Bio-Architecture

This one is fun
It is The Seashell House and it is located in Mexico City, Mexico.

*Many have wondered what life would be like living in a sea shell and that was the exact inspiration behind the beautifully crafted Nautilus.

This giant seashell house is located in Mexico City, and was built and designed by Arquitectura Organica’s own Javier Senosiain.

The home was built back in 2006, and features a smooth front facade met with a giant wall of colored mosaics, lighting up the living space in a stunning rainbow effect. Inspired by the works of Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright (as can be seen by the natural plantings and spiral staircases located throughout the dwelling) the structure houses a young family that includes two children.

Whether you think it looks like a giant snail or seashell,the home is definitely quite strange, but it was actually designed to blend in with the natural surroundings in what Senosiain likes to call “Bio-Architecture.”

YTAA - Young Talent Architecture Award

Image: Courtesy of YTAA




Announcing the YTAA - Young Talent Architecture Award, which joins the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award and the Emerging Architect Award in recognizing architectural talent in Europe.

As explained on the website of YTAA - Young Talent Architecture Award, the biennial award "aims to support the talent of recently graduated Architects, Urban Planners and Landscape Architects who will be responsible for transforming our environment in the future. YTAA has emerged from curiosity about and interest in the initial stages in these students’ development and a desire to support their talent as they enter into the professional world."

Winners of the award will be determined by a process in which "schools will nominate Graduation Projects that will participate in each edition of the YTAA through an internal selection process." Schools, which in the first edition must be located in Europe, need to register between now and June in order to participate. Once registered, each school will nominate graduation projects (the number based on the size of the school) from the 2015-2016 academic year in architecture, urban design and/or landscape architecture.

Nine finalists will be determined by an advisory committee, followed by the selection of three winners by an international jury. Winners will be announced in October, and each will receive 5,000€, a profile on World-Architects, a Vectorworks license, and have their designs exhibited at the EUMiesAward. All nominated designs will be published online and become part of the Archive of the YTAA, much like the archive of the Mies Award.

The YTAA is organized by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe with the support of the European Union program Creative Europe and the sponsorship of World-Architects and Vectorworks.

Visit the YTAA website for more information on this exciting award and to register a school for participation.


Photo: Anna Sala, courtesy of YTAA

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

HOW TO CREATE A ROOFTOP GARDEN

Creating a rooftop garden can be a bit challenge so we offer you the next ideas that will make it easy for you to create a rooftop garden. Given below are

e some essential tips that might help you to choose the right patio furniture and create a rooftop garden. How to create a rooftop garden? Indeed, all that you need is to arrange for aluminum railings along the edges of the roof. The next step is to put in a few potted plants and some lightweight garden furniture to seat the family. To prevent accidental falls, then you should make sure, railings are high enough. Keep in mind; if you have a lot of children, then you need to install railings that are child-proof. Don’t forget to make the best use of the space available by placing plants in hanging baskets or growing creepers on trellises. Finally, to keep your plants alive, consider the weather conditions in the place where you live. How to choose the right patio furniture: Choosing furniture for your rooftop patio is a hard task. But to choose the right outdoor furniture, you need to follow the next instructions: First of all, you should check the quality of the furniture before buying it. Always go for good quality furniture. Resin furniture is durable and can withstand changes of weather. Keep in mind that natural wicker furniture is very fragile and must be carefully protected. There are many types of outdoor furniture to choose from, such as wood, plastic and metal furniture.

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.”

.

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.

Houses made from Houses

When designing, architects always use a pool of references - actively and passively. But what will be if architects not just use the image of a building but the real houses to create another object? Make houses from houses? Somehow like Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter in their book "Collage City" from 1978?

The publication "Konglomerate Häuser" presents a collection of design-variations created from 10 Munich houses. See the PDF preview of the book here.

KONGLOMERATE HÄUSER [aus zehn Münchner Bauten] Anekdotisches Entwerfen - dritter und letzter Teil: Aus den vorgegebenen Grundrissen von zehn Münchner Bauten galt es mit Hilfe von Militärprojektionen neue Häuser zu erdenken ...

Technische Universität München, Lehrstuhl für integriertes Bauen