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Today’s News - Thursday, May 6, 2010

•   Schumacher says "let the style wars begin": a "new, profound style of architecture for the 21st century will be parametricism" (try saying that fast 3 times) that "aims for hegemony and combats all other styles" (definitely long-form reading).
•   The "uninspiring saga" of the U.S. pavilion in Shanghai and an RFP process "shrouded in secrecy" resulting in "a dull, metal-clad" complex.
•   Glancey says Heatherwick's British pavilion "may be beautiful, but it lacks the crowd-pleasing magic of the great exhibitions age...pavilions have become self-referential artworks" offering alluring nothing.
•   Auckland architects call for saving historic Queens Wharf sheds: "It is inappropriate for an irreversible decision to be made on our behalf, about a public asset...and justifying it with glib and dismissive rhetoric."
•   McDonald on a battle brewing over Dublin Parlour (shipping containers included).
•   Benfield doesn't diss AIA's Top 10 Green award winners, but he wishes the judging criteria included more than just the buildings.
•   A retreat center for a monastery in Madison, WI, is now the top-rated LEED building in the country.
•   Rochon cheers new social housing in Toronto: it delivers "architectural heft and optimism...where people can breathe with their lungs and with their minds."
•   Ouroussoff gives (mostly) thumbs-up to The New School's planned 5th Ave. University Center: "What enlivens the design...is not its bling, but its emphasis on the spectacle of social interaction" (though it "may get more than a few people shaking their fists").
•   GSA picks "small Chicago firm over big-league, eclectic, high-profile shortlist" for a large office project.
•   Stanford University breaks ground on the heart of its arts district.
•   Kikoski's "gutsy" Guggenheim restaurant wins James Beard Award.
•   An eyeful of Kundig's rammed-earth houses in Hawaii - the "ultimate surf shack" (we want one!).
•   Brussat broods over readers' picks for the ugliest buildings in Providence (the "vitriol hurled curled my toenails").
•   Time again for Toronto to pick the good, the bad & the pugly.
•   San Francisco is mapping its urban forest and measures its benefits with a number of metrics.
•   Building materials made from medical waste (how's that for up-cyling?).
•   Call for entries: DETAIL Prize 2011 for innovative details in outstanding overall designs; and Sukkah City: New York City (12 will be built).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_05_06.htm - Thursday, May 6, 2010

Today’s News - Thursday, May 20, 2010

•   Bernstein pays tribute to Arakawa who "explored ideas about mortality by creating buildings meant to stop aging and preclude death."
•   Big plans for a big slice of Baltimore's waterfront (and nary a NIMBY in sight).
•   Yesterday it was Russians coming to the aid of Caracas; today, Japan lends a hand in India's vision for an urban future
•  - "though urbanization is not without detractors."
•   Cheers for plans to revamp London's National Theatre so the best Thames views are no longer marred by garbage bins.
•   Bellamy bemoans parking lots leaving Winnipeg's downtown "resembling the toothless grin of hockey Hall of Famer" (never mind the historic buildings being demolished to make way).
•   Appelbaum takes on LEED: it's time "to make sure that a green building doesn't go gray after its grand opening."
•   Rapid response puts an end to plans to pink up Hejduk's Kreuzberg Tower in Berlin.
•   On a more sober note, NTHP issues its 2010 America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places annual list (great presentations).
•   Russell roams around remade Lincoln Center: DS+R "have done the impossible&hellipthe changes have transformed the tired bombast of the architectural ensemble" - it's "almost hip."
•   An impressive team behind NYC's Museum for African Art extends Manhattan's Museum Mile.
•   Bilbao opens its newest architectural landmark: "an imposing new cultural center" by Starck.
•   Hawthorne comments on the all the comments he's getting re: his review of Gehry's Ruvo Center.
•   Kennicott gives thumbs-up and down to architects' endeavors in stage design (great slide show).
•   Q&A with Gilabert and her plans for Storefront for Art and Architecture: "I want to introduce more characters into the contemporary discussion - for highly productive disagreements."
•   Chen offers a most amusing report from the Pritzker fete for SANAA on Ellis Island (who wasn't there - besides us?!!?).
•   Booth on 2010 RIBA architecture awards: "as a measure of the recession's impact, the major museums and airports that graced the list in recent years are few" (we really like the bus driver's loo).
•   Lisbon Architecture Triennale's competition names 30 finalists from around the world.
•   Call for entries: AILA's Seachange 2030+ International Urban Sea Level Rise Ideas Competition for Sydney Harbor.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_05_20.htm - Thursday, May 20, 2010

