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Spatial Experiments: "Zaha Hadid Laboratories" at the National Building Museum

The evolution from project concept to completion is explored in an exhibition honoring an architect known for challenging popular convention.
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature60.htm - August 19, 2002

Who What When - 7/18/02: honors, firm news, on the boards, and people on the move

http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature48.htm - July 18, 2002

Today’s News - Wednesday, August 18, 2010

•   Hawthorne, Anderton, and others pay tribute to the "Grand Poobah of West Hollywood" and urban designer John Chase.
•   Russell takes umbrage with "bashing architects with lawsuits" and bemoans the fact the "risk aversion has become the rule" that kills innovation.
•   Filler deconstructs Prince Charles and his over-the-top reactions to "various and sundry affronts to his very particular and sometimes very peculiar notions of how life should be lived" (could it have anything to do with inbreeding?).
•   Even with Balmond and Ushida Findlay on board, Kapoor's ArcelorMittal Orbit tower "teeters under scrutiny": one wonders "if London really needs another landmark."
•   Bullivant x 2 (lucky us!): an in-depth look at how Hamburg, Copenhagen, and Milan are re-thinking their disused industrial districts to create distinctive new urban quarters + how a Flemish practice "is applying a sense of pragmatism and delight to its major renovation of Ghent's public squares."
•   An architect explains why Seattle should get behind replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel.
•   A very interesting Q&A with author of "Welcome to the Urban Revolution" Jeb Brugmann: "...cities are primarily an economic space in our time of globalization, and we have not yet learned how to optimize those spaces."
•   Some big names are lining up to vie for developing Russia's big plans for an "innovation city."
•   Dobrzynski on the 9/11 museum at Ground Zero: "I don't know Steven M. Davis, but he's in the running for my favorite museum architect."
•   The new Crocker Art Museum expansion "is a study in restraint" (some wish it was less so).
•   More on London's Jellyfish Theatre made from junk: "In a throwaway society that needs to drive the reuse and recycling message, it is a symbol of what can be achieved" (great pix, too).
•   Expansion plans for Kahn's 1972 synagogue in Chappaqua, NY, has preservationists (and his son) more than a bit upset.
•   Drawings by a Tampa architect, who left his mark on many of the city's now historic treasures, turn up in tubes in an attic.
•   We couldn't resist (and you shouldn't either): London's architecture reimagined in photographs by Andy Spain (truly amazing).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_08_18.htm - Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, August 24, 2010

•   Q&A with Caples and Jefferson, two architects who "have proven time and time again that architecture can transform reality and change attitudes."
•   It's official: DS+R tapped to design Broad's big Grand Avenue adventure in art.
•   Hawthorne clues us in on what DS+R's winning proposal looked like; alas, no pix - but there's "no doubt that the design contains the seeds of a canny, theatrical and high-energy piece of architecture."
•   A battle for NYC skyline: Empire State Building owner takes umbrage at plan to put Pelli-designed 15 Penn Plaza tower to close to Midtown's Grande Dame.
•   An interesting look at how Yamasaki's WTC was a "complex loaded with Islamic architectural references" - something overlooked in the "cacophonous debate over plans to build an Islamic cultural center just blocks from Ground Zero."
•   Is the Des Moines Art Center Meier wing iconic or out of place?
•   King bemoans a San Francisco project that gives architecture (and the nabe) short shrift, while another "newcomer" that may not "light up the blogs" is a "satisfying and well-crafted piece of urbanism."
•   Merkel on the "irrational exuberance" of the last 20 years that has also "produced some great architecture among the glitz."
•   New buildings by Selldorf "suggest a growing demand for sensual buildings that are well-designed and don't scream for attention" (well, there those sky garages).
•   Celebrating the African-American architectural team that helped shape Boston and their legacy that Northeastern University wants to help preserve.
•   FLW's grandson is trying to maintain a piece of his family's legacy, but the "house has health issues of its own."
•   Revisiting Netsch's Air Force Academy Chapel in Colorado Springs: its soaring spirit still flies.
•   University of Iowa names an impressive shortlist to design a new auditorium to replace the one destroyed in the 2008 floods (this time, a little higher up the hill).
•   Work begins on Hood's "Solar Strand" at the University at Buffalo, where solar power and public spaces will co-exist within the landscape.
•   Floridians get behind helping a Port-au-Prince hotel to be the first to re-open its doors since the earthquake.
•   Campbell gives two thumbs-up's to Thompson's "Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes": it's "a loving scrapbook of D/R and its era."
•   Eyefuls of the James Dyson Award national winners (great presentations).
•   We couldn't resist: the Cocktail Napkin Sketch Contest winners (it took sorting through 1,322 of 'em).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_08_24.htm - Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Today’s News - Friday, March 5, 2010

