Archinect - News

Gia Wolff wins $100,000 Wheelwright Prize

2013-05-17T18:46:00-04:00

Gia Wolff, Brooklyn-based architect, wins $100,000 travel grant for her proposal Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats

Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, is pleased to announce that Gia Wolff, an architect based in Brooklyn, New York, is the winner of the inaugural Wheelwright Prize, a $100,000 traveling fellowship dedicated to fostering new forms of architectural research informed by cross-cultural engagement.

The Wheelwright Prize jury—Mostafavi, Yung Ho Chang, Farès el-Dahdah, K. Michael Hays, Farshid Moussavi, Zoe Ryan, and Jorge Silvetti—selected Gia Wolff from among 231 applicants from 45 countries, including Afghanistan, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, and Spain. Applicants were asked to submit portfolios along with a research proposal and travel itinerary, outlining an extended field investigation and its anticipated benefits for the field of architecture. “The positive response to the Wheelwright Prize has been extraordinary,” said Mostafavi. “It is inspiring to see so many talented architects with clear agendas...

Ed Mazria announces his 2030 Palette design tool

2013-05-16T14:35:00-04:00

The 2030 Palette is an interactive online tool that puts the principles behind low-carbon and resilient built environments at the fingertips of architects, planners and designers worldwide. Our goal is to inform the planning and design process at the point of inspiration. By curating the best information... highly complex ideas are made intuitive and accessible. Guiding principles are presented as individual “Swatches”, which together make up the larger fabric of sustainable built environments.

The site - www.2030palette.org - looks like a very useful resource. Could be useful for designers but even more so for client to get by in when trying "new" strategies.

Hirshhorn ‘Bubble’ risks operating at a loss, internal Smithsonian report says

2013-05-16T13:13:00-04:00

The Hirshhorn Museum’s proposed Seasonal Inflatable Structure, also known as “the Bubble,” a project announced in 2009 and intended as an architecturally and culturally transformative space on the Mall, would operate at a loss in each of three scenarios examined in an assessment done by the Smithsonian.

“We’ve said from the beginning, and the secretary [G. Wayne Clough] has said it, this is a bold project,” said Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for history, art and culture. “We’ve encouraged this, but it has to be raised by private money. In terms of doing that, we’re still trying to raise money for construction of the Inflatable Structure. We’ve been at this for some years. We hope its time has come now, but if not, we look forward to a better time.”

FRANK GEHRY AT WORK on View in New York City

2013-05-15T18:27:00-04:00

Gehry fans in NYC, here's one for you: A selection of over 30 Frank Gehry process models is currently on display at Manhattan's Leslie Feely Fine Art. The exhibition FRANK GEHRY AT WORK opened in April and still runs until June 29. The gallery is located at 33 E 68th Street, 5th Floor.

She may favor Brutalist forms...

2013-05-15T11:37:00-04:00

the 40-year-old architect has emerged as one of the country’s major creative voices, building an eclectic portfolio of work that includes a 10,000-square-foot neo-Brutalist palazzo, the master plan for an art-filled botanical garden and a spiritual refuge in the Jalisco Mountains. The projects vary wildly in attitude and style

Nicolai Ouroussoff profiled the Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao, for the NYT, T Magazine "Hot Summer" travel edition.

NEW CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR MONU #19 - GREATER URBANISM

2013-05-15T11:36:00-04:00

Are cities becoming "greater" these days? (Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief, May 2013)

Are cities becoming "greater" these days? When two years ago, in our 14th issue of MONU Magazine entitled "Editing Urbanism", we claimed that in the Western world, the need for new buildings and city districts was decreasing or even ceasing to exist altogether due to demographic changes and financially difficult times, we did not believe in all those new, big-scale, and long-term urban development strategies for the metropolitan areas of certain European cities that were being proposed at the time. The growth numbers that plans such as "Greater Helsinki" envisioned for the year 2050, trying to brand the city as one of the most dynamic metropolises in Europe, predicting a population growth from 1.3 million to 2 million, were too exuberant and too vast. However, other European cities, such as Paris, seem to be changing substantially within their metropolitan areas, their "greater" areas. Paris needs to build 70.000 new housing units per year. Mainly because of such requirements, but...

Eclectic Revisited: Preserving Venice's Architectural Context

2013-05-14T18:35:00-04:00

In Venice, Sandmeier wanted to tell the story of a whole neighborhood, not just emphasize the architectural merits of any one structure, and in doing so build a history of architects and artists working together. "Buildings are important for different reasons. Sometimes it's the architecture, sometimes it is the history, and sometimes it is the context," she explains. "Venice is a place with such rich cultural context that underlies the whole community, there is a lot to talk about."

Mimi Zeiger reports from the self-guided tour "Venice Eclectic: Modern Architecture from the '70s and '80s", part of "Curating the City Modern Architecture in L.A.," the Conservancy's ongoing contribution to Pacific Standard Time: Modern Architecture in Los Angeles.

Eric Owen Moss will be a guest on HuffPost Live today at 3:30 PST to discuss cities

2013-05-14T17:59:00-04:00

Eric Moss gets to play a real-life game of Sim City. The architect's 1986 master plan for Culver City proposed 43 buildings and half are completed today. Eric joins us along with others from across the country to discuss urban revitalization.

Charles Correa's influence and style

2013-05-14T10:17:00-04:00

His eye-catching buildings have helped define the architecture of post-independence India.

A new exhibition at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London - which has been gifted Correa's archive - celebrates his decades-long career. The BBC's took a look with the designer, fellow architect David Adjaye.

