Steven Holl Architects has been awarded first prize in the design competition to redevelop the site of the oxygen and boiler plants in Hangzhou, China. Steven Holl Architects’ design won first place, Herzog & de Meuron won second place, and David Chipperfield Architects was selected as the third place winner by a nine member international jury consisting of Thom Mayne, Wolf D. Prix, Ralph Lerner, Terence Riley, Adolf Krischanitz, Rusio Barbara, Zheng Shiling, Pan Gongkai and Wang Jianguo.

This master plan includes residential towers and an international urban exposition center, and integrates functions like an art gallery, restaurants, and performance and exhibition spaces.

The architectural expression for the new performing arts centre has been inspired by the uniquely beautiful monument of Petra. As an artificial oasis and sanctuary the ancient city of Petra is an appropriate source of analogy for a performing arts centre that aspires to be an oasis and sanctuary for contemporary culture.

Petra is also a fantastic example of the wonderful interplay between architecture and nature. Contemporary architecture is striving to emulate nature and imbue architecture with the intricate complexity and elegance of natural forms. In Petra we admire the way the rose-colored mountain walls have been fissured, eroded, carved and polished to reveal the strata of sedimentation along the fluid lines of the fluvial erosions.

Built on the campus of EPFL Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, The Rolex Learning Center, designed by the Japanese architectural practice SANAA, will open February 22, 2010.

The Rolex Learning Center will function as a laboratory for learning, a library with 500,000 volumes and an international cultural hub for EPFL, open to both students and the public. Spread over one single fluid space of 215,278 square feet, it provides a seamless network of services, libraries, information gathering, social spaces, spaces to study, restaurants, cafes and beautiful outdoor spaces. It is a highly innovative building, with gentle slopes and terraces, undulating around a series of internal ‘patios’, with almost invisible supports for its complex curving roof, which required completely new methods of construction.

Teaching and entrepreneur start-up office facilities side by side – that's the philosophy behind the distinctive extension to the existing 1970’s structure of the University College Vitus Bering Denmark in Horsens.

The new Innovation building is designed to sit on a brick base, in a direct continuation of the existing complex’ architecture, but from there on it bears a distinct different and unique.

The building's dynamic character is expressed via its spiral shape. On the facades, the movement is seen in the glazing strips that stretch towards the sky across the six storeys of the building and create the impression of a spiral sequence, while internally it is expressed via the main staircase in green fibre cement, which runs in a spiral form between the storeys in the unifying internal atrium. The inclined forms of the building also have the practical advantage of allowing a necessary fire escape route to be cut through the building.

Photographs by Julian Weyer

Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with BNIM Architects, has won the commission for the new art studio facility for the University of Iowa (UI) Arts campus.
The new building is to replace an original arts building from 1936, which was heavily damaged during a flood of the University of Iowa campus in June 2008. The proposed site is directly adjacent to and northwest of the Art Building West, designed by Steven Holl Architects, which since its opening in 2006 has received numerous awards, including the AIA 2007 Institute Honor Award for Architecture.

The finalists of the annual PS1 Young Architects Program, curated by The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, were asked to present designs for temporary urban landscapes that incorporate elements of shade, water, seating, and bar areas for the expansive courtyard entrance of P.S.1. The competition program focused on designs which address sustainability, recycling, and reuse. The winning scheme by SO-IL Archtiects was selected January 22, 2010.
BIG sent us their proposal, we are featuring it in this post.