•   We lose Raimund Abraham, "a favorite of Cooper Union Dean John Hejduk, Abraham helped make the school a hotbed of theory and design," in a smash-up with an L.A. bus.
•   Weinstein finds "Design through Dialogue" a "helpful communications primer," but it "leaves some uncomfortable questions" unanswered.
•   An exhaustive report on the Thames Gateway development that risks becoming a Docklands "writ large" (with no place for birds or bugs): "the local communities know what they need and they don't need another high-profile architect or urban visionary to tell them."
•   An underdog Dallas neighborhood "becomes cool embracing what other parts of the city have fought" (don't call it a slum anymore).
•   Dublin's new dockside theater may feel like "Libeskind-lite" (no starchitect hubris here), but it's still "populist and warm-hearted" and "it sure is likeable, like a chirpy little fella with big dreams."
•   Saffron practically swoons over Maki's "gossamer bell jar" amidst the bricks of University of Pennsylvania campus.
•   Aspen gives the nod to out-of-towner Oz instead of local Poss for affordable housing project (it's been a saga; now all they need is the money to build it).
•   Niemeyer "still showing a flair for dramatic design" with his "glittering" new government complex in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
•   Architects, young and old, caught in the downswing a year ago: where are they now? (some good, some not so good news).
•   Weekend diversions (and lots of 'em):
•   Szenasy on "Modernism at Risk" at NYC's Center for Architecture, and the rise of design activism.
•   The Guggenheim's "Contemplating the Void" is a "fun hotchpotch," but much of the "profusion of fantastical projects" wind up "reinforcing the dictatorial nature of Wright's design. But resistance is possible."
•   Rothstein finds Yale's "Compass & Rule" charts "a period of radical transformation in architecture": the show's "argument is difficult and sometimes too allusively made, but the impact is considerable." - On the other hand, Genocchio found it "a visually unremarkable collection" that is "just too dry to appeal to a wide audience."
•   Tapei gets its first eyeful of a British master with "Richard Rogers + Architects."
•   Balmond shows off his thinking about geometry, pattern, and space in Tokyo (great pix!).
•   Eliasson "makes magic" at an NYC gallery: "It's a doozy" (and pix to prove it).
•   A terrific slide show of "Sculpture by the Sea" on a beach in Perth, Australia (some of the titles are better than the art).
•   Lamster views "The Art of the Steal," a new documentary that alleges Barnes Foundation theft: it "frequently undermines its own argument," but "manages to elicit sympathy for some of the dedicated Barnesians fighting the good fight."
•   Gruber finds "Grid/Street/Place" has much in common with "The Smart Growth Manual," but disappointment that includes only a few "places that evolved 'lot-by-lot'...rather than by means of a developer with a plan (and a bulldozer)."
•   King considers authenticity and Zukin's "Naked City: it's "a provocative book and a conflicted one, and the conflict is what gives it life."
•   "The British Constitution, Continuity and Change" by Britain's former Labor Minister takes on Prince Charles's "grotesque" and "unconstitutional' meddling" in urban issues + what really was in his missives re: Chelsea Barracks is (finally) revealed.
•   Kamin gets it from the horses' mouths what we'll find in Mies 2.0, the forthcoming "Mies Building Art: A Biography and Critique."
•   "Between Lines " puts architects' doodles on a pedestal.
•   An eyeful of what's inside the "neatly packaged" new "Almanac of Architecture & Design."

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_03_05.htm - Friday, March 5, 2010

