RAH SITE DESIGN COMPETITION WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Deputy Premier John Rau announced the major prize winners for the Royal Adelaide Hospital Design Competition. “Once the hospital moves in 2016, the current RAH site opens up huge potential for a wide range of possible uses. The open ideas competition has been about exploring the possibilities for the site” he said.

First Prize -Slash (Victoria) with Phillips/Pilkington Architects: “We seek to reintegrate the surrounding city and parklands. In removing accreted parts of building that have clogged the site, we open up the buildings to be part of an urban system, with their own identity and program.

The proposal makes a proposition of retention and therefore reduces energy that would be required in new building construction. The primacy of adaptive re-use is supported by several key initiatives including on-site waste treatment, water retention and on-site power generation that can be extended to service beyond the site” says architects.

“This submission provides a generous extension of the Park Lands into the site, moving across the site from east to west, finally arriving as a major park presence on Frome Road. In so doing, this strategy significantly enhances the site’s relationship to the university campus to the west” Jury comment.

Second Prize -Bondhag & De Rosa with Taylor Cullity Lethlean: “The site is declared an urban forum, moulded by the given built fabric and new interventions, and made permeable by covered and outdoor public places. The site will remain over a given timeframe, in a state of ‘incompleteness’. The notion that the site, with its built forms, can be moulded or adapted at any stage during the redevelopment timeframe. Initiative and curiosity is to be stimulated by making knowledge and resources available” says architects.

“The jury was impressed by the considered reuse of existing built fabric within this submission. A simple strategy of editing, reordering and augmenting the site’s current built form provides multiple adaptable possibilities for the site. The submission does not locate cultural uses in the high-visibility areas of the site’s periphery, but rather proposes to shift the cultural program “in-board” to the centre of the site. This promotes movement through and across the site. Frome Road and North Terrace buildings are assigned commercial and institutional functions” Jury comment.

Second Prize –Nice Architects with Mulloway Studios: “ADELAIDE ROCKS is a new urban quarter. It is an engaging, unexpected, fun, active and multi-layered place.  A hill formed from the debris of demolished buildings that turns waste into a positive, exciting, and unique urban space. The proposed building is seen as an iconic entry element into the city. It provides a bookend to the development along North Terrace and contributes to the broader city development patterns” says architects.

“The submission proposes to retain and restore buildings along both Frome Road and North Terrace, while demolishing the buildings within the site’s centre. The waste from this demolition is proposed to be formed into a hillscape, with the site becoming both an “eco city landmark” and creating a unique vantage point from which visitors may experience a new set of views over the city” Jury comment.

NEW DILWORTH PLAZA BY OLIN

"Local development non-profits City Center District (CCD) and Central Philadelphia Development Corporation felt that the existing public space, which was constructed in the 1970s, left much to be desired.

To improve this condition, the non-profits assembled a team of local design talent, including architecture practice Kieran Timberlake, landscape architecture studio OLIN, and civil engineering firm Urban Engineers. Now a new design for Dilworth Plaza is under construction and should be open for occupying sometime in 2014.

The design team’s goal was to create a more dignified civic plaza and to accentuate the area as a center for transportation, while improving access both to the subways as well as across the site. Starting with the floor, the team brought the entire plaza to a single level at the same grade as the sidewalk.

This change improved movement across the site, as now pedestrians will be able to walk on an axis with Market Street from 15th street. Access to the transit center underground is provided in two all-glass head houses, whose transparent forms make a minimal obstruction to views of city hall’s facade.

These head houses curve up on either side of the Market Street Walkway, the profiles of their roofs forming the bottom of a circle that encompasses the civic building. Digital displays mounted on railings that flank the head houses provide historical and other information to passersby.

The lawn is sloped to improve handicapped accessibility, and is built to host events such as outdoor movies and concerts. On the north side of the walkway, opposite the lawn, is a fountain, 185 feet long by 60 feet wide, which is fed by rainwater held in a cistern below the plaza.

It can also be drained in four minutes flat if the area is needed for large gatherings and can be transformed into an ice skating rink in the winter. The design also includes a café on the northern edge of the plaza that can accommodate 25 diners inside and has seating for about 100 outside.

About 80 percent of the planters that house the trees are outfitted for the dual purpose of stormwater management, capturing water that falls on site and holding it while it slowly seeps into the ground.

The remaining 20 percent could not provide this function because it stands atop the subterranean transit spaces, rather than the soil. The design’s most awe-inspiring feature is an art installation by Janet Echelman. Integrated into the fountain, it traces the path of the three subway lines that run beneath the site.

