The process of upgrading the Camp Nou [FC Barcelona stadium] to a world class venue has started. During the coming months, architects from around the world will have the opportunity to submit their proposals for a profound remodeling of a stadium that will celebrate its 50th anniversary on September the 24th of this year. It is the objective of the club to reach this goal through a fair and open process. The selection of the proposal for the remodeling of the Camp Nou will be by an international tender, organized by FC Barcelona, that will be supported by the Association of Architects of Catalunya, which will contribute the necessary expertise for selecting the architect, or team of architects, who will be commissioned to undertake the design and guidance of the project.

For more information and application details, click [here]



from WAN newsfeed



good luck

With around a 100 apartments arranged over 19 floors in a somewhat bizarre shape, the new building set to change the skyline of Rotterdam’s port area resembles a giant flowering cactus. It is such an unmistakable resemblance that, to forestall any badmouthing and to leave no room for further interpretation, the designers, UCX Architects, have christened the tower block “urban cactus.”

However, Ben Huygen and Jasper Jägers did not get carried away with useless exercises in form. Their design is based on the need to give every living unit a large terrace/garden on two levels. This gave rise to the building’s circular form with the floor plans rotated with respect to one other. The project is the result of an analysis commissioned by Vestia Rotterdam Feyenoord/Estrade Projecten/Floor Oskam. Its aim is to meet the growing demand for quality housing with garden space in the city centre. E.S.

http://www.ucxarchitects.com



from Domus News

Richard Rogers
The Lord Rogers of Riverside


Richard Rogers was born in Florence, Italy in 1933. He received a diploma in Architecture from the Architectural Association in London, and a Masters from Yale University USA. Best known for his pioneering buildings with Norman Foster, Renzo Piano and since 1978 with his colleagues at the Richard Rogers Partnership, he has maintained a lifelong commitment to the relationship between architecture, the environment, culture and society. In parallel to his prime activity as an architect and urban designer, he has been closely involved with many of the UK's major arts and public organisations. He was Chairman of the Tate Gallery from 1981 to 1989, Deputy Chairman of the Arts Council of England from 1994 to 1997 and Chairman of The Architecture Foundation until June 2001. He is an Honorary Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as well as President of The National Communities Resource Centre.

The first architect to be invited to give the BBC Reith Lectures in 1995, Rogers’ text - 'Cities for a small planet' - argued for a more equitable and sustainable approach to the built environment, placing the design of cities at the heart of the public and political agenda. Richard Rogers is Chairman to the Mayor’s Design for London Group, as well as Adviser to the Mayor of Barcelona on urban strategies.

In 1971, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano were the winners of an international competition for the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, a museum, library and information centre. The building has been visited by over 100 million people since its completion in 1976. The work of the Richard Rogers Partnership, formed in 1977, is based on the use of appropriate technologies to reduce energy consumption, maximising social potential and responding to changing patterns of use and activity. The practice has designed award-winning public and private buildings in Europe, Asia and the USA, including Lloyd's of London (London, 1986), Channel 4 Headquarters (London, 1994), the European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg, 1995), Law Courts in Bordeaux (1998), VR Techno Plaza (Gifu, Japan, 1998), 88 Wood Street (London, 1999), the Millennium Dome (London, 1999) and Lloyd’s Register of Shipping (London, 2000). Recently completed projects include the new National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff, Madrid Barajas Airport, Terminal 4 and Law Courts in Antwerp. Current projects include Heathrow Terminal 5, the redevelopment of a bullring in Barcelona and a 48 storey office tower in the City of London.

The commitment to the public realm and sustainable design underpins a series of urban masterplans in cities around the world. These include the masterplan for Pu Dong Financial District in Shanghai, the radical ecological proposals for ParcBIT in Majorca and visionary plans for the centre of London, originally exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1986. In London, the practice is author of the Greenwich Peninsula masterplan, proposals for the Bankside masterplan adjacent to Tate Modern and Convoys Wharf in Deptford.

Richard Rogers has published and lectured widely. He has received numerous international awards, including the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (1985), the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur (1986), the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Medal In Architecture (1999) and the Praemium Imperiale in 2000. Two key publications are 'Cities for a small planet' (based on his BBC Reith Lectures) and ‘Cities for a small country’ (with Professor Ann Power). In 1991 he was knighted by H.M. The Queen for his contributions to architecture. He was made a life peer in 1996.

