Articles by Eric Baldwin

The Climate Tile is a pilot project designed to catch and redirect 30% of the projected extra rainwater coming due to climate change. Created by THIRD NATURE with IBF and ACO Nordic, the project will be inaugurated on a 50m pavement stretch at Nørrebro in Copenhagen. The first sidewalk was created as an innovative climate project that utilizes the Climate Tile to create a beautiful and adaptable cityscape. Aimed at densely populated cities, the tile handles water through a technical system that treats water as a valuable resource.

Carlo Ratti Associatti and Bio-architecture Formosana (BAF) have won the international competition for the Southern branch of the Taiwan National Library and Repository in Tainan, Taiwan. With the concept of “Library as a Town”, the team created a proposal for a new public building that will accommodate a library, book museum and a joint archives center. Selected among nine competitors, the winning design will be placed in the southern part of Taiwan in the XinYing District. The proposal is made to investigate the role of the library in the future.

Studio JCW have created a proposal to revitalize the medians of Park Avenue in New York City. Founded by Chanon Wangkachonkait and Jaehong Chung, Studio JCW argues that Park Avenue’s medians have been a fixture on the boulevard for more than a century. Their Big Shelf proposal would create elevated public spaces within a grid structure for expanded programming. The design was made to echo the structural facades of surrounding skyscrapers and building grids.

As part of an upcoming centennial celebration, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, media artist Refik Anadol, and Google Arts & Culture have partnered to create WDCH Dreams, a series of digital art projections that will bathe the Walt Disney Concert Hall in “dream-like” light.

Opening its doors last fall, Princeton University’s Lewis Arts Complex by Steven Holl Architects and BNIM created a new campus gateway and state-of-the-art facilities for the arts. Expanding performance, rehearsal and teaching spaces, the complex has now been featured in a video directed by Spirit of Space. The footage shows how the building was designed to shape campus space while maximizing porosity and movement. Welcoming its second year of students, the complex is made to take the arts at Princeton to even greater heights.

The Viennese architecture office Querkraft has been selected to design the Austrian Pavilion for the EXPO 2020 in Dubai. The design combines traditional building materials with modern techniques to present Austria as a center of innovation. Former Federal Minister Beatrix Karl was appointed honorary commissioner for the world expo and will represent Austria externally. The Expo in Dubai will be the first world exhibition in an Arab country in the 170-­year Expo history. The Austrian Pavilion will center on questions of how resources can be used more thoughtfully and respectfully in the future.

Henning Larsen have created a new proposal for The Springs, an urban oasis designed for Shanghai. Inspired by shan shui, a traditional form of Chinese landscape painting, the project is developed for Tishman-Speyer to evoke the mountain landscapes found throughout rural China. The project will mirror the mountain landscape with tall, terraced towers around a green public square. Made to create workspaces for creative industries, the three buildings will provide wide provide flexible workspace and common areas in the city center.

Bjarke Ingels Group has received approval for their King Street West condo community in Toronto. Originally proposed in 2016, the development was made as sets of pixels extruded upwards to create space for housing, retail and boutique offices. The concept was formed to avoid the footprints of heritage buildings that already exist on site. Alex Bozikovic, architecture critic of The Globe and Mail, reports that the development is about to start sales as King Street West pushes past its latest development hurdle.

The architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have broken ground on Block 9, an 18-story mixed use tower in the heart of downtown Fargo, North Dakota. Inspired by the the prairies, the development was designed to reflect the scale of the city and surrounding buildings. The project includes an expansive public plaza with retail, office, hotel, and residential programming, and will make use of timber and local stone. Developed by Block 9 Partners, a partnership of Kilbourne Group and R.D. Offutt Company, the mixed-use tower will transform Fargo’s skyline.

Australian architecture practice Bates Smart has revealed a plan to suspend a new Sydney stadium above central station. The design is a response to the New South Wales State Government and their proposal to demolish the main Sydney Football Stadium in the city’s south-eastern suburbs and replace it with a new stadium. The new project would be a 45,000-seat stadium over the rail yards of Sydney’s Central Station that address the broad public opposition to the government’s plan.