This week on Dezeen, Icelandic architect Arnhildur Palmadottir revealed her “radical and gigantic” Lavaforming proposal at the DesignMarch festival in Reykjavík.
Palmadottir proposed using controlled lava eruptions to create buildings, which she says would be substantially more sustainable than those built with steel and concrete.
She envisions boreholes being drilled into the earth until they reach molten lava. This would then be directed into controlled flows that could either be used to form traditional building materials, be 3D printed while molten, or be cooled in situ to become the structural base for a city.
In other architecture news this week, US architect Peter Eisenman spoke to Dezeen as part of our series on deconstructivism. He argued that deconstructivism killed postmodernism.
“It killed off postmodernism,” he said of the architectural movement. “Kitsch postmodernism was at the high point at the Venice Biennale in 80 and deconstructivism killed that off.”
Also as part of the series, we took a closer look at Coop Himmelb(l)au’s rooftop extension on Falkestrasse in Vienna, which the studio’s co-founder Wolf Prix told Dezeen “broke all the rules.”
Taiwan’s long-awaited Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taipei, which was designed by Rem Koolhaas of Dutch studio OMA, completed this week. The centre has a cuboid central form from which three auditoriums protrude.
Koolhaas took a similar approach to the design of the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, which was featured in our series revisiting deconstructivist architecture. He designed the distinctive skyscraper to encourage alternative forms for high-rise buildings.
In design news, Snapchat’s parent company Snap launched Pixy, a “friendly” selfie drone that weighs just 101 grams and has bright-yellow plastic casing.
We also spoke to designer Yinka Ilori in an exclusive interview about his belief in the importance of multidisciplinary creativity. “I want to see a lot more architecture and artist collaborations,” Ilori said.
“I bring the humour, the community and the joy, which I think is what’s lacking in some architecture,” he added.
In UK news, Crossrail’s head of architecture Julian Robinson told Dezeen about the thoughts behind the architecture of London’s new Elizabeth Line.
Set to open on 24 May, the subterranean railway is the biggest single upgrade of London’s transport network for more than a century.
This week also saw a group of leading industry organisations including the Royal British Institute of Architects team up to create a building standard that will verify net-zero carbon buildings in the UK.
This week we also rounded up 10 bold staircases designed by architects. Popular projects this week include a cabin perched over a forested site in Washington State, and another cabin, this one raised on stilts in the English countryside, as well as architect Frank Gehry’s first housing project in the UK.
Our lookbooks showcased serene wet rooms and warm wood-clad kitchens.
This week on Dezeen
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