Sra Pou Vocational School

A project that could easily fit within the vein of the books reviewed this week, this vocational school in the Cambodian village of Sra Pou, Udong started with Architects Rudanko + Kankkunen in an Aalto university design studio in Finland. According to the architects, they "travelled to Cambodia to find a design task with a local NGO" and eventually "decided to organize the construction of Sra Pou vocational school, since there was an urgent need for it and their design inspired both the community and donors." As part of Ukumbi, they provided a training center that enables people in the village to start sustainable businesses in order to secure stable income.

The school is a simple two-story brick rectangular building with a workshop and classrooms, and a covered "community room" to the side. It immediately recalls other projects featured previously on this web page: the Primary School in Gando, Burkina Faso by Diébédo Francis Kéré; the Handmade School (METI) in Rudrapur, Bangladesh by Roswag & Jankowski and Anna F. Heringer; and the Wadi El Gemal Visitor Center in Marsa Alam, Egypt by MADA Architects. These projects share a blend of the contemporary and the local in their form and materials, as well as serving unprivileged communities in developing countries.

[In addition to a vocational school,] it is also a place for public gathering and democratic decision-making for the whole community. -Hilla Rudanko and Anssi Kankkunen

Like the Handmade School, color is used on doors and shutters to give the building a strong presence by creating a rhythm across its facade. In the Vocational School these woven pieces also paint the light in various colors as it enters the workshop and classroom. The primary material is handmade brick made from the local soil, giving the building its distinctive red color. This gives the impression that the building is of its place...because it is. As well, local residents participated in the school's construction, both to make the building affordable to build and, more importantly, give them training to use the same techniques for their own houses.

Other additions to the minimal palette include wood beams and columns for the roof of the building and the outdoor space and woven mats for the roofs themselves. A particularly nice touch in the small building can be found in the gaps in the brick walls, gaps that allow air to move through the interior spaces. These breezes can be modulated by the woven shutters. The gaps dapple the light that enters the spaces, and they do the inverse, giving the building another unique presence in spots of light glowing from the inside at night.

5 Remarkable Buildings That Use Trees as a Design Element

Innovative Design

5 Remarkable Buildings That Use Trees as a Design Element

From Singapore to Switzerland, firms have introduced more greenery to provide shade, improve air quality, and reduce reliance on air-conditioning

 This was a year in which tree-inspired architecture sprouted throughout a few cities in Southeast Asia, along with one magnificent project in Europe. From Singapore to Switzerland, several firms have covered their future buildings with trees and shrubs. The arboreal aesthetic is inspired by a number of practical building considerations: In efforts to minimize the effects of greenhouse gases from new buildings, architects have incorporated more greenery to supply shade, boost air quality, and lessen their buildings’ need for air-conditioning. AF surveys five beautiful, tree-centric buildings that are changing the way we look at modern architecture. Pictured here is Vo Trong Nghia Architects’ vision for a treelined campus at FPT University in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Courtesy of Vo Trong Nghia Architects

The 2015 winning design for the Urban Habitat Award by Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat was the ParkRoyal on Pickering, a hotel in Singapore created by WOHA.

Photo: Courtesy of WOHA

Building of the Year 2015

A tower with a photovoltaic facade is Building of the Year: With 20 percent of the votes, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture's (AS+GG) FKI Tower in Seoul, South Korea, has won the Building of the Year 2015 on American-Architects.

FKI TOWER bested the other projects featured as Building of the Week last year, in which the theme focused on buildings overseas designed by US architects and the inverse: buildings in North America designed by foreign architects. Chicago's AS+GG designed the 50-story, 240-meter tower for Seoul's Yeoido District, which mandated that new large-scale commercial buildings generate at least 5% of their energy onsite. In response, the architects covered the glass tower in a high-performance envelope with a "rippled" profile that provides sunshade and is integrated with photovoltaic (PV) panels. It is an ingenious solution to the mandate and a valuable precedent for building sustainable towers, and we're glad our readers rewarded the design with their votes.

