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Today's News - Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Architecture 2030 releases a study showing how solving climate change can save a bundle and boost the economy. -- British civil engineers feel left out in the cold in eco-town developments. -- But they are taking a central role in security design. -- Sardar reports on two conferences re: whether going green can incorporate luxury, and the export of bad design. -- KSU architecture students lend a hand to Greensburg, KS, in rebuilding green. -- Calatrava does his own value engineering on WTC transit hub (we hope that's good news). -- Following Western designs leaves Lahore's architecture flawed. -- Who decides what makes a house a McMansion? -- Part 2 of Filler's new museum ratings - today, the worst. -- A stellar team to redesign the redesign New Covent Garden. -- China's Olympic architecture gets the National Geographic treatment. -- Good news/bad news for U.K.'s "most exciting housing scheme"? -- FAT wins flagship gateway. -- Huge parks follow demand for more green space. -- Five architects who are redefining modern architecture. -- Gehry's (humorous) sour grapes: "Cities are filled with bad buildings and nobody complains. But if I do a building, there's all sorts of protests." -- Graves is glad to (finally) be building in his own home town. -- Forget architecture as frozen music; Polshek says it's "closer to frozen custard." -- Glancey offers an amusing review of architects' fashion sense. -- An exhaustive review of Weizman's "Hollow Land." -- Fitting all the pieces together in Eiffel Tower flap.

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Solving Climate Change Saves Billions: Architecture 2030 released a seminal study...showing how a small investment of only $21.6 billion in the Building Sector would produce 216,000 permanent jobs and save 86.7 Million Metric Tons (MMT) of CO2 in a single year.- Environmental News Network (ENN)

Green town plan shuns civils: Engineers this week slammed the government's failure to include their profession in the panel which is overseeing plans to develop eco-towns.- New Civil Engineer (UK)

Red Alert: As the threat from terrorism in the UK continues, civil engineers and designers will increasingly become central to the battle to protect the public and the infrastructure it relies on.- New Civil Engineer (UK)

Bay Area designers have long had green outlook: ...Western critics allow too much that is bad in their own environs to go unchallenged, resulting in the export of bad design and unsustainable ideas to still-developing regions. By Zahid Sardar -- Mickey Muennig; Architectural Resources Group; Leddy Maytum Stacy; BraytonHughes; Eric Corey Freed/Organic Architect; Koolhaas; Patri Merker Architects- San Francisco Chronicle

KSU architecture students help town rebuild eco-friendly: Greensburg, Kan., was devastated by an F5 tornado...working to make its town the first green community in the nation...Greensburg Cubed... 10-by-10-by-10 foot mobile cubes...provide information on a different aspect of sustainable living...- Kansas State Collegian

Citing Budget Concerns, Port Authority Plans for More Modest Hub at Trade Center Site: Calatrava devising dozens of innovative strategies for saving money without compromising the essential design of the hub... -- Santiago Calatrava/STV/DMJM Harris- New York Times

Lahore's affluent localities contain architectural flaws: Architects do not seem to be paying heed to local conditions when designing the houses that follow Western patterns..."Architects have focused more on making boulevards as opposed to green belts..."- Daily Times (Pakistan)

Livin' large: Supersized houses are hot topics in communities across the Twin Cities. How much is too much? Who decides? And what's in store for today's McMansions? ...it's a lot easier to deploy the "M" word than to define it. -- Sarah Susanka- Minneapolis Star Tribune

Rating the New Museums: The Best (and Worst) of 2007 --- Part II: After yesterday's accolades, here are my selections (by no means comprehensive) of the worst new museum architecture...stand-ins for similar examples that share the same basic problem epitomized by each of these three. By Martin Filler -- Coop Himmelb(l)au; Foster + Partners; A.M. Kinney Associates- ArtsJournal

URS and Foster + Partners to redesign New Covent Garden: Neil Tomlinson Architects and Davis Langdon are also on team for the 57-acre market site- Building (UK)

The New Great Walls: With the Olympics looming, China is pushing architecture to its limits for a giant coming-out party..."Some people in China—including Chinese architects—believe their country has become the Western architects' weapons testing ground' "... -- Perkins Eastman; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); Pei Zhu; Tong Wu; Andreu; Koolhaas/Scjeeren/OMA; PTW; Herzog & de Meuron [sldie show]- National Geographic

Ombudsman rejects complaints over Highland Housing Fair: One of the country's most exciting housing schemes has received a huge boost...But doubts over the fair's financial viability and management continue to be raised by architects involved. -- Richard Murphy; Studio Kap; Graeme Massie; Nord; Malcolm Fraser; Keppie Design; JM Architects; John Gilbert Architects' HLM Architects; Oliver Chapman- BD/Building Design (UK)

Award-winning architects to design flagship gateway: ...appointed to design an iconic entrance and buildings for a flagship [Lingfield Point] business park in Darlington...regeneration of the 107-acre brownfield site... -- Fashion, Architecture, Taste (Fat)- Northern Echo UK)

Push for urban parkland takes root: Huge parks follow demand for more green space -- Smart Growth America; Alexander Garvin- USA Today

Five Building Designers Who Are Redefining Modern Architecture: Robert Venturi, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind make imaginative and striking buildings. [transcript]- Voice of America (VOA)

At 79, miracle-worker Gehry still going strong: "Cities are filled with bad buildings and nobody complains,” he said. “But if I do a building, there’s all sorts of protests."- Yale Daily News

Home Is Where He Wants His Design to Be: Famed architect finishes his first large-scale project in downtown Princeton...anticipating the opening of the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts... -- Michael Graves & Associates- NJBIZ (New Jersey)

New Mash-Up: Melody and Architecture: Cutting Edge Concerts...seeks common ground for music and the other arts...James Polshek...seemed uninterested in the connections...A slide show of his concert halls began with Goethe’s...“architecture is frozen music,” which Polshek immediately contradicted, saying that architecture was “closer to frozen custard.”- New York Times

Foundation garments: Architecture might be slow-moving compared with fashion, yet in its epochal way it can move in similar cycles..."Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture" at Somerset House. By Jonathan Glancey -- Hadid; Libeskind; Le Corbusier; Gropius; Amanda Levete/Future Systems; Nigel Coates; Norman Foster; Eisenman; Richard Rogers/Mike Davies/Rogers Stirk Harbour [slide show]- Guardian (UK)

Mapping the Complicity of Israeli Architecture: Eyal Weizman's "Hollow Land": Though [he] refers to "the traditional perception of political space," which "is no longer relevant" because "a new way of imagining space has emerged," he does not adequately define or illustrate what it is...- San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

Explaining an Eiffel Tower Tall Tale: ...Was it a bungled effort or an "an example of PR genius"... -- Serero Architects [links]- New York Times

Infill in Green: 22nd Street Condominiums: Lorax Development backs up its environmental claims with a GreenPoint Rated label for an infill project in San Francisco's Mission District. -- John Maniscalco/Architecture [images]- ArchNewsNow

-- Rem Koolhaas/OMA: The Brewery Site, Copenhagen, Denmark
-- Book: A Tribute to Jørn Utzon
-- Exhibition: Home of Finn Juhl, Ordrupgaard, Ordrup, Denmark

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