Today’s News - Wednesday, July 15, 2020
● Urban planner James Rojas describes how he "spent the better part of his career reconciling his formal training with his lived experience as a Gay Chicano" that led to his Place It! interactive urban planning workshop shows people "how their lives and actions can shape policy and infrastructure (rather the other way around)."
● Pacheco reports that a Sorkin's Terreform-designed project for Chicago nonprofit Blacks in Green is "moving ahead with the BIG Green Homestead," a "'sustainable-square-mile' that will bring community-owned sustainable housing and commercial spaces to the city's South Side."
● McKie reports that Foster is "under fire" from climate activists who are none to happy with his firm "agreeing to design an airport in Saudi Arabia despite signing Architects Declare climate emergency manifesto" (the firm "will not be responding").
● Meanwhile, what looks like a small UFO that crash-landed in San Francisco Bay is actually the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab created by design architects from the California College of the Arts and port and marine research groups "that's helping designers learn how to blend biology with architecture."
● As the new 26-acre St. Pete Pier and adjacent entertainment/cultural district opens to the public in St. Petersburg, Florida, Hickman revisits the decade-long saga of the $92 million project on the Tampa Bay waterfront.
● The renovation of the Venice Jewish Museum includes "an immersive replica of ancient ghetto housing and some of the most important synagogues and ancient Jewish dwellings built from the start of the Renaissance" (with the archive and the library waterproof up to 7 feet).
● The Sessions Hotel in Bristol, Virginia, combines a grain mill, a candy factory, and a grocery building into a "70-room boutique hotel that honors the property's storied past" by mixing "modern and retro themes with traditional and industrial elements."
● Architect Kevin Glad has donated his design services for a 20-unit residential facility for transplant patients and caregivers "who qualify for financial assistance through the Georgia Transplant Foundation."
● A shortlist of 12 in the running to win RIBA's international RETHINK: 2025 post-pandemic design competition.
● USGBC announces LEED Homes Awards for multifamily, single family, and affordable housing projects from around the world (alas, architects and/or design teams of these cool projects not included).
● ICYMI: ANN feature: Bloszies' Left Coast Reflections #7: Plague 2.0: Architects, for the most part, are idealists but have little power to affect change beyond altering the built environment one building at a time. What does COVID-19 portend when economic growth is driven by "greed-ocracy."
Deadlines:
● Call for entries: Network Rail and RIBA Competitions launch the international competition Re-Imagining Railway Stations: Connecting Communities "to shape the future of Britain's railway stations."
● Call for entries: The Architect's Newspaper's 8th Annual Best of Design Awards for "great buildings, building elements, interiors, and installations in 50 categories."
● Call for entries (deadline reminder): Applications for the 2020 Arcus/Places Journal Prize "to support innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality, and the built environment."
● Call for applications for New York Public Library's international 2020-21 Cullman Center Fellowships;" open to academics, independent scholars, journalists, creative writers, translators, and visual artists at work on a book project."
COVID-19 news continues:
● Mortice's great Q&A with Chicago-based Site Design Group's Ernie Wong re: city planning becoming more socially equitable, post-coronavirus: "We can no longer do the things the way we've constantly done them" (check out his (great!) idea for ParkCoin - a new currency(!) and rentable outdoor workspaces).
● Grabar's great Q&A with experts on cities and suburbs, the NYT's Emily Badger, Natalie Moore of WBEZ Chicago, and Amanda Kolson Hurley of Bloomberg Businessweek re: "Will COVID-19 push people out of cities for good?"
● Mina Chow's op-ed: "With media burning and a virus raging, should we look to architecture? As we find ourselves caught in a misinformation maelstrom of viral proportions, awareness of the art of architecture may help move us forward with more equanimity and understanding."
● Dickinson: "Humanity is in a frenzied rush to devine how COVID-19 changes the way we build - all of us need to take a breath and listen - the world may just be telling us just to get over ourselves."
