Dezeen Awards 2021 media pubic vote winners include an animated website by Samuel Day

Dezeen readers have crowned projects by Ema Peter Photography, HGEsch and three other studios winners of the Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote in the media categories.

Other winners include Mue studio for its dreamlike render of a pool in an interior patio and Samuel Day for a website with an endless scroll full of animated characters.

A total of 53,400 votes were cast and verified across all categories. The results of the public votes for the Dezeen Awards 2021 media categories are listed below.

Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote winners in the architecture categories were announced on Monday, the interiors winners on Tuesday, the design winners on Wednesday, the sustainability winners were revealed earlier today, and the studio winners will be revealed tomorrow.

Dezeen Awards winners announced in November

The public vote is separate from the main Dezeen Awards 2021 judging process, in which entries are assessed by our distinguished panel of judges. We'll be announcing the Dezeen Awards 2021 winners online in late November.

To receive regular updates about Dezeen Awards, including details of how to enter next year, subscribe to our newsletter.

Below are the public vote results for the media categories:

The One by Ema Peter Photography is the winner of the Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote in the architecture photograph of the year category

Architecture photograph of the year

Taken in British Columbia, The One by Ema Peter Photography was voted architecture photograph of the year by our readers with 37 per cent of votes.

The runners up are Niliaitta by Archmospheres with 21 per cent, David Brownlow Theatre by Stephenson& with 12 per cent, Shanghai 92 by HGEsch Photography with 11 per cent, David Rubenstein Forum 0005 by Angie McMonigal Photography with eight per cent, Woman and child, Springdale Library by Nic Lehoux with seven per cent and Bouverie Apartments by Individual with four per cent.

Tadao Ando by HGEsch Photography is the winner of the Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote in the architecture video of the year category

Architecture video of the year

Our readers chose Tadao Ando by HGEsch as architecture video of the year with 47 per cent of votes. HGEsch's video follows Tadao Ando's body of work including the UNESCO-mediation space in Paris, the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and a range of museums and theatres in Japan and China.

The runners up were Piazza Giardino by Alberto Danelli / DAP Studio with 20 per cent, Rural Studio by Breadtruck Films with 13 per cent, Connections by Breadtruck Films with 13 per cent and Village Lounge, Shangcun by Xiazhi Pictures with seven per cent.

Somewhere in the World by Mue Studio is the winner in the Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote in the visualisation of the year category

Visualisation of the year

Mue Studio depicts an architecturally rendered dreamlike space, blurring the boundaries between fantasy and reality in Somewhere in the World. This surreal render has won visualisation of the year with 41 per cent of votes.

Next is The Mulberry Tree by Marek Wojciechowski Architects with 15 per cent, Landmark Pinnacle by V1 for Chalegrove Properties with 11 per cent, Remember To Breathe by Alexis Christodoulou with nine per cent, Rockaway by Notion Workshop for Eerkes Architects with six per cent, Como Terraces, Living by Gabriel Saunders for Sterling Global and The Goodtime Hotel, Bar by Gabriel Saunders for Dreamscape Companies with five per cent, Peckham Rye Station by Flashforward with four per cent, The Modern at Embassy Gardens by V1 for EcoWorld and Ballymore with three per cent and The Secret Cave by Unism for KDW Automobile with two per cent.

Samuel Day is the winner of the Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote in the website of the year (architecture, interiors, design) category

Website of the year (architecture, interiors, design)

The innovative and immersive Parallax by Samuel Day's website was our readers' favourite website with 35 per cent of votes.

In a close second is Orange Architects by Enchilada and PMS72 with 32 per cent, Wyer & Co. by Wyer & Co, Studio Round and Pepto Lab with 13 per cent, Rafael de Cárdenas by Ohlman Consorti and Periscope by Villalba Lawson/United Form with 10 per cent.

Plant Designs by Kaleido Grafik is the winner of the Dezeen Awards 2021 public vote in the website of the year (brand) category

Website of the year (brand)

Plant Designs is a biophilic design studio and plant shop based in Clerkenwell. The contemporary, intuitive website by Kaleido Grafik has received 33 per cent of votes, making it the public vote winner of the website of the year (brand) category.

The runners up are Architextures with 22 per cent, Muuto by Norgram, Dept Agency, Immeo and Cylindo with 18 per cent, Foam by Build in Amsterdam with 15 per cent, Notorious Nooch Co. by Wildish & Co with eight per cent and Molten Corporation by Garden Eight with five per cent.

The post Dezeen Awards 2021 media pubic vote winners include an animated website by Samuel Day appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/2Z8ywkB

Bruno Gaudin Architectes creates university library in France with colonnaded "wind tower"

French studio Bruno Gaudin Architectes has completed a library clad in thin, grey bricks at the entrance to Paris Nanterre University.

