ArchNewsNow

Home Yesterday's News Calendar Contact Us Subscribe

Today's News - Friday, August 17, 2007

LEED-ND takes on neighborhoods. -- Study revisits cost of greening projects. -- New research supports eco-friendly urbanism. -- Mays has high hopes for green affordable housing project in Toronto - but wonders if such projects can really make a difference. -- It's hurricane season again and New Orleans is in the eye of a storm of controversy - still. -- Is Napa Valley really ready for massive Napa Pipe project? -- A chronicle the rise of portable architecture. -- São Paulo bans billboards (are blank marquees and rusting frames really better?). -- How would such a ban play in Piccadilly Circus or Times Square? -- After years of litigation, Moscow Planetarium, "a unique monument of constructivist architecture," is almost ready for its close-up. -- The growing efforts to rescue Indian heritage -- including some very big rocks - from the "swift march of urban development." -- Weekend diversions: 50 manifestos by 50 most notables (and each uncharacteristically brief!). -- Paving the way to make Perth a dynamic, creative place to live. -- Hawthorne is (mostly) thumbs-up about two tomes that tackle the "just-add-water urbanism" phenomenon in the UAE. -- "Smoot's Ear" is an architect's brief history of our efforts to measure things. ----- EDITOR'S NOTE: Our apologies for not posting yesterday (the technology gods must have been upset with us).

To subscribe to the free daily newsletter click here

238 New Developments Nationwide Join Pioneering LEED for Neighborhood Development Pilot (LEED-ND): Green Building Rating System Expands to Community Scale, Integrating Smart Growth, New Urbanism and Eco-Efficient Building Design -- USGBC; NRDC; CNU [links]- Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)

Report Says Green Still Doesn't Drive Building Cost: "Cost of Green Revisited"...A greater concern for climate-change impacts...is the finding that many of the projects minimized their investment in energy-conserving strategies...in spite of the evidence that, with integrated design, good energy performance is achievable within a conventional budget.- BuildingGreen

Is Bigger Better? New research supports eco-friendly urbanism...When it comes to saving the planet, it doesn't take a village — it takes a metropolis. By Lance Hosey- Architect Magazine

Great strides have been made in energy-efficient features for housing, but it may not be enough to solve the planet's problems...How effective will today's 'green' systems be? By John Bentley Mays -- Stanford Downey [image]- Globe and Mail (Canada)

One Billion Dollars Later, New Orleans Is Still at Risk: While parts of the city are now substantially safer from possible floodwaters, others have changed little.- New York Times

The Savior of New Orleans? So much depends on Ed Blakely, the planner charged with pushing the recovery effort from idea to reality. [images]- Architect Magazine

A Flood of Demolitions: New Orleans Is Using FEMA Money to Clearcut Houses Against Homeowners' Wishes...Preservationists assert the city's demolition process is leaky and that the torrent of damage is now reaching flood stage...targeting entire rows of homes that need remediation, not demolition.- Preservation magazine

Big crowd pipes up on Napa Pipe plan: ...a world-class planned development with 3,200 dwelling units, a half million square feet of light industrial, 50,000 square feet of offices, 40,000 square feet of retail/restaurants and a 150-room hotel. -- William Rawn Associates; Olin Partnership; Arup- Napa Valley Register (California)

Here today, gone tomorrow: Space-age cubes, rooftop pods, giant caravan cities and garden sheds you can practically live in...Steve Rose chronicles the rise of portable architecture -- Nils Moormann; Richard Horden; Archigram; Buckminster Fuller; Wally Byams; Hervé Delaby/Paul Burchill/Stride Treglown architects; Jennifer Siegal- Guardian (UK)

São Paulo: A City Without Ads: ...became the first city outside of the communist world to put into effect a radical, near-complete ban on outdoor advertising...now stripped of its 15,000 billboards, resembles a battlefield strewn with blank marquees, partially torn-down frames and hastily painted-over storefront facades. [images]- Adbusters magazine

Ad busters drain São Paulo's colour: One Brazilian city has cleansed its streets of all advertising and billboards. Should we do the same or would an ad-free future leave us cold? [links]- Guardian (UK)

Night Sky Under Reconstruction: It came as an unpleasant surprise to Muscovites when the Moscow Planetarium closed down for repair 15 years ago...."It is now certain that the planetarium will remain a planetarium." -- Mikhail Barshch/Mikhail Sinyavsky (1920s); Olga Semyonova/Alexander Anisimov [image]- Moscow News (Russia)

Where Concept of a ‘Pet Rock’ Has Reached Its Apex: The primordial rocks in Hyderabad, India, have become the focus of one of India’s many emerging citizens movements...The Society to Save Rocks...aims to protect the geological heritage of the city against the swift march of urban development. [images]- New York Times

50 Manifestos: Be careful what you wish for.- Icon magazine (UK)

Paving the way for creative industries: Lynda Dorrington...set Form a challenge that extends far beyond its brief: to help make Perth a dynamic, creative place to live...Creative Capital... -- Eva Prats/Ricardo Flores; Yoshiharu Tsukamoto; Qingyun Ma/Minsuk Cho; Don Bates/Lab architecture studio; redale Pedersen Hook- The Australian

The yellow string road to urban renewal: ...a prototype for the way artists and architects can work together to re-activate Perth’s overlooked nooks and crannies..."New Trends of Architecture" at From...to stimulate debate about ways to foster Perth’s urban potential. -- Adrian Iredale/Iredale Pedersen Hook- The West Australian

Book review: "Evil Paradises," edited by Mike Davis and Daniel Bertrand Monk; "Al Manakh," edited by Mitra Khoubrou, Ole Bouman and Rem Koolhaas: Cultural observers weigh in on architectural changes in the Persian Gulf and how they may be reshaping the world. By Christopher Hawthorne- Los Angeles Times

Book review: "Smoot's Ear: The Measure of Humanity" by Robert Tavernor: ...a brief history of humanity's effort to measure the world by scientific principle...fact-charged and occasionally dense narrative delves into the physics, mathematics and anthropology of the debate, as well as the national politics that have ruled it.- Bloomberg News

-- Pei Cobb Freed & Partners: Musée d’Art Moderne, Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
-- Scope Cleaver: Gallery of the Arts, Princeton University Campus, Second Life

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window.
External news links are not endorsed by ArchNewsNow.com.
Free registration may be required on some sites.
Some pages may expire after a few days.

Yesterday's News