17 hours ago
2010 Skyscraper Competition Winners Announced
Yesterday, eVolo magazine announced the winners of their 2010 Skyscraper Competition, an award that aims to ‘discover young talents whose ideas will change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.’
The nine jurors selected 3 prizes and 27 special mentions out of 430 entries from 42 countries, and considered factors such as globalisation, sustainability, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution when making their considerations.
The First Prize went to Malaysian Architecture students Chow Khoon Toong, Ong Tien Yee, and Beh Ssi Cze, for their prison in the sky, pictured above. Inmates would live in a free and productive society with farming and factories supporting the world below. It’s an interesting idea that seeks to totally re-imagine the prison system, and even though the logistics of creating such a system are pretty unfavourable, the judges considered this the strongest entry.
Second place went to a water purification tower from Indonesia, and third went to a skyscraper that changes form depending on climate, from Japan. Head over to eVolo’s competition page for more about the winners and special mentions.
1 day ago
Filling Potholes with Flowers «
As the world urbanises and our love affair with the automobile continues, roads will carry more and more traffic, and continue to crumble under the pressure.
It seems that road maintenance isn’t an exciting enough topic to secure an election, which has left a metaphorical pothole in road infrastructure funding. Whilst some countries value road maintenance more highly than others (ever driven in Italy?), potholes are becoming an increasingly common sight across the western world.
Thankfully, Artist Pete Dungey has come up with a simple, beautiful but sadly thoroughly useless ‘solution’ for the pothole problem. His piece, ‘Pothole Gardens’, is pretty self explanatory, but he’s happy to admit it isn’t really viable:
If we planted one of those in every hole, it would be like a forest in the road.
And it would be a beautiful forest, until a car drove over it of course.
2 days ago
Shared on @ThisBigCity This Week
The above video follows David Shelper from IBM Research, giving a tour of their Zero Energy Home.
Urban Omnibus consider designing cities for food production.
With so many options on the market, this TreeHugger article asks what’s the greenest insulation?
It may surprise you to hear that 7 our of 10 American workers say their jobs are ideal.
Part 2 in the series ‘The Architect as Urbanist’ is published on the Design Observer Group.
Designboom explore the use of earth as a modern building material.
Shareable Cities ask: Can we design cities for happiness?
Missed out on these links? Follow @thisbigcity on Twitter to get more.
4 days ago
1 week ago
How Small Can a Living Space Get?
As a nation obsessed with making things as small as possible, the Shinjuku Capsule Hotel in Tokyo seems a natural development for the Japanese. Instead of renting a room with a TV, en-suite and double bed, this hotel offers tiny capsules, measuring only 2 metres by 1.5 metres.
Each pod contains a light, a small TV with headphones, and basic linen. Any other possessions, such as clothing and toiletries, must be kept in an external locker.
These capsules were originally intended for businessmen who missed the last train home to crash for a night, but as Japan experiences it’s worst recession since World War II, their purpose has begun to evolve.
Many of the freshly unemployed have been forced to leave company housing, or are unable to pay their rent, inspiring the Shinjuku Hotel to offer discounts to those who choose to stay in their tiny hotel ‘rooms’ for a month or more. Now, 100 of their 300 capsules are rented by the month. The tiny living spaces can also be registered as a home address, making it easier to land job interviews.
This super-condensed urban living appears very similar to the future world explored in ‘The Fifth Element’, and it certainly makes you wonder how small a living space can get before it becomes unliveable.