Today’s News - Wednesday, March 24, 2010

•   A study of sustainable commercial buildings should give architects some good ammunition to convince clients to go for the green.
•   Duany minces no words about Scotland's planning system: "The quality of delivery of housing in this country is in crisis and it is not for lack of talent...anything good has become illegal."
•   Bezalel School of Arts and Design has big plans for a new campus in downtown Jerusalem.
•   Portland, OR, has big plans to revive a neighborhood that also includes shelter and services for its homeless people (with little protest to boot).
•   In London, Piano's "baby Shard" (finally) gets underway.
•   An eyeful of Snøhetta's Virginia Tech Center for the Arts, set to redefine downtown Blacksburg.
•   Litt cheers a win-win for Case Western and a "beloved but aging and underused" iconic Cleveland synagogue.
•   Gloomy news for Rudolph's Chorley School: aside from a small cadre of preservationists, the superintendent hears nothing good about the building (and "renovation is out of the question").
•   A photographer sneaks into the "fabulous mansion" Steve Jobs is about to demolish (you can almost smell the rot).
•   San Francisco's mayor is taking urban farming very, very seriously; a benefit beyond healthful food: a more beautiful landscape.
•   After 25 years of "planning and parsimony," NYC's Brooklyn Bridge Park finally opens, and things are looking up for Governors Island (our fingers are crossed!).
•   Hume cheers a new, direct path to Toronto's "quiet but powerful" Ireland Park that "was almost impossible to find...let alone reach. Surely, a park that can't be accessed is no park at all."
•   A derelict area beneath Toronto's Don Lands overpasses will soon be transformed into "a delightful urban patch" (and undoubtedly easier to find).
•   Saffron on Bohlin's "iOpener" in NYC, his influence on the future of retail design, and how it "probably helped him triumph over two superstars" for his AIA Gold Medal win.
•   A Cornell study tracks the most photographed landmarks in the world (Bohlin's Apple Store cube is 28th).
•   Stroik avoids "ersatz-traditional schlock" in his designs for two new churches.
•   James Beard Foundation lauds 3 restaurant designers for their good taste.
•   A startup says it can use carbon dioxide to make cement; high hopes it work on a mass scale, but skeptics have their doubts.
•   Call for entries: Land Art Generator Initiative international competition to combine aesthetics with clean energy generation across the UAE.
•   We couldn't resist: "The End of Publishing" video with a frontward/backward message (it sure made our day a bit brighter).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_03_24.htm - Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, February 23, 2010

•   Haiti could change the design profession: "with the growing frequency of natural disasters, prevention-oriented, public-health version of our field may soon become one of the fastest growing areas of demand."
•   Even if you take the low estimates of new amputees in Haiti, there's an obvious need to include accessibility in any rebuilding plans for "country that has never been hospitable to the disabled."
•   Could Piano's Malta project be called off - again? "He embarked on this project with zeal and passion thinking that the Maltese are now ready, but he was wrong" (and the Maltese would "have to answer for yet another missed opportunity").
•   Finish architects finding their way to booming China.
•   Ditto San Francisco architects, who are finding "a new stream of work coming from China: pollution cleanup."
•   Hawthorne elaborates on his high hopes for Corner's win in Santa Monica: "a rare example of integrated, comprehensive planning."
•   Seattle has two designs for a park.
•   A "living building" in store for London's upcoming Ecobuild.
•   An interesting Q&A with H&deM re: designing Verdi's "Attila" for the Met Opera (they got to work with Miuccia Prada, too - pix included); and, by the way, the Bird's Nest is not an empty shell.
•   As FLW's Robie House turns 100, a look at his "enormous influence all the way to the streets of Ottawa."
•   Gardner cheers Kikoski's new Wright restaurant as the "best part of Guggenheim."
•   An Oklahoma City firm finalizes plans for PGA National Russia clubhouse.
•   Calls for entries/RFQs abound (some deadlines draw very near): RFQ for the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, and a new high school in Guilford, CT.
•   EPA National Award for Smart Growth Achievement.
•   Lisbon Architecture Triennale's A House in Luanda: Patio and Pavilion International Competition.
•   One Good Chair 2010: "Minimum/Maximum: Use Less, Make More."
•   2010 James Dyson Award international student design competition.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_02_23.htm - Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Today’s News - Thursday, December 10, 2009

•   A faded movie palace in Oakland, CA - and the surrounding neighborhood - gets a new lease on life.
•   Goldberger and Kamin offer their top 10 lists of the best of the year in architecture in NYC and Chicago.
•   Concluding "they are wasting their time in a largely fruitless effort to improve architecture in the city," architects on Ottawa's Urban Design Review Panel resign en masse: "We feel like window dressing."
•   FOA to close as partners split - rival firms in the offing.
•   Move over CN Tower: China's "newest architectural marvel," the Guangzhou TV Tower will rise above all.
•   Jerusalem lays out some towering plans of its own: Calatrava's bridge is only a "sign of more modern architecture to come the city's entrance."
•   Meanwhile, his Dublin bridge opens just in time for Christmas - a great gift to the city's beleaguered drivers.
•   In Silver Lake, CA, a new library gives the neighborhood "an unmistakable, but not over-the-top, symbol to be proud of...prompting the city to be more ambitious in its architecture."
•   Heathcote waxes poetic about the waning popularity of the classic British country house, "but a few architects are demonstrating how the country house can still surprise and delight."
•   NYC architects take sandwich board advertising to the next level: a pop-up store offering free consultations.
•   An eyeful of the Guggenheim Museum's new restaurant: a major departure from its former manifestation, "and an appealing one at that."
•   NEA Design Director Maurice Cox garners the Edmund N. Bacon Prize.
•   We couldn't resist: Roy Lichtenstein-inspired, seizure-inducing interiors (warning: not for the faint-of-heart).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_12_10.htm - Thursday, December 10, 2009