Located in the town of Nanterre, west of the French capital, the brick-clad Contemporary International Resource Library marks the southern edge of the Paris Nanterre University campus.

The library was built on a triangular plot at the entrance to Paris Nanterre University

Occupying a triangular plot, the building comprises a pair of low-lying blocks that run along two sides of the site. An entrance hall is positioned at its main street-facing elevation.

Where the blocks meet, the library rises to three storeys as a colonnaded "wind tower", acting as a landmark for the library as well as a viewpoint that embraces and overlooks the urban landscape.

Windows facing the garden have an irregular placement

"The contemporary project is part of a chaotic environment, it faces transport infrastructure: railroads and Bus tracks, it runs alongside large-scale buildings: the University of Nanterre, large buildings from the 1960s, imposing office blocks," Bruno Gaudin Architectes told Dezeen.

"From this, emerges a sort of lantern/colonnade, a wind tower that opens up to the urban landscape, and gives the public building its place in a horizon of large scale buildings."

The building's concrete structure is exposed through the interiors

The team clad the exterior of the building in long, thin, handmade bricks. They explained that the brick was chosen for its textural rock-like look and hand-moulded qualities.

"The brick that we have chosen here for Nanterre is a beautiful object, it is moulded by hand, a process which leaves a particular imprint on the shape: the sharp edge cuts through the light," said the studio.

Light filters through the irregularly placed windows

Windows and openings have both a regular and irregular placement, which the studio described as a "musical rhythm".

Along the street facades, the fenestration follows a strict uniformed geometry, while the windows overlooking the garden have an asymmetrical arrangement with different-sized square openings that break with the uniformity elsewhere.

White concrete arches demarcate breakout spaces

The entrance to the library was marked by a large recessed opening, framed by skewed walls that lead visitors to the building's main doors.

Reading spaces were placed on the ground floor, exhibition spaces and teaching rooms on the first floor, and offices placed within upper floors of the taller volumes.

Spaces are organised around a large double-height lobby that exposes and highlights the building's concrete structure.

Vaulted, concrete columns run throughout the interior between glass walls that zone the library rooms, and create the illusion of an open-plan interior.

Bruno Gaudin Architectes wrapped the building in hand-moulded bricks

A wide staircase fitted with seating is placed at the centre of the lobby. It leads up to the first floor, towards exhibition rooms and breakout spaces beside a wall of the asymmetrically scattered windows.

Breakout spaces overlook the ground-floor lobby, zoned by a glass balustrade that wraps around the double-height space.

The colonnaded wind tower was designed to mark the building on the skyline

Elsewhere in France, Dominique Coulon & Associés added a curved glass extension to a library in a former French manor.

In Norway, Kengo Kuma and Mad Arkitekter designed a curved library that was dedicated to Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.

The photography is by Takuji Shimmura.

---

Project credits:

Client: Rectorat de Versailles
Contractor: EPAURIF
Architecture: Bruno Gaudin Architectes
Scenography: Studio Vaste

The post Bruno Gaudin Architectes creates university library in France with colonnaded "wind tower" appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/3jnYgQG

Brutalist buildings threatened by right-wing politicians as part of "attack on the welfare state"

Brutalist buildings around the world are in danger of demolition due to attacks from right-wing politicians, according to architecture historians.

Tim Verlaan, an assistant professor at the Amsterdam Centre for Urban History, said that an association between brutalism and left-leaning social policies has caused opposition to the architectural style from the right.

"Today, criticism on brutalism and modernism is mostly voiced by those on the far-right side of the political spectrum, precisely because of the association between modernism and the post-war welfare state," he told Dezeen.

Historian and author Barnabas Calder said the demonisation of brutalism is part of a broader, politically motivated shift towards more traditional styles of architecture.

"The Trump programme was explicitly attacking brutalism and seeking a kind of stage-set fascism," he said, referring to an executive order issued by the former president.

Top image: Robin Hood Gardens was demolished in 2017 (Dezeen). Above: Trellick Tower (Steve Cadman via Wikimedia Commons)

"There are some very, very visible manifestations of the welfare state in brutalist architecture," Calder said, pointing to iconic structures including Trellick Tower, a social housing tower in London designed by Erno Goldfinger, and the Southbank Centre, a public art complex on the Thames.

Calder, who is the author of new book Raw Concrete and Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency, added that many brutalist buildings were built by private developers rather than the state. However, right-wing attempts to link the style to socialist ideals date back to the seventies and eighties.