In 1998 Richard Rogers was commissioned by the UK government to chair the Urban Task Force and in June 1999 his team published a report, ‘Towards an Urban Renaissance’, containing wide-ranging proposals for urban regeneration in the UK. Many of these recommendations were incorporated in the Government’s Urban White Paper, announced in November 2000. The Urban Summit, held in London in November 2002, focused on key issues raised in the UTF Report.


from www.labiennale.org

Brit-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid is the winner of the international architecture competition Betile, run by the Regione Sardegna in collaboration with Domus and the Politecnico of Milan, for the building of a Mediterranean Museum of Nuragic and Contemporary Art on the seafront at Sant’Elia in Cagliari.

“The jury appreciated the extraordinary contextual sensitivity of the new architectural entity that, acting as a ‘coralline concretion’, accompanies, stitches up and reconfigures an entire stretch of the seafront at Cagliari”, explained Stefano Boeri. “The plastic nature of the new Museum – added Boeri – represents a mark of regeneration of undisputable strength and visibility within the landscape of the gulf of Cagliari, and with the interweaving of its sinuous built elements expresses the desire to base the new Museum on the interaction between the exhibits (related to Nuragic and contemporary art) and the movement of the users-visitors”.

Zaha Hadid, aged 56, British by adoption, in 2004 the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker prize, is a highly significant figure in terms of experimental contemporary architecture, work revealed through a number of projects of undisputed fame. In Italy, in Rome she is realising another important museum, Maxxi, Museo nazionale delle Arti del XXI and is responsible for other museums built at Cincinnati (Contemporary Art Mueum) and Wolfsburg in Germany (Phaeno Science Centre).

The scheme designed by Zaha Hadid for the museum of Nuragic and contemporary art “will represent – continued Boeri – as well as a new landmark for Cagliari, an opportunity for new experiences – both perceptive and corporeal – and a place for the development and sedimentation of fertile contaminations between the past and future identity of the area and the island of Sardinia”.

With this in mind, the jury recognised in the winning project its potential to become a “reference point” for on the one hand the other museums in Cagliari and on the other the archaeological sites spread around the area and the places dedicated to contemporary art on the island, that the brief indicated as the overall aim in the architectural competition.

The jury also gave a special mention to other competitors who were considered along with Hadid for receiving the commission to design the museum. These were the studio Archea whose scheme, a large cube crossed by a void that connected sea and sky, captured in a profound and original way the sense of identity within the context of Sardinia that the museum brief underlined; architects Herzog and de Meuron who proposed an original layout for the museum developed in the vertical sense together with the idea of introducing urban forestation, and finally the team lead by the architect Lagnese who devised a scheme that was strongly lyrical with a layout of great clarity.

The designs by the nine other candidates selected in June alongside Hadid for the design phase of the Betile international competition, will be on show for the next few weeks in an exhibition organised by the Regione Sardegna and the Comune di Cagliari, at the Lazzaretto di Sant’Elia, near to the site where the museum will be built, to allow citizens a chance to evaluate the design ideas proposed.

Domus, along with the Regione, is working on a special supplement dedicated to the detailed presentation of the results of the competition, to be published in January.

The nine other designs on show are by the following architects:
Massimiliano Fuksas with Arup
Herzog & de Meuron
Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Kengo Kuma & Associates with Obr architetti associati, Buro Happold, Hilson Moran, Eta, Ecologic studio, Bob Noorda design, Carlotta De Bevilacqua, Paolo Inghilleri, Aubry & Guiguet, De-ca, M. A. Mongiu, Mosign, M. Desvigne
Gonçalo Byrne
Garofalo Miura architetti with Proger S.p.a.
Yung Ho Chang (Atelier Fcjz), Interaction Design Lab, Mutti&Architetti with DotDotDot, Fabrizio Leoni, Luca Poncellini (Cliostraat) and Giovanni Romano (Postmedia Books)
Studio Archea with Franz Prati, MDU architetti associati, Francesco Chessa studio di ingegneria e Milano progetti
Roberto Cosenza, Giampiero Lagnese, Klaus Schuwerk


from Domus News


project and details in album, enjoy