Archinect - News

Renzo Piano releases first concept designs for The Center for Arts & Innovation in Boca Raton, Florida

2024-04-19T18:30:00-04:00

Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) has released early concept designs for The Center for Arts & Innovation project in Boca Raton, Florida. The firm was announced as the winner of an international RFP process to imagine the Center in September of last year.

As stated in an announcement today, the new campus aims to foster the convergence of arts, education, business, and community in order to develop a new approach to how the world designs, imagines, programs, utilizes, and embraces cultural infrastructure.

Image: Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW)

The project will consist of a three-story building featuring permeable and luminous multi-use spaces. The eastern side of the scheme will include the “main venue,” a large multi-functional, convertible event, exhibition, and performance space designed to merge seamlessly with the outdoor piazza. The main venue is intended to be highly flexible, allowing for a variety of gatherings, exhibitions, performances, and innovative programming....

'Architecture as blossoms of the human spirit': Steven Holl reflects on 50 years of practice

2024-04-18T16:13:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects turns fifty this month. The globe-spanning operation that first began in California in 1974 and formed in New York three years later has been behind some of contemporary architecture’s most celebrated designs with 79 realized works in 13 U.S. states and 15 countries. Now, with five new projects in the pipeline, founder Steven Holl has shared with Archinect some reflections on his journey through architecture to mark the special anniversary milestone as part of a year-long commemoration.

St. Ignatius; concept watercolor from "Steven Holl", courtesy of Phaidon.

“Architecture is a great art with potential to change the way we live. I love drawing and painting ideas for architecture with the hope of public spaces realized as a gift to future generations. Merged with landscapes and ecologically advanced, I am looking forward to architecture as blossoms of the human spirit. As Frank Lloyd Wright said, ‘Buildings, too, are children of the Earth and Sun," he told us wh...

Editor's Picks #558

2024-04-18T15:38:00-04:00

Back in March, Niall Patrick Walsh published a chat with Melodie Yashar Vice President of Building Design & Performance at the construction technologies company ICON. At one point he quips "That’s a shame. Destructive testing would make for great TikTok content".

Later Melodie reflects "The most important thing, from my perspective…is to maintain a willingness to learn and listen to others from disparate fields…to keep an open mind, to be sure that the right people are at the table…to ensure we are not becoming siloed".

CarbonX material testing. Photo credit - ICON

News

Olson Kundig completed a series of eight custom single-family homes, in West Hollywood, collectively named ‘The Houses at 8899 Beverly’. Janosh agreed with jimblake, at least in terms of the "underlying sentiment. I like their work but in the same way some other people admire supercars. They are handsome, have nothing to do with my life and are not at all sustainable simply based on their size and resource consumpti...

Lesley Lokko and Marina Tabassum named among TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2024

2024-04-17T17:16:00-04:00

TIME Magazine has named architects Lesley Lokko and Marina Tabassum to its list of the world’s '100 Most Influential People of 2024.'

The recent RIBA Gold Medalist (Lokko) and Soan Medal winner (Tabassum) were honored by the publication along with artists Jenny Holzer and LaToya Ruby Frazier and global figures such as the noted Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza and Russian political activist Yulia Navalnaya.

Brief profiles from Harvard GSD’s Dean Sarah M. Whiting and filmmaker/screenwriter Ava Marie DuVernay accompany Tabassum and Lokko, who join a list of other architects selected as TIME 100 honorees that includes SCAPE founder Kate Orff (2023), Kengo Kuma (2021), Jeanne Gang (2019, Bjarke Ingels (2016), and Wang Shu (2013).

The full list of honorees is available here.

Esteemed academic and architect Janice Shimizu has passed away at 54

2024-04-17T13:54:00-04:00

Archinect is remembering the life and legacy of Ball State University architecture professor Janice Shimizu, who has passed away at the age of 54.

Janice won many hearts and minds throughout an estimable career in academia and the professional realm, sentiments that were repeated by the many people with whom she became familiar through her involvement in the Japanese-Canadian community in and around her native Manitoba.

