October 05, 2012Metropolis Magazine Announces Annual Next Generation® Design Competition Call for Entries
Winning Design to be Awarded $10,000. Entry Deadline is February 18, 2013
July 25, 2012
Opening Games: Next Generation winner designs for London’s East End
London Mayor’s office has commissioned an urban installation called BLOOM Games, by Bartlett architecture professor and Next Generation winner Alisa Andrasek, for Victoria Park in the East End.
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The Architect's Newspaper
Improv Theater
November 22, 2004
By Nicholas Anderson
Architects often espouse the idea of adaptability, but they rarely give it center stage. David Serero and Elena Fernandez of Brooklyn-based Iterae Architecture do just this with their Solar Parametric Open Air Theater (SPOAT) concept. Made up of 13 units of modular bleacher seating, SPOAT is intended to expand or retract to accommodate between 75 and 500 spectators in a range of configurations. The individual sections vary in size, allowing them to telescope into one another. When pushed together they create a compact seating arrangement ideal for watching films. For live performances the modules are separated, fanning out like a hand of playing cards. Fully extended in a 180-degree arc, SPOAT recalls its source of inspiration. “We have been fascinated by ancient Greek theaters that were carved out from the existing topography,” Serero recalls. “We wanted to extend this idea to propose an artificial topography—smart and flexible to allow for all kinds of events and performances.”
Toward this end, the architects have conceived a structure that is not only flexible—the sections of the theater are made from aluminum and set on wheels so they are lightweight and easy to move—but also portable. Photovoltaic panels affixed to the backs of the modules collect sufficient solar energy to run stage lights and technical equipment, allowing SPOAT to be used in remote locations. Additionally a backstage dressing area buttresses a 33-foot retractable projection screen, beneath which water-filled storage tanks ballast the screen against wind. When the theater is moved, the tanks can be emptied and the components loaded into shipping containers.
“The focus was to create an ephemeral structure,” Serero says. “Everything fits together like stacking chairs.”
January 21, 2009
The Freer Masons
Michael Silver’s new audio software liberates bricklayers from their paper plans.
January 12, 2009
A CASE in Point
2004 Next Generation Runner-up launches an original academic program
June 04, 2008
Growing Full Steam Ahead
November 01, 2007
Shelter from Taliesin to Manila
June 06, 2007
More on Molo
See what’s unfolding for a past runner-up
February 16, 2005
Updates: Forsythe + MacAllen, Lira Luis, Jeanine Centuori
Updates on 2004 Metropolis Next Generation® Design Competition runners-up Forsythe + MacAllen, Lira Luis, and UrbanRock Design/Jeanine Centuori.
December 22, 2004
Seattle Waterfront Plan Dealt Setback
Next Generation Design Competition runner-up Cary Moon and her People’s Waterfront Coalition were dealt a blow this week when Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced the city’s plan to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct with a six-lane tunnel.
December 01, 2004
A Place to Dock
Architect Lira Luis’s temporary shelter would give Manila seafarers someplace to come home to.
December 01, 2004
Building Blocks
A young designer finds a way to recycle plastics into reusable building components.
December 01, 2004
Flower Power
Landscape-architecture studio StoSS proposes a plan that uses phytoremediation to make brownfields into public gardens.
December 01, 2004
Reclaiming the River
Pete Seeger and friends promote a permeable swimming structure for the newly cleaned-up Hudson River.
November 22, 2004
A Backup Plan
When his study of leading task chairs revealed that most of them force the sitter into unhealthy postures, industrial designer Jeff Jenkins decided to start with healthy postures and work backward.
November 10, 2004
Software Aims to Revamp Masonry Practice
Michael Silver, a 2004 Next Generation® Design Prize runner-up, and the International Masonry Institute are developing Automason, a software program that delivers precise instructions to on-site masons.
October 01, 2004
Do the Strand
Seattle activists suggest that the best plan for a troubled waterfront freeway may be to eliminate it.
August 01, 2004
Radiant Living
Emergent turns infrastructure into ornamentation with a concept house based on systems of circulation.
July 01, 2004
Mapping the Competition ‘04
Where did all these ideas for the Metropolis Next Generation Design competition come from?
July 01, 2004
Accordion Architecture
A Canadian firm’s material experiments produce flexible living spaces.
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