Today’s News - Wednesday, October 16, 2019
● Wainwright pays eloquent tribute to Charles Jencks, "the unrivalled godfather of postmodernism" who "wrote, spoke and enthused in his characteristically charming, witty and debonair manner, for 50 years about architecture."
● A look at "why getting into the minds of humans [not technology] is the biggest design trend of 2019," making architects "the new psychiatrists."
● Sayer parses the U.K.'s new National Design Guide that "has been for the most part warmly received by the profession," but revisions after the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission final report "could likely cause groans in the profession."
● Finch minces no words about why the National Design Guide "is a dog's dinner" that "combines platitudes with passing responsibility to overstretched local planners: Albeit with reservations, architects have given it a welcome - probably because it is a motherhood and apple pie production."
● Block, meanwhile, reports on London's mayor calling on "architects to design for a circular economy - with ideas such as using blockchain technology. With architecture, this extends to the practice of reusing and adapting buildings rather than demolishing them."
● Kennicott says that "everything feels scrupulously professional" at the "struggling" National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington, DC, but that's the problem - its "tone and rhetoric excludes genuine anger about police misconduct."
● Stunning eyefuls of the "ambassador of emotionality" Shigeru Ban's Swatch HQ in Switzerland: "With its striking honeycomb design and forests of timber," the CEO "hopes the new building puts it on the map for international architecture and watch fans."
● Miranda profiles Johnston Marklee, "the L.A. architects who design buildings that make you say, 'Huh?,' then 'Wow!'" with a "more-than-meets-the-eye experiential quality."
● Franklin reports that a "historic Detroit newspaper building will be razed for 12 parking spots. You read that right, just 12 parking spots - to provide more parking for a luxury condominium" (preservationists didn't think it would happen).
● On a more inspiring note, building Hoichi Kurisu's Japanese healing garden at the Oregon State Penitentiary "has been a healing process for everyone involved" - advocates hope it "can help spur a cultural shift in other correctional facilities across the country."
● The fascinating tale of how Bauhaus "came to India via two brilliant young Indians sent in the '40s to the US assigned to bring back new design thoughts" for the "soon-to-be independent nation in search of a new design language."
● Nunes Solomon brings us eyefuls of the construction camps that preceded the modernist city of Brasília: "Workers were shown as participants in a heroic national project."
● CTBUH 50 Most Influential Tall Buildings of the Last 50 Years: "Each represents a milestone in the development of the typology."
Winners all!
● Winner of the Van Alen Institute/Flatiron Partnership 2019 Flatiron Public Plaza Holiday Design Competition is "Ziggy" by Hou de Sousa that "will celebrate the holiday season with vibrant hues and playful gestures, composed of painted rebar and 27,000 feet of iridescent cord."
● Great presentation of the six winners of the 2019 AIA Innovation Awards.
● Great presentation of the architecture and interiors projects taking home Dezeen Awards 2019.
● Peters reports that Brooks + Scarpa and Plant Prefab's Nest, a "kit of parts designed to build cheaper, faster affordable housing on small urban lots" has won the L.A. County Housing Innovation Challenge + link to other winners.
● A shortlist of five in the running for the 2019 National Multifamily Housing Council/NMHC Innovation Challenge for innovative solutions that "address the nation's housing affordability crisis."
● "Creative thinkers in health and design" win the 2019 Health X Design Challenge "for solutions that improve everyday health using technology."
