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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, March 30, 2010

•   Six ways we've already geo-engineered the earth, creating "a geological age of mankind's making" (amazing - if depressing - visuals).
•   Forget L.A. and San Francisco - it's the Pacific Northwest that's "most vulnerable to a mega-quake like Chile's" (this from an engineer/earthquake consultant).
•   Hosey on the potential for Wal-Mart to "revolutionize supply chains and utterly redefine the green building market."
•   Austin Williams gives a lively report on a fiery, sometimes ill-tempered debate about architecture and climate change (even Ken Yeang ticked people off).
•   A radical architect says "sustainable" is not a good enough word for what he wants to build.
•   For architects and activists, the design for the Columbia River Crossing between Washington and Oregon is one "only a mother could love...not driven by any single architectural ideal" (even the engineers who designed it agree).
•   Forget Spanish tile or pink stucco - Newport Beach, CA, picks a bold statement inspired by the ocean for its new civic center.
•   Oklahoma City's newest neighborhood is designed specifically for old fashioned window shopping (what a refreshing concept!).
•   Rawsthorn can't shake her dislike of the 2012 Olympics logo; one way to make it better: dump the "dodgy typeface" at least (a student gets it right).
•   Eyefuls of the 2010 European Prize for Urban Public Space winners (some surprises!).
•   Call for entries: The Earth Awards 2010 - A Global Search for Sustainable Innovations; and Pratt's Mobile Voter Registration and Info Center Design Competition.
•   Eight years in the making, PBS premieres "I.M. Pei: Building China Modern" tomorrow: an "intimate portrait of the man who set as his goal nothing less than the redefinition of architecture in modern China."
•   One we couldn't resist: Las Vegas's top five nightclub bathrooms ("the places to go when you have to go" - and pix to prove it).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_03_30.htm - Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, February 2, 2010

•   How going green can be a win-win-win for landlords, tenants, and design professionals.
•   An NYC task force recommends changes to building codes to make construction and renovation work greener; it may be "a new way of looking at how we do business with a green perspective" (but "some measures would be less palatable than others").
•   In Melbourne, ANZ HQ may be "greener-than-green," but it "faces a new test - time."
•   Hosey calls for sustainable design to start being "less tech and more touch."
•   Lewis on Haiti and New Orleans: "If we could start from scratch, we probably would choose neither location for building a modern city, despite all our modern construction technology."
•   A good reason to stay glued to your monitors on Feb. 20: Pecha Kucha for Haiti (an international "WaveCast").
•   Goldberger on Dubai's "castle in the air": the Burj Khalifa "should be an easy building to loathe," but it "turns out to be far more sophisticated, even subtle, than one might expect."
•   Kamin on the "long - and sorry - tale" of Chicago's Union Station that echoes NYC's "far more infamous (and equally misguided) demolition" of Pennsylvania Station.
•   Eminent domain battles heat up in a once charming Moscow neighborhood and a Cincinnati neighborhood, and the residents are pushing back.
•   A Corpus Christi architect offers an intriguing way to save - and re-use - at least the roof of the city's 1954 Memorial Coliseum.
•   Oman nets Snohetta and Buro Happold for fish market on the site of an existing 1960s-era waterfront landmark.
•   Stout's "Gehryesque" Art Gallery of Alberta opens with a splash.
•   Saint-Laurent, Montreal, picks winning design in competition for its new library (lots of pix, too).
•   Q&A with Libeskind: Crystals and CityCenter "will generally influence architecture by raising the bar on the value of design."
•   Pilloton and Project H hit the road in a silver Airstream trailer to spread the word to high school and college kids that good design can change the world.
•   An eyeful of an impressive list of 2010 AR/MIPIM Future Projects Awards winners (not too much info, though) + an eyeful of (and info about) the Overall Winner (Nouvel).
•   Seven lucky places selected to be part of AIA's Community Assistance Program to promote long-term sustainability.
•   An essay series that ponders the state of architectural criticism.
•   Happy Groundhog Day! (only six more weeks of winter - sigh)

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_02_02.htm - Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Today’s News - Tuesday, January 5, 2010