In the UK at that time there was "a successful bashing of it in those terms under the Thatcher period by the right because, by that stage, these buildings were in a sorry state in many cases".

"There were lots of social housing built in that style, which was being deliberately run down and badly maintained," Calder added.

Brutalism criticism linked to "advent of neoliberal policies"

"There is a connection to be made between the advent of neoliberal policies and the attack on the welfare state from the 1970s onwards and the mounting criticism of brutalism," agreed Verlaan, who is also a former editor of online magazine Failed Architecture.

"To many critics, [brutalism] also came to stand for big government and the alienation of mass society," he explained.

"The association between brutalism and the left is not a true one historically, but I think it is a true one in people's minds today," added Calder. "So historically, an awful lot of the architecture that the economic right now dislikes was originally built by the economic right."

Paul Rudolph's Burroughs Wellcome building was demolished earlier this year

The purge of buildings built in the brutalist style is accelerating today. In 2018, the Robin Hood Gardens housing estate by British architects Peter and Alison Smithson was demolished, while buildings including the Derby Assembly Rooms by Casson, Conder & Partners and Swansea Civic Centre by CW Quick are under threat.

In the USA, brutalist buildings such as Paul Rudolph's Burroughs Wellcome building and Shoreline Apartments have fallen victim to the wrecking ball.

Elsewhere, landmarks such as Kenzo Tange's Kuwait embassy in Japan, the Hôtel du Lac by Raffaele Contigiani in Tunisia and Gerd Hänska's former animal research laboratory in Germany called Mäusebunker, have been scheduled for demolition.

Brutalist buildings in need of refurbishment

This wave of demolition is not always driven by political ideology. Brutalist buildings were often cheaply built and many are in need of refurbishment.

"In the natural cycle of building maintenance, [brutalist buildings] will be needing a complete redoing of all their services," said Catherine Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society.

"In most cases, brutalist buildings are demolished because developers think they can put something bigger and more lucrative on the site," she explained. "The nature of the building on the site is really of not much relevance to them."

Read:

Robin Hood Gardens demolition is an "act of vandalism" says Simon Smithson

Brutalism, characterised by bold monolithic forms cast from exposed concrete, is one of the 20th century's most controversial architectural styles. It soared in popularity in the 1950s during the post-war rebuilding of the UK, reaching its peak internationally in the mid-1970s.

Its name, which was coined by Alison and Peter Smithson, is a play on béton brut, the French term for raw concrete. But the negative connotations of the term helped make it easy to demonise.

"Brutalism is a relatively easy target, starting with the conflation of the term Brutalism with the adjective 'brutal', which many opponents of the style use in describing its buildings," said Deane Madsen, the founder of online brutalism appreciation society Brutalist DC.

Politicians advocating "return of traditional forms"

In place of brutalism, some populist politicians are today advocating a return to traditional styles of architecture, Calder said.

The UK government's Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission favours traditional architecture and is a "fetishisation of Georgian architecture," he said.

In America, former president Donald Trump's Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again executive order condemned brutalism and called for classical architecture to become the style for new federal courthouses. The order has since been overturned by incoming president Joe Biden.

Read:

"Traditional architecture has frequently been leveraged to support violent political agendas"

Similar moves are afoot in other countries, Verlaan said. "Right-wing critics, some of whom now have seats in parliament as in the case of Thierry Baudet in the Netherlands or are even in control of government as in the case of Viktor Orbán as in the case of Hungary, advocate a return of traditional forms and styles predating the twentieth century," he explained.

However, he added: "It should be noted that they rarely distinguish between brutalism, modernism and structuralism. All things modern are bad."

The post Brutalist buildings threatened by right-wing politicians as part of "attack on the welfare state" appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/3nhxb2z

Kengo Kuma to add contemporary entrance to gothic cathedral in Angers

Japanese studio Kengo Kuma and Associates has unveiled plans for a contemporary entrance gallery to protect the sculptural doorway at Angers Cathedral, France.

The studio's addition to the cathedral will consist of a rectangular stone extension with five archivolts, creating an open gallery through which the multicoloured doorway sculptures will be partially visible.

Kengo Kuma has designed a new entrance to Angers Cathedral

Angers Cathedral was built in the Angevin gothic style in the 12th to 13th centuries on the base of an earlier Romanesque cathedral.

Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA) aimed to create "a harmonious dialogue" between the contemporary design and this Middle Age architectural heritage.

"We wanted to put ourselves in the shoes of the builders of the Middle Ages and to create a regulatory framework, using compasses, thus generating the proportions which lead to unity," the studio said.

The contemporary entrance was designed to complement the cathedral's architecture

"All this is achieved using the finest stone processes possible which then frees itself from the thick walls of the cathedral built in stereotomy," it added.

