The new building for the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre, Brazil designed by Portugal´s Alvaro Siza, is a big rectangular white concrete structure. It has a big central space enclose by circulations and exhibition spaces. Some of this circulations separate from the main body as arms going out through the facade.

I´ve always loved the big white orthogonal Siza buildings, and i think that this form is really informed by brazilian modernists, resulting on sculptural rock in front of the river with an amazing light use, a tradition on Siza´s works.

Pictures by Grazielle Bruscato, plans taken from Fundação Iberê Camargo.

The Architectural Review informed us that they launched the 10th version of their Emerging Awards.

Foster + Partners just finished the first tower in Amsterdam, at the Vivaldi-park area of the new Zuidas district, south of the city.

The 24-storey building is divided into two twelve metre-wide column free towers with open, flexible floor plates. The blocks are staggered in plan to admit as much natural light as possible, helping this tower to be ten per cent more efficient than the target Dutch environmental standards. Plus, it has a very nice looking lobby.

There’s nothing more exciting for an architect than to shape the form of his own city with a new building. And that’s what Rem Koolhaas is about to do in Rotterdam with a large scale mixed use building. Also, a project developed for The Hague, also in the Netherlands, will start construction as of next year. Site visits will be closer to the central OMA headquarters this time.

First, we’ve got a 120.000m2 (30.000m2 for retail, 70.000m2 for office, residential, culture and leisure) mixed use building in the Rotterdam’s shopping district, the Coolsingel. This district is actually the true centre of Rotterdam, where the most important streets in Rotterdam merge (Coolsingel, Lijbaan, Binnenweg and Beurstraverse).

Undoubtly, Wall House was one of the most innovative house designs in the last few years. But after winning the AR Emergent Awards 2007, being selected as one of the Record Houses 2008 by Architectural Record and their clients response, FAR frohn&rojas architects decided to go one step ahead and now they present Your Wall House, a customizable kit to build your own Wall House.

The kit goes from squematic drawings to a full custom climate concept, which will result on a variaton of the original Wall House according to personal needs, interests, local building code and the local climate conditions.

Kits and prices:

The La Defense is a 160 ha business district in the west of Paris, currently under a renewal plan to strengthen its place among the great international business districts. The plan is managed by the EPAD (The Public Establishment for Installation of La Défense), an organization formed by local authorities, government and neighbors focused on developing the La Defense for the best interests of its 20.000 residents and 150.000 inhabitants in floating population.

The renewal includes several high rise sustainable towers. One of this towers, the Tour Signal, entered an international closed competition for teams of architects/investors/developers, on which EPAD didn’t impose a site. The candidates were thus able to choose their sites either from among the entrances to the business district (South Gate and West Gate), either from sites subject to demolition operations. The Tour Signal will thus endow the business district with a new landmark in 2013.

The finalists for this project were Jacques Ferrier Architectures, Foster + Partners Ltd, Studio Libeskind Architect, Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Wilmotte et Associes SA.

And a few days ago, the winner was announced: Ateliers Jean Nouvel, project shown on the video above.

More pictures of the Jean Nouvel proposal, and the rest of the candidates/finalists after the jump.

Right next to their VM Housing project, BIG is currently finishing their new project: Mountain Dwellings. But this time, the client asked for a specific program with 2/3 parking and 1/3 living. Rather than doing 2 separate buildings, BIG decided to combine the splendours of the suburban backyard with the social intensity of urban density, resulting on a terraced housing over the parking area.

Another fire on a remarkable building. Today, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall by Hans Schauron caught fire. Firemen were able to control it, but its outer metal skin collapsed. Structural damage is unknown at the time, but it was seriously damaged by fire and water.

This building, finished in 1963, was an icon for the Expressionist movement, with a great acoustic work achieved trough it´s inner spaciality which conditioned its external appearance.

Pictures before and during the fire after the break.

As I had previously mentioned we visited Work AC in New York a few months ago, where we interviewed Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. This turned out to be a great interview, where they shared their thoughts on the current state of architectural practice, the role of architects in current society, humor, networking, media and something that really interested me: the importance of knowing how to manage the growth of your office.

On their office we saw the amazing model for their Cadavre Exquis Lebanese, a proposal based on a series of interventions to re-create Downtown Beirut presented at the 2007 Rotterdam Biennale. We also got to see their on on going projects and a 1:1 prototype of their Public Farm 1 structure soon to be opened at the PS1. You can check the construction progress at the PF1 website.

Pictures of Work AC after the jump.

Foster + Partners just informed us that the new Willis headquarters at Lime Street in London is complete. As usual, the firm lead by Sir Norman Foster developed a urban piece that integrates with the city at street level and features environmental strategies to reduce its energy consumption and carbon footprint.

This two buildings are developed as a series of overlapping curved shells while its section is arranged in three steps. The roof terraces overlooking the plaza on the lower two steps are directly accessible from the office spaces. Both buildings have a central core to provide open floor plates and maximum flexibility in use.

The entire development is visually unified by its highly reflective façade. The pressed form of the panels and their mica finish give them depth and texture. A dynamic effect is established through the interplay of solid and glazed panels arranged in a saw-tooth pattern, the fins also increase insulation while reducing glare and solar gain.

Together with the highly efficient services equipment and systems in the building, the façade design is integral to the energy strategy, which is rated BREEAM Excellent. What surprised me is the parking capacity: 42 Cars, 88 motorcycles, 264 bicycles

According to Sir Norman Foster this building has come out of a very different design process, yet continues the practice’s commitment to developing humane, flexible and dynamic workplaces that are both informed by, and woven into, the urban fabric. Foster has some very interesting approaches when it comes to sustainable design and urban spaces. I recommend checking his presentation at DLD we posted last week.

b720 just informed us that they won the ideas competition for the new Market dels Encants in Barcelona, Spain, commissioned by the city.

