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Today's News - Thursday, January 24, 2008

EDITOR'S NOTE: We'll be attending the (extremely) early Contract magazine Interiors Awards breakfast tomorrow - but we'll be back bright and early on Monday, January 28. ----- A new naval training facility takes its cues from theme park rides and video games. -- Call for entries: Millennium School Design Competition developing tropical countries. -- Dublin's new City Architect wants to make the city more people-friendly: "good design makes you happy." -- Foster calls for optimism: good design is the key to meeting the global climate challenge. -- Another big, green project for Abu Dhabi. -- The "people's car" an "eco-disaster" in the making, "keeping some in the environmental community awake at night." -- Pasadena architects, planners, and people survey the city's walkability (some surprises). -- In Boston, a winter garden in the works for Hancock Tower's barren, windswept plaza. -- Plans moving ahead for Salt Lake City skywalk, but not all are pleased. -- As Getty Foundation's Campus Heritage Initiative winds down, results have been promising. -- Crosbie gives two thumbs-ups to Hartford's new library. -- Pogrebin on Hadid's march to Michigan. -- King on SFMOMA's new sculpture garden atop garage, the city's new planning director, and more. -- Big plans to transform an Edinburgh Brutalist eyesore. -- An urgent call to landmark Rogers' Lloyd's Building. -- From an impressive shortlist, an impressive team for London Olympics legacy project. -- Zandberg on a new book that takes "aims the spotlight at a less glamorous category of architecture" in Israel. -- For Boddy, "Wright-like magic" makes what might have been a McMansion more manageable.

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From Back Lot to Front Lines: A new naval training facility uses entertainment technology developed for video games and theme park rides to create more realistic battle simulations. By Mark McVay -- SmithGroup [images]- ArchNewsNow

Call for entries: Millennium School Design Competition for school buildings in developing countries located in the tropics; cash prizes; registration deadline: February 29- Harvard Kennedy School of Government/Harvard School of Design

Good design makes you happy, says new city architect: The new Dublin City Architect, Ali Grehan, wants to make the city more people friendly- Irish Times

Norman Foster calls for optimism: ...closed the 2008 World Future Energy Summit with a keynote speech imploring designers and architects to think positively and to ‘question everything'...Using the example of...Masdar City, the six million ft² zero carbon, zero waste city [Abu Dhabi]...warned that energy use could not be divorced from architecture and urban planning. Good design would be the key to meeting the global climate challenge. -- Foster + Partners- ArabianBusiness.com

Oregon Design Firm Chosen to Create Abu Dhabi Community: Otak International...to lead the design-build process for a Dh1.6 billion ($435 million) green mixed-used complex...Al Bateen Wharf Hotel... [image]- Multi-Housing News

Unsafe at Any Price: Building the New ‘People’s Car’: Today, the real task is not to create a “people’s car” but a “people’s transport system”. Addressing the climate crisis requires entirely new approaches to moving people and goods–one not based on cars and trucks.- CommonDreams.org

Pasadena to test 'walkability' for first time: Covering just under 29 miles of streets and alleys...teams of walkers will be asked to rate how safe and pedestrian-friendly city streets are, and if it's easy and convenient enough for people to park once and walk from one district to another.- Pasadena Star-News (California)

Glass haven envisioned for barren Hancock plaza: Owners...want to create a glass-enclosed public square on the windswept and forbidding half-acre plaza...turning the trophy property's biggest drawback into a public asset...a "winter garden"...on a desolate plaza now largely ruled by gusts of wind. -- Elkus Manfredi Architects- Boston Globe

Planning commission backs Main Street sky bridge [for] downtown's $1.5 billion City Creek Center: ...struggled with the notion that retail accessibility be maximized...while the vibrancy of the street life be maintained.- Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)

Architectural Conservation Comes to College Campuses: Getty Foundation's $13.5 million Campus Heritage Initiative has come to a close...what is most striking about the Initiative is the range of settings it has covered. -- Ernest Flagg; John Carl Warnecke; Stanford White; Eero Saarinen; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); Frank Lloyd Wright; Mesick, Cohen, Wilson, Baker Architects- Wall Street Journal

Reborn Library Reconnects With City: If you think of the city as a human body...Hartford's higher functions — the brain and the life of the mind — are now housed in a beautiful new library on Main Street. By Michael J. Crosbie -- Fletcher Harkness Cohen Moneyhun-Stopfel; Sevigny Architects- Hartford Courant (Connecticut)

Architect’s Next Prize: Michigan Museum: A Baghdad-born, London-based architect might not be the most obvious candidate for a commission in the heart of Middle America. But Zaha Hadid...has been chosen to design the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing. [slide show]- New York Times

That smashed wall at SFMOMA? Part of the plan: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is about to begin its biggest installation since moving to Third Street: a sculpture garden perched atop a parking garage; S.F.'s new planning director John Rahaim; AIASF Awards... By John King -- Mark Jensen; EHDD; Fougeron Architecture- San Francisco Chronicle

£1bn plan to turn capital eyesore into vibrant city centre district: ...plans would see the St James Centre in Edinburgh transformed from an ugly 1960s concrete shopping mall into the lynchpin of an ambitious new city quarter... -- Allan Murray Architects- The Herald (Scotland)

Call for 'urgent' Grade-I listing of Lloyd's Building: Twentieth Century Society (C20) has asked English Heritage to 'urgently' Grade-I spot-list Richard Rogers' building in the City of London.- The Architects' Journal (UK)

EDAW-led team to masterplan Olympic legacy: London Development Agency (LDA) has selected a... 17-strong team that will create the entire physical framework for the legacy of the East London site. -- Allies and Morrison; Caruso St John; Maccreanor Lavington; Vogt Landscape; McDowell + Benedetti; Haworth Tompkins; Panter Hudspith; S333; Camlin Lonsdale; Buro Happold; Beyond Green; JMP; PMP; Vision XS; Nick Ritblat- The Architects' Journal (UK)

Home, politically correct home: "Tsurot Megurim: Adrihalut v'Hevra b'Yisrael" (Forms of Housing: Architecture and Society in Israel), edited by architects Shelley Cohen and Tula Amir...aims the spotlight at a less glamorous category of architecture...usually relegated to the world of construction or real estate. By Esther Zandberg- Ha`aretz (Israel)

When skill meets scale: Not just another hulking monster of a McMansion...Wright-like magic makes this audacious house appear smaller, more manageable. By Trevor Boddy -- Urban Arts Architecture; Durante Kreuk Landscape Architects [slide show]- Globe and Mail (Canada)

Women in Green: A Conversation with the Authors: Is there a greener gender? Q&A with Kira Gould and Lance Hosey about their motivation and experience for writing the book, and what have they learned from the process. By Katie Swenson- ArchNewsNow

-- Nearing completion: Gehry Partners: Science Library, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
-- UNStudio: Agora Theater, Lelystad, The Netherlands

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