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Today’s News - Tuesday, January 22, 2019

● ANN feature: rise in the city 2018 Update: Student designs for affordable housing in Maseru, Lesotho, Southern Africa, are in and - hot-off-the-press - winning designs will be prototyped! (A few prized blocks needing sponsors remain.)

● Kimmelman visits a barrio in Puerto Rico and finds that there are some serious hitches in post-Hurricane Maria rebuilding efforts that is not good news for many long-time residents of the island's many barrios (a sad tale, indeed).

● Van Mead offers a fascinating/sad look at how Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) "is erasing its heritage. More than a third of the Vietnamese city's historic buildings have been destroyed - its modernist heritage may be next."

● Higginbottom offers a fascinating/hopeful look at how architects and urban planners, from Mosul, Syria, to Marawi, the Philippines, "are trying to battle shortsighted planning and create new urban spaces" in their post-ISIS world: "Without strict regulation, developers will be simply following profit rather than social harmony."

● A look at how Bernard Khoury "is helping young people remember Beirut's complicated past."

● Hewitt explains "why reusing buildings should be the next big thing - as the best way to fight climate change" (and how the AIA is late in getting with the program).

● Peters takes a look at how architects are future-proofing parking garages, designing them so they "can easily morph into offices or housing - something more useful than car storage."

● Carras considers the tiny house movement: They "look marvelous but have a dark side: three things they don't tell you on marketing blurb" (Spur, Texas, "is pitching itself as the first tiny house friendly town in America" - a response to a declining population).

● Moore would like to return to the days when "council houses were once a glory of the public realm. It's scandalous that local authorities are being forced to rent from private landlords the same properties they once owned" (though there is a bit of good news).

● Anderton x 2: She ponders whether the "radical" rezoning plan proposed for Minneapolis could "serve as a wake-up call for other cities with housing pains, like Los Angeles."

● She catches up with Dezeen's Marcus Fairs in his London office to talk about "hyper-capitalism" and how "the Brexit vote has implicated the design community."

● It's a DS+R-in-London kind of day: Wainwright wonders whether their new Centre for Music is "the Tate Modern for classical music - the whole thing looks like a greatest-hits mash-up of the architects' back catalogue. For now, it all feels a bit flimsy, a flashy traffic cone" (and there's an "elephant in the room").

● Bevan takes a first look at the new Centre for Music: "Elizabeth Diller is about to lay siege to the Barbican," and her "siege engine of choice" is a "glassy ziggurat" (but she "resists the idea of the building as a spectacle").

● Jessel talks to Diller: "Our London concert hall will tackle Barbican's flaws - and improve its 'body language,'" and she "admitted that working on the scheme was 'terrifying and fantastic.'"

● Brussat delves into two projects in Turkey and China that illustrate "bad trad and good trad" (highlighted in ANN last Thursday), and "show the use and misuse of classical traditions" ("mod-symp nudnik" included).

● Moore offers one of the more refreshing takes on the Bauhaus: It "was irrational as much as rational, mystical as much as practical and medieval as much as modern" + What the Bauhaus legacy means to Libeskind, Foster, Ulrich Obrist, Franch i Gilabert, etc.

● UNESCO and UIA designate Rio de Janeiro as the World Capital of Architecture 2020 - where the next UIA world congress will gather in 2020.

● Safdie wins the 2019 Wolf Prize for Architecture - one of Israel's most important awards - with $100,000 purse.

● The Australian Institute of Architects appoints Julia Cambage as its new CEO.

● ICYMI: ANN Exclusive: Q&A with Bernhard Karpf, recently named managing principal of Richard Meier & Partners, re: what the new leadership is doing to restore the firm's reputation, managing ongoing projects, and the team's plans going forward.

