Today’s News - Tuesday, July 6, 2010
EDITOR'S NOTE: Travel tomorrow and Thursday precludes posting the news, but we'll be back Friday, July 9. For the next two weeks, we will be posting from a time zone three hours away, so the newsletter will arrive in your inbox a bit later than usual for the next while.
• ArcSpace brings us an eyeful of Henning Larsen's winning design for the Batumi Aquarium in the Republic of Georgia.
• Anderton on the untimely passing of architect and friend, Stephen Kanner (only 54), co-founder of L.A.'s A+D Museum and "a man who got to make a large mark in a short time."
• A new report (with some impressive numbers) indicates that the green building market will balloon by 2015 (green office renovations are not just a passing fad).
• New uses for shuttered auto dealerships are as numerous as the properties (parking lots a big plus).
• £7.5 billion cut from U.K.'s Building Schools for the Future program means big hurt for architects, communities - and CABE.
• An architect explains how we can strengthen "the weakest link in many of the leading urban economies": pre-K-12 education - by designing schools for what Richard Florida calls "a spiky world."
• Merkel ponders a post-McMansion world: "America used to love the small, well-crafted house. Can we rekindle that love?" (look for inspiration from the mid-20th-century building boom)
• Michelle Kaufmann is more than a pioneer in the prefab housing movement: "She is making sustainability not only a way to build, but also a state of mind."
• Caruso St John gets the go-ahead for £45 million makeover for Tate Britain.
• Crosbie cheers the rebirth of Rhode Island's historic Ocean House: "the only way to save the old building was to tear it down," but in the larger context, it "is very much preserved."
• Kamin hopes Chicago sees its way to more weekend street closings that "bring new life to dull city blocks...there's a hunger out there for better public spaces."
• Hawthorne offers a long, thoughtful (and sometimes amusing) take how and why "teasing out the proper credit for a great building can be such a tedious process" (starchitects take note!)
• Lots of takes on Nouvel's Serpentine Pavilion: Merrick "charts the lure of the lurid" with an interesting history of the "fraught relationship between architecture and the color red."
• Long calls it "a tea room for our times - not half as self-consciously iconic as you might have expected from the bald-headed superstar."
• Moore on the pavilion and One New Change: "Few architects have the ability to be as good and as bad, at the same time" (at least "won't be dull").
• Woodman has a very different view: the "overriding impression is of a stage-set, constructed rather shoddily" (too bad Nouvel isn't "still at the height of his powers" - ouch!).
• Deadline looms for international call for entries/proposals for Thanatopolis (Memorial Park) at I-Park in Connecticut (no fee!).
• Two we couldn't resist: one winner of World Bank's "100 Ideas to Save the Planet" competition is a plan to whitewash the peaks of the Peruvian Andes to slow glacier melt; and the new AIA Guide to New York City shows you where to the Top 10 ugliest buildings in NYC - "pointing them out with great glee."
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Competition winner: Henning Larsen Architects: Batumi Aquarium, Batumi, The Republic of Georgia |
Obituary: Death of a Friend: Stephen Kanner, 54: ...architect, tireless advocate for the architectural community in LA, and co-founder of the A+D Museum...a man who got to make a large mark in a short time. By Frances Anderton -- Kanner Architects; Joe Osae-Addo- KCRW (Los Angeles) |
Report: U.S. Green Building Market Will Balloon to $173.5 Billion by 2015: Think the trend of businesses making green office renovations is just a passing fad? Not according to the latest issue of EL Insights...- Fast Company |
Last Year’s Auto Dealership May Be This Year’s Grocery: Many of the 2,300 auto dealerships that have closed since early 2009 are prized for their parking lots and busy locations...New uses for closed dealerships are as numerous as the properties.- New York Times |
Building Schools for the Future programme cut by £7.5 billion: ...slashed school building programme intended to maintain regeneration momentum in deprived areas, with work on more than 700 schools cancelled...will end the £972,000 annual funding for the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment [CABE] design advice service associated with the BSF programme.- Regeneration & Renewal magazine (UK) |
Redesigning Education: Designing Schools in a Spiky World: How can schools provide safe, sustainable learning centers, even in urban environments?...By engaging children as active participants in their education, we can change pre-K to 12 schools from being the weak link in our cities to being one of its strongest. By Trung Le/Cannon Design- Fast Company |
When Less Was More: America used to love the small, well-crafted house. Can we rekindle that love?...the mid-20th-century building boom might provide some inspiration. By Jayne Merkel -- Mies van der Rohe; Walter Gropius; Marcel Breuer; Frank Lloyd Wright; Gregory Ain; Ralph Rapson; William Levitt/Levittown [images]- New York Times |
