Beijing claims Best Tall Building award, Guide Dogs angered by 'shared space' scheme and "stingy" budget leads to unimpressive designs in New Zealand.
CHINA
Steven Holl Architects' Linked Hybrid towers in Beijing have been named 2009's Best Tall Building Overall by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The Linked Hyrbrid complex sits on a 220,000 sqm site and includes eight towers linked by a ring of eight sky bridges. It includes more than 750 apartments as well as public, commercial and recreation facilities, a hotel and a school.
UNITED KINGDOM
The Guide Dogs charity is taking Dixon Jones to court over its $45 million 'shared space' scheme in central London. The redesign on Exhibition Road involves removing kerbs and traditional road markings and expecting road users to share the space instead. Guide Dogs believe that this will compromise the safety of the visually impaired, who rely on kerbs to stop them from walking into oncoming traffic.
NEW ZEALAND
Competition entries for the redesign of Queens Wharf in Auckland are of a very low calibre, according to Dushko Bogunovish, associate professor of urban design at the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Unitec Institute of Technology. He said that no design takes advantage of the "amazing potential" of the site and the "stingy" budget is that main reason why the designs are so unimpressive. The winner will be announced in mid-November.
SWEDEN
BIG, in collaboration with AKT, Tyrens and Transsolar, was awarded first place in a design competition for its 100,000 sqm World Village of Women Sports (WVOWS). The facility, located in Malmo, aims to create a gathering place for the research, education and training of all areas related to women's sports. More of a village than a sports complex, the WVOWS comprises both buildings and open spaces with a central hall large enough to host professional football matches, concerts and conferences.
INDIA
Pecha Kucha, the brainchild of Klein Dytham Architecture, which aims to bring together architects, writers and artists, held its first Pecha Kucha night on 23 October with over 90 people attending. Architects, dancers, poets and journalists met at architect Christopher Charles Benninger's office and watched presentations on the evolution of a chair, interesting facts on Chinese gardens and Falguni Gokhale's journey as an artist.