She earned a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from the University of Manitoba before completing her graduate studies at SCI-Arc, later entering professional practice with Thom Mayne and Morphosis in Los Angeles and, in 2004, founding the now widely-recognized studio Shimizu + Coggeshall Architects (S+Ca) with husband Josh Coggeshall.

Revisit our 2017 Archinect Sessions conversation with Janice Shimizu below.

Donna Sink has shared the following thoughts with Archinect: “Janice was not only deeply respected but deeply loved by her colleagues and by hundreds o...

Influential 1970s women architects exhibition revisited in new Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation series

2024-04-15T14:03:00-04:00

The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) has launched a new audio documentary on an influential 1970s exhibition on women in architecture. Part of the BWAF series ‘New Angle: Voice,’ the episode will profile the Brooklyn Museum’s 1977 exhibition ‘Women in American Architecture.’

Curated by architect Susana Torre and sponsored by the Architectural League of New York, the exhibition received significant coverage across national and architectural media, including a review by Ada Louise Huxtable in The New York Times. The new audio episode, ‘Laying the Groundwork: Women in American Architecture, Spring 1977,’ debuts the first program of New Angle: Voice’s third and conclusive season, with later episodes to continue exploring the influences of women in architecture.

Image courtesy: Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation

Last year, we reported on the series’ profiling of Huxtable, the New York Times’ first-ever architectural critic, and Amaza Lee Meredith, a Black woman born in 18...

Aki Ishida appointed director of the Sam Fox School College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design

2024-04-15T13:16:00-04:00

Washington University in St. Louis has announced the appointment of Aki Ishida as the next director of the Sam Fox School College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design. The current associate professor and interim associate director of Virginia Tech’s School of Architecture will take over duties effective July 1st. Her appointment follows the departure of Heather Woofter, who left St. Louis to become the new Dean at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture last summer.

"Aki is an accomplished architect and designer, a respected scholar and a dedicated teacher and mentor. She is fascinated by the ways social conditions can shape the built environment, and she has a long history of collaborating with artists, engineers and health-care professionals, among others. I am confident Aki will be an inspiring leader who will connect deeply with our community and advance the strategic goals of the school and university. We are proud to welcome her t...

Frank Gehry talks to the LA Times about his ever-expanding vision for downtown Los Angeles

2024-04-12T17:50:00-04:00

Frank Gehry has provided some interesting comments to the LA Times to coincide with last week’s groundbreaking of the new Colburn Center in downtown Los Angeles, a vital lynchpin for the city’s post-COVID economic rebound.

Speaking on the record for an article to the paper’s business section, the 95-year-old Walt Disney Concert Hall designer told reporters about his still-expanding vision for the Grand Avenue corridor and beyond. The neighborhood has been a bit of an obsession of his since the end of the 1990s. Now, he says, "we still have work to do," adding that Little Tokyo, the Arts District, and other neighborhoods near Bunker Hill can and should have their own culture-backed transformations performed to facilitate a revival pushed by LA Mayor Karen Bass and other civic leaders.

The Broad museum also recently announced its own $100 million expansion plans. Our February preview of the new $335 milli...

Jeffrey Beers International presents new leadership team following the death of its founder

2024-04-10T15:20:00-04:00

Jeffrey Beers International (JBI) has announced a new leadership team in the absence of its namesake founder, who passed away last month from cancer at the age of 67.

The firm has appointed partners Michael Pandolfi, Nora Liu-Kanter, and Tim Rooney as new leaders of the 37-year-old New York-based studio practice. Together, they will now lead a team of more than 50 staff members. Pandolfi is the company’s longest-standing employee among the group followed by Kanter, who first joined the office in 2002.

“Jeffrey's impact on our studio, the architecture and design industry, and countless communities around the world is immeasurable. We are coming together to support the firm’s continued growth — our collaboration not only harmonizes our diverse design approaches and deep market insights but also underscores our shared ethos and dedication to upholding Jeffrey’s distinctive aesthetic, devotion to design excellence, and genuine kindness for everyone he worked with,” they each said in a s...

