The silhouette of the Eiffel Tower is the icon of Paris. It is familiar and definitive. This, however, may change as the top of the tower is to be reshaped in to the form pictured above. Yikes!

Serero Architects of Paris has won the competition to redesign the structure’s public viewing platform and reception areas. The winning design (above), which will be 276 metres (905ft) above the ground, will not require any permanent modification of the existing structure. It will double the capacity of the public viewing area on the tower’s top floor.

The new platform will be bolted onto the tower using a web of Kevlar, an extremely strong and lightweight carbon fibre used in the construction of racing cars and body armour. The new platform will use a cantilevered design similar to the way that an aircraft’s wings are attached to the fuselage.

What do you think of this change?

via The Guardian

Plans have been released for the world’s second tallest building, which is coming to Philadelphia.

Paul Makovsky posits in Metropolis Magazine about recent shifts in gendered design in architecture and design.

The principles of universal design tell us that products should be functional for the broadest possible spectrum of users. But designers and manufacturers have long targeted two distinct niche markets: men and women. (Just think of razors: women’s versions look like plastic flowers, men’s like props from The Terminator.) Lately, however, we’ve noticed a handful of products and projects that toy with traditional gender roles.

While the thesis is intriguing and raises an interesting question, this mini-mini essay comes up short in its execution and rationale.

While not the first place on earth to have underwater hotel, Istanbul will soon be home to a 7 story underwater hotel. Opening in 2010, the hotel will have restaurants, exhibition halls, and ocean-view guestrooms and should meet 7 star standards.

Wallpaper magazine has put together a world-savvy committee of judges to select it’s 2008 Design Award winners. But enough about that, on to some of the winners:

Winners – International Judges’ Awards:
Best New Hotel: Riva Lofts, Florence
Best New Public Building: New Museum, New York, by SANAA
Best Fashion Collection: Jil Sander, autumn/winter 2007
Best New Grooming Product: TweezLight tweezers
Best New Private House: Ring House, Karuizawa, by TNA
Best Domestic Appliance: Katamari 01 speaker by Gyanze
Furniture Designer of the Year: Tokujin Yoshioka
Best New Restaurant; Mathias Dahlgren, Stockholm
Best City: Los Angeles
Most Life-Enhancing Item: $100 laptop, by Yves Béhar

There are 63 categories in this year’s ‘Best’. If you head over here you can see the full list. Why not review the shortlists and decided for yourself if the judge’s got things right (look for the short list links towards the right side of the screen).

The Globe and Mail has a very interesting interview with architect Daniel Libeskind on designing a modern museum, although the new Lee-Chin Crystal wing at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Although the author comes away with many questions unanswered.

My next question: What would you have done with an additional hundred million dollars, is similarly end-run. “Nothing. Not a thing.” In other words, there was no possible way to improve with a larger budget? How can this be? “Money is not a determinant of architecture. If you give a poet more money, the poem he writes wouldn’t be any better.”

I am torn between the need to write this down and the desire to explain that poets don’t build their poems from concrete and glass – which cost money – but I am aware of the grains of sand slipping though the hourglass, so I plunge ahead.

Is he disappointed that the final design for the Crystal couldn’t include more glass? “We have more glass here than any museum in the world,” he says, roundly denying that more glass was ever intended in the original design. “The model was an abstraction,” he says. Citing the conservation issues around daylight flooding the galleries, he went on: “Nobody wants a glass museum, believe me.” Except in the dinosaur galleries, I say? “Well,” he says, “dinosaurs roamed the Earth, not vitrines.”

via arts journal

image courtesy of wallpaper.com

Wallpaper* Magazine has launched a new directory called the Graduates Directory 2008, which is comprised of is this year’s 110 best young designers who have just graduated from some form of schooling (hence the title) in fields from jewelery design to photography to architecture. Personally, I think it is admirable that Wallpaper* takes the time and print to recognize graduates.

MIT has filed suit against Frank Gerhy’s Gerhy Partners over alleged design flaws in the Stata Center. MIT claims there are persistent leaks, drainage issues - oh and mold.

The Stata Center quite the architectural wonder. Pop here to see some images.

Good Magazine profiles architect Cameron Sinclair and his work to create means of collaborative architecture.

Sinclair, 33, is one of a new breed of visionary humanitarian, and the effects of his project are proving to be more far reaching than the structures themselves, shifting the trajectory of architecture toward a more collaborative and socially conscious process. “We’re changing the dynamic of what it means to be an architect,” says Sinclair in a distinguished-sounding British accent. “If you strip away all the ego in architecture … all we do is provide shelter. And if you can’t do that, you can’t call yourself an architect.”

The New York Times profiles two up and coming big-name architects, Gaston Nogues and Benjamin Ball.

In an era that celebrates big-name architects and multimillion-dollar building projects, Gaston Nogues and Benjamin Ball offer a change of pace. One wears siren-red Converse sneakers, the other a beatnik fedora and goatee; their studio is a three-car garage in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles that is taken up mostly by building tools. Neither has yet turned 40.

