A documentary of Canadian Robert Bezeau, who is constructing a village from over 1 million bottles on the Bocas del Toro Islands in Panama.

On the run up to the Stirling Prize, 2016, The Architect’s Journal takes a look into the six nominated buildings, with interviews from the architects.
At the heart of Oxford’s historic core, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s 1940s, Grade II listed, New Bodleian Library (now known as the Weston Library) is a vital resource for academic research. In 2006, WilkinsonEyre was appointed to refurbish the library as a new cultural and intellectual landmark. The idea was to open up the building to allow more public access and engagement in the activities happening inside. This included the creation of new spaces for a programme of exhibitions and seminars drawing on the extraordinary resources of the Bodleian’s collections.
The design works with, rather than against, Scott’s robust design, reinvigorating the space with an improved circulation diagram – for both book retrieval and user movement – and creating a number of contemporary interventions, including a spectacular reading room at roof level.

The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami shattered coastal cities in Japan in 2011. Kengo Kuma, taking as a point of departure his experiences in the aftermath of that natural disaster, will examine humans’ relationship with nature, questioning the perceived strength of steel and concrete and proposing the reintroduction of wood in design as a fair and practical mediator between humans and nature.

Born in Tokyo, Kuma completed his master’s degree at the University of Tokyo in 1979 and spent time as a visiting scholar at Columbia University before establishing Kengo Kuma & Associates in 1990. Among his many works, recent projects include the Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum (2010), which won the 2011 The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize; the Asakusa Culture and Tourism Center (2012), Nagaoka City Hall Aore (2012), and Ginza Kabukiza (2013). Two of his buildings outside Japan are the Besancon Arts and Culture Center and FRAC Marseilles and Aix-en-Provence Conservatory of Music (both 2013). The firm currently has some one hundred projects ongoing in Europe, the U.S., Japan, China, and elsewhere in Asia. One of the most high-profile of these is the new national stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Since 2009, Kuma has been a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Tokyo. He has also written more than a dozen books—including Anti-Object (2013)—which have been published not only in Japanese but frequently in English, Chinese, and Korean, earning him a readership in many parts of the world. Kuma is an International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and, as of 2009, an Officier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.

“With Hyperloop One we have given form to a mobility ecosystem of pods and portals, where the waiting hall has vanished along with waiting itself. Hyperloop One combines collective commuting with individual freedom at near supersonic speed. We are heading for a future where our mental map of the city is completely reconfigured, as our habitual understanding of distance and proximity – time and space – is warped by this virgin form of travel.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.