Tadao Ando's MPavilion extended for another year in Melbourne

2024-04-10T13:26:00-04:00

The Naomi Milgrom Foundation and City of Melbourne have jointly announced they will be extending the run of Tadao Ando’s new MPavilion commission at Queen Victoria Gardens for another full year until March of 2025.

"We’ve been thrilled to see visitors of all ages and from far and wide flock to MPavilion, curious to experience what Tadao Ando, an extraordinary master of design, has created for Melbourne. Being in the pavilion, looking across water and out to the green of the surrounding parklands has an immediate and unique calming effect, a slowing down amidst the fast pace of contemporary life," the foundation’s founder Naomi Milgrom said.

Photo: John Gollings, courtesy of MPavilion.

"The pavilion has seen myriad curated and informal activities this last summer, from pilates and picnics to drawing, photography and more. Engaging in great architecture and design enriches our city and our lives, and this extended partnership with the City of Melbourne means even more of the community...

Ray Kappe's Keeler House lists for $12 million in Los Angeles

2024-04-05T18:23:00-04:00

Late SCI-Arc founder Ray Kappe’s Keeler House design has hit the market in Pacific Palisades, California, for $12 million.

The split-level, 4,142-square-foot Post and Beam design was built over four and a half years using Kappe’s nearby personal residence as its model. A rich palette of redwood, teak, Douglas fir, concrete, and glass feature carefully throughout the home, which sits on a 7-acre hillside lot and is replete with a two-car garage, four bedrooms, three baths, a storeroom, and separate guest quarters.

Kappe designed the home in 1991 for a local jazz musician. Its interior layout is centered around its open-plan living/entertainment area that is cantilevered to extend over the hillside. A pleasing layered effect composes the interior, with glass inlay floor and ceiling blocks included to further incorporate the presence of natural light deeper into the structure via a vaulted skylight. Six concrete towers work to elevate the home above the tree line, allowing for a floati...

MoMA exhibition on 20th-century Latin American design is a 'gem' says Michael Kimmelman

2024-04-05T13:31:00-04:00

The show is a gem. It focuses on domestic design from six countries (Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Venezuela), produced between 1940 and 1980. Latin America had entered a period of transformation, industrial expansion and creativity. Across the region, design was becoming institutionalized as a profession, opening up new avenues, especially for women.

Critic Michael Kimmelman has heaped praise on the 'Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980' MoMA exhibition in a new piece for The New York Times. As we reported in December of last year, the show looks at the growth of modernism through an industrial and entrepreneurial lens, using a selection of examples from well-known and revered architects and designers such as Joaquim Tenreiro, Lina Bo Bardi, and Oscar Niemeyer.

"The role that women and immigrants played in shaping professional design and developing a national design vocabulary in Latin America will be emphasized, including the work of designers such as Clara Porset in Mexico, Cornelis Zitman in Venezuela, and Susi Aczel in Argentina," MoMA said about their exhibition at the time.

Beloved Italian designer and architect Gaetano Pesce passes away at 84

2024-04-04T18:05:00-04:00

Gaetano Pesce, the critically acclaimed Italian architect and designer of thought-provoking furniture, has passed away in New York City at the age of 84. He will be remembered for a groundbreaking career that spanned six decades and saw his many designs scattered across four continents and collected by major worldwide institutions, including MoMA, Vitra Design Museum, and Centre Pompidou.

After beginning his career as an industrial designer in Italy in the 1960s, the 2023 Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award winner turned into one of the leading figures behind the Radical Design movement. His contributions included the Up5 chair he made for B&B Italia, the Moloch floor lamp, and other artistic pieces that commented on politics and society through its heyday until the end of the 1970s.

Up Chair series by Gaetano Pesce, 1969. Photo courtesy Créateurs Design Awards

He would later move to New York to teach at Pratt Institute in 1980, a position he held in addition to running a simul...

