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INSIGHT: The Cultural and Environmental Differences of Global Project Types

As the world's economy becomes more global, western developers, designers, and engineers must keep developing innovative ideas for efficiency improvement if they want to keep ahead.
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature232.htm - Reg Monteyne, P.E., and Gary H. Pomerantz, P.E.

Celebrating Green

The decade-long history of the AIA Committee on the Environment's Top Ten Green Projects program is a portrait of evolution in the field.
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature216.htm - Kira Gould

Green Design as Great Design: The Architecture of Sustainability

A design competition and conference seek to merge technical ingenuity and compelling design.
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature188.htm - Kyle Copas

10 Titles to Inspire, Inform, and Amuse

From pleasures to patterns, and waterfronts to wonders (and even something for dummies)
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature97.htm - December 17, 2002

Today’s News - Thursday, July 22, 2010

•   Chakrabarti calls for the creation of an infrastructure coalition that will demand smart urbanization.
•   A "neo-Marxist economic geographer" issues an urban manifesto: Cities like New York "are increasingly being constructed around spectacle...We're all suburbanites now, without knowing it."
•   Beirut, "where money is king, it may be too late" to save its architectural heritage in a battle against "big money, corruption, lack of law."
•   Szenasy on Fit City 5 and the collaboration between NYC's policy makers and creative community, resulting in the city's new Active Design Guidelines now being "downloaded to addresses far and wide."
•   King on Snøhetta winning the starchitect-studded competition to design SFMOMA's new wing.
•   Heathcote and Booth on RIBA's Stirling Prize shortlist of museums and schools: "We are unlikely to see many of either for a while now, so the announcement of a winner may be tinged with architectural nostalgia" + betting odds favor Hadid + shortlist in pix.
•   Neuroscientists and psychologists are not far behind architects with new research showing space has a very real impact on how we feel.
•   An eyeful of 6 notable firms' visions of NYC and L.A. in 2030: the "results are stunning, and in some ways, revolutionary."
•   Till tallies the problems with student end-of-year architecture shows: they're "euphoric, exuberant, and in need of an overhaul...It is essential to question how appropriate it is to stick with a 200-year-old model."
•   The Israel Museum makeover "is one of the most inspired museum expansions in decades" (and nary a starchitect in sight).
•   Kahn's once-threatened Trenton Bath House is (thankfully) in the last stages of a restoration.
•   Calatrava's design for Denver International Airport terminal soon to be revealed.
•   An alternative location and design for Philly's planned (and much-maligned) Family Court.
•   Winners all: Australia's 2010 Premier's Design Awards + National Park Service first Designing the Parks competition (maybe these will stay open?).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_07_22.htm - Thursday, July 22, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, May 4, 2010

•   Kennicott's eloquent objection to the decision to close the Supreme Court's main doors: "By a thousand reflexive cuts, architecture loses its power to mean anything. We are becoming a nation of moles...the court has neutered its building, insulted the public and yielded to fear" (a must-read).
•   Davidson on why NYC should allow Nouvel to "build every inch of his arrogant tower": the "skyline must keep acquiring new peaks because the day we consider it complete and untouchable is the day the city begins to die."
•   What does Nouvel think? He tells Davidson: "Why is Manhattan, of all places, afraid of heights?" (he also looks "in need of a nap").
•   Brussat gets the translation of French architects' protest to the Americanization of Paris (it "was worth the wait").
•   Shanghai World Expo 2010: What are these buildings really saying? For starters, the U.S. "put about as much effort into designing its pavilion as it would a Walmart" - designed by a Canadian, no less (amusing/disturbing slide show essay).
•   Betsky travels to Hangzhou, China, and finds "by far the most imaginative set of buildings I have seen in a long time...it teaches by being."
•   Ouroussoff finds Meier's plans for a Newark's Teachers Village "the most dramatic example yet of what is shaping up to be a significant and hopeful trend in architecture" - a "commitment to elevating the lives of ordinary people."
•   Russell takes in Meier's musings on just about everything: "I have a lot to do, I hope."
•   Foster's Vancouver tower "provides some welcome hope for the city aesthetic - NIMBYISM notwithstanding."
•   Litt on the Londoner's taking on the Cleveland Clinic's 20-year master plan.
•   King cheers Oakland Museum of California's renovation: it "looks more revolutionary now than when it opened in 1969" - its virtues "are vital again."
•   Dickinson offers no high praise for a number of new New Haven projects, including Yale University Health Services' new building: "at best, passive-aggressive and at worst perversely ad hoc" with a dash of "unrelenting Darth Vader" (ouch!).
•   Boston comes up with a master plan for the Kennedy Greenway: "I've heard so much praise for this plan. And that's a man-bites-dog story right there."
•   City planners just might find some serious solutions to urban ills offered in IBM's new, very serious video game, CityOne.
•   A pick of America's Top 10 eco-friendly, energy-efficient planned communities.
•   AIA picks 18 winners for the 2010 Housing Awards (excellent presentations, too).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_05_04.htm - Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Today’s News - Wednesday, May 19, 2010

