SINGAPORE: Architects in the Republic have been urged by the Senior Minister of State for National Development Mr Lee Yi Shyan to innovate in their town planning and design strategies, while rejuvenating older towns and adding newer towns with tighter space constraints.

Speaking at the opening of Archifest Conference 2014 on Monday (Sep 29), Mr Lee said innovation is important amid technological advances, evolving demographics and changing social habits. "We have to create the space and environment to sustain future economic activities as much as social interaction, amongst other critical functions of a city state. It is in this context that research and development and innovation play an instrumental role in our next phase of urbanisation, he said.

The conference, which was held in conjunction with the inaugural edition of the Archxpo 2014, aims to bring together the best minds in architecture to share and showcase the latest technologies. Archxpo 2014 is an international exhibition for architecture and the built environment.

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Architects urged to innovate in town planning, design strategies

Photography By Amelia Stein

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has selected Irish architects Sheila ODonnell and John Tuomey, co-founders of Dublin-based ODonnell + Tuomey Architects, as winners of the 2015 Royal Gold Medal.

Photography By Amelia Stein

ODonnell & Tuomeys work is always inventivestriking yet so well considered, particular to its place and brief, beautifully craftedand ever developing, RIBA President Stephen Hodder said.

The Royal Gold Medal, personally approved by the Queen of England, is considered one of the worlds most prestigious lifetime achievement awards for architecture.

With over 30 years of experience working on schools, public housing, theatres, and community centers, the married duo is best know for their work at the Photographers' Gallery in Soho and the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre at the London School of Economics, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Stirling Prize. Over the course of their career, the couple has been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize a record five times.

Photography By Alex Bland

The couple released a statement saying, "We're humbled to find ourselves in such a company of heroes, architects whose work we have studied and from whose example we continue to learn.

We believe in the social value and the poetic purpose of architecture and the gold medal encourages us to prevail in this most privileged and complicated career."

The award will be presented at a ceremony at RIBAs headquarters in London on February 3, 2015.

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Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey Win 2015 RIBA Royal Gold Medal

Boston Society of Architects members are promoting an Allston Esplanade along the Charles River as an offshoot of the Massachusetts Department of Transportations planned $260 million Mass Pike Allston interchange realignment.

A pair of Boston Society of Architects (BSA) teams developed two plans for the three-plus acres of parkland to spur MassDOT to consider the larger implications of its project beyond roadway changes once it opens up new land for redevelopment, according to architect and BSA vice president Tim Love.

Theyre both proposals that have lots of advantages and lots of interesting ideas that we think MassDOT should consider very seriously, he said. Their mission is to redesign the highway interchange. Were saying, Here are some issues we think you should think about, too.

The proposals involve relocating Soldiers Field Road away from the Charles, creating a river crossing for cyclists and pedestrians and a new MBTA station.

It was a useful exercise for us to come in and show MassDOT what kind of neighborhood could result from what theyre doing, Love said. The visions are realistic and financeable through the value of the real estate.

The interchange project is set to start in early 2017. MassDOT did not respond to Herald inquiries.

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Architects eye Allston Esplanade with Pike redo

Danish developers Realdania BYG and Arkitema Architects, working with the Danish Technological Institute, have designed and constructed an experimental prefabricated home that's made primarily from plywood. Despite this, the Maintenance-Free House shouldn't need any significant maintenance for at least 50 years, thanks to a glass "shield" that keeps it safe from the elements. The overall lifetime of the home is also expected to be at least 150 years.

Completed in 2013, the Maintenance-Free House is part of the same six-house experimental development on the Denmark's island of Fyn that includes the Adaptable House we reported on earlier this year. Somewhat confusingly, the development also contains another "Maintenance-Free House" that's built from brick.

The home has a total floorspace of 156 sq m (1,679 sq ft) and draws design cues from a traditional wooden Danish longhouse. It features a simple, open layout inside, with a large central space comprising a living area, and dining and kitchen area, flanked by a bathroom and technical room. Four skylights increase the already ample available natural light, and stairs lead to a mezzanine with two loft spaces. There's also a total of four bedrooms and one bathroom.

The Maintenance-Free House was prefabricated in a factory and transported by truck to Fyn. The basic structure was assembled over a couple of days using screwdrivers, with the total on-site build time being under two weeks. It comprises 18 frames of bonded high-strength prefabricated plywood, with a steel skeleton.

Since plywood won't stand up to a battering from the elements however, Arkitema Architects covered the entire envelope with a layer of toughened recycled glass sheets, fitted to provide an unbroken surface. In this way, the vulnerable plywood shell is protected from the weather.

The Maintenance-Free House is also raised off the ground by 30 cm (1 ft) on stilts, and there's a small gap between the plywood roof and its glass shield. This creates a natural chimney effect and draws in air from underneath the home, pushing it up to the gap between the plywood and glass shield, before it is expelled out at the top of the roof without any need for complicated mechanical ventilation.

We've no exact figure on its price, but are assured it's around the Danish norm for a home of its size and type. Though it's still an ongoing experiment, the Maintenance-Free House will eventually be sold once it has proven itself reliable.

Sources: Arkitema Architects, Realdania BYG via Arch Daily

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Glass-encased Maintenance-Free House is built to last

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UK band, Architects, visited Sea Shepherd ships in Melbourne to offer their support for our work defending oceans worldwide. Sea Shepherd Uk Ambassador and lead singer, Sam Carter, talks about...