Frida Escobedo reveals first American residential design in Brooklyn

2024-04-04T15:16:00-04:00

Frida Escobedo’s first American residential commission has been revealed as a block-scale condominium project in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The designer of the new Modern and Contemporary Art Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (in which she has set up a working studio) will deliver the new Bergen development at 209,000 square feet for client Avdoo & Partners by 2025.

It will stand as the second building project in the New York market for Escobedo following her collaboration with Handel on the new National Black Theatre mixed-use development in Harlem.

Image credit: DARCSTUDIO

Escobedo had gained notoriety in Mexico for residential projects, including Mar Tirreno 86, which will now inform her latest design, calling for 105 units configurable in 53 different types and ranging from studios to five bedrooms. The facade of the building is angled such that it maximizes natural light from an east-west direction, with porous openings made along the street level to produc...

Seeking expansion, atelier masōmī rebrands to Mariam Issoufou Architects

2024-04-02T18:50:00-04:00

The ten-year-old practice known as atelier masōmī has announced it is rebranding as Mariam Issoufou Architects.

Formed by Mariam Issoufou (née Kamara) shortly after her graduation from the University of Washington, the Niger-based practice is now a widely known entity with projects featured in exhibitions worldwide and their name included as finalists for several top industry honors, such as the 2019 Prince Claus and Royal Academy Dorfman awards, 2020 Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture nomination, and 2022 Aga Khan Award shortlist.

In an announcement detailing the name change, the studio said: "We have seen a growing interest in our work and our intersectional approach to sustainability from South America, North America, Middle East and Europe. This expansion in the geographic scope of our work has presented an opportunity for us to open a design studio in New York, where our founder and principal, Mariam Issoufou, is building a team. Through her professorship at ETH Zu...

Frank Lloyd Wright's early Prairie-style design lists for $779,000 in Illinois

2024-03-29T14:41:00-04:00

The home credited as one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s first Prairie School designs, the 1900 Warren Hickox House, has hit the market recently in Kankakee, Illinois, for a listing price of $779,000.

Realtor.com was early to report news of the home’s listing, which represents the first time the home has been available for purchase in 48 years. Sited adjacent to the R. Harley Bradley House from the same year, the 3,277-square-foot design features four bedrooms and 2.5 baths and is completed by a Japanese-inspired roofline the then 33-year-old Wright was drawn to even before his first visit to the country in 1905.

First floor plan. Image: Freiluft/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Frank Lloyd Wright Trust describes: “Despite the relatively small scale of the residence, Wright created a sense of both interior and exterior expansiveness through his use of a modified cruciform plan and his manipulation of architectural space, form, and details.”

Second floor plan. Image: Freiluft/Wikimedia Co...

AO honored with ‘AO Day’ in Orange, California, for 50th anniversary

2024-03-28T17:53:00-04:00

Yesterday, March 27th, saw a special celebration of AO (formerly Architects Orange) in the city of Orange, California, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of their founding.

The practice was honored by the city and Mayor Dan Slater with "AO Day" in recognition of their award-winning work and dedication to community building locally. The celebration comes after a recent bid for what would be North America’s tallest building in Oklahoma City, commissioned by Orange County-based developer Scot Matteson, has placed them in the international spotlight.

Related: Archinect's coverage of the 1,907-foot Legends Tower proposal in Oklahoma City, which AO designed.

The firm was founded by Orange High School graduate Jack Selman in 1974, shortly after finishing his studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Since rebranding in 2019, the organization has become the largest architecture firm in Orange County, as well as one of its largest overall employers. AO now operates offices in s...

Four Pritzker Prize-winning architects have recently designed watches

2024-03-28T11:00:00-04:00

There are countless examples of architects expanding beyond buildings and architecture to engage with product design. This month alone, for example, our news coverage has included a swirling whisky bottle designed by a Zaha Hadid Architects director, a lighting product range by Snøhetta, and a series of biophilic design products by ecoLogicStudio.