•   A ray of hope: April saw the demand for U.S. architects rise to the highest level since January 2008 (fingers crossed the trend continues!).
•   A call for revamping of complex tax codes to encourage walkable, mixed-use development and mass transit instead of current situation that favors sprawl and traffic congestion (what a concept!).
•   The Russians are coming to Caracas to help create a plan for the development of the city up to 2020 (slum clearing included).
•   Ban builds in Haiti: "I usually find a community that has slipped through the cracks and is without government support."
•   India lays out some ambitious projects for Chandigarh, Haryana, and Punjab to boost tourism (a little night music, perhaps?).
•   Hawthorne visits Gehry's Ruvo Center in Las Vegas and likes what he sees: it is "riotously sculptural" with "a deep, affecting humanism at the building's core."
•   Rochon on the reinvention of Toronto's former hockey cathedral - a prime example of vertical design (take heed, oh ye planners of sprawling arenas on the waterfront).
•   Russia sets its eye on the 2018 World Cup with massive investment in football infrastructure (an amazing slide show of proposed stadiums - unfortunately, no architects credited).
•   Poletti ponders the sad state of Neutra's VDL Studio in L.A.: "as the recession - and the California rain - starts to ebb, supporters hope more funding will follow."
•   Dallas church breaks fundraising records, but misses its mark; fortunately, it will need to make "only a few tweaks" to planned design.
•   An eyeful of what the Triennale di Milano's NYC digs will look like on W. 53rd Street (we can't wait!).
•   University of Cincinnati students tackle hospital signs that don't work with solutions that are easy to follow no matter your language or reading level.
•   Anderton's roundtable tackles oil, plastic, and stuff, and the rebirth of the LAX Theme Building.
•   A good reason to be in London next Tuesday: the Royal Geographical Society takes on "Natural disasters: how can we improve?"
•   Tokyo kicks off "open! architecture" on Friday in anticipation of hosting UIA2011.
•   An eyeful of AIA San Francisco 2010 Design Award winners.
•   Call for entries: New Orleans's DesCours 2010 is looking for experimental, cutting-edge architecture and art installations; Holland Prize will recognize the best drawing of a historic building, site, or structure; and students wanted for mantownhuman's "Critical Subjects" Architecture & Design Winter School in London (full disclosure: yours truly is on advisory panel).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_05_19.htm - Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

