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Today's News - Thursday, February 7, 2008

Budgets and old habits don't make it easy for communities to go green. -- Some interesting winners in NYC post-disaster housing competition. -- Shortlist for design's answer to the Turner prize. -- Glancey welcomes it - cautiously. -- Hawthorne gives a cautious thumbs-up to LACMA expansion - but has fun deciphering the politics. -- Protests galore: Not all are in awe of H&deM's plans for Hong Kong's old Central Police Station. -- A call to spend money on new opera house for Sydney. -- Rogers protests Parliament Square plans and leads opposition to Welsh school demolition. -- A Bangladeshi architect warns Canada to trust its home-grown talent. -- Brits beat out Dutch for floating homes in the Netherlands. -- Adjaye's Stephen Lawrence Centre opens. -- Foster's Old Patent Office Building courtyard is "quite a departure in a city as architecturally conservative as Washington DC." -- San Franciscans reject karmic plans for Alcatraz. -- An urban farm will grace P.S. 1 this summer ("just too darn offbeat to pass up"). -- A wealth of good ideas for residence halls of the future. -- A city wants to put the kibosh on McMansions (the architect doesn't understand why). -- Designer disconnect: we're too taken by photogenic illusions. -- How could we resist an oh-so photogenic $75 million home? -- TEDTalks offers Macaulay and Lerner (definitely worth a listen).

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In Many Communities, It’s Not Easy Going Green: Budget cuts and old habits may interfere with good intentions.- New York Times

What if New York City...Post-Disaster Housing Competition for : 10 winners...Many solutions looked like they could as easily become permanent as well as provisional housing. [images]- NYC Office of Emergency Management/Architecture for Humanity-NY/Rockefeller Foundation

Contenders vie for design's answer to the Turner prize: ...the UK's first ever international design award...Brit Insurance Designs of the Year...award for a work rather than an individual...avoiding any 'celebrity of the person'... -- Micael Rojkind; Adjaye/ Associates; Thomas Heatherwick; Christoph Behling; etc. [slide show]- Guardian (UK)

A cautious welcome for the Turner Prize of design: The Brit Insurance Designs of the Year awards have a pleasingly populist approach but need to embrace a wider range of countries to be truly international. By Jonathan Glancey- Guardian (UK)

Broad Contemporary Art Museum: ...A great building requires a great client. In the case of Renzo Piano's extension of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art...the equation isn't quite so straightforward...Much of the fun of making sense of the expanded museum...lies in figuring out whose influence and sensibility can be glimpsed in which parts of the new construction. By Christopher Hawthorne [images]- Los Angeles Times

Herzog & de Meuron Face Opposition in Hong Kong: ...have proposed transforming old Central Police Station into a cultural complex capped by latticework towers...but preservationists and others object that the towers would be out of character with the historic context. [images]- Architectural Record

Op-Ed: Let's rethink this renovation, and build a new opera house: What will Sydney get for the estimated $700 million to be spent on the planned overhaul of the Opera Theatre at the Sydney Opera House?- Sydney Morning Herald

Revealed: Rogers' protest over mayor's Parliament Square designs: Designs by Hawkins Brown, DSDHA and Edaw “fall short of expectations” for a flagship space -- Vogt Landscape Architects- BD/Building Design (UK)

Leading architects lobby Welsh politicians in bid to save Newport school: A host of British architecture's biggest names have written to the Welsh Assembly in opposition to the proposed demolition of Evans and Shalev Architects' Newport High School in Wales. -- HLM Architects; Rogers; Chipperfield; Grimshaw; Hadid; Cook; Alsop; Cullinan; Gough; Hopkins; MacCormac; Parry; Ritchie; Wilkinson [image, links]- The Architects' Journal (UK)

Foreign architects may be needed, but Canadian architecture must endure: Bangladeshi architect responds to column by RAIC executive director Jon Hobbs: What will all these international buildings designed by these foreign architects stand for? -- Aksin Ahmed Siddiqi- Journal of Commerce (Vancouver)

British practice BACA beats the Dutch in their own waters: ...has won a 20 million euro (£15 million) project to design flood-resistant homes in Dordrecht, the Netherlands...Kees Christiaanse Architects and Mecanoo were among the runners up in the competition to design 80-100 floating, amphibious and flood-resilient homes. [images]- The Architects' Journal (UK)

New centre honours Stephen Lawrence: aims to offer thousands of young people from deprived backgrounds the chance to break into architecture, urban design and building. -- David Adjaye- Guardian (UK)

The king's new court: Norman Foster is taking on the home of America's national collection...driven by a deep respect for the Old Patent Office Building, reinforcing the character of the existing building without competing with it...The result is quite a departure in a city as architecturally conservative as Washington DC. -- Spencer de Gray/Foster + Partners; Kathryn Gustafson- Independent (UK)

California Voters Reject Proposal for Peace on the Rock: San Francisco voters soundly rejected a ballot proposal to acquire Alcatraz Island and convert it into “a global peace center,” though advocates say their dream is not dead. [image]- New York Times

Betting a Farm Would Work in Queens: A proposal by Dan Wood and Amale Andraos was a departure from previous design proposals to transform the courtyard of the P.S. 1...urban farm concept...was apparently just too darn offbeat to pass up. By Robin Pegrebin -- Work Architecture [image]- New York Times

An Updated Monastic Quadrangle Is Residence Hall of the Future: Four young architects...beat out teams from well-known architecture firms to win the second round of a competition...entries by the other finalists...had ideas that could contribute to this project. -- Net+Work+Camp+Us; MGA Partners; Ayers/Saint/Gross; Little Diversified Architectural Consulting; Mackey Mitchell Architects [images, links]- The Chronicle of Higher Education

City staff trying to block "McMansions": ...architect Larry Vesely of Riverside, and the city's planning staff have been unable to come to an agreement on what would be an appropriate architectural style- North County Times (California)

Designer disconnect: We emulate the houses we see in magazines and, as a consequence, live in illusions....Maybe Architectural Digest should have done a story on Villa Savoye and it would be popular today.- National Post (Canada)

The architect behind the $75 million dollar O.C. [Orange County] estate: Portabello Estate in Corona del Mar...one of the 10 most expensive homes for sale in North America...for all its lavishness, the 30,000-square-foot mansion began in a strikingly modest fashion. -- Brion Jeannette [slide show]- Orange County Register (California)

TEDTalks: David Macaulay: Making "Rome Antics" and Jaime Lerner: Sing a song of cities- TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design)

A Bridge Between: California Academy of Sciences and Steinhart Aquarium Transition Facility: So just where has Nemo been living while the new academy rises in Golden Gate Park? -- Melander Architects- ArchNewsNow

-- Foster + Partners: Khanty Mansiysk, Siberia, Russia
-- Manfredi Nicoletti: Arezzo Law Court, Arezzo, Italy

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