toyo ito wins the 2013 pritzker architecture prize

Pritzker Architecture Prize for 2013 was awarded to Japanese architect Toyo Ito. A seven-person jury, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, selected Ito for the annual award, making him the sixth Japanese architect to receive what is considered the field’s highest honor.

Toyo Ito
Pritzker Price

who's pink? pink floyd drummer awarded honorary architecture degree

Mason, Barrett, Gilmour (seated), Waters and Wright

British rock band Pink Floyd famously opined, “We don’t need no education,” and maybe they were right. The band was founded by a group of architecture students—Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright—at the Regent Street Polytechnic, now the University of Westminster, which served as the band’s first rehearsal space and performance venue in the early 1960s. As the band gained popularity, the architecture students left school to focus on their music.

Fifty years later, Westminster has brought the boys back home, awarding drummer Nick Mason an Honorary Doctor of Letters for his contributions to music, officially completing his architecture degree. Head of Music and Interim Dean of the School of Media, Arts, and Design Alan Fisher noted that Mason “helped found Pink Floyd, a band which is internationally renowned for innovation, both musically and in terms of stage design and production, aspects of which were undoubtedly influenced by the band members’ architectural education at the University.”

Mason said of the honor, “Not only did studying architecture teach us some useful stuff, but it also gave us an opportunity to develop and put us in touch with some fantastic mentors and industry contacts that have helped us along the way.” All in all, we’re just bricks in the wall.

indian architecture awards 2012

Residential: Single Residence - Ar. Jayadev, Cochin

Project: Rithu, Cochin

Highlights of Project: Integrated indoor-outdoor transition; simple lines; play of colours; ample natural light and ventilation.

Residential: Multi-storey -Ar. Kiran Venkatesh of InFORM Archietcts, Bangalore  

Project: Housing Tower One, Hyderabad

Highlights of Project: Green features; responsible living and social interaction spaces; strong massing and colour scheme;  aesthetic of  building  derived from functional and creative moves  intrinsic to planning rather than as external application of elements.

Public Category: Ar. Manit Rastogi & Ar. Sonali Rastogi of Morphogenesis, New Delhi

Project: City Centre, Siliguri

Highlights of Project: Most significant is the bio-climatological approach; interface between township and city; break-out spaces in the form of landscaped terraces on each floor; indigenous to the city.

Interiors Category: Ar. Tushar V. of Ochre Architects, Bangalore

Project: No. 20, Office Extension

Highlights of Project: Functional planning with break-free geometry; water bodies; innovative and significant interiors.

Landscape-Design Category: Ar. Akash Hingorani of Oasis Designs Inc., New Delhi

Project: Bhairon Marg Urban Landscape, New Delhi.

Highlights of Project: Integrated approach of urban planning that amalgamates the field of Landscape design, transport planning and urban design to bring about a cohesive space that works for the pedestrians as well as vehicles.

Research Category: Ar. Yatin Pandya of Footprints E.A.R.T.H., Ahmedabad

Project: Concepts of Space

Highlights of Project: Unravelling the inherent virtues of traditional Indian Architecture and interpreting them as universal dictums, relevant to reinstate in contemporary times.

Industrial Category: Ar. Sunil Patil of SPA, Pune

Project: Fratelli Wines, Akluj

Highlight of Project: Soul of this building are intricately designed spaces, which interact with each other in such a manner that the visitor can feel the process of wine making. Landscape as key microclimate modifier. Simple no-nonsense approach.

Heritage Buildings: Ar. Pankaj & Ar. Pranoti Modi, Ahmedabad

Project: Restoration, Rehabilitation & Retrofit - LIMBDI

Highlights of Project: Sensitivity hand-in-glove with dynamism – an ideal approach to heritage architecture.

Urban Infrastructure: Ar. Sourabh Gupta of Archohm, Noida

Project: Vadodara Bharuch Toll Plaza

Highlights of Project: Reinterpreting urban infrastructure typology through dramatic visual experience and functional optimization.

