Welcome to CONVERTED, The 9th International Architectural Design & Visualization Challenge I’m running in partnership with Substance by ADOBE as the Material Category Marquee Sponsor and ASUS as our Hardware sponsor.

Converted entry by eladiovictoria

/0 Comments/in /by

The New Rochelle Naval Armory, built in 1932, became the permanent home of the 31st Fleet Division of the New York Naval Militia in 1933. The Armory served as a military training ground and meeting place for recruits.
There is a Masterplan to develop the Armory site as part of its Pratt Landing development project on Echo Bay, which includes shops, apartments, restaurants and parks. We want to deviate the design for the Armory building and create a experiential beer garden and local brewery. The idea is for the space to transform its customer experience in the summer as well as the winter with educational tours of the brewery as well as the retail-hospitality end of the beer garden.
We will explore the adaptive -reuse of the structure, natural and artificial lighting in combination of materiality.

Converted entry by Flowstorm

/21 Comments/in /by

My first challenge will be to find suitable drawings and information about the existing buildings (not an easy task for active power stations) so I can begin the design and modelling work.

I’m intending to explore how far timber can be pushed as a building material when constructing large scale spaces.

I have never used the Substance suite and look forward to seeing what tools are available to help me design both procedural and ‘painted’ materials.

I’m not sure which section I will enter – I’m keen to see how far a real-time engine could be pushed and how it might work with Substance, but then that would require learning two applications and is probably asking for trouble given the time available!

Converted entry by Pablo Llamazares

/1 Comment/in /by

Its origin dates back to the end of the 19th century and it has an impersonal design in which the work with neomuedejar style brick stands out. The typology of the factory responds to the adaptation of a complex machinery that evolved throughout the 19th century and is promoted by companies such as Bülher Hnos. It’s a typology of floors, consists of a main building that houses the machinery, a building for the storage of the graon and another building for the storage of the product.

In our days the business of small flour mills like this is threatened by the large multinationals and this has led to the closure of many of them in the region, leaving the buildings of great interest and heritage value in disuse and deterioration. I would like to develop a project to reuse the factory in this challenge, with a social program open to the people of the area, which values the existing building and gives it a new useful life.

As the first step of the process, I’m redrawing the plans and adjusting an architectural proposal, making sketches of the spaces that I imagine in perspective and section I guess this part of the process will take me a pair of weeks, and them I’ll start modeling.

I’m thinking to participe only in still images category but it depends of time I’ll maybe do an animation.

Converted entry by aybc85

/5 Comments/in /by

Yik Cheong Building has been selected as the focal point due to an early fascination with the Kowloon Walled City and how that has become ingrained in Hong Kong’s history. A remarkable high-rise community that was beyond over-population reaching a density of 1,920,000 people per square kilometre. The community was recognised for its dense, poor living conditions and serious crime. Faced with the inevitable demolition in 1993 all that remains in its place is a luscious green park, remnants of the south gate and a scale model of what was once there.

A later example, Yik Cheong Building and its neighbours have become one of the most famous buildings in Quarry Bay. Density is still a prevalent issue even though it barely draws any parallels with the Kowloon Walled City, its similarities in form and facade treatment are still evident. Some of which has been further translated into smaller residential buildings forming streets lined with markets stalls and ‘floating’ signage; like Ladies Market, Mong Kok.

The concept will focus on the distinctive facade seen in the Yik Cheong Building complex and the void in between.

Converted entry by Evan

/9 Comments/in /by

Pow Castle

Official name: Savannah Powder Magazine
Built: 1898
Abandoned: 1963
Architects: Alfred S. Eichberg and Hyman Witcover
Location: Savannah, GA
Size: 1,700ft² (158m²)
Original Use: Storage of municipal dynamite

Pow Castle is a small, 123-year-old castle-like structure hidden within the woods of Savannah. Its original purpose was quite simple: to store the city’s supply of dynamite safely away from populated areas. It has been abandoned and vacant for nearly half its life.

In terms of adaptability, the windowless, 18in-thick (46cm) brick-walled structure is imposing and intimidating! Converting this building will demand thoughtful consideration. My proposal is to explore the use of light to transform Pow Castle and its 15-acre wooded site into an after-dark illuminated nature park.

In terms of visualization, I’m hopeful that the small scale will allow me to more fully investigate site design and materiality details.

Looking forward to this competition and seeing what everyone dreams up!