•   Kamin, Moore, and Rose on the Burj Dubai - 'er - now the Burj Khalifa (just think what it will cost to change the signage, maps, and t-shirts!); its "poetry comes from its mismatch of symbol and reality...a pratfall on a heroic scale"; it "may be a triumph of beauty and ambition, but the soulless cityscape surrounding it is another matter."
•   An excellent in-depth look at the history of Dubai's development - and its future: the discussion has "started to move towards quality of life" (and residents "yearn for more spaces outside of shopping malls").
•   Q&A with Adrian Smith: is it all you imagined? "It's pretty awesome."
•   Guangzhou is "setting the standard for sustainable transportation and livability" in China.
•   Cannell queries "will the new suburbia omit cul-de-sacs?"
•   Campbell on Boston's brief but fascinating Age of Concrete: "We don't have to sanctify it, but we shouldn't rip it all down either."
•   King offers a fascinating take on the Transamerica Pyramid's "steep path from civic eyesore to icon...As its novelty has faded, the sense of adventure has endured...brash and slightly odd - just like the city it calls home."
•   Heathcote x 2: Hadid's Maxii in Rome is "an impeccable job"; and a new arts center in Ireland "offers a glimpse of relief and a reminder of just how good architecture can lift the town and the soul."
•   Q&A with Viñoly re: his Las Vegas CityCenter adventure: he was pleasantly surprised by sense of community..."That is something that is very rare to find today."
•   CUF's Bowles offers 20 predictions for NYC 2010 and beyond.
•   Boston's best buildings of the decade: what make them important are not just buildings themselves but their revitalizing effect.
•   Brussat looks at how "Providence muffed the decade" (an era of "uglies").
•   Litt reviews 2009: Cleveland "finished the year in suspense...The biggest suspense regards the city itself."
•   A handy round-up of 2009 architecture and design awards, "the year of wallflowers and newcomers."
•   RFQ to develop innovative design options for Toronto's Gardiner Expressway and Lake Shore Boulevard.
•   Call for entries: Temporary Outdoor Gallery Space 3 (TOGS 3) International Ideas Competition; and 2010 North American Copper in Architecture Awards.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_01_05.htm - Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Today’s News - Thursday, January 21, 2010

•   The up's and down's of the last 20 years of Pittsburgh's redevelopment - good news, though some unfulfilled promises remain.
•   Philadelphia charges ahead with Delaware River waterfront plans.
•   Green design is important, but it's time to "focus attention on adapting our buildings to the inevitable impacts of climate change."
•   In Austin, a net-zero house "shouts 'futuristic'" and "takes the concept to its limits."
•   Ouroussoff says "preservationists should put away their torches and pitchforks" re: Piano's Gardner Museum expansion: it's "a thoughtful, mature, even beautiful, building" (though "some of us will mourn the loss" of some of the museum's original experience).
•   Berlin's Jewish Museum getting a Libeskind extension.
•   Talk about the ultimate in recycling: 2012 Olympic buildings to be made from recycled guns, bullets and knives.
•   Aspen picks out-of-towners for affordable housing project and the locals are not happy.
•   Russell re: new Apple store in Manhattan: the city's "latest iTemple" is "a splendid oddity amid the retail recession, all steel, marble, and glass."
•   In a down economy, architects are "discovering new talents often unrelated to architecture."
•   Kondylis fears for younger architects: "They are being laid off now...it will be difficult to find architects later...I don't know what is going to happen to the profession after this."
•   MoMA scores a Tschumi archive.
•   Two good reasons to head to Cuba in March.
•   Eyefuls of Wallpaper* Design Awards 2010: '09 "was a difficult year for many, but a sterling year for design."
•   Call for entries: City of Dreams Pavilion for NYC's Governors Island; and "Office Needs for Good Deeds" non-profit office makeover contest.
•   Deadline reminder: Call for presentations for 2010 ASLA annual meeting.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_01_21.htm - Thursday, January 21, 2010