TU Delft Architecture School was devastated by fire today. The fire, belived to have been started by a short circuit in a coffee machine caused by a faulty water pipe, was so poweful that the fire brigade couldn’t get close to it and decided to stand back and let the fire burn itself out.

UPDATE: See a video on the construction and photos of the project finished on this article.

Every year the PS1 Gallery at the Museum of Modern Art in New York invites young emerging architects to propose a temporary structure for their Warm-up Music festival, and unless you´ve been living under a rock for the last few months, you already know that Work AC won this years edition with their PF1 (Public Farm One) proposal.

PF1 (Public Farm One) is an urban farm concept built with inexpensive and sustainable materials recyclable after its use at P.S.1, such as cardboard tubes that form a continuous surface creating multiple zones of activity including swings, fans, sound effects, innovative seating areas, and a refreshing pool at its center, as an Urban Beach.

We visited Work AC (interview coming this Sunday) and they told us how this project allowed them to get in touch with non architects for the technique for growing plants on the cardboard tube structure, which enriched the development of the project. They also worked with LERA structural engineers.

Installation opens June 20th, hosting the 2008 Warm Up summer music series at the PS1. You can follow the construction progress at the Public Farm 1 website.

Gage / Clemenceau Architects is a NY based architectural firm that deals with a wide scale of projects, from product design, commercial & residential projects to exhibition design. Also runners for the Young Architects Program @ PS1 in 2007, Gage Clemenceau´s work is motivated by the premise that architecture transcends the practice of mere building- in favor of a new and vibrant alliance between progressive technologies, new materials, context and program.

We interviewed Mark Foster Gage (G/C partner, assistant professor at Yale), and discussed about education, media, networking role of architects in contemporary society, among other topics regarding the current state of architectural practice in our second issue of AD Interviews, in a very interesting and fluid talk.

More interviews each Sunday. Please leave your feedback at the comments for future issues.

Pictures of the Gage Clemenceau Studio after the break.

Well, not exactly on TED Talks but on the DLD (Digital Design Life) Conference in Munich which is being presented at the TED site. Norman Foster discusses his work to show how computers can help architects design buildings that are green, beautiful and “basically pollution-free.”

Erick van Egeraat has won the international competition for the design of a new incineration line in Roskilde, Denmark for Kara/Noveren, a local waste management company. Due to its large scale, the incinerator is destined to become an outstanding structure in the wide and open landscape of the Roskilde area. After its completion in 2013, the facility will produce both electricity and heating for the Roskilde district.

3LHD is a croatian office that has developed some interesting houses, sports facilities and urban projects. And now they just won the private competition for the Zamet sports and community centre in Rijeka, Croatia. Rijeka is an industrial harbour city on the Adriatic Sea and the new complex will provide it with a new civic hub for both business people and the general public.

From their press release:

A few weeks ago we started conducting a series of video interviews with some of the most promising young architects. In times when “ architect may no longer mean architect“, they were asked to talk about key aspects of their role as an architect in modern society, among other topics to discuss about the direction of architecture.

Our first guest is Shohei Shigematsu (1973). He graduated from the Department of Architecture at Kyushu University in 1996, and then went to the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam. He started working at OMA in 1998, becoming an associate in 2004. He´s now the director of OMA*AMO NY, working on projects such as the CCTV Headquartes in Beijing, the design of the Whitney Museum extension in NY, the Millestain Hall at Cornell, the Stock Exchange at Shenzhen, the Torre Bicentenario in Mexico and a mixed use building in Jersey City.

Photos of OMA NY after the break.

Realdania is a strategic foundation that initiates and supports built projects that improve the quality of life in Denmark. They are involved in aprox. 54 flagship projects, and now they are starting a mixed use building in Bryghusgrunden, one of the few undeveloped remaining areas of Copenhagen, Denmark with the potential to link the city to the waterfront. And guess who they choose for this project: OMA.

But what´s interesting in this project is the mixed of use. Housing, offices, public spaces and parking are put together with the Danish Architecture Center, with its own exhibition areas, research facilities, an auditorium, conference rooms, a bookstore and a café. It´s architecture meets one of it´s own key subject of study: mixed use.

Video, renders, plans and more info after the break.

Sorry for the lack of posts this last few days, but before leaving to San Francisco my computer died. Now i´m back home with a borrowed computer, and will be posting some buildings i found in SF.

This two rotated cubes are part of the adaptation of the 1907 Jessie Street Power Substation, adjacent to the Yerba Buena Park in San Francisco, into the new Jewish Contemporary Museum by Daniel Libeskind Studio and local architects WRNS Studio. The project houses 63,000 sq feet for exhibitions and programs in visual, performing and media arts, and includes 3,500 square feet of space for education.

The april issue of Icon features 20 essential young architects. According to Icon ““young actually means young, but architect may no longer mean architect”. Architecture for Humanity (Cameron Sinclair) and Alejandro Aravena (Elemental) are good examples – also architects doing blogs…

The World Architecture Festival is an annual event for architects worldwide, and this year it will be held at Barcelona, Spain on October 22-24 and will award buildings in 16 categories (more info con the awards after the break)

This 3 day event will have a nice agenda, full with exhibitions, live presentations, product showcases, a student charrette, thematic exhibitions (built environment, new technologies, collaboration and sustainability), plenary lectures, study tours of Barcelona and lots of social events and networking.

Here comes Arch Daily! Architecture, day by day.