This week, the Pritzker Prize was awarded to Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara

This week on Dezeen, architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara became the fourth and fifth women to ever win the prestigious Pritzker Prize.

On Tuesday, the Irish duo and founders of Grafton Architects were named as this year's laureates for the life-time achievement award, which has been given annually since 1979.

Farrell and McNamara were selected by the Pritzker Prize jury for being "pioneers in a field that has traditionally been and still is a male-dominated profession" and also for "their generosity towards their colleagues".

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara name eight key projects from their career

The pair are just two of five female architects to have received the award, following Zaha Hadid in 2004, Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA in 2010, and Carme Pigem of RCR Arquitectes in 2017.

To celebrate the occasion, Dezeen looked back at Farrell and McNamara's selection of key projects they believe to have defined their career.

Venice Architecture Biennale 2020 postponed due to coronavirus

Elsewhere, the continued spread of the Covid-19 strain of coronavirus resulted in more design and architecture events being postponed.

Organisers of both the Venice Architecture Biennale 2020 and MIPIM property fair in Cannes chose to postpone until June in a bid to restrict the spread of the virus.

Hyundai unveils electric vehicle concept that looks like a "perfectly weathered stone"

Car design took centre stage this week as numerous brands revealed concepts that were scheduled to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, which was also cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Hyundai revealed visuals of its latest Prophecy concept car, which is designed with "voluptuous" side sections to evoke a pebble. Renault was another manufacturer to unveil a futuristic car. Named Morphoz, the all-electric concept vehicle has a shapeshifting body that be physically expanded.

BMW unveils flat logo in first rebrand for two decades

Another electric car design unveiled this week was Ami by Citroën, which will be available on a subscription service to city-dwellers as young as 14 years old.

BMW was also in the spotlight as it introduced its first rebrand two decades. Its new flat logo has had its hallmark black ring replaced with a transparent ring.

Pretty Plastic shingles made from recycled PVC windows and gutters are "first 100 per cent recycled cladding material"

Recycled building materials hit the headlines in the architecture world, as Scottish startup Kenoteq launched a brick composed of 90 per cent construction waste.

Architecture studios Overtreders W and Bureau SLA also unveiled their Pretty Plastic shingles that are made from waste PVC. The studios claim it is the "first 100 per cent recycled cladding material".

Frank Gehry's twisting Luma Arles tower nears completion in France

Other architecture news this week included Renzo Piano's completion of an oval-shaped tower on Miami beachfront that contains 18 floors of apartments.

Frank Gehry's twisting Luma Arles tower was photographed close to completion in the south of France at its full height of 56 metres.

Yoshichika Takagi adds translucent facade to asymmetric house in Hokkaido

Projects that were enjoyed by readers this week included an off-grid cabin in Chile, a concrete studio for sculptor Monika Sosnowska and an asymmetric Japanese house with a translucent facade.

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Atelier Alba's Block sofa contrasts geometric wooden frame with rounded cushions

Swedish studio Atelier Alba has created a compact sofa for Fogia with a chunky wooden frame based on the furniture traditionally found in Swedish family kitchens.

The Stockholm-based architecture and design practice originally designed a version of the Block sofa to provide a comfortable breakout space within its small office.

The design was informed by the simple wooden sofas typically used to provide seating, as well as storage, in homes where space is at a premium.

"It's common in Sweden to have a kitchen sofa," said Atelier Alba co-founder, Sofia Nyman. "Block takes a few of its design cues from this sort of sofa."

"You feel as if you've seen it before," she added. "It's not like we've made this completely new thing. We wanted it to be familiar and friendly, to pull on a nice memory from the past."

A friend who visited the studio suggested they present the design to Fogia, with whom Atelier Alba had an existing relationship having specified its products for previous projects.

Fogia focuses on developing furniture for homes, offices, restaurants and hotels that challenges traditional perceptions of Swedish design through an unorthodox approach to form and materials.

For this reason, the brand was instantly attracted to the Block sofa's unique style and strong narrative.

Apart from some minor adjustments to the cushions, the sofa's overall proportions and materials remain exactly as they were in the original design.

The solid wooden frame encourages an upright seating posture that is comfortable but also active, rather than the slouchy designs favoured for lounge environments.

Atelier Alba likes to work with wood as they feel it is part of their Scandinavian heritage. The sofa's frame is made from solid oak that displays the natural grain and can be treated with various finishes.

"We love wood and wanted to design a sofa that expressed this love," the studio told Dezeen. "It was designed to be generic and archetypal, but still specific with its chunky proportions."

The straight lines of the wooden frame are deliberately contrasted with the rounded profile of the cushions, which can be upholstered in fabric or leather.

"It offers a sense of something familiar," the designers added, "but the character is there in the relationship between the strict geometry and the rounded upholstery."

The choice of materials and simple shape, combined with carefully designed joinery, is intended to ensure that the sofa is equally attractive when viewed from any direction.

Atelier Alba suggested it could be used on its own or in modular arrangements in contexts including restaurants, lobbies, waiting areas, offices, kitchens and hallways.

Other design brands creating furniture for Fogia include Note Design Studio, which unveiled its Figurine collection in 2017 at Stockholm Design Week.

The collection was intentionally designed to not be eye-catching, and therefore does away with any additional details or adornments.

