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Today’s News - Wednesday, August 19, 2020

● Oscar Holland reports on the world's tallest prefab skyscrapers rising in Singapore - the Avenue South Residences, two 56-story towers with 988 apartments "formed from almost 3,000 vertically stacked 'modules' - being built in Malaysia."

● Menna A. Farouk reports on the "cautious hopes" and challenges for an initiative in Egypt to relocate some 850,000 slum dwellers to social housing units.

● Uruguayan architecture firm Gómez Platero has designed the "world's first large-scale memorial" for the victims of COVID-19 that "aims to be a space for mourning and reflection - and emotionally impactful - discussions with the Uruguayan government are currently" underway to choose an urban waterfront site.

● Beth Broome takes us on a tour of Pier 3, the last of five piers to be developed at Brooklyn Bridge Park by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (a "Discovery Garden, with its funhouse mirrors and a 'whisper room'" included).

● Kara Mavros takes on a tour of the 2.6-acre "Beach," a privately owned park by Surfacedesign on the Expedia Group campus that is open to the public on the shores of Seattle's Puget Sound (using a "bioretention strategy considered 'salmon-safe'").

● Nate Berg introduces us to BlackSpace, a collective of 200 Black architects, designers, artists, and urban planners "reimagining how cities get built - through community workshops, planning exercises, and cooperative design efforts to proactively bring Black voices and concerns into a development process that has long ignored them" (a manifesto included).

● Keith Loria's great Q&A: Deryl McKissack, who founded her namesake Washington, DC-based firm 30 years ago, re: the "challenges women and minority enterprisers in AEC confront - she has experienced firsthand the challenges of being a Black female CEO, and seen the lack of diversity in the AEC industry": "I have a seven-step plan to start to right these wrongs, and I'm asking my peers to commit to change using it."

● Educator to educator: Doreen Lorenzo's great Q&A with OCAD's Dori Tunstall re: how "the world's first Black and Black female dean of a design school is rewriting the rules of design education - using design to fight harmful design ideas and practices for BIPOC students."

● Phil Bernstein imagines architecture in 2031 via the tale of Kimberly Sklarek, a Black architect who, "seeing the white male leadership team clearly through the glass ceiling, decided to leave before she hit it"- and starts her own design-justice firm.

● John Ronan's "advice for young designers entering the profession: Learn how to hit curveballs. Passion is overrated. Beware desire. Avoid goals. Failing is good. Be an onion."

● Eyefuls of the Top 20 A' Design Award Winners + link to 2021 call for entries - deadlines: September 30 - February 28.

● Architect-photographer David Heymann, "seeking open space during lockdown in his hometown of Austin, Texas, finds himself in walking meditations in the particular kind of public space that is a cemetery."

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Oscar Holland: World's tallest prefab skyscrapers will rise in Singapore - but they're being built in Malaysia: ...two 192-meter-tall (630 feet) towers...named Avenue South Residences, will see 988 apartments formed from almost 3,000 vertically stacked "modules"...ADDP Architects, says the building method, known as Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction (PPVC), is less labor-intensive and can help reduce waste and noise pollution...can help minimize disruption to those living nearby...facades will feature balconies, sun-shading screens and a number of "sky terraces" filled with trees and plant life.- CNN Style

Menna A. Farouk: Cautious hopes for slum dwellers relocated in Egypt housing project: A government scheme is relocating hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers to social housing units: But relocated residents point to challenges such as higher overall expenses...and an uncertain future for the informal businesses they used to run in slums...housing scheme is part of a five-year government project started in 2016 to either demolish or upgrade unsafe slums and relocate some 850,000 people...New compounds include gardens, schools, sports facilities, medical centres, shops, places of worship and access to public transport.- Thomson Reuters Foundation News

World’s First Large-Scale COVID Memorial Designed for Victims of the Pandemic: ...to be an expression of hope in an uncertain time...called the "World Memorial to the Pandemic." It aims to be a space for mourning and reflection that's environmentally conscious and emotionally impactful...located on the edge of an urban waterfront...discussions with the Uruguayan government are currently in motion to choose a specific site...will take six months to complete. -- Gómez Platero- ArchDaily