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ANN feature: rise in the city 2018 Update: Student Designs for Affordable Housing in Lesotho Shine. A Few Prized Blocks Needing Sponsors Remain: Student designs for affordable housing in Maseru, Lesotho, Southern Africa, are in and - hot-off-the-press - winning designs will be prototyped!- ArchNewsNow.com

Michael Kimmelman: Rebuilding a Puerto Rico Barrio: ‘Dead Is the Only Way They’ll Ever Get Me to Leave’: Hurricane Maria led to a host of new plans to fix island barrios...A look at the Vietnam neighborhood shows why they may never be achieved: ...nearly half of all residents...lack the clear titles to their properties that would allow them to take out housing reconstruction loans, sell their properties legally and move to safer neighborhoods...The proposal promises nobody will be forced to move. But there’s a catch...hundreds of thousands...will not get assistance.- New York Times

Nick Van Mead: The next 15 megacities #7: ‘Redefine the skyline’: how Ho Chi Minh City is erasing its heritage: More than a third of the Vietnamese city’s historic buildings have been destroyed over the past 20 years. Can it learn from mistakes made by other fast-growing Asian cities before it is too late? Heritage experts say virtually no historic buildings are safe from the wrecking ball...anything built in the centre is likely to lead to the demolition of a historic building...The city’s modernist heritage may be next... -- Mel Schenck; Ngo Viet Thu; Ngo Viet Nam Son [images]- Guardian (UK)

Justin Higginbottom: Freed From ISIS, Cities Design Different Dreams for the Future: IHow these cities rebuild could determine their future: ...in city after city, residents, observers, international agencies and designers are trying to battle shortsighted planning and create new urban spaces that not only address humanitarian concerns but also protect landmarks, help battle future radicalism and facilitate economic development...There are many challenges...without strict regulation, [developers] will be simply following profit rather than social harmony. -- Felino “Jun” Palafox; Anna Otlik- OZY

How one architect is helping young people remember Beirut's complicated past: Bernard Khoury's architecture is part of a city with one foot stuck in the past and another in the future...the decades when Lebanon was in the process of becoming its own nation have been completely ignored, he said. One of the architects of this forgotten period was Khoury’s father, Khalil Khoury. [images]- ABC News (US)

Mark Alan Hewitt: Why Reusing Buildings Should Be the Next Big Thing: It took the AIA too long to recognize adaptive reuse as the best way to fight climate change: The good news is that several of the [COTE Top Ten] award winners were for adaptive reuse...rather than new construction...If the Class of 2018 is any indication, COTE laureates aren’t as green as their wreaths appear...AIA has not provided critical leadership by advocating for the adaptive reuse...architects should be shifting their attention toward additions and renovations rather than showering praise on high tech green machines. -- KieranTimberlake; Witold Rybczinski- Common Edge

Adele Peters: These future-proof parking garages can easily morph into offices or housing: Parking takes up an extraordinary amount of space in cities. These projects are making it easier to convert it to something more useful than car storage: Architects and city planners are increasingly realizing that valuable city space could be put to better use than storing cars...Retrofitting existing parking garages can be more difficult - they’re not designed for human habitation... -- Gensler; Make Shift; Perkins+Will; UltraBarrio, [images]- Fast Company

Megan Carras: Tiny houses look marvellous but have a dark side: three things they don’t tell you on marketing blurb: [They] are promoted as an answer to the affordable housing crisis; a desirable alternative to traditional homes and mortgages. Yet there are many complexities and contradictions that surround these tiny spaces...Regardless of how tiny living is marketed by the enthusiasts...It seemingly takes more than changing the size of a home to change the mentality of the people who live inside.- The Conversation

Rowan Moore: Council houses were once a glory of the public realm. Let’s return to those days: It’s scandalous that local authorities are being forced to rent from private landlords the same properties they once owned ... before right to buy: ...right to buy should be abolished...The case for this is compelling...it is more wasteful not to build council homes than it is to build them...In principle, thoughtful planning can provide new homes that are beautifully or at least adequately designed...But there have at least been shifts - the experiments with prefabrication, the cautious consideration to planned development given by think tanks and policy units.- Observer (UK)

DnA/Frances Anderton: Minneapolis is upzoning, and LA should pay attention: Is Minneapolis the most radical city in America right now? ...a rezoning plan...reverses several decades of single-family-house-only zoning and permits more density. “It's radical and it's about time...and it's something that will spread to other American cities" ...some are sounding a note of caution...could Minneapolis’ actions serve as a wake-up call for other cities with housing pains, like Los Angeles? -- John Rossant/NewCities Foundation- KCRW (Los Angeles)

DnA/Frances Anderton: Dezeen founder talks Brexit, designers and “hyper-capitalism”: "97% of creative people in the UK felt that we should not leave the European Community,” says Marcus Fairs...thousands of people from European countries study and work in UK design schools and companies...the Brexit vote has implicated the design community.- KCRW (Los Angeles)

