What Happened in April

• Foster + Partners’ first office building in Russia has completed. The building is The Russian Copper Company (RCC)’s new headquarters in the city of Yekaterinburg.

• Swing Bridge in Crystal Palace Park by Tonkin Liu has completed. The park houses the first-ever life-­sized reconstructions of extinct animals, and the bridge allows staff to access these dinosaurs. The 8-meters-long bridge is rotating 90 degrees. When not being used, the bridge is designed to be a sculptural artwork floating in the water.

• Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) has announced the completion of Bundang Doosan Tower, the new headquarters for the Doosan Corporation. Two towers, connected by a 100-meter tall skybridge, forms an iconic landmark. The 27-storey-tall tower includes 83,000 square meters of office, auditorium, and amenity space; having a daycare center for employees, fitness center, the Doosan History Museum, and a café that opens up to the landscaped roof terrace. The firm’s other project is transforming Vienna’s Otto Wagner Hospital into a new permanent home for Central European University. The university has set 2025 as the date for the opening in the new campus at Steinhof.

• Bjarke Ingels Group has revealed the O-shaped tower for OPPO Headquarters. The tower will be in Hangzhou’s Future Sci-Tech City, representing a commitment to the brand’s spirit of endless innovation in the pursuit of perfection. The 16,000-square-meter project will be an iconic landmark and gateway to the Future Sci-Tech City and Hangzhou itself.

• Snøhetta has released the Central Campus Building project for Ford Motor Company’s Research & Engineering (R&E) campus in Dearborn. Supporting Ford’s new hybrid work-from-home model, the Central Campus building will be a resource that gives employees a place to come together and facilitate the easy flow and circulation of ideas.

• MAD Architects has unveiled Zhuhai Cultural Arts Center proposal titled  “Village Under the Dome” and the Jiaxing Civic Center design. The firm has also announced the opening of the Cloudscape of Haikou in China. A unique urban public and cultural space for citizens and visitors to Haikou, this flowing, sculptural concrete form was named as one of the “most anticipated architecture projects of 2021” by The Times of London.

• GWWO Architects has revealed the renderings of the new Niagara Falls Visitor Center.GWWO also designed new landscapes including pathways, planting, outdoor exhibits, and a spacious entry plaza as part of the planned revamp.

• Safdie Architects has published Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art expansion. The expansion will increase the size of the facility by roughly %50 adding new galleries, educational facilities, and community spaces to allow visitors to have access to more art, outreach, programs, and events.

• BDP Quadrangle and PARTISANS have unveiled their proposal of 55 Yonge which is a 66-storey residential and office tower. The building will include nearly 500 new residential units and state-of-the-art offices that will respond to Toronto’s rapid growth while achieving a cohesive and contemporary high-rise design that makes a striking addition to Toronto’s skyline.

• Grimshaw has won the Shenzhen Transport Hub Competition. A design consortium led by Grimshaw will execute the Shenzhen Airport East Integrated Transport Hub project.

• Coop Himmelb(l)au has won an international design competition to design the SCA Arena and Park in St. Petersburg. Their design follows the tradition of Russian Constructivists El Lissitzky and Vladimir Tatlin.

• An international team that includes Outcomist, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, PLP Architecture, Carlo Ratti Associati and ARUP has won a major competition to revitalise industrial reclamation site Parco Romana District into a diverse green neighborhood in Milan.

• Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) have won the design competition for Terminal 4 Bao’an International Airport in Shenzhen in collaboration with China Northeast Architectural Design & Research Institute Co. Ltd, (CNADRI). The project includes a new 400,000 m2 terminal building with 60 new stands and connections to the mid-field satellite.

• A 3D-printed pedestrian steel bridge concept by Hunter Ruthrauff has won the 2021 Forge Prize. Ruthrauff’s winning concept is conceived for a site in San Diego’s Balboa Park, seeking to reflect the network of trails in Florida Canyon through its organic form.

• The Spanish architect, educator, critic and theoretician Rafael Moneo is named the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

• Francis Kéré has been named the recipient of the 2021 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture.

• Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has announced Michael Green Architecture as the recipient of the 2021 Architectural Firm Award. The Award recognizes the achievements of a firm for its quality of architecture, service to clients and innovations in practice.

• The Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) has announced the recipients of the 2021 Awards of Excellence: Dale Hodges Park by O2 Planning & Design and Source 2 Source Inc. with AECOM and Sans façon for Watershed+. Chair of the 2021 Awards of Excellence jury stated: “The award-winning projects highlight new approaches and illustrate the levels of expertise to be mobilized to address current social, cultural and environmental challenges.”

• American Institute of Architect (AIA) has announced the 2021 COTE (Committee on the Environment) Top Ten Awards. COTE rewards the projects with exemplary performance data and post occupancy lessons. You can check the projects here.

• The American Academy in Rome has announced the winners of the 2021–22 Rome Prize and Italian Fellowships. You can read the full list here.

• The laureates of the Swiss Grand Award for Prix Meret Oppenheim 2021 were announced, which are architect Georges Descombes, curator Esther Eppstein and artist Vivian Suther.

• Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic have announced the accelerated renovation of David Geffen Hall, which is now scheduled to re-open in Fall 2022.

• The City of London Corporation is now looking for ways to re-use empty office space, including by creating 1,500 new homes by 2030.

• Two well-known furniture brands Herman Miller and Knoll announced merger to create a leader in modern design.

• Architect David Rockwell has designed the 93rd Academy Awards set which aims to give a sense of togetherness despite stubborn pandemic restrictions. The design team constructed an amphitheater, and arranged the seatings in COVID-compliant pods of two. Since the walls and the ceiling of the landmark building cannot be touched, Rockwell brought custom lamps and speakers to each seating pod.

• Alex Da Corte has designed an installation called As Long as the Sun Lasts for Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden Commission. The installation is a kinetic sculpture using the Big Bird figure from Sesame Street. It is the ninth in a series of site-specific commissions for the outdoor space. 

• The Getty Conservation Institute, in collaboration with the Office of Historic Resources within Los Angeles’ Department of City Planning, has announced the launch of the Los Angeles African American Historic Places Project to identify, protect, and celebrate the city’s Black heritage. The project provides the opportunity to rethink historic preservation policies and processes to better support social justice and equity goals.

• Venice Biennale president Roberto Cicutto has confirmed this year’s exhibition “How will we live together?” will open on May 22. Curator Hashim Sarkis outlined the seven parts of the expanded program as:

1. Broadcasting of Installation
2. Publications and Other Media
3. Collaboration with Dance Biennale
4. Meetings on Architecture
5. Collective Exhibitions and Events
6. Satellite Shows
7. Special Event

• Oslo Architecture Triennale has announced the 2022 theme as Mission Neighbourhood  – (Re)forming communities. The Triennale aims to explore how we form the places we share. “The Neighbourhood in the title represents the sum of everyday places we share with one another: The streets, squares, bus stops, kindergartens and schools, the places where we shop and meet.” The Triennale will open on 21-25 September 2022.

• GAMBJTS,  a collaborative research practice based in Toronto, is preparing to attend the 2021 Seoul Biennale’s Cities Exhibition with an installation called Beneath the City: Rivers, proposing a set of urban interventions based on daylighting Toronto’s hidden waterways.

• After cancelling the Conference on Architecture 2020 due to COVID pandemic, American Institute of Architects has announced the Conference on Architecture 2021 will be held all-digital, starting on 17 June 2021.

• MIT Press has launched an open access collection of 34 classic architecture and urban studies topics. The digitization program makes out-of-print works available as e-books for the first time. Go now and get your open access e-books!

• Two Architects, a documentary by Ron Parks which is about the iconic Leicester University Engineering Building of James Stirling and James Gowan, is available online. You can watch the 18-minute film here.

• Julia Zhu produced a series of short films called A Meeting with Architects which includes her interviews with architects Ma Yansong, Yung Ho Chang, Álvaro Siza, Christian de Portzamparc and Moshe Safdie. You can watch the whole series here.

Until we meet in the next episode of What Happened In….