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A Treasure Reborn: The Currier Museum of Art by Ann Beha Architects

Manchester, New Hampshire: An important cultural resource reopens its doors after a thoughtful renovation and expansion.
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature264.htm - September 23, 2008

Northwest Expansion: The Portland Art Museum by Ann Beha Architects and SERA Architects

Portland, Oregon: Sensitive historic restoration combined with contemporary design expands a museum into a dynamic new art center.
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature198.htm - ArchNewsNow

The Daniel Performing and Visual Arts Center, Simon's Rock College of Bard by Ann Beha Architects

Great Barrington, Massachusetts: A unique school builds a cultural haven in the Berkshire Hills.
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature155.htm - November 30, 2004

Today’s News - Tuesday, June 29, 2010

•   Q&A with Goring & Straja re: how they manage an international practice as a small firm.
•   Spain wants to move ahead with rail tunnel near Gaudi's Sagrada Familia - but perhaps "the worriers have won a small victory."
•   Some very familiar names offer 25 Big Ideas to help make NYC (or anywhere else) "better, smarter, stronger, wealthier and maybe, just maybe, a little friendlier" (some interesting small ideas, too).
•   Shilling shines a light on some hits and misses in promoting civic tourism that should benefit residents - not just tourists: "If place is so important why is it disappearing, along with the organizations responsible for its preservation?"
•   Australia's first Aboriginal architect tells his non-indigenous colleagues who are "often too arrogant to consult indigenous communities": "get over yourselves."
•   King chronicles his ongoing access to the selection process that went into final choice of architect (DS+R) for UC Berkeley's BAM/PFA project: it "evolved into an elaborate ritual that's part business, part seduction."
•   Birnbaum bristles that too many recent and upcoming museum expansions do not consider their existing designed landscapes as part of their collections.
•   L.A.'s port city of Wilmington has big plans for its own High Line (sort of).
•   Rooftop greenhouses that "look a bit like giant larvae with outspread legs" (pix to prove it!) "could help speed the widespread adoption of green roofs."
•   Ouroussoff cheers a near-empty tower that still holds hope: it's an example of how NYC's "recent embrace" of starchitects "can also lead to inspired work from unexpected sources."
•   An eyful of RUR's "temple to Tai-Pop," where "musical culture meets high design" (it will also "work as an urban space during downtimes").
•   University of South Carolina expands its library for special collections with an annex that will "keep the modern feel" of Durell Stones 1959 original, "and play with that a little."
•   Expanding Kahn's 1966 Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (called a 'graduate seminar' for young Indian architects) is a daunting challenge.
•   AIA President George Miller calls on Congress to reconsider proposed legislation that fails to account for the fact that many "architects - a quarter of whom are out of work - are working for S corporations struggling to stave off dissolution."
•   Betsky doesn't object to 2010 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards winners: they're "mostly pleasant and perfectly fine, but not great": it "would be nice if design would blow your mind, rather than be bland enough not to mind it."
•   Virginia Tech wins inaugural Solar Decathlon Europe by tweaking "Lumenhaus," its 2009 DC entry (that placed 13th).
•   AIA San Diego celebrates its 50th awards program with "striking" and "vibrant" projects taking top honors.
•   Call for entries: NYC launches urbancanvas Design Competition to develop creative artwork for construction fences, sidewalk sheds, and scaffolds.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_06_29.htm - Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, May 18, 2010

•   Sticks and stones (isn't this an industry that just loves controversy): Booth reports on the first day in court in the saga of Chelsea Barracks and that pesky prince; and an architect bemoans all the "painstaking development work" being "undone by HRH - not so as to encourage an alternative that most local residents might enjoy more but to pander to a rich."
•   Another battle may be brewing over plans for a "vast monument" (taller than Big Ben!) to Battle of Britain.
•   Lest we forget the contentious plans for a hockey rink on Toronto's Lower Don Lands waterfront: "The configuration that's been floating around has been scrapped, actually" (instead of 440, only 200 surface parking spots - oh joy).
•   Rochon minces no words about hockey rink plans: forget a windowless box, "intelligent, far-reaching alternatives to the suburban-style scheme are needed immediately."
•   Zandberg says it's time to bury plans for Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem along with the bones: it isn't about promoting tolerance, "but rather a desire to repeat the Bilbao effect."
•   On a more positive note (we hope), a two-part report on big plans for urban regeneration in Downtown Cairo.
•   King on SFMOMA and BAM/PFA shortlists: "Experience is important but so is cachet. And if your building opens as your architect's reputation crests - ka-ching!"
•   A Fresno architect and students come up with tiny (and inventive) homes for the homeless - now all they need is a place to put them.
•   Biemiller finds campuses "littered with bad buildings" trying to imitate their older neighbors, and "just about all of them are intellectually indefensible."
•   Walker cheers "a slew of inspiring kit-style" classrooms that are modular, eco-friendly - and economical to boot.
•   A report from NBM 's "For the Greener Good" discussion on green schools (some good news, some not so good).
•   An eyeful of London's new Routemaster that's en route; surprise to us: it's a Heatherwick, not Foster, design (great pix, video, though).
•   Litt on student design finalists for a titanium bridge in Akron: it "could be just the thing for a region known for, er, rust."
•   Another spotlight on SOM's Hartman: his work will "survive the magic test of time."
•   British Columbia in the spotlight with eyefuls of the 2010 AIBC Architectural Awards; and Olin's 1992 Bryant Park in NYC wins ASLA/NTHP 2010 Landmark Award.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_05_18.htm - Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, April 20, 2010

