new york NEW YORK

MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab has exhibited the Fluid Crystallization project as part of the 2013 Architectural League Prize Exhibition at the Parson’s Gallery in New York. The Fluid Crystallization installation investigates hierarchical and non-deterministic self-assembly with large numbers of parts in a fluid medium. 350 hollow spheres are submerged in a 200-gallon glass water-filled tank. Armatures, modeled after carbon atoms, follow intramolecular covalent bonding geometries within atoms. Intermolecular structures formed as spheres interacted with one another in 1, 2, or 3-dimensional patterns.

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london UNITED KINGDOM

Related Companies, New York’s premier residential developer, today announced that it has commissioned world renowned Zaha Hadid Architects to design a boutique condominium adjacent to the High Line at 520 West 28th Street in Chelsea just south of Hudson Yards. The 11-story residential development will mark Hadid’s first commission in New York City, leaving an indelible mark on the High Line’s architecture map and continuing Related’s storied history of partnering with world-class architects and designers.

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los angeles CALIFORNIA

University of Southern California
critic: Doris SUNG

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project:

Erin CUEVAS: While the automobile has evolved to fit the desires of drivers, infrastructure has remained static. Rather than fostering a proper environment for the contemporary mobile lifestyle, infrastructure instead produces a monotonous and often irritating experience of driving—especially during traffic. Is it possible for infrastructure to function the same was as cars, as an extension of the driver’s body and identity?

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hong kong CHINA

davidclovers’s design for breakers café is their first full brand concept and design project. Using the existing columns as focal points to re-shape the space, the design for breakers shifts the attention away from the walls to the ceiling, giving it a new sense of openness and extension. Using a mixture of contemporary geometry, abstract graphics and rusticated recycled materials, the design bravely assembles a new sensibility of the café experience. Flanking the gym and the pool, it is an intensely colorful and vibrant environment with spectacular forms while at the same time, the design remains open ended and comfortable to retreat and relax in.

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new haven CONNECTICUT

Yale School of Architecture
critic: Mark GAGE

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Mary BURR & Katie STRANIX: This seminar focused on applying digital techniques and advanced form-making strategies to an analog or manual tradition of construction with the most historically valued and stable material—marble. The goal of the seminar was to rethink the possibilities of marble for a new generation of progressive use in architecture—in this case as an architectural panel.

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new york NEW YORK

Project is a forum for critical thought in architecture. Given the present diffuseness of the discipline, and the proliferation of media platforms that indiscriminately celebrate the imagery and culture of design, it is essential to distinguish the architects, ideas and works that take a critical stance on architecture and the world in which it is produced. Project publishes both new work and writing; it is a platform for architects to name the stakes for architecture, to articulate their projects and their ambitions for the discipline today.

book launch: Project, issue two.
Thursday, 07/18
7.00 p.m. / Van Alen Books
30 W 22nd St.
New York, NY 10010

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los angeles CALIFORNIA

41. Nothing is built on stone, everything on sand, but our duty is to build as if sand were stone . . .
— Jorge Luis Borges, “Fragments from an Apocryphal Gospel.”

Never has the practice of architecture been less dependent on the traditional means of drawing architecture than today. Compared with software that fully integrates all aspects of construction into a single digital model, drawings that were once used to convey information to builders are no doubt less expeditious. However . . .

*Images by and courtesy First Office (Andrew Atwood & Anna Neimark).

[EXCERPTED FROM FRESH PUNCHES ]

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chicago ILLINOIS

Illinois Institute of Technology
critics: Ross WIMER & Gordon GILL

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Daniel CAVEN: Past ideas of towers acting as modern monumental statues in this modern world have become obsolete. Now towers must incorporate adaptive qualities for climate change and environmental conditions to withstand tests of sustainability as well as create a generative life. The Relief Tower is capable of generating active energy outputs as well sustainable mechanical devices that will achieve economic gains for major cities, such as Chicago.

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new york NEW YORK

Architect Pier Vittorio AURELI speaks on Dogma: 11 Projects, the recently published book (and accompanying exhibition at the AA School of Architecture) exploring 11 works developed since 2002 by his Brussels-based architectural studio.

lecture: Pier Vittorio AURELI, “Dogma: 11 Projects.”
Tuesday, 07/16
6.00 p.m. / Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
Columbia University
1172 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027

london UNITED KINGDOM

Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA)
Design Research Laboratory (DRL)
critic: Theodore SPYROPOULOS with Shajay BHOOSHAN, Mustafa EL-SAYED, & Manuel JIMÉNEZ GARCÍA

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

SyntaxERROR (Cemil Ceyhan GONEN, Konstantinos PSOMAS, Sara Gemma SABATE GOMEZ, & Vishu BHOOSHAN):
. . . the future of control: partnership, co-control, cyborgian control. What it all means is that the creator must share control and his destiny, with his creations. — Kevin Kelly

Aeros, like the name suggests, relates to air, more specifically in the domain of flight.

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