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Today's News - Friday, February 22, 2008

Even with its "wonky" wheel, Boddy is ready to jump on Vancouver's EcoDensity tricycle and "peddle off" into what he hopes is the "long arcing pathway of sustainability." -- Move over BedZed; here comes Britain's first eco-suburb. -- Chicago team tapped for a mega-green project in Masdar City. -- CNU 2008 Charter Awards winners "serve as powerful examples for future development." -- Queens Botanical Garden sprouts LEED Platinum. - H&deM's Madrid museum opens (not much info, but great pix). -- AIA Dallas picks design for new Center for Architecture. -- Them's fightin' words: Jenkins calls architects "devils...who shouldn't be trusted with anything." -- "The prognosis for Wellington airport's redesign appears terminal." -- Lots of weekend diversions: Ouroussoff is left uplifted and almost breathless by MoMA's "Design and the Elastic Mind." -- Brit Insurance Designs of the Year at London's Design Museum is "hugely engaging," but Woodman wonders how the jury plans to pick. -- Dyckhoff makes his picks (slightly left-handedly). -- Walker Art Center puts the 'burbs in the spotlight. -- Kamin on two Chicago shows that offer local and global views. -- Pittsburgh's Heinz Architectural Center shows off green. -- Siegel on Silber: "Architecture of the Absurd" demonstrates "what's wrong with architecture today, but he fails to point us in a better direction." -- Heathcote on a tome about "interwar modernism's obsession with big windows, fresh air and terraces." -- How could we resist: Nouvel designs a perfume bottle: "It's very small architecture." -- Just what the world needs: a "man kitchen" by Porsche.

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Despite its flaws, EcoDensity is worthy of support: I cannot but hope that much of the current opposition will melt away once Vancouverites realize just how modest and incremental the EcoDensity package really is. By Trevor Boddy- Globe and Mail (Canada)

Richard MacCormac leads eco-suburb plan: ...will test high-density proposals for suburban living...MacCormac, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Hawkins Brown and Baca are to create the UK’s first “eco-suburb”......already home to Bill Dunster’s BedZed scheme...- BD/Building Design (UK)

'Green' light for Chicago design: Chicago architects chosen for Abu Dhabi project: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture...to design one of the largest buildings in the world that aims to generate more energy each day than it consumes...1.4 million-square-foot headquarters complex for a $22 billion development called Masdar City...- Chicago Tribune

CNU 2008 Charter Awards winners -- Calthorpe Associates; Wallace Roberts & Todd; Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK); FitzGerald Associates Architects; WDG Architecture; Robert Adam; Fairfax & Sammons; de la Guardia Victoria; Urban Design Associates; Mouzon Design [images]- Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)

A Garden Blooms in Queens: One of New York’s lesser-known botanical gardens emerges as a leader in sustainable design...Queens Botanical Garden visitors’ center...is on deck to receive a Platinum LEED rating... By Fred A. Bernstein -- BKSK Architects [images]- Metropolis Magazine

Madrid art world in suspense: Caixa Forum opened this week... -- Herzog & de Meuron [images]- BD/Building Design (UK)

AIA Dallas Picks Design for Prized Uptown Space: ...Dallas Center for Architecture, a project that places the city onto a select roster for the design world. -- Peter Doncaster/Booziotis & Co.; Nicholas Marshall/nodesign; Gabriel Smith/Thomas Phifer and Partners- GlobeSt.com

Simon Jenkins blasts 'devil' architects, but Prasad has the last word: Architects were blamed for most of the evil in the world by a ranting Simon Jenkins..."Architecture is the only profession I know which will work for any dictator anywhere in the world, including China"- The Architects' Journal (UK)

New design for airport terminal 'hideous': The prognosis for Wellington airport's redesign appears terminal...$39 million project...was touted as becoming "New Zealand's newest iconic building", but has instead become the subject of ridicule..."ripe for comedy parody"... -- Studio Pacific Architecture; Warren and Mahoney [image, links]- The Dominion Post (New Zealand)

The Soul in the New Machines: "Design and the Elastic Mind" is the most uplifting show MoMA’s architecture and design department has presented since the museum reopened in 2004. Thanks to its imaginative breadth we can begin to dream again. By Nicolai Ouroussoff [slide show]- New York Times

Brit Insurance Designs of the Year: A hundred definitions of design: The variety of material on display is hugely engaging, but quite how the jury...plans to assess the relative merits...remains something of a mystery. By Ellis Woodman -- Michel Rojkind; Zaha Hadid [images, slide show]- Telegraph (UK)

Our picks to win the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year at the Design Museum, London: Which points most accurately to the future of architecture? An icon computer-designed in London by an Iraqi architect, manufactured in China, and assembled in Austria? Or one hand-stitched in an architectural sweatshop by a cast of thousands in a one-party state? By Thomas Dyckhoff -- Zaha Hadid; Herzog & De Meuron- The Times (UK)

Bringing the 'burbs back into focus: "Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes" at the Walker Art Center trains its spotlight..."to capture a moment in the way suburbs are perceived by artists and architects, and to show the ways that some architects have responded to the suburbs." -- Coen + Partners; Interboro; Lateral Architecture- Minneapolis Star Tribune

Looking to lost past, possible future: 2 exhibits make for a rich stew of the local and the global: "Do We Dare Squander Chicago's Great Architectural Heritage?" at the Chicago Architecture Foundation; "The BIG CPH Experiment" at the Graham Foundation... By Blair Kamin- Chicago Tribune

Green projects form museum exhibition: "Ecology.Design.Synergy"...10 innovative, energy-efficient building projects in Europe and the U.S...at Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz Architectural Center -- Maartin Haas/Behnisch Architekten; Transsolar ClimateEngineering- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Architect’s New Clothes: John Silber exposes the pretensions of celebrity "starchitects." Architecture of the Absurd...helpfully demonstrates what’s wrong with architecture today, but fails to point us in a better direction. By Charles Siegel- City Journal/The Manhattan Institute

Book review: "Light, Air and Openness: Modern Architecture Between the Wars," by Paul Overy. From Thomas Mann’s alpine sanatorium in The Magic Mountain to the clinical perfection of Le Corbusier’s dazzlingly white villas, the book is a study of interwar modernism’s obsession with big windows, fresh air and terraces. By Edwin Heathcote- Financial Times (UK)

Nouvel's New Take on L'Homme: YSL Beauté has tapped architect Jean Nouvel...to design a limited edition bottle for the fragrance...resembles an upturned test tube..."It's very small architecture," he quipped. [image]- Womens' Wear Daily/WWD

Meet the no-frills 'man kitchen': What's the difference between a man's kitchen and a woman's kitchen? Only a man would buy a kitchen designed by a high-performance car manufacturer... Porsche Design has teamed up with German kitchen maker, Poggenpohl, to design the 'Kitchen for Men'... [images]- Architects' Journal (UK)

-- Pugh + Scarpa: Brad Pitt / Make It Right, Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans
-- PTW + CCDI + ARUP: Watercube, National Aquatics Center, Beijing

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