Beth Broome: Pier 3 at Brooklyn Bridge Park by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: An epic 85-acre waterfront park in New York nears completion as its final pier is developed for active and passive use: Over 20 years...MVVA has transformed a 1.3-mile stretch of a once-gritty industrial waterfront into a lush and treasured resource for New York...Pier 3...the final of five piers to be developed - has been timely, providing a verdant landscape for locals to retreat to during the pandemic.- Architectural Record

Kara Mavros: The Beach at Expedia Group by Surfacedesign: A San Francisco-based landscape firm creates a public waterfront park on a corporate site in Seattle: 2.6-acre “Beach”...on the shores of Seattle’s Puget Sound...a privately owned park that is open to the public, is part of a larger campus that includes a new building by ZGF and a small pavilion by Aidlin Darling...has been hosting small musical performances, yoga, and other open-air activities, even during recent months seized by COVID-19. “Especially in these times, it has been a huge relief," says James Lord. -- Roderick Wyllie- Architectural Record

Nate Berg: Meet the Black design collective reimagining how cities get built: Urban planning often neglects or harms communities of color by cutting them out of the decision-making process. BlackSpace, a collective of 200 architects, designers, artists, and urban planners, is quietly working to change that: ...the organization works through community workshops, planning exercises, and cooperative design efforts to proactively bring Black voices and concerns into a development process that has long ignored them...principles of the manifesto are now ingrained in the way [Justin Garrett Moore/NYC Public Design Commission] approaches his job... -- Emma Osore/New Museum New Inc.; Justin Garrett Moore/NYC Public Design Commission; Kenyatta McLean- Fast Company

Keith Loria: Q&A: Deryl McKissack On Challenges Women and Minority Enterprisers in AEC Confront: ...a civil engineer by training, founded her namesake Washington, DC-based firm 30 years ago...she has experienced firsthand the challenges of being a Black female CEO, and seen the lack of diversity in the AEC industry...[she talks] about her career and how minority firms in AEC can break ground, but can’t gain ground, in the business: "I have a seven-step plan to start to right these wrongs, and I’m asking my peers to commit to change using it." -- McKissack & McKissack- Commercial Observer

Doreen Lorenzo: How OCAD’s Dori Tunstall is rewriting the rules of design education: the world’s first Black dean of a design school, is on a mission to redesign design education itself: "There’s a lot of talk about how design is going to save the world after COVID-19. I approach that talk with a sense of cynicism, because design hasn’t even addressed how it’s harmed communities for the last few hundred years...Until design is able to reckon with itself in its role of past oppression, I don’t see how it’s going to be a liberator or savior in a post-COVID-19 future.” -- Ontario College of Art and Design University- Fast Company / Co.Design

Phil Bernstein: Fast Forward: Imagining Architecture in 2031: In this work of fiction, Yale Architecture associate dean...imagines the future of the profession: Kimberly Sklarek...the only Black woman hired that year. Two years later she was a lead designer, but, seeing the white male leadership team clearly through the glass ceiling, she decided to leave before she hit it. She sensed an opportunity to capitalize on the emergent design-justice market- Architectural Record

John Ronan: Advice for Young Designers Entering the Profession: Life has thrown you a curveball, but it won’t be the last time...so get used to it. Learn how to hit curveballs. Architecture school teaches you how to be a good student, but it doesn’t teach you how to be a good architect...Here are suggestions to help you avoid some common missteps and hopefully make seeing your path a little easier: Passion is overrated: I don’t care about your passions; I only care what you are good at. Beware desire. Avoid goals. Failing is good. Be an onion.- Architectural Record

Top 20 A' Design Award Winners: The best products, projects, and services worldwide that demonstrate superior design, technology, and creativity. -- Tetsuya Matsumoto; Kotaro Anzai; Jie Lee - Challenge Design; Hejingtang Studio; Aedas; Nie Jianping; Snorre Stinessen; Shimao Group; Shenzhen IN Lab Design and Consultancy; etc.- ArchDaily

David Heymann: The Velvet Coffin: Seeking open space during lockdown in his hometown of Austin, Texas, an architect-photographer finds himself in walking meditations in the particular kind of public space that is a cemetery, where a history of the city is laid out in stone: In these photographs, I’m interested in capturing the scalar disjunction between apprehension of place by an individual...and landscape organization...cartographic in intent...all made before the murder of George Floyd...There are other ways to walk today, not in silence, and with different purpose. Yet I feel these photographs remain relevant to this moment.- Places Journal

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