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Hi, I OlegPod and this is my new video for the song Architects - Broken Krosss. Guitar rec: Line6 Pod HD500x Guitar Schecter BlackJack ATX C-1 (strings 10-56) C# G# E B F# G# Camera: Cannon...

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Wednesday, September 24 10:42:33

Irish architects Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey have been named today as the 2015 recipients of the Royal Gold Medal, the world's most prestigious architecture award.

Given in recognition of a lifetime's work, the Royal Gold Medal is given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence "either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture".

Awarded since 1848, previous Royal Gold Medallists include Frank Gehry (2000), Sir Norman Foster (1983), Frank Lloyd Wright (1941) and Sir George Gilbert Scott (1859).

A tour de force in contemporary Irish and British architecture, Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey co-founded their practice O'Donnell and Tuomey in Dublin during 1988, having previously worked together for internationally renowned architects Stirling Wilford Associates and Colquhoun and Miller in London. Their new practice coupled Sheila's quiet, studied 'rationalism' alongside John's fluent, rhetorical 'constructivism' and through their buildings, publications, exhibitions and teaching they have forged a confident new identity for Irish architecture.

In the early 1990s, O'Donnell and Tuomey were part of the 'Group 91 Architects' group whose collective skill in masterplanning spearheaded the regeneration of Dublin's neglected Temple Bar. It was the pair's first permanent building, the Irish Film Institute (1991) that brought them profile and acclaim for its dynamic contribution to the revitalised Dublin quarter.

Their early work, from a private home in Navan to schools, public housing and community buildings, provided the canvas for them to experiment and evolve their unconventional creative approach and celebrated style. More recent projects include the modest but brilliant Photographers' Gallery in Soho and the exceptional 2014 RIBA Stirling Prize-shortlisted Saw Swee Hock Student Centre at the London School of Economics.

Speaking today, Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey said: "We're delighted to have been chosen for this unexpected honour. We're humbled to find ourselves in such a company of heroes, architects whose work we have studied and from whose example we continue to learn. We believe in the social value and the poetic purpose of architecture and the gold medal encourages us to prevail in this most privileged and complicated career."

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Irish architects win top world award

The U.K.'s professional architecture association, the Royal Institute of British Architects, has named Sheila ODonnell and John Tuomey of the Dublin-based firm O'Donnell + Tuomey as the recipients of the 2015 Royal Gold Medal, the organization's prestigious lifetime achievement award. This year's recipients are notable on a couple fronts. Just two other husband-and-wife duos have received the prize previously. Born in 1953 and 1954, respectively, O'Donnell and Tuorney are also some of the youngest recipients ever. (Last year's prize went to 87-year-old architecture critic Joseph Rykwert.) No woman has yet won the Royal Gold Medal without an accompanying male partner.

In a citation explaining RIBA's choice, Rykwert and architect Nall McLaughlin herald the couple's commitment to teaching and writing as well as their desire to create a new identity for Irish architecture through their built work. "Their work is evolving and open to experiment, with the best individual projects coming as quieter reflections on their noisier ideas," McLaughlin writes.

O'Donnell and Tuomey founded their architectural practice in 1988, and since then, five of their projects have been shortlisted for RIBA's Stirling Prize, an award given for the greatest single contribution to the evolution of architecture in the U.K. or the European Union by a RIBA-accredited architect in a given year. Their style, McLaughlin observes, has moved throughout the lifetime of their practice from Neoclassical to "a boisterous Constructivism." Many of their recent projects, including the gorgeous Lyric Theater in Belfast and a grandly geometric student center at the London School of Economics, make graceful use of red brick and timber.

The Royal Gold Medal is a prize given to a person or group of people whose work has had significant influence either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture," according to RIBA. The award is predominantly given to architects, but past recipients have also included engineers, architecture critics, and once, a city (Barcelona). The recipients are personally approved by the Queen herself, because, you know, such are the joys of monarchy.

The field of architecture has been notoriously reticent to recognize the achievements of its many women practitioners. While O'Donnell's recognition demonstrates a worthy step forward, she's only the third woman to receive the Royal Gold Medal, and no woman has yet won without an accompanying male partner. RIBA's state-side equivalent, the American Institute of Architects, has an even worse record: only one woman has ever received the AIA Gold Medal (she had been dead for five decades by the time they got around to it). And controversially, only two women have received the Pritzker Prize, one of whom shared the honor with her male partner.

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Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey Awarded Britain's Highest Architecture Prize

Art and Design

Low-rise: Buildings such as the Queensland Art Gallery, designed by Robin Gibson, typify brutalist architecture. Photo: Glenn Hunt

A few key examples notwithstanding, Australia's attitude towards brutalist architecture has been one of quiet disdain. Perhaps our most successful, enduring and popularly embraced example, however, is that of Brisbane's riverside Cultural Precinct, which comprises the Queensland Art Gallery, Queensland Museum and Queensland Performing Arts Centre among other institutions.

Designed by late architect Robin Gibson and built between 1975 and the mid-1980s, the development is one of the few examples of tropical brutalism in Australia and the precinct is widely regarded as one of the country's most attractive and well-realised civic spaces.

Acting in response to April's draft master plan for the precinct, which could potentially allow 30-storey towers to shadow the area, the Queensland chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects has lodged an application to the Queensland Heritage Council citing that the plan contradicts Gibson's original low-profile design.

The Heritage Council is anticipated to offer a decision by mid-2015. architecture.com.au

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