Images and information from India Art & Design & Architizer

world architecture community awards 10th cycle winner - the lake house at bolgoda sri lanka (#52)

20+10+X World Architecture Community Awards 10. Cycle
The Lake House at Bolgoda Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, 2009-2010,
Residential buildings / Country houses by Kumudu s Munasinghe
WA link 
Photos & information via  World Architecture Community

chinthaka wickramage is commended @ ar+d Emerging Architecture Awards

ar+d Emerging Architecture Awards: Highly Commended
Community Centre by Chinthaka Wickramage, Thalalla, Sri Lanka

Rebuilding in Sri Lanka still has a long way to go after the catastrophic damage wrought by the 2004 tsunami. This new community centre designed by Chinthaka Wickramage on a budget of $55,000 (£34,000) works hard to restore essential services for the villagers of Thalalla. Set in the grounds of a Buddhist temple (as a debt of gratitude to the local chief monk who assisted with the tsumani recovery effort), the centre adopts the ancient Buddhist temple building tradition of tam pita viharas (building on pillars) so that it can withstand flooding.

A robust concrete frame holds infill panels of exposed red brick and supports a clay-tiled pitched roof. Despite noting its formal and material modesty, the jury found this a compelling project.

Read more at architectural-review.com

See more photos here IFRC community centre (#48)

sri lankan wins RIBA president's award for outstanding PhD thesis

Dr. Milinda Pathiraja, an alumni of the Department of Architecture of the  Moratuwa University has won the 2011 RIBA President's Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis. He has carried our his doctoral thesis under the guidance of Prof. Paolo Tombesi at the University of Melbourne.

Link for RIBA President's Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis.
Milinda Pathiraja of the University of Melbourne: The function of robust technology in the construction of a 'third world' practice: architecture, design and labour training

top architecture prize jury gets a real judge

Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and the architect Zaha Hadid will join the jury that selects the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest award, Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt Foundation, the prize's sponsor, announced on Wednesday.

Justice Breyer has long been interested in art and architecture and wrote the foreword to the 2006 book, “Celebrating the Courthouse: A Guide for Architects, Their Clients, and the Public.” Ms. Hadid, who received the Pritzker Prize in 2004, has projects in numerous countries including the United States, China, Germany, Spain and Italy.

With these two additions, the Pritzker jury will now consist of eight people, including its chairman, Lord Palumbo of the United Kingdom.

“The members of the Pritzker jury are now, and always have been thoughtful, outstanding individuals from diverse backgrounds providing sometimes surprising insight to architectural achievement in our time,” Mr. Pritzker said in a statement. “Our family is constantly proud and honored that these individuals are willing to give of their time in choosing architects to be singled out for excellence.”

By ROBIN POGREBIN
from here 

thisara thanapathy wins geoffrey bawa award, 2010/2011

Thisara Thanapathy has won the Geoffrey Bawa award for Architecture, this year for his urban house design ‘The Sarath Abeyrathne House'. Archt Yudish Ganeshan was adjudged the first runner-up receiving Commendation for his post-tsunami Udayapuram school in Periyakallar. Richard Murphy Associates was the other among the eight shortlisted nominees to be chosen for Honourable Mention for the British High Commission building in Colombo.

Read more @ Sunday Times

Photo via sundaytimes.lk 

London's Strata tower wins Carbuncle Cup as Britain's ugliest new building

The Carbuncle Cup is an architecture prize, given annually by the magazine Building Design to "the ugliest building in the United Kingdom". This year it has  been awarded to   London's Strata Tower.


"It was hailed a breakthrough in urban wind power: a 42-storey tower with built-in turbines to deliver 8% of its electricity needs. But today the Strata tower in south London found itself becalmed when it was named Britain's ugliest new building, pipping a rival that the judges said resembled a giant pair of buttocks and a bus station that looked like a jelly mould." - guardian.co.uk

Read more about Carbuncle cup @ Wikipedia
Read more about Carbuncle cup @ Building Design  Online
Read more about this year winner of Carbuncle cup, Strata Tower of London
Photo - guardian.co.uk 

pritzker price 2011: eduardo souto de moura

“During the past three decades, Eduardo Souto de Moura has produced a body of work that is
of our time but also carries echoes of architectural traditions.” And further, “His buildings have
a unique ability to convey seemingly conflicting characteristics — power and modesty, bravado
and subtlety, bold public authority and a sense of intimacy —at the same time.” 
-Pritzker Prize jury citation