When trains arrive and leave the station, the installation tracks their progress with columns of dry mist that shoot several feet into the air. The mist is coded with the colors (provided by LEDs) associated with the three lines—blue, green, orange." Aaron Seward

Location: Philadelphia, USA 
Architect: OLIN 
Partner: Kieran Timberlake 
Art Installation: Janet Echelman 
General Contractor: Daniel J. Keating Company 
Structural Engineer: CVM 
Year Project: 2013 
Owner’s Representative: Gilbane

CENTRAL STATION SALZBURG BY KADAWITTFELDARCHITEKTUR

The conversion of Salzburg Central Station from a railway terminal to a station for through traffic was planned not just to create an efficient transport node for some 25,000 passengers.

The convincing integration of the original load-bearing structure of the station hall and the restoration of the entrance concourse achieve an eloquent synthesis of historical building and modern architecture that complies with present-day needs.

Beneath the railway lines, forming a new link between areas of the city on both sides of the station and providing access to the platforms, is a spacious shopping mall with broad apertures at the top. As one walks through this public pedestrian zone, openings between the platforms allow views up to the transparent areas of the roof over the station hall.

There, dynamically shaped lightweight structures, covered largely with membrane roofing and cushions as well as glass, have been combined with the slender historical structure to create a new type of station hall that is filled with light.

Above all, though, with the surprising spatial dimension that was achieved by linking the platform level with the shopping mall – transport needs with the urban environment – Salzburg lends new impetus to station construction in Europe and elsewhere.

“Though an expansion of the underpass into a shopping gallery, the access to the trains is upgraded through natural lighting over the generous platform entrances, from a dark access space to an open pedestrian zone.

The new organization of the Salzburg train station becomes an urban density project that not only serves the mobility and comfort of the traveller but also creates a public space and connects various districts of the city.

The authentic integration of the existing historic structures into the new overall scheme for the central station in Salzburg lends the complex its unique, fascinating character.

Following the tracks, the curved platform roofs nestle at a respectful distance against the carefully restored, intricately constructed historic platform hall and form a spacious, continuous roof surface above the platforms. This dynamic spatial construct interprets the movements of the trains that are entering or slowing down, and thus gives the station its unmistakable appearance.

Above the restored historic concourse, a dynamically landscaped urban space with airy height, the Passage, not only links the various levels and functions of the station project, but also provides essential urban impulses as a connection between the two city districts on either side of the tracks” says the architects.

Location: Salzburg, Austria 

Architect: Kadawittfeldarchitektur 

Project Manager: Aldrik Lichtwark, Dirk Lange, Holger Giesen 

Project Team: Benjamin Beckers, Frank Berners, Christina Delcour, Ursula Feld, Jochen Hansen, Lutz Langer, Max Schoeneich, Kilian Schuhmacher, Kerstin Tulke, Denise Venghaus, Stephan Völlings, Torsten Zu Klampen 

Competition: Aldrik Lichtwark, Patrick Müller-Langguth, Guido Schwark, Alexander Willems 

Construction Size: Alteration Of Existing Building 2.750 m2  

Extension Under Platform: 13.000 m2  

Construction Volume: 57.500 m3  

Platform Area: 19.000 m2  

Competition: 1999 – 1st Prize 

Year: 2013 

Client: Öbb-Infrastruktur Ag

LONDON AS IT COULD BE NOW: NEW VISIONS FOR THE THAMES

River Beds by Carl Turner and Edible Bus Stops

Working closely with Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and the Royal Academy of Arts, The Architecture Foundation launched an open call for multidisciplinary design teams to put forward new ideas and visions for self-selected sites along the Tidal Thames reflecting on relevant changing social, economic, cultural and environmental conditions and concerns. 

River Rooms by David Kohn Architects

With proposals for new airports, floating villages and increased connectivity between North and South London it seemed an appropriate time to consider how this artery that runs through the Capital can best be harnessed to aid the way we will live in the future. 

Floodplain by 51% Studios and Niel Cummings

The London As It Could Be Now Open Call sought for architect-led teams to express an interest in taking part in an honorarium supported public design workshop, which was held on Sunday 22 September. The workshop saw the five selected teams presenting their proposals and ideas relating to the Thames to a panel of expert advisors as well as to a general audience.

Lubricity by The Eastern Reach

The panel consisted of Patricia Brown, Director, Central; Deputy Chair of the Mayor’s Design Advisory Panel (Chair), Eric Parry, Principal, Eric Parry Architects, Andy Bryce, Associate Partner, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Georgina Young, Senior of Contemporary, Museum of London.  

The Thames Bath Project by Studio Octopi

Design teams were asked to submit portfolios of their past work along with a covering letter that explained why they were interested in the initiative, which site(s) they wished to work with along the Thames and what issue(s) they were keen to address.  The public design workshop highlighted the importance and relevance of dreaming up new ideas for the city and how with public backing these ideas can be realised, drawing on examples such as the pedestrianisation of Trafalgar Square.