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James Rojas: The Education - and Miseducation - of an Urban Planner: He spent the better part of his career reconciling his formal training with his lived experience as a Gay Chicano: Our urban inequities are not accidents. They’re products of design and intention...I began studying urban planning at MIT and immediately hit a wall. The program sucked the joy out of cities...the generic white folks they would draw into renderings, I would sit in class, and wonder: Where do I fit in, as a Latino? Our interactive urban planning workshop - Place It! - always starts with...authentic community engagement...I know that quantitative research remains important. Some things do need to be plotted, mapped, and measured...Having people use their own hands and build their own stories...to create a vision for the future that...shows them how their lives and actions can shape policy and infrastructure (rather the other way around).- Common Edge |
Antonio Pacheco: Michael Sorkin-designed project for Chicago nonprofit Blacks in Green plans to move ahead: Terreform and Chicago community development nonprofit...moving ahead with the BIG Green Homestead project, a development that will bring community-owned sustainable housing and commercial spaces to the city's South Side...a “sustainable-square-mile” infilled urban model...brings together community ownership, locally-produced energy, sustainable housing, neighborhood organizations, and other attributes to create a walkable, low-carbon district. -- Naomi Davis; Ellen Grimes; Tracy Sanders/WXY- Archinect |
Robin McKie: Climate activists slam Norman Foster over Saudi airport: Architect is ignoring his own environment pledge, say critics: ...under fire for agreeing to design an airport and terminal in Saudi Arabia despite signing Architects Declare climate emergency manifesto that called for an “urgent need for action” on climate change...several new Foster + Partners projects in Saudi Arabia have caused controversy...over their links to the aviation industry...Foster’s involvement in these projects has infuriated [Architects Climate Action Network (Acan)]...[firm] said it would not be responding to the criticisms made against it...- Observer (UK) |
'Upside down floating reef' in the San Francisco Bay could change ecology of shoreline, experts hope: Design Architects from the California College of the Arts and its Architectural Ecologies Lab recently teamed with the port and marine research groups to launch the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab. Looking something like small UFO that crash-landed in the Bay, the lab is actually a platform that's helping designers learn how to blend biology with architecture. -- Adam Marcus; Margaret Ikeda; Evan Jones- KGO-TV San Francisco |
Matt Hickman: St. Pete Pier activates the waterfront and beyond: St. Petersburg, Florida, has opened the new [pier] and adjacent entertainment/cultural district to the public. The long-awaited $92 million project encompassing 26 acres of revitalized and reactivated Tampa Bay waterfront...includes a slew of attractions and amenities...A tram services the entire complex... -- Rogers Partners; Ken Smith Workshop; ASD/SKY Architects; Wannemacher Jensen Architects; W Architecture and Landscape Architecture; Michael Maltzan Architecture- The Architect's Newspaper |
Renovation brings Venice Jewish Museum into future, visitors into 16th century: $10 million project...will inject new life into the central complex; includes an immersive replica of ancient ghetto housing...architectural complex including some of the most important synagogues and ancient Jewish dwellings built from the start of the Renaissance...The archive and the library - which will be highly waterproof up to 2.2 meters (7 feet 2 inches) high - will become freely accessible to scholars. -- APML Architetti- Times of Israel |
Creative Culture: The Sessions Hotel, a renovated property in Bristol, Virginia...the birthplace of music’s creative culture...the hotel, which initially consisted of...a grain mill, a candy factory and a grocery building - was transformed by Interior Image Group (IIG) into one cohesive, 70-room boutique hotel that honors the property’s storied past...an eclectic design concept that mixes modern and retro themes with traditional and industrial elements, all while incorporating and celebrating the property’s rich historic roots. -- Architectural Partners- InspireDesign |
Transplant patients, caregivers to benefit from planned 20-unit residential facility: A family that started a foundation now providing no-cost housing assistance...in the Atlanta area...A local architect has drawn and donated the plans, as a contribution to the project...Jeffrey Campbell Evans Foundation/JCEF...provides apartments...at low cost, to no cost, to those who qualify for financial assistance through the Georgia Transplant Foundation...Kevin Glade, the lead architect, said the design intends to promote a connection to spirit, mind, body and nature. -- Richmond Honan Acquisitions- SaportaReport (Atlanta) |