•   Heathcote on the transformation of mega-cities to meta-cities, "a new breed of city" with lots of problems, but none are insoluble - "the city remains, on the whole, a civilizing place."
•   Hume x 2: when it comes to transit, politics has a blind spot that puts Toronto and the region 25 or more years behind where they should be.
•   He cheers Ryerson University urban planning students' proposals organized around a public transit network: "they are light years ahead of today's thinking."
•   A Stanford study finds land preservation efforts in Silicon Valley have had only a minor effect on housing construction, and demand for urban housing close to jobs and transit has helped bring developers and conservation groups together.
•   Greenberg resigns from Toronto waterfront sports complex project because it "fails to integrate with the Plan for the Lower Don Lands" (but he'll remain on the master plan team).
•   King on the preservation debate swirling around two lowly Presidio barracks, "an example of the inherent subjectivity as to what preservation in the 21st century should be."
•   BSA's Rotch Traveling Scholarship winner and runners-ups show "the potential for remaking the much-reviled Boston City Hall and its sprawling empty plaza at a time when its fate is in limbo" (now, if only the powers-that-be would pay attention - great slide show).
•   Chihuly glass museum debate revives question: Is Seattle Center a park or arts hub?
•   SANAA tapped to transform 141-year-old Art Nouveau La Samaritaine department store in Paris into a hotel.
•   OMA wins competition for Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec expansion (lots of pix).
•   ZGF wins $61 million Homeland Security HQ contract.
•   Merrick cheers the Junction, a new arts and civic center in Yorkshire: it is "a joy...viscerally anti-bling and a small triumph of lo-fi design."
•   Kennicott cheers a new Washington, DC, library: it "isn't radical or innovative, but it is the product of thoughtful design, and it looks handsome...a good reminder of why people pay taxes and what they get in exchange."
•   Arad's Holon Design Museum in Israel aims for the Bilbao effect; it "might lack its Spanish role model's interesting location and size," but it "makes up for any shortcomings with sheer chutzpah."
•   SHIFTboston competition winners are part of "a growing movement that aims to preserve - and reuse - urban infrastructure."
•   The Ford Foundation has a $100 million initiative to develop arts spaces and housing.
•   2010 IIDA-NC Honor Award and Pioneers in Design winners announced.
•   Call for entries: Build a Better Burb open ideas competition to retrofit 3 Long Island downtowns (cash prizes; no fee).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_04_06.htm - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Today’s News - Wednesday, April 14, 2010

•   Jacobs on the rebuilding of Haiti: it needs "less architectural magic and more garden-variety diligence" that will include local people and materials.
•   Kansas City's 5 million-square-foot SubTropolis, the world's largest underground business complex (who knew?!!?) offers a creative solution to global warming (if you happen to have limestone mines in the nabe).
•   In Abu Dhabi, things are still looking up (for the most part).
•   Litt brings urban planning lessons from Indianapolis back home to Cleveland.
•   Big plans to breathe new life into Swansea's run-down High Street: an urban village for creative types.
•   A Seattle architect calls for more gathering places in urban neighborhoods modeled on the city's successful program that used great local talent for its new library branches.
•   Meanwhile, a Seattle high-rise that's only 9 years old is too flawed to fix and will be demolished (finger-pointing abounds).
•   Campaign underway to save Lubetkin's Finsbury Health Centre in North London from developers.
•   Glancey glowers: turning Finsbury into "a boutique hotel or gym would be a betrayal."
•   Bernstein considers the "Pritzker conundrum": why have so few laureates designed hotels (and most who have aren't happy with them).
•   Who needs a Pritzker when you're on a winning streak like Holl?
•   Someday a Filipino architect will win the Pritzker, but "until then, it pays to look outward for beautiful, happiness-inspiring buildings as we delicately nurture our sense of place."
•   AIA officials discuss the potential impacts of the new health care reform bill, from new taxes to architect-only insurance policies.
•   When you have some extra time, NYT's T Design Spring 2010 has eyefuls of everything, including a "meticulously restored" 1964 Philip Johnson-designed trophy house (it's only 12,000 sq. ft.).
•   Contract magazine's Inspirations Award winners honored for their leadership in socially responsible design.
•   Call for entries: World Architecture Festival Awards; Beyond The Hive International Competition for the ideal insect hotel; and Naef Cella Toy International Competition (the last two sound like fun!).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_04_14.htm - Wednesday, April 14, 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