In particular, the fashion industry has played host to several intriguing collaborations with big architectural names. Late last year, Frank Gehry collaborated with Louis Vuitton on a handbag for Art Basel Miami Beach one year after Louis Vuitton’s Peter Marino collaboration while, in 2022, Amale Andraos debuted a jewelry collection for Judith Ripka. To further explore this relationship between architecture, product, and fashion, we have rounded up four recent examples of notable architects engaging in the design of watches.

Tambour Moon Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève Sapphire. Image credit: Louis Vuitton

Frank Gehry for Louis Vuitton: Tambou...

Richard Serra, monumental steel sculptor and inspiration to many architects, has died at 85

2024-03-27T11:20:00-04:00

Richard Serra has died. The 85-year-old sculptor who made architecture more or less a permanent condition of his art was known for inventing a process for bending corten steel to create works he explained were about eliciting sensation and intended to display the unseen physical forces of nature.

More than any other contemporary artist (Sarah Sze, Robert Irwin, Richard Estes, etc.) whose work is informed by or makes as its subject architecture, Serra’s use of steel as a means of organizing space and sequencing experience within it is, arguably, the greatest primer for any learner embarking on academic studies in the field.

He began his experimentations first with rubber before advancing to cast lead and then finally steel, a material whose properties and building potential he understood innately thanks to time spent working in steel mills during his early years in California. The opportunity to study art at Yale University changed his life thereafter.

Serra's 'Bend' sculpture at the...

Acclaimed architect Jeffrey Beers passes away aged 67

2024-03-22T11:59:00-04:00

New York's Jeffrey Beers International (JBI) has shared news that its founder Jeffrey Beers passed away from a battle with cancer on Monday, March 18th, at the age of 67.

A prominent figure in hospitality design and planning schemes, Beers began his career as an architect in I.M. Pei's New York office shortly before forming his own studio practice in the city in 1986. The next 38 years have seen its brand grow in influence to be synonymous with celebrity chefs and entertainers, corporate America, and international hotel brands.

Beers credited his Fulbright program mentor Oscar Niemeyer and former RISD professor glass artist Dale Chihuly among his influences as he pursued an architecture that suffused fine art, luxury, and a highly-tuned sensibility for good design.

“Throughout my career, I’ve been very fascinated by the intersection between architecture, design and art. Over the years I have collaborated with many artists, incorporating their work in a space but also bringing their...

Pascale Sablan, Kofi Bio, Lucy Tilley announced as new co-CEOs of Adjaye Associates

2024-03-18T14:59:00-04:00

Adjaye Associates has announced the promotions of three new CEOs in an organizational restructuring that will see founder David Adjaye step into a new role as the Executive Chair of the group and the firm's Principal.

Pascale Sablan, Kofi Bio, and Lucy Tilley will now lead the New York, Accra, and London studios as CEOs, respectively. Sablan, most recently the 2023-24 NOMA President, is perhaps the best-known architect of the group. She will impart her past experience as an Associate Principal in the New York office, which she first joined as a Senior Associate in January of 2021. Her time there has coincided with a host of important national recognitions, including being named winner of the 2021 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award.

Bio and Tilley both have experience as Associate Prinicapls in the Accra and London studios, respectively.

In a statement published to the firm’s website, Adjaye said: “Today’s announcement reflects a fundamental change in the way Adjaye Associates will now be r...

Le Corbusier protégé and longtime Knowlton School professor José Oubrerie dies aged 91

2024-03-12T19:42:00-04:00

José Oubrerie, a French architect with ties to many leading modernists, has died at the age of 91.

The longtime Knowlton School professor was noted for his academic accomplishments and for being one of the last surviving members of Le Corbusier’s studio. He inspired many generations of students to long careers in architecture, departing with his own being both highly decorated and admired within the broader community of professional design.

