Archinect - News

‘Intimacy, minimalism, and immersion’ define Atelier L’Abri’s rural Canadian camping shelters

2024-02-19T14:24:00-05:00

Montreal-based Atelier L’Abri has completed an experimental camping concept project in the Canadian wilderness. Named Territoire Charlevoix, and located in a forest between La Malbaie and Baie-Saint-Paul, the scheme is described as “a series of structures that are simple, yet varied; familiar, yet unusual.”

Image credit: Raphaël Thibodeau

The various modules comprising the project include camping shelters, viewing platforms with communal kitchens, and a visitor center. The five shelters function as small, autonomous buildings offering “an intimate encounter with nature in complete comfort, both in summer and in winter.” Sitting on slender legs, the cabins were designed to fuse rusticity and modernity, with a single-slope roof to suit the natural topography of the site.

Image credit: Raphaël Thibodeau

“This bold form is reminiscent of the shape of large dormers, or old cameras,” the designers say about the shelters. “Like th...

Tetro’s new residence floats and weaves through the Brazilian rainforest

2023-06-12T11:49:00-04:00

Brazilian architecture studio Tetro has offered a look inside their completed residential project in the Atlantic Rainforest. Named Casa Açucena, the development was constructed on a steep slope amidst a landscape of dense trees and shrubs.

Photo credit: Jomar Bragança

The scheme was designed to occupy the space between existing trees without removing or altering the topography. The design team’s dedication to preserving the existing landscape also saw the house elevated off the ground to allow animal and plant life to develop underneath.

Photo credit: Jomar Bragança

“The project is a response to a sensitive reading of the terrain, where first contact dictated the need to maintain its natural characteristics,” the team explained. “The act of looking upwards, from the ground to the fifteen-meter canopy of the trees, was decisive for the creation of a concept addressing the challenge of building in a place with such steep topograph...

In British Columbia, an ecological restoration company is seeking a remote designer

2023-05-31T10:57:00-04:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Staff Architect - Wastewater Division at Parsons Corp, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for an Intermediate Architectural Designer at Seed the North.

Seed the North project site, British Columbia. Image courtesy: Seed the North

The successful candidate will join Seed the North’s architect-led ecological restoration company located in northern British Columbia, Canada. Set on a 160-acre property, the company is overseeing the construction of a seed orchard and campus, for which they require a remote-working experienced designer.

Why the role interests us

The open role at Seed the North offers us an opportunity to explore an example of architects and designers delivering projects with an emphasis on responsible timber use. The company operates under a design-build model, work...

In a Polish forest, Mobius Architekci Studio creates a timber-clad home ‘bathed in nature’

2023-03-01T11:39:00-05:00

Przemek Olczyk, Warsaw-based architect and founder of Mobius Architekci, has published photographs of their completed Circle Wood project in the Kampinos National Park outside the Polish capital. Commissioned by an art lover and collector, the home seeks to capture the aura of an art gallery while responding to its natural surroundings.

Image credit: Paweł Ulatowski

Built on a large sandy plot densely covered with pine forest, the 4300-square-foot home adopts an oval form containing the living space, garage, and open spa area. The scheme was constructed from a reinforced concrete structure clad with panels of Okume wood sourced from West Africa. Described as “elegant and knotless” by the team, the timber cladding was chosen to allow the building to be “bathed in nature,” blending into its forest landscape.

Image credit: Paweł Ulatowski

Inside, the scheme is anchored by a double-height atrium whose natural materials and extensive glazing “pleasantly and harmoniously seeps nature into t...

Turenscape's 'floating forest' reshapes a former wasteland into a multifunctional urban landscape

2023-01-11T12:20:00-05:00

Beijing-based landscape architecture firm Turenscape has completed the transformation of a former 126-acre dumping ground into a “dreamlike floating forest” in the eastern Chinese city of Nanchang.

The new Fish Tail Park operates a triple function as a habitat for wildlife, a recreational area for the city, and a stormwater regulator, creating what the design team calls a “replicable model of designed urban nature for regions with monsoon or variable climates that can address the multiple challenges of floods, habitat restoration, and recreational demands.”

Image credit: Turenscape

To create the landscape, the team recycled coal ash previously dumped on the site, mixing it with dirt from fish pond dykes to create numerous islets. At the same time, a new lake was created to accommodate over 35 million cubic feet of stormwater inflow. In anticipation of fluctuating water levels, a selection of native trees and wetland plants capable of surviving the varying conditions have been plante...

Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest brings the climate crisis to Madison Square Park

2021-05-27T19:09:00-04:00

Artist Maya Lin’s long-awaited skeletal forest has finally opened in New York’s famed Madison Square Park.

With the help of 49 dead Atlantic Cedar trees sourced from the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the 61-year-old Lin has transformed the park into an immersive installation — her first in over a decade — meant to transplant the East Side destination’s nearly 60,000 daily visitors into the frontlines of the fight to prevent deforestation.