Kisho Kurokawa is the architect behind the new National Art Center in Roppongi, a suburb of Tokyo. The NAC opened less than two months ago, in early January and is now Japan’s biggest art museum.

The building is a large glittering of organic walls. What is interesting about this center as a national art gallery is that it will not have a permanent collection, or even stockpile art. Instead, the NAC will have a rotating program of temporary and visiting exhibitions.

For more information on the design of the NAC checkout Arcspace’s overview, which has loads of great pictures, and Kisho Kurokawa and Associates’ website.

The bedroom from the Hans Salzer residence(1902), while rendered in a warmer color palette, finds a similar order in two imposing wardrobes and a grid motif repeating from the carpet to the linens.
(c) Metropolis Magazine

Metropolis Magazine writes about Josef Hoffmann, an Austrian architect who also had a knack for interiors. His interior work are on display at an exhibition at the Neue Galerie presenting for the first time are four interiors taken from Hoffmann’s most fruitful period, re-created with objects original to those rooms: furniture, wall and floor coverings, textiles, lighting, ceramics, glass and metalwork.

His careful orchestration of each space and its contents, along with his willingness to experiment with color, create a dynamic play between order and whimsy

Here is an interesting video featuring mega-architect Daniel Libeskind discussing a myriad of issues, including architecture, culture and the fusion of the two. The video itself is a part of a series of videos surrounding the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana.

via artsjournal

According to this article, translucent concrete will be hitting the market quite soon.

Thousands of optical glass fibers form a matrix and run parallel to each other between the two main surfaces of every block,” explained its inventor Áron Losonczi. “Shadows on the lighter side will appear with sharp outlines on the darker one. Even the colours remain the same. This special effect creates the general impression that the thickness and weight of a concrete wall will disappear.

via linkbunnies

The O-14 Office building in Dubai is a 22 stories tall, the 300,000 square-foot commercial tower. The façade is comprised of 16″ thick concrete containing over 1,000 circular openings. Designed by RUR Architecture, the building’s ground was broken in December of 2006 and is classified as a green building.

From Archinet:

The shell is not only the structure of the building, it acts as a sunscreen open to light, air, and views. The openings on the shell modulate depending on structural requirements, views, sun exposure, and luminosity. A space nearly one meter deep between the shell and the main enclosure creates a so-called “chimney effect,” a phenomenon whereby hot air has room to rise and effectively cools the surface of the glass windows behind the perforated shell. This passive solar technique essentially contributes to a natural component to the cooling system for O-14, thus reducing energy consumption and costs, just one of many innovative aspects of the building’s design.

via archinet via inhabitat

The Seattle Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhass, has been lauded in the architectural community and received loads of press on its looks since it opened in 2005. Christopher Hume, writing in the Toronto Star, observes that the library has won on function as well as it has more than succeeded in drawing community members from various demographics to use its space and services.

via artsjournal

Found this on Google Video: an entire episode of Charlie Rose with Frank Gerhy.

The original air date was July 13, 2001.

Everything is now official - Wallpaper magazine has held its awards party and announced the winners of the 2007 Design Awards. They winners are:

- Best new hotel: Home, Buenos Aires
- Best new public building: Morgan Library & Museum extension, by Renzo Piano
- Best new fashion collection: Prada
- Best new grooming product: Serge Lutens cosmetics
- Best new private house: Baron House by John Pawson
- Best domestic appliance: Ceramic speakers, by Broberg Ridderstråle
- Best furniture designer of the year: Hella Jongerius
- Best city: Istanbul
- Best new restaurant: Müzede Changa, Istanbul
- Most life-enhancing item: Google earth

Pop over here to read the full rationale for each winner.

Toyota Roof Gardens, a subsidiary of Toyota of Japan, has created an easy way for anyone to install their own green roof. The product is the TM9, which is a 20 square inch tile that can be interlocked with other tiles. They are only 2 inches thick and quite lightweight. Moreover, the tiles easily connect to existing irrigation or watering systems and so they become self-watering. For now, though, it appears that the product is only available in Japan.

Learn about the green roofs and their benefits from the Green Roof Research Program at MSU.

via inhabitat

Tim Townshend, a Newcastle academic and former town planner, is one of those suggesting that our public spaces - our cities, suburbs, shopping centres - are enforcing a culture that consumes energy without expending it, encouraging inactivity and poor eating habits. One of Townshend’s more frivolous suggestions is that we make stairwells a more attractive option by fitting them with piped music (although it’s this, arguably, that made lifts loathsome in the first place).

The Guardian has an interesting article on the push of a UK government advisory body, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) to have architects and urban planners design buildings and neighborhoods with the aim to increase physical activity and exertion. With these increases, people will be more active and hopefully better fit. This of course raises the question as to whether it will catch on.