Today’s News - Monday, November 2, 2009
• ArcSpace brings us eyefuls of Calatrava's TGV Station in Liège, Belgium; and a new book showcasing the "ominous, forbidding locations" in L.A. that Raymond Chandler wrote about.
• At the APA's National Symposium, the focus was developing an affordability index for planning sustainable communities.
• Parman ponders the future of urban agriculture: the involvement of local designers, gardeners, and artisans could be "a crucial step in reclaiming the cityscape as a commons."
• Horizontal cities and suburbs are beginning to put the focus on designs for people instead of cars - "Jane Jacobs would be pleased."
• A symposium in NYC next Saturday puts the focus on the future of mega-projects: do they have one in light of the stalled economy?
• Speaking of mega-projects, things are looking iffy and/or hopeful for Ground Zero Arts Center in NYC, grand plans for Buffalo's waterfront vision, and Charleston's vision of world-class performance space.
• Davidson cheers NYC agencies' "doggedly smuggling high-level architecture to the neighborhoods that need it most...ugly won't cut it anymore"; and an eyeful of a perfect example: a Staten Island firehouse will have a close connection with its community.
• Pearman gives thumbs-up to Oxford's Ashmolean makeover: the museum "has reinvented itself," mixing "intelligence with showmanship."
• Campbell explores the new main branch of the Cambridge Public Library, and the W Boston: "these two new buildings are worthy additions to a region where we too often don't aspire to architecture this fresh and thoughtful."
• A bit more detail on plans to reduce one of the largest carbon footprints in Chicago - Willis (a.k.a. Sears) Tower.
• It's taken awhile, but San Francisco is finally breaking ground on what will be the city's most sustainable office building.
• U.K.-based Article 25 and its plans for architecture to change the world.
• The Omrania l CSBE Student Award for Excellence in Architectural Design drew students from 10 Arab countries - and some impressive winners.
| |
|
|
|
To subscribe to the free daily newsletter
click here
|
|
-- Santiago Calatrava: Liège Guillemins TGV Station, Liège, Belgium
-- Book: Catherine Corman: "Daylight Noir: Raymond Chandler's Imagined City" |
Planning Sustainable Communities: “It’s More than Being Green”...focus of this year’s American Planning Association AICP National Symposium...an affordability index...will be the first to combine housing and transportation costs and give a true picture of the cost of living and working in an area. [links]- The Dirt/American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) |
Comment: Tending Gardens: Small steps in the rise of urban agriculture: As long as the cityscape is someone else’s problem, it will be full of dead zones...It doesn’t have to be this way. If local designers, gardeners, and artisans in the private sector are enlisted in its cultivation...can be...a crucial step in reclaiming the cityscape as a commons and involving citizens in its cultivation. By John Parman -- Topher Delaney/Seam Studio [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
Retrofitting Suburbia Means Rediscovering the People: Fifty years ago Jane Jacobs asked, “Where are the people?” Dunham-Jones and Williamson show that a new transformation has started that features designs for people rather than cars. Jacobs would be pleased.- National League of Cities |
Symposium: Arrested Development: Do Megaprojects Have a Future? A public discussion with experts, from architects and developers to policymakers and economists, on the state of megaprojects in light of the stalled economy; November 7 in NYC- Institute for Urban Design (NYC) |
Ground Zero Arts Center: Time Is Not on Its Side: If a commitment is not made soon the project will not happen, an official said...After years of taking a back seat to other long-delayed development projects at ground zero, the performing arts center has suddenly come to the fore, as both a focus of discussion and a bone of contention. By Robin Pogrebin -- Gehry Partners- New York Times |
Critics gather to restore history to waterfront plan: They claim concept ignores better ideas...$300 million Canal Side project...snubs Buffalo’s heritage...to make the waterfront more marketable to bankers and investors...Still, many people...expressed strong support for the Canal Side vision. -- Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn/EE&K Architects- Buffalo News |
A grand center for the arts: Charleston Leaders pursue vision of world-class performance space: Years of wishful thinking...and months of discussions...have produced a clear picture of a new downtown performing arts and civic center with an extensively renovated Gaillard Municipal Auditorium at its heart. -- David M. Schwarz [images]- Charleston Post and Courier (South Carolina) |
Stealth By Design: How the city is sneaking great little buildings into unexpected places...ugly won’t cut it anymore...[agencies] hire brand-name architects to infuse public buildings with panache...create a demand for flexible thinkers, and incidentally nourish the profession’s idealistic core. By Justin Davidson -- David Burney; Polshek Partnership; STV; Asymptote; Annabelle Selldorf; Thomas Leeser; George Ranalli; Rafael Viñoly; Marble Fairbanks [slide show]- New York Magazine |
Engine Company 201: The building’s red glazed brick and backlighted Maltese Cross telegraph its function to the neighborhood...maintain a close connection with the community. -- RKT&B Architecture [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
This was the first museum. More than three centuries on, Oxford's Ashmolean has reinvented itself...Its latest incarnation mixes intelligence with showmanship. By Hugh Pearman -- Charles Cockerell (1845); Rick Mather Architects; Metaphor [images]- HughPearman.com (UK) |
What a posh hotel and a new library share: Architect creates transparency in both sites...One building is a gem. The other isn’t quite that, but it’s interesting. The first is the new main branch of the Cambridge Public Library, and the second is the W Boston complex... By Robert Campbell -- William Rawn; TRO/Jung Brannen; Bentel & Bentel; Ann Beha and Associates [slide show]- Boston Globe |
Willis Tower looks to go green, from the rooftops on down: Rooftop gardens part of plan to improve efficiency...to reduce one of the largest carbon footprints in Chicago...to "green" the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. -- Sara Beardsley/Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture- Chicago Tribune |
PUC Yeah! After delays, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission breaks ground on SF's most sustainable office building...designed to exceed a LEED Platinum rating... -- KMD Architects [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
Architecture that can change the world: Article 25...uses design skills to aid international development by providing shelter for the world’s poorest...The charity makes architecture relevant by plugging a gap, concentrating on the added value an architect’s approach can best provide. -- Norman Foster; Sunand Prasad; Stewart McCollMaxwell Hutchinson; Jack Pringle; Pierre d’Avoine Architects; Foster & Partners [images]- BD/Building Design (UK) |
The Omrania l CSBE Student Award for Excellence in Architectural Design: ...students from ten countries in the Arab World participated...entries featured a wide array of landscaping and urban interventions as well as building types... [images, links]- Center for the Study of the Built Environment (CSBE) |
Book Review: "Gunnar Birkerts: Metaphoric Modernist" by Sven Birkerts and Martin Schwartz: A major architect in the history of Modernism finally receives recognition - and sundry asides about why Modernism never exited. By Norman Weinstein- ArchNewsNow |
|
|
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.
© 2009 ArchNewsNow.com