Maya Lin (American, b. 1959) Ghost Forest, 2021 Courtesy the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy Photo credit: Andy Romer

Lin, who lives in Colorado, says she was particularly interested in a kind of environmental phenomenon known as “ghost forests” that are a direct product of insect infestations, extreme temperature increases, and sea level changes caused by climate change.

Maya Lin within Ghost Forest, 2021 Courtesy the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy Photo credit: Andy Romer

The park itself has played host to numerous public exhibit...

Foster + Partners unveils health-centered masterplan for Bangkok

2021-05-20T12:49:00-04:00

Foster + Partners has unveiled plans for a residential-led masterplan on the outskirts of Bangkok. Named “The Forestias,” the masterplan seeks to address the growing disconnect between contemporary city life and family traditions, while also placing an emphasis on health, wellbeing, smart infrastructure, and a connection with nature. The masterplan therefore features elements such as a large central forest, a variety of multi-generational family co-living, and provisions for autonomous vehicles, smart meters, and sensor networks.

The Forestias is divided into two zones: a northern area defined by civic-level public functions, and a southern zone dedicated primarily to residential developments. A forest sits at the center of the masterplan, linking the two urban zones while embodying the development’s vision; a positive, harmonious relationship between the built and natural environment. The forest is anchored by a central Forest Pavilion, serving as an “experience center” with immers...

Maya Lin's postponed 'Ghost Forest' to open at Madison Square Park on May 10

2021-02-09T14:57:00-05:00

An immersive installation that visualises the bleak effects of climate change by the US artist and environmental activist Maya Lin, which was slated to open in June last year, will open at Madison Square Park in New York this spring.

Originally scheduled to open in 2020 but ultimately postponed due to the escalating pandemic, Maya Lin's site-responsive installation Ghost Forest will now be on view from May 10 through November 14, 2021.

"Ghost Forest will take the form of a towering grove of spectral cedar trees, all sourced from the region and presented in sharp contrast to the Park’s lush tree line," explains a description of the piece published by the Madison Square Park Conservancy. "The installation builds on Lin’s practice of addressing species loss, habitat loss, and climate change within her work and serves as a call to action to the thousands of visitors who pass through the Park daily."

When green architecture gets too green

2020-09-16T13:09:00-04:00

An experimental green housing project in a Chinese megacity promised prospective residents life in a "vertical forest", with manicured gardens on every balcony. [...] The problem? The mosquitoes love the plants, too. [...] Without any tenants to care for them, the eight towers have been overrun by their own plants - and invaded by mosquitoes.

Maya Lin envisions a 'Ghost Forest' at Madison Square Park in NYC

2020-03-12T16:12:00-04:00

A forest of dessicated trees will rise amid the verdant canopy of Madison Square Park in a forthcoming project by the American artist and environmental activist Maya Lin. In the immersive work, Ghost Forest, which will be on view from 8 June to 6 December, 30 to 40 spectral cedar trees will be replanted in the oval lawn of the park, creating a visually striking micro-landscape that decries the impact of climate change on woodlands around the world.

Commissioned by Madison Square Park Conservancy in New York, Maya Lin's site-responsive installation Ghost Forest aims to address the impact of climate change on woodlands around the planet.

"Ghost Forest will take the form of a towering grove of spectral cedar trees, all sourced from the region and presented in sharp contrast to the Park’s lush tree line," explains a statement published by the Conservancy. "The installation builds on Lin’s practice of addressing climate change within her work and serves as a call to action to the 60,000 visitors who pass through the Park daily."

Maya Lin. Photo: Jesse Frohman, courtesy of the artist.

"Ghost Forest derives its name from the eponymous natural phenomenon: vast tracts of forestland that have died off due to climate change, sea-level rise and saltwater infiltration. To create the installation, Lin worked together with the Conservancy to source dead trees from the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, a vulnerable site that has suffered severe dep...

Aerial reforestation by drone: Flash Forest Kickstarter wants to plant a billion trees by 2028

2019-12-26T14:13:00-05:00

[...] a team of Canadian science and engineering graduates is pitching a dream to plant a billion trees by 2028 using drones. The project is dubbed Flash Forest and combines the use of drones with specially-designed pods and an accelerated seed germination process. According to Flash Forest, its technology can plant trees 10 times faster than a single worker and at a cost that is 80 percent cheaper than traditional tree planting methods.

On their Kickstarter page, the team behind the Toronto-based Flash Forest project explains what happens before and after heavy-lift drones pneumatically fire their custom-designed seed pods into the ground: "Before we plant our pods, we pre-germinate the seeds inside using our own 'secret sauce.' This ensures that the seeds have already sprouted before they’re even in the ground and that they have a strong rooting system when they grow. Not only that, but after we plant them we follow up with our spraying drone to remove competition and provide nitrogen and other nutrients for the best chance of success. We continuously monitor our seedlings with the mapping drone to make sure they’re healthy."

