Archinect - News

Wang Shu blasts demolition culture in China

2012-05-24T14:19:00-04:00

The Chinese winner of architecture’s most prestigious award has criticised the wanton demolition that has left many of the nation’s cities fragmented and almost unrecognisable to their citizens. The comments from Wang Shu, who will on Friday receive the 2012 Pritzker prize in a ceremony in Beijing, highlight widespread complaints in China about urban planning amid a process of urbanisation that saw more than 20m rural dwellers move to cities last year alone.

Pritzker prize’s double payoff: Fame for Chinese architect, possible brand boost for Hyatt

2012-05-24T14:14:00-04:00

When architect Wang Shu accepts his field’s richest prize in a ceremony Friday at the seat of China’s legislature, a symbolic second winner will be waiting in the background — Hyatt Hotels. The Pritzker Architecture Prize has special resonance for communist leaders who want to promote China as a global cultural power. Receiving it made Wang a celebrity in China. Until now, the 49-year-old had been little known outside architecture circles.

Happy 75th Birthday, Golden Gate Bridge

2012-05-24T13:58:00-04:00

For its 75th birthday on Sunday, the bridge's management is planning a celebration that includes music, art shows, lectures, a new book and a new visitor center. But one thing won't happen: Nobody gets to cross the bridge on foot on the big day.

PBS also published a very nice photo essay on the bridge's history: Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary.

Murphy/Jahn Designs Pentominium for Seoul’s Yongsan District

2012-05-23T17:32:00-04:00

Seoul's new Yongsan International Business District continues to dominate the news:

Now we just received images of Pentominium, the 320-meter-tall residential development designed by Chicago-based Murphy/Jahn Architects.

Project Description from the Architects:

The Yongsan International Business District will set a new standard for an integrated global city. Situated on a high-profile site in the western side of the district, plot R5 houses a signature topend residential building, 320m in height, which will attract the most exclusive clientele from both Korea as well as the rest of the world. These Pentominium units will provide unsurpassed urban living experiences, with spatial and privacy features normally associated with individual houses.

In order to maximize w...

Build It Bigger host Danny Forster takes middle school students around the world

2012-05-23T13:42:00-04:00

Most Chippewa Middle School students haven’t been to Hong Kong or South Africa, but on Tuesday they took a tour of those places and others parts of the world under the wings of architecture buff Danny Forster, who hosts Build It Bigger on the SCIENCE channel.

Back in 2006, Archinect interviewed Danny as the host of Extreme Engineering while he was still working on his MArch at Harvard's GSD.

Creating the Post-Hipster City

2012-05-22T22:23:00-04:00

we want to experiment in making better public spaces. Cities are built in a very formal and classist fashion, which is at odds with the good that rapid production and public participation can do for urban development.

Tidda Tippapart recently talked to Aurash Khawarzad ( founder of Change Administration + co-founder of the Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary collective DoTank) about the challenge of creating the post-Hipster city, gentrification, and what it means to (re)build New York City from the ground up.

Police Arrest Artist Takeshi Miyakawa, Thinking Tribute Was Fake Bomb

2012-05-22T19:02:00-04:00

The artist intended it to be a display of his love for the city: white plastic bags stamped with the “I ♥ NY” logo lighted from within and glowing moonlike from lampposts and trees in Brooklyn and beyond. Almost immediately, the installation attracted attention, though probably not the kind the artist, Takeshi Miyakawa, expected.

"Mr. Miyakawa also worked for years as a model-maker for the architect Rafael Viñoly, Mr. Lim added."

A sneak peek of the new architecture-obsessed Batman graphic novel

2012-05-22T14:17:00-04:00

Gotham City is undergoing one of the most expansive construction booms in its history. The most prestigious architects from across the globe have buildings in various phases of completion all over town. As chairman of the Gotham Landmarks Commission, Bruce Wayne has been a key part of this boom, which signals a golden age of architectural ingenuity for the city. And then, the explosions begin.

Bethlehem Steel: Disposable Architecture or Iconic Landmark?

2012-05-22T14:11:00-04:00

That's the ultimate question of the Bethlehem Steel Administration building and unfortunately it looks as if the question has already been answered by the City of Lackawanna officials and the owners. Thankfully, there are still people who don't want to see this Beaux-Arts beauty sent to the landfill like so many great buildings before it.

The Architecture of the Great GoogaMooga: David Rockwell Dishes on the Food Festival's "Carny" Design

2012-05-22T14:02:00-04:00

After 26 years of designing restaurants in New York City, David Rockwell has become a go-to for gourmands. [...] This weekend, however, Rockwell showed off his set-design skills at Googa Mooga, the massive two-day outdoor food festival that debuted Saturday in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

Coalition for Sustainable Rail Plans to Create World's First Carbon-Neutral High-Speed Train

2012-05-22T12:35:00-04:00

“This project presents a novel approach to U.S. locomotive development, looking to technologies of the past to inspire solutions for today’s sustainability challenges." - Sustainable Rail International President Davidson Ward, 2010 School of Architecture graduate from the College of Design at the University of Minnesota

The Coalition for Sustainable Rail (CSR), a collaboration of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment (IonE) and the nonprofit Sustainable Rail International (SRI), announced plans to create the world's first carbon-neutral higher-speed locomotive. SRI President Davidson Ward, a 2010 School of Architecture graduate from the College of Design at the University of Minnesota says that he's confident the researchers at the University of Minnesota and his team of engineers, "will be able to bring this technology to the forefront of America's energy and transportation conversations." According to Ward, "This project presents a novel approach to U.S. locomotive development, looking to technologies of the past to inspire solutions for today's sustainability challenges."

