blog wunderlust: 14th July 2014

There's a lineage of carpentry and masonry, building with high skill and great efficiency that's specific to India, and I am transferring that ideology to projects around the world.

Bijoy Jain

Why the Millennial Architect Won’t Be Your CAD Monkey | How Chinese Urbanism Is Transforming African Cities | Inside the Iconic World Cup Finals Stadium | Why the modern bathroom is a wasteful, unhealthy design | Is maverick master builder Bjarke Ingels the world's smartest architect - or just the craziest? | Slovak architect turns billboards into homes for the homeless | Knud Lonberg-Holm: ‘The Invisible Architect’

last word: Villanueva 114 years

Call for Papers: AXIS volume 12 - Prototyping

Tallinn Architecture Biennale: Recycling Socialism

The aim of the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2013 Vision Competition is to gather architectural ideas and methods to re-envision and to enhance the iconic block-housing district of Väike-Õismäe ("Little Blossom Hill") designed by Estonian architects Malle Meelak and Mart Port in Tallinn. Despite its geometric and seemingly perfect planning principles, Väike-Õismäe lacks coherence and versatility as a living environment and similar to other modernist apartment block areas of that era its every-day life are still searching for a common language.

TAB 2013 Vision Competition is an open international architecture competition.

Jury
Bjarke Ingels – BIG, Founding Partner
Endrik Mänd – City of Tallinn, Chief Architect
Inga Raukas – Allianss Arhitektid, Founding Partner

Deadline: April 30th, 2013

BIG in Florida

Grove at Brand Bay designed by the Bjarke Ingles Group In collaboration with landscape architecture firm Raymond Jungles, will feature "highly evolved" residences inspired by the natural beauty of Coconut Grove.

Centre for Urban Pedagogy

The Centre for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), winner of the 2012 Curry Stone Design Prize.

FCAA 2012 Biennale and Congress Design Competition

The Winners of the FCAA 2012 Biennale and Congress Design Competition, are as follows:

Small Buildings under 10,000 ft² – built
Edwin Quiles-Rodriguez (Puerto Rico) – “Haiti School” – winner
Studio Blue Architects Inc (Barbados) - Special Mentor

Small Buildings under 10,000 ft² – unbuilt
Alain Nicholas (Guadeloupe)- Administrative Tribunal of Fort-de-France – winner

Large Buildings over 10,000 ft² – built
Segundo Cardona (Puerto Rico) - New Library addition to existing supreme court – winner

Large buildings over 10,000 ft² – unbuilt
Pascal Berthelot BMCDM (Guadeloupe) - Memory of Trafficking and Slavery – winner

Urban Design – built
Zoohaus – Mae Durant Vidal (Dominican Republic) – IntelligenciaColectiva – winner

Restoration and contemporary additions to historic buildings
Marc Jalet and Emile Romney (Guadeloupe) – Communauté des Communes de Marie-Galante – winner

Students projects
Reva Watson (Jamaica) - Barbados Naval and Maritime Museum – winner
Ricardo Newallo-Christain (Jamaica) – Barbados Naval and Maritime Museum - Special Mention

Freeland

A unique approach to urban planning and design by the Netherlands based practice MVDRV

On the Boards: The Yards

The Yards, is a new 42 acre redevelopment along the Anacostia River, in Washington, DC. The project is aiming for LEED gold certification under the Neighborhood Development pilot programme and will when complete feature nearly 2 million ft² of office space, 400,000 ft² of retail and cultural spaces, and nearly 3000 new homes, and waterfront park and amenities.

more photos and information

Paris 2030

Winy Maas director of MVRDV talks about the design philosophy their vision of greater Paris 2030 that was presented to the Economic and Social Council of France. More

Sustainable Gothenburg

Swedish city Gothenburg faces a challenge comparable in size with the industrial revolution: to become a sustainable city. Kjellgren Kaminsky architecture, in collaboration with a team of local volunteers, have created a vision for a sustainable Gothenburg.

Call for Abstracts - Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative

The Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) at Kent State University invites writers, designers, artists and thinkers to submit abstracts for Volume 5 of their annual publication, Urban Infill. This journal examines themes in contemporary urban design, architecture, and planning and has in past volumes addressed shrinking cities, temporary urbanism, urban hydrology, and storytelling in an urban context.

Volume 5 is focused on diagrams. We invite examples and perspectives on diagramming and its place in urban design practice and processes. We are particularly interested in the intents and agendas behind various forms of diagramming within the following framework. Submissions may correspond to any of these six (6) themes:

• Defining the Diagram
• Meaning | Function
• Translation | Interpretation
• Vagueness | Suggestion
• Composition | Narrative
• Exchange | Engagement

Abstracts due no later that 8th June 2012, for submission requirements and dates, refer to the Infill website

built to last

Great video (except up to 2:06 into it where it assumes the solution to suburbanism is new urbanism versus urban or city living but that's another discussion kiddies). It was the Winner of the Congress for New Urbanism CNU 17 video contest.

urban design? We have an app for that

Software company Urbs has announced the initial release of Modelur, an application that aims to make the design of urban space rapid and simple. The application is based on the insanely popular 3D modelling tool Google SketchUp and is available for testing free of charge via this link.

Guerrilla Gardening 101

Guerrilla Gardening is political act - a form of non-violent action, towards issues of land rights, land reform, and permaculture where its activists recover abandoned lands for growing flowers, crops or plants.

Scattering seeds is the easiest way to guerrilla garden—just toss them and some will live and flourish, whilst others won’t. They just need to land in favourable growing conditions. You can even do it while driving.

It can be considered eco-graffiti for a green generation, being adopted even by multi-national coporations

A handbook
more via Wikipedia and Primal Seeds

on the boards: Middlesex Redevelopment

MAKE architects' proposed rehabilitation of the former Middlesex Hospital site in London, replaces the existing buildings with a more appropriate scheme of mixed use redevelopment (offices, homes & community services)