Michelle Kaufmann: An Architect Driving Change: ...a pioneer in the prefab housing movement...But, for me, what makes her a pioneer and a leader is something else. She is making sustainability not only a way to build, but also a state of mind. By Lee Schneider [images, links]- Huffington Post |
£45m makeover for Tate Britain is given go-ahead: ...granted permission for a significant refurbishment...improvements are part of the first phase in a programme called Transforming Tate Britain...to bring coherence to an ad hoc succession of additions and alterations to the original galleries designed by Sidney Smith in the 19th century. -- Caruso St John Architects- Evening Standard (UK) |
Ocean House A Lesson In Preserving What's Essential: ...was shuttered and slated for demolition, its site fertile ground for a crop of McMansions...the only way to save the old building was to tear it down...in the larger context of the town of Watch Hill, the site, and its 140-year history, Ocean House is very much preserved. By Michael J. Crosbie -- Centerbrook Architects- Hartford Courant (Connecticut) |
Let's keep on open mind on closing streets: They might bring new life to dull city blocks: I (heart) Taste of Chicago...there’s nothing quite so sweet as the shut-down of a heavily-trafficked drag strip...and its temporary transformation into a giant pedestrian mall....Clearly, there’s a hunger out there for better public spaces... By Blair Kamin- Chicago Tribune |
On Credit: ...teasing out the proper credit for a great building can be such a tedious process...the question of assigning credit for architectural creativity remains woefully underexplored...architecture is a complex collaborative art form that produces works that members of the public - not to mention critics - are often tempted to understand as the work of a single creator. By Christopher Hawthorne -- Ole Scheeren; Rem Koolhaas/Ellen van Loon/Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA); Thom Mayne/Morphosis; Frank Gehry; Adrian Smith/Bill Baker/Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo; Michael Palladino/Richard Meier; Joshua Prince-Ramus/Erez Ella/REX; Harry Gugger/Christine Binswanger/Herzog & de Meuron- Harvard Design Magazine |
Rouge awakening: Jean Nouvel's vivid red Serpentine Pavilion promises to make a startling contrast with the green of Hyde Park. Jay Merrick charts the lure of the lurid...is [his] incarnadine pavilion as radical as it seems? Not quite. It's the fraught relationship between architecture and the colour red through time that's more intriguing.- Independent (UK) |
Jean Nouvel’s tent is a tea room for our times: Serpentine Pavilion is the second one in a row that is a really nice place to go for a picnic or coffee...it's a very sociable, relaxed, pleasant place — not half as self-consciously iconic as you might have expected from the bald-headed superstar... By Kieran Long- Evening Standard (UK) |
Jean Nouvel, the French revolutionary architect: The designer of this year's Serpentine pavilion is also hard at work on another of his radical buildings [One New Change], right next to St Paul's...Few architects have the ability to be as good and as bad, at the same time...[the pavilion], like its architect, won't be dull. It will also be very, very red. By Rowan Moore- Observer (UK) |
A womb with a view: ...the Serpentine has become so intent on bagging a big fish each year that something of the programme’s original spirit has been lost. It wouldn’t rankle so much if Jean Nouvel was still at the height of his powers...The overriding impression is of a stage-set, constructed rather shoddily for an amateur dramatic staging of a Twin Peaks dream sequence. By Ellis Woodman- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Call for entries/proposals: Thanatopolis (Memorial Park) at I-Park in East Haddam, Connecticut, seeking creative proposals in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Garden Deisgn, Visual Arts/Environmental Sculpture, etc. (no fee); open internationally; deadline: July 12- I-Park |
Peru inventor 'whitewashes' peaks to slow glacier melt the Peruvian Andes: ...Glaciares de Peru was one of 26 winners of the World Bank's "100 Ideas to Save the Planet" competition...- Independent (UK) |
Top 10 ugliest buildings in New York City: ...new edition of the AIA Guide to New York City shows you where to find them - pointing them out with great glee. [slide show]- NY Daily News |
Proper English, as in "Crikey, It's the Loo!": What in the Sam Hill are lippings, we beseeched? Answer: trim. Conversely, our colleagues from across the pond were anxious to know who, precisely, Mr. Sam Hill would be. By By Jim Coan/Centerbrook -- Hopkins Architects- ArchNewsNow |
Small Firm, Global Practice: An Interview with Jim Goring and Andre Straja of Goring & Straja Architects: How they manage an international practice as a small firm.- ArchNewsNow |
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