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Oliver Wainwright: Charles Jencks obituary: Architectural historian, garden designer and writer who was regarded as the godfather of postmodernism: ...[he] wrote, spoke and enthused in his characteristically charming, witty and debonair manner, for 50 years about architecture that embraced pluralism and difference over standardised homogeneity...forever coining new “-isms”...Now counting 24 locations across the UK and abroad, the Maggie’s Centres...rethinking what a medical environment might be.- Guardian (UK) |
Architects Are The New Psychiatrists: Why Getting Into The Minds Of Humans Is The Biggest Design Trend Of 2019: ...design industry’s newfound focus on creating a sense of place that’s not only environmentally healthy, but emotionally stabilizing for each building's end user...2019 could very well be known as the year when architects and commercial designers returned to their prehistoric roots and explored the psychological impact every building’s interior, exterior and landscape design has on the human psyche. -- John Orfield/BOKA Powell Architects; Dan Noble /HKS; Julie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs/Lifescapes International; Jo Staffelbach Heinz/DLR Group; Scott Lowe/5G Studio Collaborative; Ian Zapata/Gensler- Bisnow Dallas-Fort Worth |
Jason Sayer: The U.K. launches a National Design Guide - but why? ...has lofty aspirations for standardizing design...to help “create beautiful, enduring and successful places"...To architects and designers, [it] will seem run-of-the-mill, even perhaps a little patronizing. But the guide is not for them...does incur a momentary feeling of dread (Poundbury is featured) but thankfully [it] is much more nuanced and ultimately offers some good advice...has been for the most part warmly received by the profession...it could be altered after the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission publishes its final report in December...This could likely cause groans in the profession.- The Architect's Newspaper |
Paul Finch: The National Design Guide is a dog’s dinner: ...combines platitudes with passing responsibility to overstretched local planners: Albeit with reservations...architects have given [it] a welcome...probably because it is a motherhood and apple pie production...It tries to shoehorn in unconvincing references to ‘beauty’ and the albatross that is the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission...Perhaps a forthcoming...National Model Design Code, incorporating the beauty commission’s end-of-year findings, will provide further wisdom...The problem...There is virtually nothing about offices, shops, schools, hospitals, surgeries, religious buildings and so on...nothing about height, density or innovation.- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
India Block: London's mayor calls on architects to design for a circular economy: ...with ideas such as rental furnishing and using blockchain technology..."Design for a Circular Economy"...a call to action for London's architects, along with a guide to the terminology around the concept...waste is designed out and materials are kept in circulation for as long as possible by being repaired, recycled or remade...With architecture, this extends to the practice of reusing and adapting buildings rather than demolishing them. -- Sunand Prasad/Penoyre & Prasad- Dezeen |
Philip Kennicott: Everything is professional at the National Law Enforcement Museum. That’s a problem: The D.C. museum’s tone and rhetoric excludes genuine anger about police misconduct: Everything feels scrupulously professional...Joining a memorial and a museum is complicated. The memorial function is emotional, and essentially uncritical...the museum is obliged to deal with harder facts...tone of professionalism becomes so measured and lawyerly that alert visitors may question [its] sincerity...It has been struggling since it opened a year ago... -- Davis Buckley Architects and Planners- Washington Post |
Swatch Group’s New Headquarters Is Architecture for a New Era: Inside the Shigeru Ban-designed building, an "ambassador of emotionality" for the digital age: ...in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland...a town that few know...about 30 minutes train northwest of Bern...[CEO] hopes the new building puts it on the map for international architecture and watch fans...with its striking honeycomb design and forests of timber...- Bloomberg News |
Carolina A. Miranda: The L.A. architects who design buildings that make you say, ‘Huh?,’ then ‘Wow!’: Johnston Marklee recently designed a museum in Houston [Menil Drawing Institute], is about to design another in Philly and just unveiled artist studios for UCLA: [Their] buildings...are broadly united by a more-than-meets-the-eye experiential quality. Yet their work is difficult to drop into some tidy architectural taxonomy...less preoccupied with planting Instagrammable icons than in creating structures that react to local context in deliberate ways. -- Sharon Johnston; Mark Lee- Los Angeles Times |
Sydney Franklin: Historic Detroit newspaper building will be razed for 12 parking spots: You read that right, just 12 parking spots...Detroit City Council voted to deny the building its own historic designation...will now be razed in order to provide more parking for a luxury condominium nearby...Preservation groups didn’t think the city would actually allow the small news building to go down... -- Smith, Hinchman & Grylls (now SmithGroup)- The Architect's Newspaper |