Today’s News - Monday, September 28, 2009

•   ArcSpace brings us Hadid in Cairo and Meier in Prague.
•   Reshaping suburbia to make it more livable: "We really can't afford to wait."
•   Scientist find urban green roofs are more effective in fighting global warming than first thought.
•   A call for Bulgaria to cut bureaucracy: "It is not yet accepted culturally that good design improves lives and the quality of living."
•   Dillon delves into Dallas's new cultural district: "will all this high design come together to make a real place...Or will it devolve into a glossy architecture fair that...does little to nourish the life of the city?" (we hope the former)
•   Kamin says Chicago will change whether it gets the 2016 Olympics or not - just don't get carried away with high hopes for big change.
•   King cheers new Disney museum in San Francisco's Presidio: it's an "artful transformation of a statuesque barrack," but also a lesson in "how difficult future restorations will be"; it's official: there will be no Fisher Museum in the Presidio - he died two days after leaving his collection to SFMOMA.
•   A £1.5 billion east London project, including Farrell's aquarium, is "dead in the water" (or is it?).
•   English Heritage backs Koolhaas plans Commonwealth Institute: the public benefits would "outweigh the harm" to the West London landmark.
•   Chipperfield reworks his Kunsthaus Zürich extension to make it "more consistent with the political and cultural interests" of the city's urban development department.
•   Architects of Yale's 1981 Mudd Library are "dismayed" that they can't convince officials to preserve and adopt it for new uses.
•   Meanwhile in Ohio, an architect helps find new use for an Edsel showroom he designed in 1957.
•   An eyeful of a home in Israel designed with input from the children with special needs who will live there.
•   An eyeful of Gorlin's "tranquil" Hampton beach house: "You pay the mighty ocean the humble compliment of extreme simplicity."
•   A good reason to head to Chicago this week: Design Futures Council Leadership Summit on Sustainable Design, then zip over to Oregon for the launch of the first annual Portland Architecture + Design Festival.
•   The exhibit has ended, but Daniell found it a fulfilling presentation of "one of the most important mentor-protégé lineages in postwar Japanese architecture."
•   We couldn't resist: a video of daredevil window cleaners adding sparkle to the Burj Dubai (yikes!).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_09_28.htm - Monday, September 28, 2009

Today’s News - Tuesday, August 25, 2009

•   Moore and Glancey respond to Dittmar's call for "Enquiry by Design" (it's so 1980s).
•   Bernheimer's open letter to Ouroussoff: "Gotham isn't nearly as barren of the 'heroes' he seeks." (click "Yesterday's News" to read Hank & Nicolai's columns.)
•   Are Israel's suburban malls destroying its urban centers? "Little Israel learns all sort of things from Los Angeles" (so it can enter the "Golden Age of Sprawl" - oh joy).
•   DPZ's "radical new way of looking at the street grid" takes shape north of New Orleans.
•   Becker cheers Landmarks Illinois' Athletes Village plan: it "demonstrates how the irreplaceable Bauhaus-inspired buildings can not only co-exist with the village, but improve it."
•   Should bad architecture be named and shamed? Yes, says FAT's Sean Griffiths; no, says Tonkin Liu's Anna Liu.
•   Sad news we were hoping not to hear: The Lighthouse in Glasgow to go into administration.
•   St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre drops Perrault for Diamond + Schmitt and a "very, very" different design.
•   Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island: the "dawn of a new Middle Eastern Golden Age, or the most expensive white elephant of our millennium"?
•   Ziba Design's new HQ is a "sustainable pillar of the community."
•   Jacobs sits down with a lighting designer and a dark-sky activist to debate two very different views about "the best (if not the brightest) ways to light the environment."
•   Climate change + Venice = bad news.
•   Laser pioneers creating 3D models of world heritage treasures so they "can be re-created if they fall victim to climate change, natural disaster, war or terrorism."
•   Hawthorne's amusing take on Huxtable being cited on "Mad Men" re: Penn Station demolition (ouch! check listings for repeats).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_08_25.htm - Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Today’s News - Friday, July 24, 2009

•   Angotti on the faltering WTC plans and why it might be time to go back to the drawing board: "Maybe the critics were right in the first place."
•   A serious look at why street design matters, and some of the cities that are taking it seriously.
•   Hot on the heels of two Stirling nods, Rogers takes another hit: his British Museum extension plan bites the dust ("official reasons for the refusal remain unclear").
•   Prague's "Blob"/"Octopus"/"Eye": the "saga of the chosen library design refuses to die."
•   Gorlin has "great hope for modern architecture" in the Bronx: "A masterpiece is still awaited, but at least there are many contenders."
•   Bernstein on the impending demise of Yamasaki's Century Plaza Hotel in L.A.: not everyone thinks it's worth saving.
•   Something amazing is rising from the wildfire ashes at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.
•   A long shortlist for BD's Architect of the Year Awards 2009.
•   Weekend diversions: Plan to spend some time at "Modell Bauhaus" in Berlin - "the world's biggest Bauhaus retrospective" (great slide show!).
•   Hawthorne cheers the "architecture of gumption" presented in "Mix" in La Jolla: these "architects are making measurable headway against problems that desperately need solving."
•   Campbell takes on the Wright and the High Line in one fell swoop (one miss, one hit).
•   Ivy waxes poetic about the lost art of hand drawing as he wanders the Wright show: the "sheets of handwork remind us what we have lost in our transition to the electronic"; want more: an architecture fantasy camp for Frank Lloyd Wright fans.
•   The tantalizing "Mannahatta/Manhattan" at the Museum of the City of New York challenges the viewer to see the contemporary city as "a place shaped by the relationship between nature and people."
•   The new documentary "Snakebit" about Rural Studio and Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee "seems unexpectedly moving, even for architecture buffs."
•   Page turners: King on Sudjic's latest tome "The Language of Things": a "well-tailored provocation that both explores why the best design work is timeless and decries how it can be debased for status or show."
•   "A Paradise Built in Hell" finds the upside of natural or national disasters.
•   Eileen Gray finally gets her due in "the most in-depth look at the designer to date."
•   We couldn't resist: an amazing eyeful of MOS's "afterparty" at P.S. 1 in Wade Zimmerman's "brilliant pictures of this hairy beast"; and winners of Maserati/Architectural Digest's garage design competition (worth looking at all the entries - vroom vroom!).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_07_24.htm - Friday, July 24, 2009