Known for the 1-kilometer-tall Jeddah Tower under construction in Saudi Arabia, AS+GG has been at the forefront of designing energy-efficient, sustainable tall buildings since its founding in 2006. In addition to the curtain wall with PV panels (selectively located on the tower's four sides according to exposure and other factors), FKI Tower incorporates a number of planted atrium terraces that serve the office workers and a podium at the base with public amenities. The rippled facade, atria and podium add up to an architectural icon for Seoul.

Runner UP

Second Place (16% of votes): JW Marriott Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, by Carlos Zapata StudioAdd caption

Tied for Third Place (11% of votes): MUZEIKO – America for Bulgaria Children’s Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria, by Lee H. Skolnick Architecture and Design Partnership
 

Tied for Third Place (11% of votes): Vitra in São Paulo, Brazil, by Studio Libeskind

Do you want to be an Architect?

People who had an interest in either becoming an architect or now that they had finished school … what happens next? The intent when I started this series was to create a depository of answers to questions that people tended to email me – thinking I could just refer people to the post on the subject rather than having to recreate the answer over and over again. These posts have been created over a two-year period and I discovered that some people who wanted this information still couldn’t find it and I still found myself back where I started. Hopefully now that I have created a single page that will contain all of the posts that fall into the category of “Do you want to be an Architect” I can accomplish my original goal of the blind leading the blind.

In the  meantime, I hope that this is a resource for those of you looking for some answers

Do you want to be an Architect?

It takes a lot of commitment and desire to become an ARCHITECT. Nobody becomes an architect because they think it sounds cool or they like to draw. There is a lot more to it and I think it needs to be a calling for you to even think you will experience any measurable success. Do you think you have what it takes to be an architect?

                                                                      The college years   

When I tell people who I knew I wanted to be an architect by the time I was 5 years old, they think how lucky that must have been! But am I really so lucky? There was a time when I thought I had made a terrible decision, and I found myself struggling with the classes and the time and effort required to just to keep pace with my peers. (but I think this story has a happy ending).

                 Design Studio: Top 10 Things you should know

Architecture school is all about the studio. Whether you are new to design studio or a seasoned pro, there are a few things that I thought I would share with all you that dispel some commonly accepted ideas of what architecture studio really requires from its attendees. I think you might be surprised to read a few things on this list but I promise that you will be better off for having read this list.

well decorated,ornamented Studio

 What makes you a designer?

As a practicing architect. not everything I do is big picture design. From the overall time I spend working in the office, very little is – but good architecture isn’t always about the big killer idea. I consider coordinating a project and the details of the construction of that project integral to a successful design.

Drawing like an Architect

I am living proof that you don’t have to draw well to be an architect. Having the ability to draw beautiful pictures doesn’t hurt but let’s pull the curtain back and be honest here for a minute … Architects communicate through their drawings – we aren’t making art. As architect Lou Kahn once famously said, “an artist can make a cart with square wheels, but an architect can’t.”

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How much money does an architect make?

Architects can make a great living but there is balance between money and happiness that must be found. This post contains a snapshot of some of the best places to work and what areas pay the highest salary for architects. Before anybody start whining and moaning about how architects are underpaid, let me tell you know that I don’t want to hear it. Teachers are underpaid.

The ‘Not so Sexy Side to Architecture’

There is a reality check coming for most graduating architecture students. Practicing architecture for 99.9% of The architects out there means something other than designing – at least what you might typically think design really means. The practice of architecture is more than sketching on trace paper, parti diagrams, deciding what pens to draw with, groupies, and last-minute trips to Vegas with the client. It means solving problems – sometimes incredibly mundane and uninspired – yet very important problems to the people who retain your services.

An Architect’s Tool Bag

To be an architect you must have specific tools to get the job done. Here is a look at the ones I use most often. Some (but not all) are clearly throw-backs tools that reflect the fact that I graduated from architecture school 20 years ago. Despite the fact that I am pretty good at AutoCAD, I didn’t put it on my list of tools. If I had made my list a little longer it probably would have showed up.