Number of hours students study

2012-05-22T12:24:00-04:00

The survey, first published in 2000, queries freshmen and seniors. It reveals that study time can vary widely by college and by major. Architecture majors, for example, study 24 hours a week, while marketing majors put in only 12.

Architecture majors do study more than other majors.

Tokyo Opens World’s Tallest Tower to About 200,000 People

2012-05-21T17:37:00-04:00

The Tokyo Skytree, twice as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and its surrounding retail and office complex opens today to an estimated 200,000 visitors. [...] Tokyo Skytree, which took four years to build, surpasses the 600-meter Canton Tower in Guangzhou, China, as the world’s tallest, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Dubai’s 828-meter Burj Khalifa is the tallest building, according to the council.

To be precise, the opening ceremony for Tokyo Skytree is scheduled for Tuesday morning, May 22 at 9:15 a.m. local time.

Fiber Cement Butterflies Win Bullhorn - Cembrit Design Competition

2012-05-21T16:45:00-04:00

The proposal "Papilio" by Swedish architect duo Selime Osman and Ilyas Awadh has taken the first prize of EUR 10,000 (USD 12,770) in the Bullhorn - Cembrit Design Competition. The winning entry transmorphs fiber cement in a very poetic way into a swarm of light flying butterflies. The brief was to improve life settings in urban transit areas with the Malmi station area in Helsinki, Finland as case.

Zaha calls London Olympics organizers "rude"

2012-05-21T13:33:00-04:00

The architect who created the £269 million aquatics centre has criticised “rude” Games bosses for not inviting her to a single event. Zaha Hadid claimed she was not asked to the opening or closing ceremonies of the Games, or to any of the diving and swimming heats at her acclaimed building in the Olympic Park.

LA’s original subway

2012-05-21T13:26:00-04:00

Behold the Subway Terminal Building, hidden in plain sight in the middle of downtown LA, where at one point during the 1940′s over 65,000 riders were shuffling down into the depths of Los Angeles to board a train which traveled beneath the busy streets. And, fittingly, it’s just a block from where you might board the Red Line subway today.

Creepy-cool village where every house is a musical instrument

2012-05-21T13:23:00-04:00

The Music Box is a New Orleans art installation that makes regular artist’s colonies look like Camazotz. In this tiny shantytown, every building is also a musical instrument, and the entire town can be played in a beautiful, spooky symphony that looks and sounds like something out of Coraline.

Golden Gate Bridge sounds inspire musical works

2012-05-21T13:21:00-04:00

Musicians look at the bridge differently. Mickey Hart, the former Grateful Dead drummer, sees the Golden Gate Bridge as a "giant wind harp." He plans to be at Crissy Field on Sunday evening, the bridge's 75th birthday, to perform an original composition. The bridge will be the star. "The most famous bridge in America," Hart said, "is actually a musical instrument."

From Freewayland to the Garage

2012-05-21T13:03:00-04:00

Space International's renovation of Rudolph Schindler's Mackey Apartments is both pragmatic and sublime. Choosing to honor the existing architecture through contrast, the studio designed a cantilevered, 75-square metre counterpoint to the original building. An architecture report from Los Angeles by Mimi Zeiger

(Architectural) Komplaint Dept

2012-05-21T11:35:00-04:00

I remember Poly Styrene, the singer from X-Ray Spex, and all her prophetic songs from the late 70s: "I Am A Poser," "Germ-Free Adolescents," "Prefabricated Icon," "Genetic Engineering." Take a look at architecture and people today and you realize that it all came true.

A candid conversation on the horrendous state of new construction in New York, with the crankiest of architecture critics, Ivana Force-Majeure, and Vice Magazine's Bob Nickas.

Editor's Picks #264

2012-05-21T11:26:00-04:00

Philip Kennicott interviewed Frank Gehry and analyzed the current proposal for the Eisenhower Memorial and what has gone wrong to date with the process. Donna Sink, felt it "was an excellent article. The slideshow is the first time I've really understood the urban context of this memorial, and OMG I love it completely now!..."

For the latest Working out of the Box feature Archinect interviewed Prutha Raithatha. Raithatha is actually a full-time architect but also an experimental fashion blogger, stylist and writer. She writes a personal blog called Don’t Shoe Me that captures New York City’s rebellious street fashion and my personal experiments with styling in a storyline or an artistic concept all captured in cool photography.