Trump pushes for increased logging in the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest

2019-08-29T09:00:00-04:00

President Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago [...] The move would affect more than half of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, opening it to potential logging, energy and mining projects. It would undercut a sweeping Clinton administration policy known as the “roadless rule,” which has survived a decades-long legal assault.

The move comes as global awareness over widespread deforestation in the Amazon and other tropical regions around the world intensifies.

In Brazil, where land clearance and deforestation have increased rapidly this year under the country's new president, Jair Bolsonaro, smoke from the burning Amazon rainforest recently plunged São Paulo into sudden darkness.

How planting trees could save the world

2019-07-05T15:13:00-04:00

There is enough room in the world’s existing parks, forests, and abandoned land to plant 1.2 trillion additional trees, which would have the CO2 storage capacity to cancel out a decade of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new analysis by ecologist Thomas Crowther and colleagues at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university.

Following new research, Thomas Crowther and colleagues at ETH Zurich estimate that there are 3 trillion trees on Earth, more than seven times the number previously estimated. Crowther argues that given this new knowledge, it is possible that new and existing forests could become more important in the fight against climate change than previously thought.

“There’s 400 gigatons [of CO2 stored] now in the 3 trillion trees,” Crowther told The Independent, “If you were to scale that up by another trillion trees, that’s in the order of hundreds of gigatons captured from the atmosphere – at least 10 years of anthropogenic emissions completely wiped out.”

Check out Effekt's Camp Adventure Forest Tower, Denmark's answer to NYC's Vessel

2019-05-04T11:44:00-04:00

Everyone hates the Vessel, the stairway to nowhere for capitalism’s grifters at the heart of New York’s latest mirage of a neighborhood, Hudson Yards. Perhaps that’s why it’s so refreshing to see an observation tower that actually leads somewhere meaningful beyond an Instagram selfie frame: the Camp Adventure Observation Tower in Denmark.

While Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel has been a media darling (or pariah) for the last month, a similarly tall, arguably more elegant observation tower quietly popped up in a Dane forest.

The Camp Adventure Forest Tower, by Effekt

The Camp Adventure Forest Tower, designed by Copenhagen-based firm Effekt, begins with a long serpentine boardwalk that directs a scenic path through the trees before reaching the gently sloping ramp that is the centerpiece of the project. Once visitors walk to the very top of the 147-foot structure ((for comparison, the Vessel is 150 feet), they are greeted with a view of the forest from all angles, thanks to its perfectly circular observation deck.

Vatican Chapels to be placed in the woods at Venice Biennale 2018

2018-03-23T15:44:00-04:00

After announcing participation in this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, the Vatican has recently released more details on their Holy See pavilion. The project is officially titled Vatican Chapels, featuring ten chapels commissioned from architects in ten different countries. Each structure will be realized in a forest on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, located opposite of St. Mark's Square. This wooded location serves as a space for silence and meditation as visitors journey through each structure.

The Vatican stated these ten chapels are meant to reference the ten commandments. Apart from this connection and each structure containing a pulpit and altar, the chapels will be completely unique and up to the participant's interpretation of the project. However, as a guide the Church has encouraged each architect to respond to themes explored in the preliminary Asplund Pavilion.

Asplund Pavilion rendering by MAP Studio. Image: ALPI.

Asplund Pavilion, designed by MAP Studio, wil...

The Rainforest Solutions Project wins the 2016 Fuller Challenge Award

2016-10-06T20:11:00-04:00

Greenpeace, Sierra Club BC, and Stand.earth formed the Rainforest Solutions Project as part of the Tides Canada Initiative. The coalition has spent nearly two decades developing a sophisticated legal and policy framework called Ecosystem-Based Management to tackle the persisting struggle over Canada's treasured Great Bear Rainforest, while also negotiating the conflicting interests of multiple groups.

Winning over six equally worthy finalist teams, the Rainforest Solutions Project addresses both natural and cultural preservation, and it enforces stronger ecological responsibility in industrial economic pursuits. The Project resulted in a landmark 250-year agreement between all stakeholders — government, First Nations, environmentalists, and logging companies — to conserve and sustainably manage the 15 million-acre Great Bear Rainforest.

“Selecting the Rainforest Solutions Project...comes at a critical point in the evolution of the Challenge itself, as design is being recognized as an integral part of business and society,” the Fuller Challenge Review Committee wrote in a statement.

Learn more about it on Bustler.