Today’s News - Monday, February 23, 2009

•   ArcSpace takes us to UNStudio's theater in Graz.
•   Design will be critical to get cities "out of the social, ecological and economic mess we're in."
•   Q&A with "Boris's brain," a.k.a. London's planning guru ("at least his boss is a laugh").
•   Bayley on the extreme possibilities presented by Passivhaus and revolving towers: "a solemn fugue or a drunken samba."
•   Kamin finds "skill and artistry" in a new Chicago tower for senior living
•   The best way to achieve sustainable office space: "think twice about designing any new office buildings," says Frank Duffy.
•   Small is beautiful + Heathcote's favorite mini-boxes.
•   Davidson cheers two architects who offer "far more than lip service" to affordable housing: "pinched budgets need not translate into poverty of imagination."
•   Harvard students + BMW's "cloth car" = coastal houses that can rise and fall with the tides.
•   Hume cheers new home of University of Toronto's economics department: "a minor architectural marvel, an object lesson in how to make a little go a long way."
•   Heathcote sits down with the architect who had a hand in transforming London's two Vics.
•   SANAA tapped to design this year's Serpentine.
•   A 1% solution has San Francisco's Uptown Tenderloin History Museum on track.
•   A call to preserve architectural heritage in Lagos.
•   Ito leads donations to Australia bushfire recovery; other architects rally as well.
•   Armani's 5th Avenue megastore by Fuksas: NYC's "second Guggenheim"(?!).
•   More on Venturi's Lieb House saga.
•   Call for entries: EPA's 8th Annual National Award for Smart Growth Achievement.
•   We couldn't resist: Atlantis is found! (well...probably not...)

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_02_23.htm - Monday, February 23, 2009

Today’s News - Tuesday, September 23, 2008

•   A thoughtful renovation and expansion for the Currier Museum of Art in New Hampshire.
•   Russell goes where swamp things slither in San Francisco and likes what he sees.
•   U.K. launches drive to cut construction waste.
•   Kaufmann issues white paper "Nutrition labels for the Home."
•   Biomimicry Guild partners with HOK to find organic solutions to whole building construction and urban planning.
•   British jailbirds are star conservationists.
•   Stephens takes an in-depth look at the effect of the Hispanic community on the built environment, and its effect on them.
•   Pedersen queries Campanella about "The Concrete Dragon," the ethical responsibility of Western architects, and the future of China's massive urban experiment.
•   Gorlin on his most excellent (and amusing) adventures at MIPIM.
•   Kamin finds Block 37's new building "underwhelming" - with a few "hopeful signs."
•   Andrew Todd minces no words about what he thinks of starchitects and urban design.
•   Two different views on how Santa Monica should combat traffic woes create a rift.
•   NYC's new sculptural subway grates add aesthetics to flood protection.
•   A Milwaukee gem is restored in a "daring intersection of contemporary and historic structures."
•   Former NEA head Speck builds a house with all the right angles.
•   Blum plumbs "Home Delivery": perhaps "prefab's time has finally come."
•   In Chicago, Becker's "Boom Towns!" explores the architecture of explosive growth over the past 125 years.
•   USGBC awards $2 million in research grants.
•   Call for entries: 2009 Next Generation Design Competition.
•   Tooting our own horn (very proudly): 13 named Honorary ASLA members (yours truly included!).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2008_09_23.htm - Tuesday, September 23, 2008