Oregon State Penitentiary's new garden holds promise of transforming correctional landscapes: ...a single Japanese garden five years in the making...advocates of the garden are hopeful its creation can help spur a cultural shift...in other correctional facilities across the country...For the garden’s designer, Hoichi Kurisu, building the garden has been a healing process for everyone involved.- NBC News |
How Bauhaus built India: ...came to India via two brilliant young architects: Bauhaus is the name of that enterprise through which Walter Gropius tried to bring under one umbrella, the art of everything...two young Indians sent by the British Indian government in the ’40s to the US...assigned to bring back new design thoughts [for] soon be an independent nation in search of a new design language...Achyut Kanvinde and Habib Rahman were both taught by Gropius at Harvard...[they] brought Bauhaus, one of the most influential design movements of the 20th century, to India. -- Le Corbusier- Hindustan Times (India) |
David Nunes Solomon: Brasília and the Populist Frontier: Photographs of the construction camps that preceded the modernist city: Roughly 40,000 people lived on site during the first phase...A constant theme in [Revista Brasília, 1957] is the relationship between workers and the architectural masterpieces they were constructing. Workers were shown as participants in a heroic national project...Now protected under UNESCO world heritage rules, the neighborhoods that evolved from these construction camps are restricted to their original footprint... -- Lucio Costa; Oscar Niemeyer; Roberto Burle Marx; NOVACAP architects- Places Journal |
CTBUH 50 Most Influential Tall Buildings of the Last 50 Years: Each represents a milestone in the development of the typology...- Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) |
Winner of 2019 Flatiron Public Plaza Holiday Design Competition: “Ziggy” by Hou de Sousa: Flatiron Partnership and Van Alen Institute Announce Winner of the 6th Annual Competition: On view November 18, 2019–January 1, 2020, Ziggy will celebrate the holiday season with vibrant hues and playful gestures...Composed of painted rebar and 27,000 feet of iridescent cord...- Van Alen Institute / Flatiron Partnership |
2019 AIA Innovation Awards honor six design projects: ...recognize the exemplary use and implementation of innovative technologies and progressive practices...in two categories: holistic design and development of design or design-thinking. -- CCA Architectural Ecologies Lab; John Ronan; Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects; Höweler + Yoon Architecture; Faculty of the University of Tennessee School of Architecture; Trahan Architects- American Institute of Architects (AIA) |
Dezeen Awards 2019: ...architecture projects...include a cultural centre overlooking the Persian Gulf and a locomotive shed that has been transformed into a public library + interiors projects...include a compact black house...and a micro-flat in Taipei. -- Katsutoshi Sasaki + Associates; Laurent Troost; Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects (LOHA); J Mayer H; Vo Trong Nghia Architects; ZAV Architects; Studio VDGA; Atelier Liu Yuyang; Civic Architects/Inside Outside\Petra Blaisse/Mecanoo/Braaksma & Roos Architectenbureau; i29 interior architects; Vladimir Radutny Architects; Office AIO; Space & Matter; Gensler; Branch Studio Architects; Mana/Scalaplus/Scott Oster; DecaArchitecture; Staeyen Interieur Architecten; A Little Design- Dezeen |
Adele Peters: This kit of parts is designed to build cheaper, faster affordable housing on small urban lots: Brooks + Scarpa and Plant Prefab’s Nest LivingHome toolkit includes multiple options for designs that can be built on unused lots throughout a city: ...kit includes multiple options...such as a homeless shelter that can house as many as 224 people on a 50-by-150-foot lot, permanent supportive housing for families, and shelters that can be installed to run off-the-grid in parking lots. + link to other winners -- Los Angeles County Housing Innovation Challenge; Gensler/VTBS Architects/Nelson Architects/[place] Architects; GDS Architects; etc.- Fast Company |
Five Finalists Announced for 2019 National Multifamily Housing Council/NMHC Innovation Challenge: ...innovative solutions for reducing the construction costs or time to bend the cost curve of housing production as a way to address the nation’s housing affordability crisis. -- KTGY Architecture + Planning (2); Prescient Co.; Upbrella Construction; VirtualAPT- National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) |
2019 Health X Design Challenge Winners Honored for Solutions That Improve Everyday Health Using Technology: Mad*Pow's Center for Health Experience Design, Health 2.0 Advocates and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Recognize Creative Thinkers in Health and Design -- Bella Steiner/Sarah Weng/Sarah Graf/Yale University School of Management; Deirdre Nichonaill/Estefania Ciliotta/Houjiang Liu/Northeastern University Experience Design- Center for Health Experience Design |
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