#5 Sept/Oct 2005

News and observations

• After a Red and a Black Tree Frog, Splitterwerk has now completed a green one: a country cottage in St. Josef, Styria (AT)
• Forty architect-designed homes will be built in the idyllic Cotswolds countryside (UK)
• A spectacular blow-up construction in the shape of a giant frog serves as a pavilion for Oslo's National Museum (NO)
• 'Europe Gate' in Komáron (HU) is the largest structure to date made of an innovative new material, a light-transmitting concrete
• Update: Ørestad – a big new urban development situated between the centre of Copenhagen (DK) and the airport
• Why the new Bundesplatz in front of the Swiss parliament in Bern is considered worthy of an Honor Award by the American Institute of Architects
• and more…

New projects

• In Glasgow (UK), the Hunter Douglas Awards were presented to the six winners of the third Archiprix International
• VBM Architects treat kindergarten pupils to a striking piece of contemporary architecture on their playground in Outgaarden (BE)
• In Budapest (HU), minusplus_architects and Mihály Balázs create additional public spaces in a building containing 25 studios
• Where water was once an enemy, it is now being used to give a socio-economic boost to thinly populated areas in the Netherlands
• Wolfgang Tschapeller gets to build a sensitively sited extension to the Palais Schwarzenberg hotel in Vienna (AT)
• With House D in Velenje (SI), Sadar Vuga Arhitekti prove once again that standard projects are not part of their repertoire
• Camilo Rebelo and Pedro Tiago Pimentel designed a minimal concrete monolith that will accomodate the Museum of Art and Archeology in Foz Coâ (PT)
• Marco Pavarani, Paolo Iotti and Davide Marazzi won a Europe-wide competition for a new stadium in Siena (IT), that merges seamlessly with the Tuscan landscape

KWK Promes: The force of logic

KWK Promes are two young, Polish architects: Marlena Wolnik-Konieczny and Robert Konieczny. They work in Upper Silesia, a region characterized by brick-walled cuboids, a specific kind of building said to be the embodiment of rationalism and pragmatism. Robert answers questions put by A10's Polish correspondents.

New buildings

• Haus W in Berlin (DE), a private house designed by the office of HamannPott, distinguishes itself from the prefab standardized average
• Santiago Cirugeda makes proper use of 'improper elements' in his addition to the Centre for the Contemporary Arts in Castellón (ES)
• The completion of a building on via Piranesi, Milan (IT) marks the first stage in the conversion of a vast refrigerated warehouse complex to a design by Genoa-based architects 5+1
• Herman Zeinstra is one of the few Dutch architects of pensionable age still working; his most recent design is a housing scheme in Amsterdam's Indonesian Quarter (NL)
• MVRDV and JJW Arkitekter have converted two grain silos on Copenhagen's harbour front into an apartment building that definitely goes against the grain (DK)
• Two apartment blocks by David Chmelar in Police nad Metuji (CZ)
• Bennetts Associates have achieved a spectacular new building for Brighton's central library (UK)
• In Dublin (IE), architect Tom de Paor has dug two one-off dwellings in the ground
• Krunoslav Ivanisin has built a house with a large patio in the suburbs of Zagreb (HR)
• On a site in Villemomble (FR) that was once occupied by a chateau, Atelier d'architecture Brenac Gonzalez has built a library that hovers like a phantom above the ground
• Sandra Giraudi and Felix Wettstein designed a house on the slopes of Monte Bré in Viganello (CH)

Focusing on European countries, cities and regions

• Moscow's plans for vertical expansion will rival the muscular skylines of Chicago and Shanghai
• Almost non-existent during communism, advertising is now the most striking feature of the urban space in Bucharest (RO)
• Berlin-based Christian Welzbacher guides us through Berlin-Mitte (DE), a neighbourhood with a close-knit mix of living, work and leisure

Buildings that already get their share of media attention

Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura have teamed up for this year's Serpentine Gallery pavilion in London (UK), which is – according to A10's correspondent Cordula Zeidler – the best one so far. The fact that the pavilion is already sold (to raise funds for the next one) speaks for the quality of the work of the two Portuguese masters.