Previously:

2016 Fuller Challenge finalists announced

2016 Fuller Challenge announces 19 semi-finalist initiatives

GreenWave's 3D ocean farm initiative wins the 2015 Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Sou Fujimoto to design immersive "Forest of Light" for Salone del Mobile 2016

2016-03-24T15:08:00-04:00

'I envisage to make a forest of light. A forest which consists of countless light cones made from spotlights above. These lights pulsate and constantly undergo transience of state and flow.' “People meander through this forest, as if lured by the charm of the light. Light and people interact with one another, its existence defining the transition of the other.”

In another collaboration with top-notch designers, fashion label COS has teamed up with Sou Fujimoto to create a nature-inspired installation for Milan's Salone del Mobile 2016 next month. For COS' fifth year of taking part in the design fair, Fujimoto is creating a "Forest of Light" that will exhibit the brand's collection in what could be a mesmerizing combination of light and sound.

"Forest of Light" draws inspiration from the experience of walking through a forest at twilight, which Fujimoto relates to his growing up in Hokkaido, where he was surrounded by nature. Set inside the now-derelict Cinema Arti theater, the installation will comprise of a darkened space illuminated by numerous towering cones of light produced from spotlights shining from above.

As visitors go about the space, the cones of light will pulsate and respond to their movements. Mirrored walls will create a seemingly infinite landscape of "abstracted trees, joining together to form a shifting forest of light." F...

A Bobbing Forest will soon float in Rotterdam's harbor basin

2015-12-23T14:20:00-05:00

We all want our cities to be greener, but it is often quite hard to grow trees in a concrete environment. So, why not turn to waterfronts or lakes to place trees? Rotterdam will get its first ‘bobbing forest’ in 2016: a collection of twenty trees that are floating in the Rijnhaven, a downtown harbor basin. [...] After experimenting with a sample tree last year, an entire floating forest of twenty trees is scheduled to be ‘planted’ on March 16, 2016.

Related Archinect news:

Students branch out with algorithms and natural forms for AA Summer DLAB::WHITE

2015-01-07T20:04:00-05:00

Resembling the surrounding tree trunks in London's Hooke Park forest, the Callipod installation was created by a group of 18 students who participated in the AA School of Architecture's Summer DLAB::WHITE at AA London and AA Hooke Parke for nearly three weeks last summer. Students in the yearly summer workshop explore algorithmic/generative design methodologies fused with large-scale digital fabrication tools that aim to enhance architectural design. Following the Summer DLAB's color-based agenda, WHITE focused on investigating organic formation processes and reinventing them through architectonic structures.

In the first phase of the workshop, students designed their own proposals that had to include an algorithmic process with a logical approach in the design in addition to illustrating how each concept will be fabricated at a certain scale. The concepts that students developed were then applied in the second phase of realizing the paleolithic-looking Callipod in a span of one week...

London's Garden Bridge: not so public after all

2014-11-19T14:30:00-05:00

[...] the bridge will be closed at night, won't allow entry to cyclists or groups of 8 or more without prior booking, and will ocassionally be closed off for fundraising events. Right. So less a public bridge than a privately-managed tourist attraction, then. [...] The east of London, on the other hand, could actually use another crossing, with or without limits to access

Previously: London's Garden bridge: 'It feels like we're trying to pull off a crime'

Scenario 4: Building the Urban Forest

2014-04-04T15:48:00-04:00

The forest carries deep cultural significance. Within the urban landscape, this ecologically complex, spatially layered, dynamic system is also understood to perform a wide range of essential ecosystem services. As arborists, parks departments, landscape architects, planners and community groups engage in the reforesting of cities, how are they collectively shaping the urban landscape? What hybrid ecosystems are yet to be designed? How many trees are enough?

Scenario Journal's just-released issue, Scenario 4: Building the Urban Forest, features a broad, interdisciplinary conversation between architects, ecologists, landscape architects, and artists, about the meaning and possibilities of the spatial, biological, and metaphorical construct of the "urban forest." From living machine, to novel ecosystem, to provider of ecosystem services, to spatially and culturally rich landscape, the urban forest is an inspiration, a challenge, an opportunity, and a fertile source of interdisciplinary collaboration.

Reforesting cities is one of the defining trends of twenty first century urbanism. Among designers, the forest has served as inspiration, as model, and as tool. At the same time, forest managers and cities have been wrestling with the actual challenges of maintaining existing tree canopy and forested land. As an increasing number of projects and programs concern themselves with shaping, managing and advocating for a new generation of urban for...

World’s First 3D Printed Architectural Structure

2013-08-26T14:36:00-04:00

Created by Smith|Allen Studio, an Oakland based architecture firm, the 10ft x 10ft x 8ft form adds a decidedly artificial element to the otherwise organic forest it calls home. However, despite its appearance, the Echoviren is quite environmentally friendly. Printed from a PLA bioplastic, the structure will naturally decompose back into the forest in 30-50 years. According to Smith|Allen “"As [Echoviren] weathers it will become a micro-habitat for insects, moss, and birds."