Today’s News - Friday, December 4, 2009

•   Woes for a green future? Leading climate change expert says Copenhagen summit talks are already so flawed that any deal would be a disaster - it would be better to start again from scratch.
•   Why do LEED-certified buildings waste so much energy?
•   Seattle could lead the world as a carbon-neutral city - "so what's standing in the way? Political will."
•   On a brighter note, there's a new toolkit to guide cities and counties through the process of greening their communities (modeled after the PlaNYC guide).
•   Forget airports - mega-train stations are "the symbol of a new age of urban renewal and planet-friendly travel" (glamour and speed included).
•   Columbia University loses attempt to claim eminent domain for campus expansion plans: arguing neighborhood blight is "mere sophistry" and "idiocy" claims the court (read the ruling - it's practically scathing; an appeal is surely in the offing).
•   Cities continue to toss up bland glass boxes "in all their stark, anonymous severity. Will architects ever give us something new" or will they "stick to the one unwritten law of modern architecture: Thou Shalt Not Ornament"?
•   EPA's 2009 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement honors four projects that "bring together sustainability and environmental benefits on the ground."
•   Peter Bohlin, Pugh + Scarpa, and Michael Graves take home AIA national awards.
•   AR 2009 Awards for Emerging Architecture celebrate young architects from around the world.
•   Weekend diversions:
•   MoMA offers "the unruly history - not the svelte myth - of the Bauhaus."
•   An architect and an artist offer "CO2 Cubes" that will visualize carbon emissions for all attending Copenhagen summit.
•   Norway's high-design tourist routes take a "Detour" to Parsons in NYC.
•   In London, Haygarth turns the things we throw away into some amazing (and actually functional) objects.
•   Kamin ponders whether Burnham's "Plan of Chicago" is a work of literature, and cheers a new film about "Mr. Big Plans" debuting this month.
•   'Tis the season of critics' picks: King says "URBANbuild: local/global" may be "this year's most ambitious polemic on urban design" with lessons that are applicable far beyond New Orleans.
•   Ouroussoff and Planetizen offer their list of best books.
•   Eggert's "Securing the Past" is "serious, provocative and original" in defending and securing the past "against the skepticism of postmodernism" (though it's not without its "irritants").
•   A sneak-peek of the 2010 "AIA Guide to New York City" - a new edition a decade in the making.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_12_04.htm - Friday, December 4, 2009

Today’s News - Monday, November 9, 2009

•   ArcSpace brings us Alsop's Chips, and an eyeful of "Bits 'n Pieces" at Material ConneXion in NYC.
•   Hatherley minces no words about what he thinks the Stirling Prize has come to represent: "a doubtful legacy...of the short-termism of iconic architecture."
•   King is hopeful that the "Vision California" study will result in creating a different political climate when it comes to regional plans for growth.
•   Who says saving the planet has to cost a fortune?
•   In the New York region, "the recession has not dampened owners' enthusiasm for sustainability."
•   The Green Building Council of Australia balks at government pressure to change its environmental standards for sustainable timber.
•   Baillieu asks: "Is global warming hot air?" - and really raises some hackles (see comments).
•   Bayley cheers "a green hotel is in the vanguard of a movement to reinvigorate a run-down area of south London" (but will it really make Battersea London's Left Bank?).
•   Hopes are raised that courts might yet save Ledner's National Maritime HQ (a.k.a. O'Toole building) in Greenwich Village.
•   Berlin's plans to mark the "spot where the Iron Curtain cracked wide open" 20 years ago today.
•   Foster and Rogers battle it out for £1 billion Barangaroo project in Sydney Harbor.
•   Apple opens a store right under the Louvre's glass pyramid (link to great pix, too).
•   Architecture schools are basking in new - and refashioned - facilities across the U.S. (great slide show).
•   NYT Style Magazine takes on all sorts of design that bridges the generation gap.
•   The Cultural Landscape Foundation launches "What's Out There," a free, searchable, database of landscapes and their designers (your input welcome!).
•   An eyeful of the 2009 Spark Design Awards winners in architecture & design.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_11_09.htm - Monday, November 9, 2009

Today’s News - Wednesday, October 7, 2009

•   Weinstein's Words That Build Tip #19: Choose words and phrases that depict your architecture as a mysterious promise, as well as a known product.
•   Pei wins RIBA Royal Gold Medal.
•   Saffron gives (mostly) thumbs-up to new Barnes design and how far it goes toward fulfilling a "mission impossible."
•   Venturi slams the Barnes move (though nothing about the actual design).
•   Russell on the dilemmas facing the "offbeat" Barnes and Gardner Museums: sometimes "idiosyncrasy can go too far."
•   Mayne's FLOAT House is ready to moor in New Orleans (now all they have to do is find someone who wants to move in).
•   Koolhaas's Maggie's Centre gets the go-ahead in Glasgow.
•   King finds Mills College's new zinc-clad (and very green) business school makes a "bid for attention" in an unlikely setting, yet it "feels as comfortable as an old shoe."
•   Changing current housing rules in NYC (and elsewhere?) "could point a way out of the affordable housing shortage."
•   MIT research shows "even moderate carbon-reduction policies can substantially lower the risk of future climate change."
•   Breathing Earth website presents real-time simulation of global CO2 emissions - right down to neighborhoods.
•   Gehry talks green design: he has no plans to jump on any sustainable architecture bandwagon any time soon: "the green thing is very important, but some of us have been thinking of it for a while."
•   His Weisman Art Museum's expansion breaks ground.
•   Finger pointing persists in Foster's lopped-off Harmon Hotel in Las Vegas.
•   His winning design for new Routemaster bus comes under fire: it's not big enough.
•   But there is good news for his firm and FXFowle: both win a big WAN award.
•   93 sites on the 2010 World Monuments Watch (unexpected to us: Connecticut's Merritt Parkway - one of our favorite drives).
•   Becker cheers Burnham Plan Centennial exhibition: "It's Big. It's Bold. It's sometime a bit delirious...an entertaining and challenging compilation of ideas" (and only a few days left to see it).
•   A good reason to head to Michigan at the end of the week: "Future of Design" conference has a very impressive list of designers, critics, and provocative thinkers.
•   Call for entries: Re:Vision Design Awards 2010 international competition emerging designers.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_10_07.htm - Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Today’s News - Tuesday, March 10, 2009

