16 students of architecture, 2 weeks, 65 kilos of Lego
Play is important – especially when you are dead serious about what you’re doing. “PLAYTIME” is a workshop created by KRADS Architecture in collaboration with Lego Concept Lab. For the past 2 weeks first year students at the architectural department at Iceland´s Academy of the Arts have participated in the workshop – working on various projects using only the elementary Lego bricks as the medium for their ideas. An exhibition showing the work of the students opens today at Hugmyndahúsið, Grandagarði 2, at 16:00.
The show will be open until the 20th of may.
Visit the workshop’s website here.
A collaboration between architect/artist Theresa Himmer and Kristján Eggertsson, of KRADS, resulted in a new entrance to Icelands National Gallery. The new entrance welcomes animals of all shapes and sizes, arriving by air or by land, to visit the gallery.
The new entrance is a part of the group exhibition “Dyndilyndi” – at the National Gallery until the 2nd of may.
We have just received a 2.nd prize for our proposal in the competition for a new High School in the town Mosfellsbær in Iceland. The competition was open and 39 proposals of high quality were competing for the winning position. More information about the project will be published here on our site shortly.
We would like to send our gratitude to our team that together with us the partners at KRADS ARCHITECTURE are:
Bjarni Þorsteinsson, intern & architecture student
Vilborg Guðjónsdóttir, intern & architecture student
Pétur Blöndal Magnason, intern & architecture student
Special consultants:
Guja Dögg Hauksdóttir, architect
Kjartan Rafnsson, civil engineer
Klaus Mikkelsen – M+, architect
The work on the summerhouse on Langitangi in Iceland is going very well. Here are a couple of shots from the building site taken this weekend.
Our architectural models are taking a march down the main shopping street in central Reykjavík during this year´s DesignMarch. So while you are contemplating wether to take the Oreo´s or the more helthy Wasa crackers – you can check out our design for the “Flying drive-thru” restaurant…
More info on the DesignMarch here :
www.honnunarmars.ai.is
www.icelanddesigncenter.is
Here are some images from our proposal in this years Europan competition – in which we took on the challenging site in Madrid, Spain.
Finally we can show this housing project situated on a great site in Herning, DK. Today Herning Folkeblad published pictures of the project on the front page of their newspaper and wrote a fine article about the 3600 m2 building. The 9 story towers include 18 exclusive apartments – each with two 28 m2 terrasses and great views to the beutiful landscape towards south and over the city towards north. We have been developing the project during this year with C.C. Contractor and have now reached a stage where it´s time to show it to the public.
Together with C. C. Contractor, KRADS is designing a BONES takeaway restaurant in Aalborg.
Last week we had a week long workshop together with a group of talents from the Architecture Dept. at the Academy. The group was making an urban research for the City of Reykjavík and the conclusion of the workshop will be realised this fall. We thank the group for a great time at our office last week and look forward to the making of the project.
Our proposal in the open international competition for a new faculty of Architecture of TU Delft was the image of a city. An architectural collage where the merits of variety play the leading role.
To realize this vision we did not create a design for the building as such – but a method for achieving this goal.
The proposal consists of a masterplan for the building coupled with an open source design process which both the users of the building, as well as the global architectural community, can take part in.
We were among the 21 pre-qualified teams in the internatioal competition for the Headquarters of the bank “Landsbankinn” in the year 2008. Our proposal was done in collaboration with aart Architects and LW-Planning. The winning entrys have finally been announced so now we are free to put our propsal on the web
For the competition Chicago Union Station in 2008 we made a proposal that embraced the characteristics of Chicago with its numerous public parks and its historical importance as being the birthplace of the skyscraper. In respect of Union Station, the historic building is kept almost entirely in its original form with its importance enhanced by the new adjacent Union Plaza. The Great Hall is given a new life as a connection point between the West Loop Transportation Center and the HSR-Platforms. The perforated plaza, above the platforms, is conceived as a vibrating urban juncture between horizontal and vertical movements. Elevated above the plaza, the Vertical City can be viewed as a condensed sampling of the unique urban fabric of Chicago – a slice of the city that has been rotated 90 degrees. The proposal´s ambition is to create a strong landmark for Chicago, rooted in the City´s genus loci, and at the same time challenge the traditional typology of plinths and towers.
KRADS is awarded “honorable mention” in the competition “Nyt liv i bykirken”. We participated at a crowded award ceremony at Gethsemane Church wednesday afternoon.
EXTRACT FROM THE COMPETITION TEXT.
THE CHURCH WITHIN THE CITY & THE CITY WITHIN THE CHURCH
The city church is evolving – not under closure… The future offers a strong relation between the cityscape and the internal space of the church. The activity and life within the church should reflect the surrounding society. The church will contribute to the multiplicity and balance of society in a positive manner. The contribution is based on the idea of openness and the basic compassionate values and principles of the church. The space and function of the church is not under closure but is evolving in sync with it’s surroundings.
A focus on open-mindedness, humanity within the church and the dynamics and diversity of the city, will position the modern city church as a cultural hub and again include it in the social and cultural awareness of the citizens. The city church is a historically founded asset in the future evolution of the city.
Based on the qualities of the city and the church, future relations between Lithauns Square and Gethsemane Church will blossom. Lithauns Square, partly sport grounds and partly a park, has direct physical relations to the nearby elementary school and recreation center. Lithauns Square is bussing with activity and reflects the diversity of Vesterbro.
Gethsemane Church is situated just next to Lithauns Square. The physical and mental boundary between church and square can nevertheless seem difficult to overcome. If the boundaries are overcome a new field of possibilities emerges and relations between city and church will blossom and the two will nourish each other.
KRADS participated in the competition “MÅLØV AKSEN” in Denmark after getting pre-qualified together with SLA landscape architects, SLETH MODERNISM, Oluf Jørgensen Engineers.
Our entry proposed a cavity in the urban fabric adjacent to the metro station – triggering various types of flow through this public space. An asphalted nest, decorated with plastic super-graphics, constituting one of four different zones in a new urban axis in Måløv. The three other areas in the sequence would be the parking-PARK, the SHOPPING-street and the urban-FOREST