News
Philip Kennicott interviewed Frank Gehry and analyzed the current proposal for the Eisenhower Memorial and what has gone wrong to date with the process. Donna Sink, felt it "was an excellent article. The slideshow is the first time I've really understood the urban context of this memorial, and OMG I love it completely now! it makes a wonderful outdoor room, and the narrative opportunities of the tapestries are great. Bringing a kid to this memorial will be fun, as they'll be able to have a level of understanding one doesn't get with a Classical building or a simple f...

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer sends brochure to Cupertino neighbors inviting feedback on new ‘Campus 2′

2012-05-20T11:40:00-04:00

Campus 2, as it is currently called, will not replace the 1 Infinite Loop campus. Instead, it will provide “research facility” office space for an additional 13,000 employees, which is more than 3,000 than 1 Infinite Loop. There is also 300,000 feet of expansion space for future growth.

From Cubicles, Cry for Quiet Pierces Office Buzz

2012-05-20T11:18:00-04:00

The original rationale for the open-plan office, aside from saving space and money, was to foster communication among workers, the better to coax them to collaborate and innovate. But it turned out that too much communication sometimes had the opposite effect: a loss of privacy, plus the urgent desire to throttle one’s neighbor.

Make a Buckminster Fuller Blanket Fort

2012-05-19T17:26:00-04:00

In 1975 Buckminster Fuller first defined the term tensegrity, a portmanteau of “tensional integrity.” It refers to structural systems that derive their stability from various elements acting against each other with equal force, like the surface tension of a bubble. Tensegrity lies at the heart of giant projects like the Georgia Dome. But you can apply it to build the ultimate blanket fort, supported by finely balanced brooms that never touch one another.

Bonjour Paris or Salaam Bombay?

2012-05-19T00:04:00-04:00

As we mention more and more that 21st century will be the century of rising sea levels, depletion of energy resources and century of urban nature, we still think the solution to these problems are once again will be produced by our far superior technological society as if we know these things better. We don't.

An early look at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park

2012-05-18T20:17:00-04:00

Archinect Editorial Contributor Aaron Plewke recently visited the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, which opens officially Fall 2012. Designed by Louis I. Kahn the park is on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, New York City. Check out more photo's via his Flickr stream.

SEEDocs launches with Owe’neh Bupingeh pueblo project

2012-05-18T17:24:00-04:00

SEEDocs launches with the story of the restoration and revitalization of the Owe’neh Bupingeh pueblo in Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico.

Team: Atkins Olshin Schade Architects, The Ohkay Owingeh Housing Authority

Location: Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico

Issues Addressed: Cultural Heritage, Historic Preservation, Education, Affordable Housing, Job Training, Community Building, Local Identity

Project Description: Re-creating a more vital Pueblo center and reinvigorating cultural heritage traditions through the rehabilitation of the historic Pueblo core was this project’s focus. The pueblo core is the spiritual, social and cultural center of the Pueblo. Community members were trained in traditional building techniques and played a key role in rebuilding the houses and community spaces. The project also re-appropriated preservation practices and treatment of the Pueblos’ cultural resources from federal guidelines to what is suitable for Ohkay Owingeh.

Gary Anderson, architect and designer of the recycling logo

2012-05-18T14:31:00-04:00

When I finished my studies, I decided I wanted to go into urban planning and I moved to LA. It seems funny, but I really played down the fact that I’d won this competition. I was afraid it would make me look like a graphics guy, rather than an urban designer. I didn’t even mention it on my résumé. Also, the symbol itself languished for a while. I remember seeing it once on a bank statement, but then it disappeared.

The Financial Times has an interesting story about Gary Anderson, an engineer/architect/urban planner that designed the famous recycling logo in a competition in 1971.

Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Color" Pinterest Board

2012-05-18T14:08:00-04:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Color.

↑ Auditoriums A, B, C at Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland by ZALEWSKI ARCHITECTURE GROUP

↑ Avant Chelsea in New York City by 1100 Architect (Photo: Eduard Hueber/ArchPhoto)

↑ VIVANTA WHITEFIELD in Whitefield, Banglore, India by WOW Architects | Warner Wong Design

↑ Condorcet School in Évry, France by Jean Baptiste PIETRI

↑ Haxi Town Plaza Building in Harbin, China by Zeybekoglu Nayman Associates

↑ Social Center in Mesoiro, A Coruña, Spain by Estudio de Arquitectura NAOS

↑ Villa Overgooi in Almere Overgooi, the Netherlands by NEXT architects

↑ Jean Lurçat School in Saint Denis, France by Mikou design studio

↑ House on Lake Okoboji in West Lake Okoboji, Iowa by ...

The Founder of TreeHugger and His Apartment of the Future

2012-05-18T13:57:51-04:00

This laboratory, as Mr. Hill calls it, for small-space, sustainable and — it must be stressed — high-end living is the first tangible product from his fledgling company, LifeEdited. It comes with an awkward manifesto that nonetheless manages to gather an armful of social and economic trends and philosophies, including happiness research, the booming field of collaborative consumption and data on the proven efficiencies of cities.