•   Is "well-designed green architecture" an oxymoron? Why green architecture is like Ford's Edsel: "It looks like the future, but it doesn't look good."
•   Architects and clients weigh the pro's and con's of LEED.
•   European starchitects envision a green future for Paris.
•   King revisits California Tomorrow's archives from the 1960s-1980s: a "chance to reflect on what has - and hasn't - changed" (growth issues remain the same).
•   A healthy summarization of Krieger and Saunders' "Urban Design," a new book that tackles the key issues in contemporary urban design.
•   What's in store for OMA's fire-damaged Mandarin Oriental in Beijing: could it be rebuilt - some say yes; would anybody stay there - some say no (pix are almost painful).
•   Time running out for Hanoi's Old Quarter (talk about red tape and Catch 22's!).
•   Saffron on Philadelphia's "oldest established permanent floating slots game": perhaps a landmarked building "offers a new set of possibilities for the city" (secrecy aside).
•   Kamin gives (mostly) thumbs-up to Lagrange's "lively but not gaudy" casino that gets "both the basics and the spectacle right."
•   Rochon applauds the "cinematic architecture" of Saucier + Perrotte's Les Bains Vieux-Montréal.
•   Five tries is a charm: Apple finally wins approval for new store in historic Georgetown: the story through pictures.
•   Ian Simpson wins National Wildflower Centre with a "powerful Fibonacci generated spiral solution."
•   A young Minneapolis architect finds meaning - and frustration - in New Orleans.
•   Bayley finds Corbu's cabanon "far from being a sinister and soul-less machine à habiter"; and Glancey offers a video tour.
•   Emerging Voices 2009: 8 young firms from around the world step up an important rung on the ladder of architectural prestige.
•   We couldn't resist: FLW's Fawcett House up for sale (even if you don't have $2.7 million, the slide show is worth the trip).

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_03_10.htm - Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Today’s News - Monday, March 16, 2009

•   ArcSpace brings us OMA in Taipei, and Vuga in Slovenia.
•   We offer our own take on the happy ending for Venturi Scott Brown's little beach house that could (with links to other reports: Saffron x 2 - from the beginning to the end of its journey).
•   Ouroussoff on a Stockholm competition that has "done us a major public service" offering "a snapshot of contemporary urban planning ideas" (Novel: "breathtaking"; Foster: "head-scratching"; BIG: "impetuous").
•   What of NYC's grand plans now we're in a recession: the administration "has no intention of scaling back its Moses-like ambitions."
•   More on "Grand Paris" plans (this one includes links to images by all architects involved).
•   Wood takes on his "fifth, biggest and most challenging 'romantic interlude'": transforming another old neighborhood in a Chinese city into a thriving urban center.
•   More details re: L.A. Civic Center Park, "envisioned as a connector between government and cultural institutions."
•   Starchitects feel the pinch as the boom turns to bust in Spain: "Barcelona's glory fades as city of pioneering designs."
•   Litt sheds more light on Cleveland's debate re: new medical mart and convention center proposals (straightening the riverbank perhaps not such a good idea after all).
•   The new U.S. mission to the U.N. is only "one of a new generation of hardened U.S. diplomatic outposts."
•   Finland picks design for a new embassy building in Tokyo (though economics may put the project "on hold for a bit").
•   Glancey is "dazzled" by Berlin's Neues Museum: "an unapologetic modernist can take a major historic building and bring fresh life to it without losing the old fabric, its charm and its ghosts."
•   Hawthorne gives (mostly) thumbs-up to Dodgers' Camelback Ranch training camp: "an aesthetic attitude on display that stops well short of extravagance" and a "winningly low-key feel" - despite the big price tag.
•   Lewis on the brouhaha re: Apple store in Georgetown: "too much ado" about the design.
•   Campbell profiles a young Boston architect shifting to the global stage.
•   Winners all: SBIC 2008 Beyond Green High-Performance Building Awards.

http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2009_03_16.htm - Monday, March 16, 2009