This weekend, on the 13th and 14th of March, the International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup Nordic will be held at Holmenkollen with over 30,000 people are expected to attend. The jump is to be held as a trial test before the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships next year in Oslo, 24th of February – 6th March 2011.

On the 3rd of February, the International Ski Federation (FIS) certified the New Holmenkollen Fyr (HS134) that the facility passed all technical and safety standards required for international ski jumping competitions.

Though the ski jump is not fully completed, plans are being met and carried through as scheduled. On the 3rd of March, Annette Sagen became the first official ski jumper to jump 106.5 meters during the opening ceremony of the Skijump, which set a new Holmenkollen jump record. From the 20 ski jumpers taking part of the opening ceremony, Rune Vetla, a local ski jumper had the longest jump at 141 meters, breaking and currently holding the record at Holmenkollen hill!

After this weekend’s event, JDS Architects will continue the remaining work on the completion plans until 2011. At the end of 2010, visitors can enjoy a bar at 418 meters above sea level and get the experience of looking down the in-run like a ski jumper. At the top of the of the 69 meter inclined-cantilever tower, a 110m2 plateau will reveal an amazing view over the city of Oslo and its fjords.

TOKYO BOOK LAUNCH AND LECTURE

Julien De Smedt to lectures at INAX Ginza, Tokyo for Tokyo Book
Launch, Wednesday, March 31, 2010
INAX Ginza 3-6-18 Kyoubashi
Chuou-ku, Tokyo 104-0031
18:00 – Doors open
18:30 – Lecture
20:00-21:00 – Book launch reception

KYOTO BOOK LAUNCH, LECTURE AND EXHIBITION
Julien De Smedt will lecture at Sfera, Kyoto for Agendibition; a
presentation in a spatial format of our recent book, Agenda.
Opening Friday, April 2, 2010. The exhibition will be from the 2nd
April – 9th May.
SferaExhibition 17 Benzeiten-cho,
Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto 605-0086
17:30 – Doors open
18:00 – Lecture Symposium “Case of Dezain 10: Julien De Smedt
x Eizo Okada”
19:00 – Book launch reception

JDS Architects exhibition at Sfera: AGENDIBITION
Gallery Hours 11:00 – 20:00
Closed Wednesday
Admission: free

Agendibition is an exhibition of architecture through the expansion of a book, turning a narrative into a space. Presented as a spatial experience, the book is laid out so that the entire contents can be seen all at once on the gallery walls. The pages are supplemented by physical models and images on display in the center of the gallery space. Agenda started as an architecture book, occupying the territory between a monograph, a diary, and a collection of essays, interviews, and conversations. It documents the work and thinking of JDS Architects over a specific year marked by crisis, beginning on September 15th, 2008, the day that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.

Rather than a definitive direction, our agenda is a definitive attitude – of eagerness, enthusiasm, and optimism, of criticality and concern, of fun and inquiry. It is a directive, a motivation to act, at times without clear knowledge of where our agenda will lead. The task of Agenda is to explore what kind of change will be needed if architects are to assume a political and social agency in this new landscape.

Bringing together diverse forms of content, Agenda is a product of vigilant observation, introspection, and engagement with outside thinkers and collaborators – artists, curators, politicians, authors, economists, journalists, developers, educators, and architects. The final result, on display at Sfera, is the book as it has never been seen before.

Andrew Griffin and Barbara Wolff will be attending this years 2010 MIPIM ceremony at Cannes, France. For potential business meetings, please contact andrew@jdsa.dk for appointments and inquiry.

ArchDaily has announced the winners of the ArchDaily Building of the Year 2009 Competition. After more than a month and thousands of votes, architects and readers from all over the world chose the best building in each of the 13 categories in competition. The Mountain Dwellings have received the award for Best in Housing.

We have been contracted by DayMoon Desarolladores S.A. de C.V to design and develop projects in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta.

Just 500 meters from the touristic Puerto Vallarta beach front, we are designing a  52,000m2 housing and retail center complex with areas for pools, a club house and other amenities for the residents.

‘The project is aimed to attract the local people of Puerto Vallarta and not only tourists to the area’, ‘in order to keep the city alive and vibrant even in low touristic seasons, it is necessary to introduce this types of projects around the resort areas’ Francisco Villeda, Associate, JDS Architects.  We have also been selected to design a 280,000 m2 Mixed used Master plan complex in Guadalajara, Mexico. The project is set to consolidate the new urban center of Guadalajara and become an important symbol of the growth and power that the second largest city in Mexico has acquired in recent years.

JDS is proud to announce two projects for Almere City’s new neighborhood Olympia Kwartier, The Netherlands. In order to reach a great urban variety within the ambitious master plan by MVRDV, 42 of the in total 82 buildings will be designed by 24 different architecture offices from Europe, Japan and America.

We are selected to take part in the Marina da Gloria competition in Rio de Janeiro. Located between downtown and the Sugar Loaf, Marina da Gloria is Rio de Janeiro’s most central and most prominent marina which will play an important role as the base for the sailing competitions in the 2016 Olympic Games. It is embedded in a modern architecture and landscaping masterpiece – the famous Aterro do Flamengo – which was designed in the 1950s by Burle Marx.

We are pleased to announce that we have been preselected for an invited competition to make a masterplan vision proposal for a new sustainable development in Geneva, Switzerland. The project contains a diverse set of programs including light industry, commerce, schools, cultural centers, a regional sports facility, and more than 2000 units of housing, all spread over a 57 Hectare site.  JDS is collaborating on the project with Maxwan Architects + Urbanists , along with Agenceter (Landscape Architecture) and Egis Engineers (Transport and Energy Engineering).

‘This project offers a unique opportunity to rethink the way we develop agricultural land at the edge of our cities – a problem endemic throughout the world. By systematically organizing the various exchanges and flows passing through the site – people, water, energy, and waste – and learning from the inherited logics of the exisiting site, we hope to provide a new model for sustainable development.’ -Ryan Neiheiser, Project Leader, JDS Architects

We are happy to announce that we have been preselected for an invited competition to make a vision proposal for a new city centre in Bratislava. The project contains 170,000 m2 of program spread over a 4 Hectare site for Penta Investments.

JDS has been selected among a list architects including Zaha Hadid, Foreign Office, Dominic Perrault, Asymptote, GMP, David Chipperfield and Alles Wird Gut.

The site shall also contain Bratislava’s first museum dedicated to contemporary Art as well as mix of housing, office and parks that will create a vibrant living and working hub for the people of Bratislava. One of the core issues is to bring activity back to the Danube and create a sustainable urban development that will help shape the future of Slovakia’s Capital City.

Commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Spatial planning and Environment of The Netherlands, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA) and in collaboration with the Atelier of the Chief Architect, this project studies the opportunities of environmental development for the city of Tilburg.

The resulting visions have been presented in Ede, The Netherlands, in a first exhibition during the Congress for Sustainable Cities and will be part of a traveling show in 2010.

JDS won 1st prize for an invited competition to design a police department in the heart of Old-Berchem, Antwerp, Belgium.  The building is developed for AG Vespa and contains public reception area, offices and a parking space. We are currently in the detailing phase of the police station and the construction will begin at the end of this year.