"He showed a direction for architecture during a time of great confusion," friend Steven Holl wrote in a tribute published to his firm’s website yesterday. "Now at a time where architecture seems to have drifted into commercial activity with firms of hundreds of people, he reminded us that in the office of Le Corbusier, at the end, there were only six employees including José. His dedication to architecture came with a jolly sense of humor and enormous bank of stories, which shall be passed down by many as dedicated as he was."

Oubrerie and Holl...

Editor's Picks #557

2024-03-12T15:03:00-04:00

For the first Studio Snapshots of 2024, Alexander Walter had the pleasure of chatting with Brent Linden and Chris Brown, founding partners of Portland, Oregon-based Linden, Brown Architecture. Noah Walker liked what he saw: "Beautiful work."

Plus, Niall Patrick Walsh lays out how Creativity Won’t Protect Architects from Automation — But Labor Unions Might. Responding to Thayer-D’s comment, Janosh writes: "Unions make a ton of sense in disciplines where there is significant profit being inequitably distributed - that's definitely not the case in Architecture as profit margins continue to fall".

News

Steven Holl Architects Terezín Ghetto Museum project in the Czech Republic is getting closer to groundbreaking. Gary Garvin is hoping "Holl redeems himself here…I'm curious about the interior."

Image courtesy Steven Holl Architects and SKUPINA

KPF released new images of a supertall tower, 520 Fifth Avenue, currently under construction in Midtown Manhattan. gwharton tried to summarize folks...

Buildings Speak: NPR special will explore the impacts of women on American architecture for International Women’s Day

2024-03-06T13:57:00-05:00

For this year's International Women’s Day on March 8, NPR is airing a special one-hour documentary produced with help from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF). The piece aims to shed light on the overlooked contributions of women in architecture to an American mass audience for the first time.

Narrated by the great Oscar-winning actor and producer Frances McDormand, ‘Buildings Speak: Stories of Pioneering Women Architects’ is a collaboration with producers The Kitchen Sisters. The special draws three of the figures (Julia Morgan, Amaza Lee Meredith, and Natalie de Blois) featured in the BWAF’s unmissable New Angle: Voice podcast series, the third season of which also premiers on International Women’s Day with a special focus on the architecture of the 1970s.

Tizziana Baldenebro, the new executive director of the BWAF, commented: “They are trailblazers, groundbreakers, skyscraper visionaries — women who changed the skyline and the built environment that surrounds us tod...

Seven defining projects by the 2024 Pritzker Prize winner Riken Yamamoto

2024-03-05T17:40:00-05:00

This morning’s announcement of Riken Yamamoto as the 53rd official laureate of the Pritzker Prize has come with praise for the Beijing-born Japanese designer whose community-minded approach to architecture has impacted countless lives. Many outside of Asia were surprised by his selection, which is being received as a win for rational design principles, relational aesthetics, and the democratization of architecture.

He is particularly well-known for placing emphasis on the boundaries and periphery spaces inherent in his designs, as well as for having an equal competency in transfusing landscapes within their natural environments and urban context. To date, completed works include projects in Japan, Switzerland, China, and the Republic of Korea.

“Yamamoto has expanded the toolbox of the profession towards both the past and the future to be able to give each time, in very different modes and at very different scales, the most pertinent response to the challenges of both the built envi...

Former AIA Gold Medalist Antoine Predock passes away aged 87

2024-03-05T12:00:00-05:00

The Albuquerque Journal is reporting Antoine Predock to have passed away on March 2nd at the age of 87.

The architect and long-tenured University of New Mexico faculty member left a mark on the state he called his “spiritual home” over a four-decade career that culminated in the 2006 AIA Gold Medal and a Lifetime Achievement honor from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards the following year.

Predock is best known for creating the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg and a definitive portfolio of public, institutional, and residential designs in New Mexico and the Southwest Region, which was a constant source of inspiration. His work outside of the state eventually garnered the most recognition, notably his design for Austin, Texas’s City Hall, the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, and the well-admired Petco Park in San Diego.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg. Image: Ken Lund/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Predock also operated an office in Taiwan ...