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Explore Curiosity’s New 1.8-Billion-Pixel Panorama of Mars

While many Americans were enjoying a few days off of work for the Thanksgiving holiday, Curiosity Mars Rover (previously) was busy taking more than 1,000 photographs of the Red Planet. Capturing the Glen Torridon region on the side of Mount Sharp, the rover shot enough images to create a composite that totals 1.8 billion pixels and provides its most expansive view to date of Mars’ landscape.

NASA released a video that points out the various landmarks and proves just how impressive the shot is, like the incredible detail that’s visible on a three-mile wide crater at least twenty miles away. The rover shot the panorama using a camera attached to its mast that has both telephoto and medium-angle lenses. In order to ensure lighting consistency, it only took images between 12 and 2 p.m. each day. Explore the panorama for yourself on NASA’s site. (via Uncrate)

 

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Henry Cobb "one of the great architects of our time" dies aged 93

Henry Cobb, a partner of IM Pei and architect of Boston's John Hancock Tower, has died aged 93.

Cobb founded New York firm IM Pei & Partners in 1955 with Chinese-American architect IM Pei and American architect Eason H Leonard. The firm was renamed Pei Cobb Freed & Partners in 1989.

Henry Cobb died aged 93 on 2 March. Photograph by John Werner

The John Hancock Tower in Boston, Massachusetts is among the key projects from the architect's nearly 70-year-long career. Completed in 1976 for John Hancock Insurance, the 62-storey minimal skyscraper remains the tallest building in both Boston and New England.

"His quiet and understated manner made him even more unusual"

Cobb's partner Ian Bader confirmed that the architect passed away this week,  just under one year after IM Pei died aged 102 in May 2019.

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger was among those to pay tribute to Cobb following his death, describing the news as "heartbreaking".

"One of the great architects of our time, and a man of decency, generosity of spirit and eloquence that equalled his enormous talent," Goldberger tweeted.

"His quiet and understated manner made him even more unusual in the world of architecture."

American author and architecture critic Michael Kimmelman echoed Goldberger's praise of Cobb's character. "A truly humane and generous soul," he said.

"The world-wide architecture community lost a champion"

"A teacher, poet of form, gentleman, longtime partner of Pei, the architect of the Hancock Tower, still producing works of subtlety like the African Museum in Charleston at the end of his life," said Kimmelman.

"The world-wide architecture community lost a champion," added architect James Timberlake. "A champion of a younger generation of architects."

Cobb completed the John Hancock Tower in Boston, Massachusetts in 1976. Photograph by Gorchev & Gorchev

Cobb completed a range of cultural, educational and civic buildings in the US. These include the Charles Shipman Payson Building at Maine's Portland Museum of Art in 1983 and UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles in 1995.

More recent projects include the Palazzo Lombardia in Milan, which was completed in 2013. Designed as the main seat of the Lombardy government, the complex features a 161-metre-tall skyscraper.

Cobb's projects still in progress

A number of Cobb's projects are still in progress at the time of his death, including the International African American Museum Charleston in South Carolina. The museum is under construction on the city's waterfront, formerly a port where African slaves were brought to America.

Cobb was born in Boston in 1926 and graduated from an undergraduate programme at Harvard College in 1947. He went on to study at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, which he completed in 1949. Cobb met Pei, who was a teacher at the school, during this time.

Cobb returned to the school to act as studio professor of Architecture and Urban Design and chair of the architecture department from 1980 to 1985.

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Geometric Doorways and Angular Turrets Form Sand Fortresses by Calvin Seibert

All images © Calvin Seibert, shared with permission

Like many kids with a love for digging in sandboxes, Calvin Seibert (previously) grew up creating grand castles and towers from piles of the sediment. But for Seibert, the practice wasn’t just a childhood pastime. “In hindsight I see that much of what I made was more like sculpture. It really was all about the object and its resonant meanings rather than interiors and spatial flow,” he says.

After studying at the School of Visual Arts, the Colorado-born artist began sculpting modernist buildings featuring sharp angles, clean edges, and various geometric shapes that resemble brutalist architecture rather than something from a children’s story. “While not all of my structures have quite the rugged fortress-like presence of a Kenzo Tange or a Paul Rudolph building, it is something I aim for,” he writes. “Certainly I see my sandcastles in opposition to those frivolous turreted fantasies that Cinderella would feel at home in.”

To create his works, Seibert begins by mixing water and sand to create layers, before packing and smoothing the rest by hand. He cleans the edges with various trowels and knives that he’s made himself. Plus, he never works without a five-gallon pail because it’s “indispensable for digging and fetching water, as well as carrying stuff to the beach.”

I always start at the top and work down, taking great care to keep the horizontals level. I pretty much make things up as I go along, allowing surprises and engineering difficulties to shape the castles. Robert Venturi’s prescription of ‘complexity and contradiction’ is always in the back of my mind, while mash-ups of gameshow sets and artillery bunkers are soon added to the mix.

Seibert tells Colossal that he’s moved to Colorado since making the works featured here, which limits his time on the beach, although he dreams of transforming a pile of sand at the Venice Biennale or as part of Casa Wabi in Mexico. Follow what he’s up to, and perhaps get a glimpse of his next visit to a sandy landscape, on Instagram.

 

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