"It is this technical process that creates a contemporary feeling to the building, while remaining part of the history of architecture."

Five archivolts decorate the gallery

The carved medieval portal at the cathedral in Angers, northwest France, dates back to the 12th century and features multicoloured stone relics from the Middle Ages.

These were discovered when the portal was cleaned in 2009, after which it was studied and restored.

Read:

Santiago Calatrava's World Trade Center church illuminated for first time

Am entrance canopy built in the first third of the 13th century originally protected the sculptures, but this was demolished in 1807 and was found to be too difficult to recreate.

"After several historical and archaeological studies, the data collected were not considered sufficient to consider an identical reconstruction of the old gallery," the French ministry of culture said.

The cathedral is located in northwest France

Instead, five studios were invited to create a new design for the gallery, with Kengo Kuma's studio beating Rudy Ricciotti, Philippe Prost, Pierre-Louis Faloci and Bernard Desmoulin to win the commission.

"The contemporary construction he imagined perfectly meets the expectations of the competition: it fits harmoniously into a major heritage building and more broadly into its urban context, while protecting the portal of the cathedral and its old polychromies," the ministry added.

The entrance canopy will protect the historic doorway

Work on the project is ongoing and it is projected to be completed in 2022.

Kuma is known for his work with natural materials, including the new Japan National Stadium which was designed for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and clad in cedar panels.

A recent book from publisher Taschen, Kuma Complete Works 1988-Today, covered the architect's entire career. Editor Philip Jodidio picked ten projects that showcase Kuma's "unexpected and innovative approach" for Dezeen.

The post Kengo Kuma to add contemporary entrance to gothic cathedral in Angers appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/3aZ0qBC

Watch our live talk on how to design more sustainable electronics with Philips TV & Sound

Representatives from Philips TV & Sound, Muirhead and Nirvana will discuss how designers and manufacturers of consumer electronics can work more sustainably in this live talk as part of a collaboration between Dezeen and Philips TV & Sound. Tune in from 2:00pm London time.

The talk is the last in a series of four talks by Dezeen and Philips TV & Sound inviting designers from different disciplines to explore the cutting edge of product design.

Philips TV & Sound is represented on the panel by its global corporate social responsibility and sustainability manager Stefan Van Sabben.

Katie Kubrak, senior materials and insights producer at London-based marketing consultancy Nirvana, also appears on the panel alongside Dr Warren Bowden, innovation and sustainability director at Scottish leather manufacturer Muirhead.

Stefan van Sabben, global corporate social responsibility and sustainability manager at Philips TV & Sound

The live talk will be moderated by Dezeen's deputy editor Cajsa Carlson, and will investigate current trends in sustainability and consumer electronics, as well as how circularity can be achieved in manufacturing processes, and why brands and their supply chains need to produce products that are built to last.

Muirhead and Nirvana have both worked with Philips TV & Sound on sustainability initiatives. Kubrak consulted the brand to develop a list of principles that would enable it to use more sustainable packaging, while Muirhead provides sustainable leather that is used in some of Philips TV & Sound's products.

Van Sabben has been working as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability expert for 10 years. He is a member of Philips TV & Sound's environmental, social and governance taskforce, and also chairs the company's CSR and sustainability steering committee, which encourages its heads of departments to focus on topics like circularity and external sustainability reporting.

Prior to working at Philips TV & Sound, he acted as sustainability and strategy manager at Ernst and Young for five years, advising large corporations on how to make their practices more sustainable.

Katie Kubrak, senior materials and insights producer at Nirvana

In her role as senior materials and insights producer at Nirvana, Kubrak consults brands from the fashion, consumer electronics and packaging sectors on sustainability.

She has spoken at a number of public events, including delivering a TED talk at University of the Arts London in 2018.

Kubrak has a degree in product design from Central Saint Martins, and is currently undertaking material science doctoral research at the Royal College of Art.

Warren Bowden, innovation and sustainability director at Muirhead

Warren Bowden acts as head of sustainability and innovation for the Scottish Leather Group, of which Muirhead is a sub-brand. In this role, he works to make leather manufacturing circular in order to achieve net-zero status.

Bowden has been awarded Chartered Environmentalist status by the Society of the Environment, and is a fellow of the Society of Leather Chemists, as well as a director of Leather UK, the trade association for the UK leather industry.

---

Dezeen x Philips TV & Sound

This article was written by Dezeen for Philips TV & Sound as part of our Dezeen x Philips TV & Sound partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

The post Watch our live talk on how to design more sustainable electronics with Philips TV & Sound appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/3b03SMy