In this exclusive DesignBloc interview, we are excited to team up with filmmaker, Tomas Koolhaas (name sound familiar?), to discuss his passions, personal interests, and his current project, 'REM', a documentary about his father, Dutch Architect of OMA, Rem Koolhaas. [Get excited!] Recently, we reached out to our readers & followers across the globe, to be a part of this interview by submitting their personalized questions to Tomas. It was truly difficult to narrow the questi

PLAY: The Documentary play (plā/) verb : engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. All work and no play, is just no fun! People from all over the world are working themselves too hard, and leaving no time to enjoy the little moments in life. However, our friends at The Urban Conga are making a difference to change that. The Urban Conga, is a non-profit community that activates social interaction through the act of "PLAY." Thei

That's right kids... The designs for the Guggenheim Helsinki project have been revealed! Stage One involved submissions from 77 countries. Each submission is presented on the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition online gallery and allowed just two images and a brief concept summary provided by each competitor. However, don't expect to vote just for your favorite design big wigs. Each design is only listed by its registration number. Bit brief, yes, but the competitors were

What happens when you combine the minds of Marc Fornes and Jana Winderen? You get The Situation Room. But do not fear, this has nothing to do with Jersey Shore. A commission by the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City, a self-supporting, bright pink structure is born. The form was designed by Fornes and Winderen engineered the sounds making one question their surroundings and built environment. The design is testing what it is one knows about sound and the bui

The Reigning Belarusian Premier League Champions have a new home. OFIS Arhitekti has just completed a stadium for FC BATE Borisov. Basically, it is a domed shaped structure clad with aluminum panels and then punctured with an assortment of ovoid windows. The rounded shape was engineered to improve the acoustics on the pitch (that's soccer field for Americans) and an orientation north to south to ensure that sunlight is evenly distributed for both teams. No more running into t

Import.Export Architecture is updating our ideas of what we consider “roughing it” in the great outdoors. They want to look up, way up. Their creation is a 5-story platform that completely changes the camping experience. Each platform can be reached with an attached ladder and the alternating design of the levels allows people to be able to interact with those on other levels. The idea was to create a design that would allow the benefit of a cheap camping option while still b

San Francisco’s Coit Tower recently finished the $1.7 million restoration and has re-opened its doors after 6 months. The main focus of the restoration was the repair of the tower’s 25 water-damaged fresco murals. If you aren’t familiar with this icon in San Francisco atop of Telegraph Hill, it was designed by architects Arthur Brown Jr. and Henry Howard. It was named for San Francisco socialite Lillie Hitchcock Coit who wanted to the tower to be a memorial to the city’s fire

Zaha Hadid is suing the New York Review of Books over an article that was published claiming that Hadid was “showing no concern” for the deaths of migrant construction workers currently working on her design for a football stadium (that’s soccer) for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. That’s right, we have a good, old fashioned defamation suit on our hands. Now I will present the arguments and allow you to come to your own conclusions. The complaint centers on an article by Fil

*Update: The date of thie event has changed to October 4th (October 3rd was reported in the post last week) The NOMA {National Organization of Minority Architects} annual convention is in Philadelphia this year, and there will be lots to do and see. One event we would like to highlight is a presentation by Architect, Pascale Sablan, AIA, NOMA, LEED of FXFOWLE in New York. The lecture hosted Sablan titled, Design & Technology, will focus on the design process and technologies

Faulders studio has designed the ‘Entrium Light Cloud’ for a permanent installation at Portland State University. The composition of contours blends a gridded arrangement of aluminum fins with circular focal point geometries to create a pattern evocative of, ‘vectorial weather flows, topographical contours, wave oscillations, and amorphous cellular clusters,’ as described by California-based architect Thom Faulders. The sculpture seeks to engage the perception of students, fa