•   Sharp offers a very sharp assessment of what lessons can be learned from the architectural reinvention of other ruined cities (from 1666 to last year) in rebuilding Haiti: "it seems clear that those governments that act quickly and incisively come out on top."
•   An impressive line-up shows how "we can fight homogeneity and think of creative ways to preserve or recapture our unique communities" (plan to spend some time with this one).
•   Bruce Katz re: the need for smarter investments from the public and private sectors in revitalizing metro areas.
•   The CDC's Healthy Community Design Initiative aims to help build healthy communities by design.
•   Speck plants roots in Lowell, MA, for a spell to help the Boston 'burb recast itself "as a place where you can live without a car."
•   A call to get serious about fixing Boston's Kennedy Greenway: it "desperately needs a nurturing hand, and all the parties must come together to provide one."
•   Saffron on the "I-beam that changed architectural history" and its proposed transformation: it "would be the sole act of daring misbehavior in a wasteland of good taste" (whatever happens, Venturi and Scott Brown's reputations will survive).
•   Denver's quirky new skyscraper "unfolds cinematically, with every random side a sequel. But is it a good movie" (or a traffic hazard)?
•   Goldhagen on Boston's best little boathouse: it "looks more impressive even now than it did when it opened a couple of years ago."
•   Rybczynski has a revelation in an empty Guggenheim rotunda: "For once, Goethe's old chestnut applies; this really is frozen music."
•   Intriguing take on a Koolhaas lecture at Cornell: "His provocative paradoxes that once shook up thinking in the field now seem pasted together in a flippant and flimsy discourse riddled with ideological contradictions."
•   An exhibition in Montreal, open for just a few days, shows off 60 projects that may - or may not - shape the city's future: some "impress by their height and scale - or their hubris, depending on your perspective."
•   Earth Day approaches: Straw bale building making a comeback: "the lesson of the Three Little Pigs isn't to avoid straw. It's that you don't let a pig build your house."
•   40 years later, three environmental activists reflect on the state of the American green movement: "We're not back to square one...But we're in much worse shape than we were" (it's not all gloom and doom, though).
•   An original Earth Day organizer reflects and looks forward.
•   Kahn's Roosevelt Memorial, 36 years in the making because of "a perfect storm" of obstacles.
•   Firms face dilemmas - and the law - when it comes to unpaid interns while internships become a "mushrooming" trend.
•   AIA's EVP/CEO McEntee heading to the American Geophysical Union.
•   Call for entries: A New Landmark for Aldgate international competition for the 2012 London Olympics.
•   Well, we didn't make it to London over the weekend, but at least we were amused by a few clever survival strategies: U.K.'s "Dunkirk-style" rescue mission for holidaymakers; Frankfurt Airport offered clean underwear, airport tours, and art classes; and much more.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_04_20.htm - Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Today’s News - Wednesday, April 28, 2010

•   Lerner looks deep into the urban planning movement to "change development patterns to address the cause-and-effect relationships of built environment and public health."
•   A Cornell study "opens up a fat opportunity for architects and designers" to design school cafeterias that will get kids to eat their veggies (by 250-300% - "that's not a typo").
•   Wilson takes an in-depth look at the Passive House movement, and offers some "recommendations for tweaking the standard to make it work better in North America and expand the market penetration."
•   Hosey wonders what it will take to get "more than 7% of us to feel 'angry or disgraced' about the sorry state of our buildings."
•   de Botton on how the "cool, classless and fun" Tate Modern has become "an advertisement for what Britain should be like...a temple to the best of our contemporary selves."
•   Hawthorne on the shortlist just announced for the Berkeley Art Museum's (post-Ito) new home.
•   Another impressive shortlist named for the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan.
•   Some impressive names named to represent the U.S. at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale.
•   London's King's Cross square competition winner plans "a new public square to rival Trafalgar Square."
•   Russell tools around Maki's MIT Media Lab: "In the face of the sheer quantity of stuff, he shapes an environment that is oddly, quietly beautiful."
•   A much-needed makeover for Long Beach Airport will respect its Streamline Moderne history - and be green to boot (great fly-through video).
•   An inspiring tale of Five Fellows bringing a dead house back to life in Detroit.
•   Betsky's (sort of) tribute to Warnecke: "I hope that life and [his] intentions, not his buildings, will be what we remember."
•   AIA Architecture Billings Index indicates "predictions that the industry would be emerging from its recession by the middle of the year may be spot on" (fingers crossed!).
•   New Zealand Architecture Award Winners 2010 honor everything from landmarks to a minimalist cave.
•   Call for entries: 7th International Emirates Glass LEAF Awards; and registration deadline reminder: 2010 ASLA Student Awards.
•   Editor's note: We're saddened by the news that Building Design & Construction (BD+C) has closed; even its website - and treasure-trove of an archive - will fold on Friday (another one bites the dust - sigh).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_04_28.htm - Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Today’s News - Monday, November 2, 2009

