hill Construction The construction industry is in 'retrenchment,' says Robert Murray of McGraw-Hill Construction. Construction starts are on pace to tumble to $555.5 billion in 2008—a 12% drop from the previous year. Steady declines will continue through 2009, dropping another 7% to
The American Institute of Architects has released six new contract documents, five of which address integrated project delivery issues. The sixth is a first-edition “Building Information Modeling Protocol Exhibit” designed to help project organizers define their BIM development plan for integrated project delivery. It has features designed to help organizers define model management arrangements, as well as authorship, ownership and level-of-development requirements at various project phases for the many elements that must be placed into BIM as it evolves. “I believe the framework we have provided is as complete a solution as anyone can provide at this time,” says Bradley
Dujiangyan, a city of 630,000 people in central China, ranks among the most visited tourist destinations in the country. Historians cite its Qingcheng Mountains as the birthplace of Taoism, and at the base of these densely forested peaks is the famous Dujiangyan Irrigation System, a 2,250-year-old network of distributaries that still provides water to farmers. Furthermore, the local panda reserve is home to 43 of the nation’s beloved giants. Image courtesy WWCOT WWCOT Architects, a 59-year-old California firm, was selected to help rebuild Dujiangyan, the city nearest the epicenter of the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Sichuan province on May 12,
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