Photos from www.pritzkerprize.com

Pritzker Price 2011
Storyhouse (Paula Rego House)

the residence: having lived in the movie centuary

Here are the winners of the Shinkenchiku residential competition 2009. Shinkenchiku are the publishers of the Japan Architect.
The competition theme is a very interesting one as it invites you to design, not for a person/s or a place but for an epoch. It goes like "A little more than a century ago, the first motion picture was shown before an audience. Thereafter, “the movie” grew with tremendous vitality as a medium. In the course of the 20th century, countless movies were filmed in virtually every nation in the world, and countless people attended theaters to see them. Today, the movie has become an integral part of our everyday reality. Since the advent of the movie, we have changed in the way we see and think about things." ........

First Prize: Julian King and Christina Lyons

Second Prize: Yuuki Takayama

Third Prize: Abre Etteh

See all the results
Images via japan-architect.co.jp 

winners of 2010 aga khan award for architecture

Winners of 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
The five winners of the prestigious 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture will be announced today at a ceremony in Doha, Qatar. The projects range in scope and purpose, from an urban revitalization scheme in Tunisia to a small school in rural China.

Recipients of the 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Bridge School, Xiashi, Fujian, China
Wadi Hanifa Wetlands, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Revitalisation of the Hypercentre of Tunis, Tunisia
Madinat Al-Zahra Museum, Cordoba, Spain
Ipekyol Textile Factory, Edirne, Turkey

Info via architectural record
photos via Aga Khan Award for Architecture

HOLCIM Awards

Holcim Awards "Next Generation" 1st prize 2008 Europe
Production and ecological cluster, New Haven, UK
Winner: Semini Pabodha Samarasinghe

The Holcim Awards is an international competition of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. The competition celebrates innovative, future-oriented and tangible sustainable construction projects and visions from around the globe and provides prize money of USD 2 million per three-year competition cycle.

The Holcim Awards (main) category of the competition is open to architects, planners, engineers, project owners, builders and construction firms that showcase sustainable responses to technological, environmental, socioeconomic and cultural issues affective contemporary building and construction. Projects are eligible for the competition if they have reached an advanced stage of design and construction (or commercial production in the case of materials, products and construction technologies) had not started before July 1, 2010.

HOLCIM Awards 

HOLCIM awards 2010 cycle

 

Holcim Awards "Next Generation" 1st prize 2008 Europe

Production and ecological cluster, New Haven, UK

Winner: Semini Pabodha Samarasinghe

The Holcim Awards is an international competition of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. The competition celebrates innovative, future-oriented and tangible sustainable construction projects and visions from around the globe and provides prize money of USD 2 million per three-year competition cycle.

The Holcim Awards (main) category of the competition is open to architects, planners, engineers, project owners, builders and construction firms that showcase sustainable responses to technological, environmental, socioeconomic and cultural issues affective contemporary building and construction. Projects are eligible for the competition if they have reached an advanced stage of design and construction (or commercial production in the case of materials, products and construction technologies) had not started before July 1, 2010.

holcim.org

"World Architecture Community" web shortlist Channa Horombuwa's work

Archt. Channa Horombuwa's Jayampathi Aluvihare House in Kandy has been shortlisted in the top 20 by the World Architecture Community in their 7th Cycle of awards.

'young architect of the year' 2010

Archt. Narein Perera is the winner of the  'Young Architect of the Year 2010'. This award is annually awarded by the SLIA during its sessions & exhibition. Well, really  this item should have gone up during March / April, but better late then never!

Two wins for Design Group Five at Asia Pacific Property Awards

The results of the Asia Pacific Property Awards 2010 in association with Bloomberg Television have been announced and The Design Group Five International (Pvt) Ltd. (DG5I), one of Sri Lanka's leading architectural practices, is amongst the few multiple winners at the blue-chip awards ceremony. Read on....
via www.dailymirror.lk 

Pritzker Architecture Prize 2010

Pritzker Architecture Prize 2010 has been awarded to Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA.

(Many thanks to Narein for the reminder!)