•   ArcSpace brings us eyefuls of Calatrava's TGV Station in Liège, Belgium; and a new book showcasing the "ominous, forbidding locations" in L.A. that Raymond Chandler wrote about.
•   At the APA's National Symposium, the focus was developing an affordability index for planning sustainable communities.
•   Parman ponders the future of urban agriculture: the involvement of local designers, gardeners, and artisans could be "a crucial step in reclaiming the cityscape as a commons."
•   Horizontal cities and suburbs are beginning to put the focus on designs for people instead of cars - "Jane Jacobs would be pleased."
•   A symposium in NYC next Saturday puts the focus on the future of mega-projects: do they have one in light of the stalled economy?
•   Speaking of mega-projects, things are looking iffy and/or hopeful for Ground Zero Arts Center in NYC, grand plans for Buffalo's waterfront vision, and Charleston's vision of world-class performance space.
•   Davidson cheers NYC agencies' "doggedly smuggling high-level architecture to the neighborhoods that need it most...ugly won't cut it anymore"; and an eyeful of a perfect example: a Staten Island firehouse will have a close connection with its community.
•   Pearman gives thumbs-up to Oxford's Ashmolean makeover: the museum "has reinvented itself," mixing "intelligence with showmanship."
•   Campbell explores the new main branch of the Cambridge Public Library, and the W Boston: "these two new buildings are worthy additions to a region where we too often don't aspire to architecture this fresh and thoughtful."
•   A bit more detail on plans to reduce one of the largest carbon footprints in Chicago - Willis (a.k.a. Sears) Tower.
•   It's taken awhile, but San Francisco is finally breaking ground on what will be the city's most sustainable office building.
•   U.K.-based Article 25 and its plans for architecture to change the world.
•   The Omrania l CSBE Student Award for Excellence in Architectural Design drew students from 10 Arab countries - and some impressive winners.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_11_02.htm - Monday, November 2, 2009

Today’s News - Friday, November 21, 2008

•   Arieff expounds on why blue (i.e. water) is the new green.
•   A study points to ways Toronto must step up its efforts if it hopes to achieve the objectives of its green development plan.
•   Buki claims HUD's plan to help the "hardest hit homeowners and neighborhoods needs to weigh efficacy and intelligent intervention - outcomes, not output, or few places will be saved."
•   Steer says that especially in down times, the profession must "still train and keep the right people" and stress that "we are flexible, adaptable and still open for business."
•   Controversy still swirls around Gehry's Tolerance Museum in Jerusalem.
•   Litt reports it's back to the drawing boards to refine Cleveland Institute of Art expansion.
•   It's better news for Beha and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
•   And for Metropolitan Workshop, tapped to design Libyan conflict museum in Tripoli.
•   Blum plumbs Corner to find out how/why he "has helped reinvent the field of landscape architecture."
•   Dunlop delights in the Fontainebleau's "splendid face-lift."
•   Gough counters counterterrorism competition, asking students to boycott contest that "propagates paranoia" (others agree, but not all).
•   Weekend diversions: a director examines how film uses present-day architecture to portray the future.
•   Mays takes in "Unbuilt Toronto" at ROM; he's amazed, but "the architecture Toronto didn't get deserves more room to breathe."
•   Holl talks about how he uses watercolors, now on view at MoMA, as a springboard toward the creation of architecture (lots of pix!).
•   Heathcote says "Imprint" by Daniel Eatock is filled with "tiny delights" that will 'make you smile and perhaps even change the way you see the city."
•   "Japanese Identities - Architecture between Aesthetics and Nature" by Yuichiro Edagawa is a "unique guidebook" to Japan's cultural heritage.
•   Cameron Diaz joins Architecture for Humanity's Cameron Sinclair Sundance Channel's "Iconoclasts."
•   Three we couldn't resist: The World's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings. - Architects' proposals to redecorate Obama's Oval Office. - Where on Earth...can you pinpoint where these famous (and not so famous) buildings are?

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2008_11_21.htm - Friday, November 21, 2008

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