NBWW BLOG…

A team of Dutch companies has unveiled a proposal for a huge circular wind turbine that doubles as an apartment block and hotel, and also includes a rollercoaster. Billed as “the most innovative windmill in the world”, the Dutch Windwheel is intended as a landmark attraction for Rotterdam’s waterside. Architecture studio DoepelStrijkers designed the structure and is promoting it with the help of partners Meyster’s and BLOC. The designers imagine the 174-metre-high structure as being framed by two rings – a rotating outer ring made up of 40 rollercoaster cabins, and a static inner ring containing flats, a hotel and a restaurant. See Images and Read the Full Story HERE >>> via DeZeen Magazine Designs for Rotterdam wind turbine you could live inside.

In December, Architect magazine columnist Aaron Betsky listed his “best and worst” events from 2014. Among the “reasons to despair,” he announced, was “The New York Times’ abandonment of serious criticism of architecture.” As evidence, he pointed to all of Michael Kimmelman’s work as the paper’s current “architecture critic” (Betsky’s quotation marks) and a single opinion piece penned by others earlier that month. The first newspaper to appoint a full-time critic–Ada Louise Huxtable, who held the post from 1963 to 1982 and was the first-ever recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism–the Times, according to Betsky, has quit the field it virtually invented fifty years ago. The Gray Lady’s...

Eric Huang “Arboreal Architecture” is a new Cantor exhibition that characterizes trees as evocative subjects and as architects of human thought. The exhibit traces the artistic representation of trees across time and between various cultures. Trees are used as a metaphor for the knowledge structures that constitute our understanding of the world and as a mode of highlighting cultural differences. Read the Full Story HERE >>>> via ‘Arboreal Architecture’: Exploring the visual history of trees | Stanford Daily.

Female architects identify ways that women can push through the traditional career choke points and advance through the ranks in a male-dominated field. By Elizabeth Dickinson Last October, two reports quantified the state of women in architecture. The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’s “Where are the Women: Measuring Progress on Gender” found that the percentage of women in the profession plummets as careers progress. The Missing 32% Project’s “Equity in Architecture” survey identified the choke points forcing women out, including getting licensed and attaining leadership roles. This data points to an anecdotal truth that most already know: There’s a leaky pipeline in architecture. A steady loss of women over time means that the number of licensed female...

Written by Catherine Lackner on April 15, 2015 If all are built as planned, 11 new hotels going up in Miami’s central business district over the next three years will nearly double the number of hotel rooms – from the current 3,632 to 6,640. Of these, the largest, and also furthest out from delivery, is the Marriott Marquis adjacent to the Miami Worldcenter complex in the Park West district. The 1,800-room Marriott Marquis is one of the biggest projects his firm has ever tackled, said Igor Reyes, partner in architectural firm Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates. “It is actually between Worldcenter and All Aboard Florida, and will have a big role in connecting those two projects. It’s the hotel biggest project in South Florida. Many hotels downtown and in Brickell cater to...

by Sean McCaughan Met 3, a.k.a. Monarc at Met 3, a.k.a. that 32-story residential rental tower being built on top of the already-open Whole Foods Market in Downtown Miami, has topped off, according to its general contractor, Suffolk Construction. So, if a Downtown yuppie on her way to buy some fresh kale were to get squashed by some falling construction materials, at least the materials wouldn’t be coming from any higher than right now. The higher the fall starts, the faster the velocity and the more the hurt when the young urban professional on the sidewalk goes splat. Just kidding, of course! Suffolk is probably putting lots of safety precautions in place, and this kind of construction probably happens all the time in New York. Plus it’s pretty awesome. The 42,000 square...

by Sean McCaughan The Miami Center for Architecture and Design has two and a half years to find new digs. The landlord, Stambul, has declined to renew the lease on their current location, a grand two floor space in the Old U.S. Post Office which the Miami Chapter of the American Institute of Architects meticulously brought back to life. Renovated by former AIA Miami president Allan Shulman, the space includes a recreated vaulted ceiling, a monolithic custom steel staircase, and lots of preserved original details. The Old U.S. Post Office is the MCAD’s first home and the location that it, still quite a young institution, has flowered in, although that strength of purpose is by no means going away. “Under no circumstances do we plan to close or pull back our mission”...

The company behind continuous liquid interface production, which prints 25 to 100 times faster than conventional additive manufacturing methods, discusses its promising future. By Wanda Lau In March, Carbon3D dropped jaws in the design, manufacturing, and scientific communities when it debuted its continuous liquid interface production (CLIP) machine on the TED2015 stage and in the journal Science. Last week, the Redwood, Calif.–based company got another vote of confidence in the form of a $10 million investment by software juggernaut Autodesk. “Carbon3D embodies the innovation that’s required to change how products are made,” said Carl Bass, Autodesk president and CEO in the press release. “The incredible speed of its CLIP technology makes 3D printing accessible for true...

The Internet recently lit up with talk of “coloring books for adults,” particularly the fact that two such titles by a Scottish illustrator are currently at the top of Amazon’s bestsellers list in the U.S. It may be that they allow grown-ups to reconnect with the joys of childhood. It may be that they help people de-stress and unplug. Whatever the reason, these intricately drawn adult coloring books are on the rise and, well, good news architecture aficionados: there’s an entirely architecture-themed one on the way. Slated for release this July, “Fantastic Cities” by artist Steve McDonald turns the aerial views of real cities like New York, Istanbul, Amsterdam, and Tokyo, into nearly 60 labyrinthian architectural illustrations to color. by Jenny Xie...

  This conceptual airborne structure is designed to absorb moisture from clouds and transport it to arid regions where it would be released as artificial rain to combat future environmental disasters. Cloud Capture is a proposal developed by South Korean architects Taehan Kim, Seoung Ji Lee and Yujin Ha for the eVolo Skyscraper Competition, an annual award recognising innovative ideas for tall buildings. The concept is intended to combat the increasing threat from droughts and floods occurring as a consequence of climate change by balancing out the distribution of moisture across the planet. Read the Full Story HERE >>>> via DeZeen Magazine: Cloud Capture concept would bring rain to the desert.

Last week marked the official deadline for The Miami Foundation’s Public Space Challenge. Throughout the past month, Miamians submitted ideas on how to address our city’s lack of functional, communal, and truly accessible public spaces. To compare with global cities like Mexico City, London and New York City, Miami is considerably behind in urban design that takes into mind the daily and intimate moments of city living, so Miamians took this opportunity to let their ideas soar. Together with Health Foundation of South Florida and Baptist Health South Florida, The Miami Foundation will invest $305,000 to make the top place-making concepts a reality. Miamians submitted ideas that ranged from innovative and inventive to a bit immature and self-seeking. Although submissions...