The top 12 ideas from the RETHINK: 2025 post-pandemic design competition: RIBA's international design competition...tasked architects and students to envision what our built environment after Covid-19 might look like in 2025... -- Benjamin Holland/Olivia Dolan/Katie Williams; Andrew Jackson; Andrew Jackson; Farrells; Khan Bonshek; Haslam & Co Architects; Tim Rodber/Dominic Walker; People Matter; Stephen Macbean- Archinect |
USGBC Announces LEED Homes Awards Recipients and Residential Project of the Year: Recipients represent multifamily, single family and affordable housing projects from around the world...This year’s Project of the Year is Park Mozaik A Block in Ankara, Turkey.- U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) |
Call for entries: Network Rail and RIBA Competitions launch an international competition to shape the future of Britain’s railway stations: Re-Imagining Railway Stations: Connecting Communities; registration deadline: September 11 (submissions due September 15)- RIBA Competitions |
Call for entries: 8th Annual AN Best of Design Awards: showcases great buildings, building elements, interiors, and installations in 50 categories; early bird registration (save money!): August 6; (submissions due October 1)- The Architect's Newspaper |
Call for entries: Applications for the 2020 Arcus/Places Journal Prize to support innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality, and the built environment; open to mid-career or senior scholars; funded by UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design’s Arcus Endowment, deadline: August 15- Places Journal |
Call for entries: Applications for the New York Public Library 2020-21 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center Fellowships (international); open to academics, independent scholars, journalists, creative writers, translators, and visual artists at work on a book project; stipends of up to $75,000; deadline: September 25- New York Public Library |
Zach Mortice: Will City Planning Become More Socially Equitable Post-Coronavirus? A native of Chicago’s South Side, landscape architect and planner Ernie Wong of Site Design Group has designed parks in...affluent, gentrifying neighborhoods to the bulldozed sites of former public housing projects...now that the world is reeling from the coronavirus, city planning may shift to accommodate new realities - and acknowledge the role that inequality plays...“We can no longer do the things the way we’ve constantly done them.”- Redshift |
Henry Grabar: Will COVID Push People Out of Cities for Good? To find out how many people have really left, I consulted some experts on cities and suburbs: Emily Badger of the New York Times, Natalie Moore of WBEZ Chicago, and Amanda Kolson Hurley of Bloomberg Businessweek.- Slate |
Mina Chow: Op-Ed: With media burning and a virus raging, should we look to architecture? Pandemic and protests have converged in such a way to reveal the hollow center of contemporary life...we are itching to reconnect with each other. A better understanding of architecture might help us get there...connections to environments are critical to our human experience. Architects design places for people to belong: they help people discover their being in the world...architecture teaches us not only to see the forest before the trees, but to see and sense them both - as well as the spaces in between...Appearances can be deceiving in the virtual realm...As we find ourselves caught in a misinformation maelstrom of viral proportions, awareness of the art of architecture may help move us forward with more equanimity and understanding. -- Ant Farm; mc² SPACES- The Architect's Newspaper |
Duo Dickinson: Will COVID forever alter the way we design homes: My hope is that we will not be this epoch’s dinosaurs, despite all the forced change. I think understanding the way people adapt to change can give all of us hope in times of fear...COVID-19 has revealed that we did not see the consequences of how we see the world...humanity is in a frenzied rush to devine how this impact changes the way we build...all of us need to take a breath and listen...the world may just be telling us...just to get over ourselves. Rather than be victims of our circumstances, we can listen and learn before we act.- CTInsider (Connecticut) |
ANN feature: Charles F. Bloszies: Left Coast Reflections #7: Plague 2.0: Architects, for the most part, are idealists but have little power to affect change beyond altering the built environment one building at a time. What does COVID-19 portend when economic growth is driven by "greed-ocracy."- ArchNewsNow.com |
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