Oliver Wainwright: Twist and shout: is this the Tate Modern for classical music? Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s timber-and-glass vision for a new Centre for Music in London aims for great heights - but might not exactly reach them: ...the whole thing looks like a greatest-hits mashup of the architects’ back catalogue...For now, it all feels a bit flimsy, a flashy traffic cone that lacks the rugged solidity of the Barbican...But the elephant in the room is what takes up a major central chunk of the building. Between the two music venues hovers a four-storey block labelled as “commercial”...an apt reflection of an era when culture - in the absence of public funding - must find a way to pay for itself.- Guardian (UK)

Robert Bevan: A first look at the designs for Square Mile's new £288m Centre for Music: Elizabeth Diller is about to lay siege to the Barbican...[her] siege engine of choice is the £288 million...tower containing a 2,000-seat concert hall...glassy ziggurat...The conquest of the Barbican’s fortress should be a cinch for a woman who helped design the High Line...The aim...is to turn the institution inside out, to make it more properly part of the public realm...[she] resists the idea of the building as a spectacle. -- Diller Scofidio + Renfro [images]- Evening Standard (UK)

Ella Jessel: Liz Diller: Our London concert hall will tackle Barbican’s flaws: Diller Scofidio + Renfro founder...said her planned £288 million London concert hall will address some of the connectivity ‘flaws’ of the Barbican Estate and improve its ‘body language’: ...concept for the [Centre For Music] - a ‘tapering stack’ of volumes that will turn the ‘inwardly focused’ campus inside out...will be home to the London Symphony Orchestra and...the Guildhall School of Music & Drama...She admitted that working on the scheme...was "terrifying and fantastic." [images]- The Architects' Journal (UK)

David Brussat: Bad trad and good trad: Two articles...show the use and misuse of classical traditions on opposite sides of the world. The misuse...is in Turkey, and all 732 of the little castles are ridiculous...This neighborhood looks monolithic, but give it a few years and each castle might sprout its own personality...the whole place is unoccupied today...The more inspired use is the new campus, in Shenzhen, of...Huawei...Its new campus consists of 12 clusters, each inspired by a European city...not pure copies of past designs, so far as I can tell...it goes without saying that the campus has been mocked by the usual suspects...supposed bad trad in Shenzhen, China, represents good trad with a bad rep because it copies the past. Not that there’s anything wrong with that - unless you are a mod-symp nudnik.- Architecture Here and There

Rowan Moore: Bauhaus at 100: the revolutionary movement's enduring appeal: Sleek, pared-back, industrial elegance - that’s how most of us think of Bauhaus...But that was only one side of this short-lived but longlasting movement: It was the most influential and famous design school that has ever existed. It defined an epoch...the reality was considerably more chaotic and diverse...The new institution was irrational as much as rational, mystical as much as practical and medieval as much as modern. It was a ferment of creative types pushing, pulling, fighting and collaborating. -- Walter Gropius; Le Corbusier; Marcel Breuer; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe [images]- Observer (UK)

Rio de Janeiro first city to be designated World Capital of Architecture: ...will host several events on the theme "All the worlds. Just one World"...In collaboration with local institutions, UNESCO and UIA...to highlight projects that bring together architects and urbanists with decision makers, civil society representatives, professionals from other sectors, and artists and writers...city will also host the next UIA world congress [in 2020]. (AFP) -- International Union of Architects/UIA- Yahoo News

Moshe Safdie Wins 2019 Wolf Prize for Architecture: ...jury praised Safdie for the originality and artistry of his body of work, his work as an educator, and his numerous publications...will receive the prize from the President of the State of Israel during a special ceremony at the Knesset Building in Jerusalem [in May].- Archinect

Australian Institute of Architects appoints new CEO: Julia Cambage...was most recently CEO of Try Australia, a youth training and mentoring organization...involved in a number of initiatives including the establishment of Try Uncontained, a social business that converts shipping containers into affordable, small footprint housing...former CEO Jennifer Cunich departed the role in August 2018. -- Clare Cousins- ArchitectureAU (Australia)

Kristen Richards: New Beginnings: Interview with Bernhard Karpf, FAIA, Managing Principal, Richard Meier & Partners Architects: RMP's leadership is working to restore the firm's reputation, managing ongoing projects, and the team's plans going forward.- ArchNewsNow.com

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