Riken Yamamoto wins the 2024 Pritzker Prize

2024-03-05T09:00:00-05:00

Japanese architect Riken Yamamoto has been awarded the 2024 Pritzker Prize.

Born in 1945, the architect and social advocate has built a career that establishes kinship between public and private realms, in pursuit of harmonious societies that overcome diverse identities, economies, politics, infrastructures, and housing systems.

Yamakawa Villa, photo courtesy of Tomio Ohashi

“For me, to recognize space, is to recognize an entire community,” Yamamoto notes. “The current architectural approach emphasizes privacy, negating the necessity of societal relationships. However, we can still honor the freedom of each individual while living together in architectural space as a republic, fostering harmony across cultures and phases of life.”

Jian Wai SOHO, photo courtesy of Mitsumasa Fujitsuka

Yamamoto was chosen by the Pritzker jury for his championing of a profession that creates awareness in the community, "questioning the discipline of architecture to calibrate each individual architectural ...

Fernanda Canales talks to the New York Times about designing better social opportunities in a challenged Mexico

2024-03-04T13:22:00-05:00

“Without opportunities for social interaction, places are more insecure, divided and isolated [...] How can you provide value to a landscape that is neglected? How do you provide an opportunity to see your town in a new way?”

Against a national backdrop poisoned by femicides, border politics, and the equally toxic influence of cartels, Fernanda Canales is making democratic life in underserved Mexican communities more feasible through her highly user-sensitive and socializing designs.

The Mexico City-based architect tells the New York Times' Sam Lubell of her contributions to the government’s $2 billion Programa de Mejoramiento Urbano (or P.M.U.) program, "They will survive local circumstances — issues of budgets, politics and vandalism," adding that "Over time, the public starts to make decisions and inject life. Things change and adapt. Time teaches us what prevails. Often it’s what we can’t imagine now."

Canales was also one of a century profiled in RIBA’s new 100 Women: Architects in Practice, which came out in January and has been reviewed favorably as an essential guide to future equality in the profession. She has been teaching at the UT Austin School of Architecture since the Fall after seeing ...

AI models predict the 2024 Pritzker Winner

2024-03-04T08:10:00-05:00

As the architecture community anticipates the official Pritzker Prize announcement this Tuesday, our team at Archinect has been fully immersed in the whirlwind of predictions and speculations. A few days ago we published a roundup of forecasts from the Archinect community, highlighting potential winners such as Moshe Safdie, Barclay Crousse, Eyal Weizman/Forensic Architecture, Thomas Heatherwick, H arquitectes, and Johnston Marklee, to name just a few. This curiosity led to an idea for a fun experiment: consult with various Artificial Intelligence models to gauge their insights on the prestigious award's 2024 recipient. Initiating conversations with four leading LLM models—ChatGPT 4, Google Gemini, Anthropic's Claude 2, and Perplexity—I navigated the sometimes hilariously clumsy, but mostly very interesting "thoughts" from our AI frenemies. Each of the models ended up predicting different winners, but there's a common theme with all of the selections that you'll notice.

I conducted...

AIA elevates 96 architects and two non-members to the AIA College of Fellows

2024-03-01T18:46:00-05:00

The American Institute of Architects has selected 96 member architects and 2 non-member architects to the AIA College of Fellows.

A jury of seven-member fellows led by Chair Lisa Lamkin of Brown Reynolds Watford Architects was responsible for the selection process, which vets architects up for consideration for the College of Fellows. The Honorary Fellows were selected by a separate nine-person panel chaired by Sandra Barclay. Each new fellow will be honored at the AIA Awards Gala held June 7th at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

To gain admission, candidates must have at least ten years of AIA membership and demonstrated influence in at least one of the six broad areas, including the advancement standards of practice, promotion of different efficiencies, higher living standards for the built environment, and pursuit of an architecture that is in service to society.

The full list of new member Fellows and their AIA affiliation reads as follows:

Douglass Alligood, AIA...