Designed by Toyo Ito for Baselworld 2013, the new La Montre Pavilion for the luxury label Hermès conveys an openness and lightness worthy of the brand’s name. A two-story box covered in a façade of criss-crossing wood lattice, the pavilion consists of a steel framework with an inner structure made of wood, glass, and metal. The 1,040m² structure contains, in addition to fancy leather goods, 167 plants, which breathe fresh air into the space and provide a connection to nature. Thanks to the lattice façade, light is able to flood the interior spaces, highlighting the designer products on display.

Ito’s clever mobile wall system allows the pavilion to be taken down and rebuilt as many times as needed. The use of natural materials, rather than expensive and flashy cladding, adds a dignity to the pavilion that lets the brand name speak for itself. A physical representation of the brand’s fundamental value of craftsmanship and commitment to handmade products, Ito’s design makes an attractive pop-up space that embodies elegance and innovation.

more

This project won the 2013 Architizer A+ Jury Award in the pop-up category. See the full list of winners here.

We dare anyone to stroll into the exuberantly designed Louis Vuitton – Yayoi Kusama pop-up in London and not walk out of there with a smile. (The fact you can’t afford any of the designer duds sitting inside somehow doesn’t diminish its giddy pleasures.) Filled with the Japanese artist’s signature polka dots—and her surrealist sensibility—this red-and-white pumpkin-shaped store, located in Selfridges London, won the hearts of the A+ Awards jurors, snagging the prize for best pop-up. Read more!

more

Voting for the A+ Public Choice Winners is plowing ahead across categories! Today we’re throwing the spotlight on contemporary religious buildings. Since the dawn of the built environment, structures reserved for religious functions have shaped the development of architecture. From the Egyptian temples at Luxor to Gothic cathedrals, religious structures have dominated the list of canonical buildings. Our five contemporary finalists range from woodland chapels to ritual bathing facilities, all united in their supporting role for religious worship. Click through to see them all!

Like what you see? Make sure to vote for your favorite project over at the A+ Public Voting site!

more

Bicycle Sauna Kolonok. Photo courtesy BC Mobile Sauna Society

We live in the age of the pop-up. There are pop-up restaurants, shops, schools, offices, and even homes. But where are all the pop-up/mobile bathrooms when you need them? Since we’re on the topic, what about portable saunas and baths? In harsh winters like this year’s, we could all use a little cozy reprieve from the cold within distance of our offices and house. So we can’t think of a more ingenious solution: pop-ups bath houses! What better way to revive bathing culture than by tapping into the pop-up’s “cool” capital?

We’ve dug up some great examples of what these would look like. Click through to see them all!

more

Pop-up bathrooms are trending, apparently. (The things you learn!) That important information comes to you from the Association of the German Sanitation Industry and the Messe Frankfurt, the co-sponsors behind “Pop up my Bathroom,” what promises to be the most exciting thing to hit bathroom design in 2013/14.  Most interesting about the campaign is the “Bathroom Bubble,” the inflatable mobile pavilion that will tour from place to place espousing the virtues of the pop-up lavatory. Continue.

more

Project:  K-abeilles Hotel for Bees

Architect:  AtelierD

Location:  Muttersholtz, France

This incredible multi-use pavilion provides shelter from the summer sun to visitors — and to wild bees. Often overlooked because of the fanfare surrounding their domesticated cousins, wild bees are integral to pollination worldwide. The pavilion presents two facades composed of hexagonal panels, each fit with a volume of different burrowing materials preferred by solitary native bees from densely packed tree branches to hollow bricks. The interior of the pavilion accommodates human occupation, complete with benches and storage cubbies built from the same hexagonal logic as the insect compartments outside.

Read more about this project in the Architizer database!

Photos: Stéphane Spach Photographe

more

These days it seems that shipping containers are being used for just about everything (well, except maybe shipping!). In the past three months alone we have featured shipping containers that have been used for homes, schools, saunas, and even organic farming. Between cost and their inherent modularity, is it really any wonder that the popularity of shipping containers has risen over the course of a few years? While our list of shipping container construction appears to be pretty extensive, hotels were noticeably absent—until now! Sleeping Around is a new pop-up hotel providing travelers a luxury experience unlike any other. Read more.

more

A 16th-century  Turkish bath,  or hammam, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, was converted for a week into a contemporary art library that brought international attention to the old monument. The hammam, an architectural monument of great significance to Plovdiv, was built over an ancient Roman bath. It was used as a communal bath open to both men and women until the end of the last century, when a period of abandonment ensued.

Today the structure plays host to the Center for Contemporary Art of Plovdiv and the association Art Today. During the Urban Dreams Contemporary Art Festival from October 20 to November 30, Art Today asked Studio 8 ½ to come up with a solution for utilizing the Center’s archive and the hammam’s main hall. The result was a spiraling wood structure that complemented the circular shape of the hall while directing the view to its spectacular 43-meter-high cupola. Read more!

more

After New York and Berlin, the urban think tank-slash-community center will open in the sprawling city of Mumbay for six weeks from December 9 to January 20. Presented in collaboration with the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the BMW Guggenheim Lab will offer free public programs and projects throughout the city under the theme “ME=WE” (individual = community, that is). The declared aim of these activities is to explore and improve urban design and urban life, and this time the Lab may finally go to a place that really needs it. Continue.

more

Playlab and Family’s “Worms” project did for the Festival of Ideas for the New City in 2011

Let’s play a game. Every time we say “ideas”, you take a shot. You ready? OK, let’s go.*

The follow-up biennial to 2011′s “Festival Ideas for the New City”, IDEAS CITY 2013 will light downtown Manhattan up with all series of cultural events, installations, and, of course, ideas. The festival, which runs from May 1-4, will be themed around the idea of “untapped capital”, a concept that’s not as scary as it sounds when you think about it.  It can mean people, property, natural resources, varied resources, networks of communication and so forth—wherever there exists a surplus of material or knowledge that is currently underutilized, i.e. that lies “untapped” and ready to be actualized. The theme is meant to be a launchpad for ideas, which will then be articulated and made manifest by hundreds of vendors, workshops, informal classes, demos, installations, and performances. Come May, these will be sprinkled throughout the Bowery near the New Museum. And that creates a spatial problem: how to house this sprawling “StreetFest”?

The Storefront for Art and Architecture, along with the New Museum and Architizer, have launched the Street Fest Competition, where we ask you, architects, to design a temporary structure for IDEAS CITY 2013. The winning entry will be built and will remain standing for the duration of the event! Click through for the details.

more