Editor's Picks #315

2013-05-14T08:00:00-04:00

News
Robin Pogrebin reported that following wide-ranging protests, the Museum of Modern Art has selected the design firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro to re-examine it’s planned expansion including whether to keep any of the existing American Folk Art Museum. Scott Gustafon was somewhat relieved "I believe that Tod Williams and Ricardo Scofidio are old friends, so this is a step in the right direction" and Lian Chikako Chang deadpanned "Pretty sure that DSR can handle staggered floorplates". Added Darkman "There is room behind the museum... you could install very gradual ramps or something. Additionally, i'd like to see the facade brought out to the sidewalk to open up the building--not sure how to do that though... ha. Or replace with semi-transparent glazing in the same pattern and shape. Would be cool to see it glow".

Bustler.net showcased Parabola Chair by Los Angeles-based architect and product designer Carlo Aiello, winner of the 2013 ICFF Studio Award. The chair will be e...

2013 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers

2013-05-13T18:49:00-04:00

The Architectural League of New York today announced the six winners of Range, the thirty-second annual Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers. The League Prize is one of North Americaʼs most prestigious awards for young architects.

This yearʼs winners are:

Rafael Luna and Dongwoo Yim, PRAUD, Boston and Seoul
Skylar J.E. Tibbits, SJET, Boston
Luis Callejas, Lcla Office, Cambridge and Medellín
Brandon Clifford and Wes McGee, Matter Design, Boston and Ann Arbor
Marc Fornes, MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY, Brooklyn
Bryan Young, Young Projects, Brooklyn

Gold Coast/Northern Rivers Regional Architecture Awards Winners

2013-05-13T17:06:00-04:00

A joint venture between PDT, STH and HASSELL, and a separate project by dm2architecture, have taken top honours in the 30th Australian Institute of Architects’ 2013 Gold Coast/Northern Rivers Regional Architecture Awards.

MoMA reconsiders razing of Folk Art Museum, hands decision over to newly selected architects DS+R

2013-05-09T17:12:00-04:00

AFTER impassioned protests from prominent architects, preservationists and design critics, the Museum of Modern Art said on Thursday that it would reconsider its decision to demolish its next-door neighbor, the former home of the American Folk Art Museum, to make room for an expansion.

In a board meeting on Thursday morning, the directors were told that a board committee had selected the design firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro to handle the expansion and to help determine whether to keep any of the existing structure.

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Announces 2013 National Design Awards Winners

2013-05-09T17:08:00-04:00

Winners of the 2013 National Design Awards, selected from a variety of disciplines, were unveiled today by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City.

Gaetano Pesce retrospective opens in NYC

2013-05-09T11:28:00-04:00

Pesce hasn’t had a comprehensive solo show in his adopted hometown since a 1999 exhibit tucked away at Columbia University’s School of Architecture. “He’s a legend and a New Yorker, so that tragedy needed to be corrected,” said Steven Learner, the creative director of the new Collective.1 Design Fair, where Pesce’s retrospective opened today.

For more information on the Collective .1 Design Fair, click here.

Libeskind's design selected for Columbus Holocaust memorial

2013-05-08T17:58:00-04:00

The specially appointed Holocaust Memorial Artist Selection Committee overwhelmingly favored Daniel Libeskind’s design for an 18-foot tall brushed stainless-steel memorial accompanied by a 40-foot walkway and memorial words etched in limestone.

After a daylong meeting in which the panel heard extensive presentations from all three artists, Richard H. Finan, chairman of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board, which will make the final decision on the design, strongly opposed Libeskind’s proposal. He said a memorial with a Jewish religious symbol would immediately open the state to legal challenges from the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations because of the separation of church and state.

Cities Of The Future, Built By Drones, Bacteria, And 3-D Printers

2013-05-08T12:43:00-04:00

*This screed is awesomely entertaining and full of cool links, even though it’s almost entirely implausible..There’s also the occasional built-from-scratch Brasilia. So, some people might build a city like this in some central-planned, high-tech rush, before realizing that urban drones, bacteria, and 3DPrinters are fated to become as old-fashioned and pokey as swoopy, Space Age Brasilia is right now. - Bruce Sterling

As part of the Futurist Forum series, Chris Arkenberg composed some vignettes, suggestive of how urban architecture(s) could transform from than the rigid construction methodologies of today, the result being that "Architecture will lose its formal rigidity, softening and flexing and getting closer to the life we see in plants".

h/t Bruce Sterling here

Richard Meier Reflects on His Last 50 Years, With Retrospective Opening in Italy

2013-05-08T12:39:00-04:00

I’m very happy to see all the works on display, and we’re busier now than we were then. We’re looking at things that we’re doing in the future. I think it’s good to be able to share so much of the work we have done that people wouldn’t otherwise come in contact with it. The exhibitions are good in that respect. We have all this stuff. Why keep it in the office? Send it out.

NBBJ Appoints Tim Leberecht Chief Marketing Officer

2013-05-08T08:43:00-04:00

NBBJ, a global architecture and design firm, today announced that it has appointed Tim Leberecht as its Chief Marketing Officer. Leberecht joins NBBJ from Frog Design where he led the marketing organization from 2006 to 2013 and helped transform the company into one of the world’s foremost design and innovation consultancies. He will direct NBBJ’s worldwide marketing, business development and communications from the firm’s San Francisco office.

“We’re thrilled to have Tim joining us,” said NBBJ managing partner Scott Wyatt, FAIA. “With his experience positioning Frog Design at the forefront of design innovation, and his continuing mission for brands to provide value, he’s exactly the person we were looking for as our first-ever chief marketing officer. His presence here underscores our ambition to become a leading force in transforming human experience and business performance through design.”

“I’m honored to join a firm with such a strong legacy, ethos and ambition,” said Tim...

A journalist remembers Mexican architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez

2013-05-07T13:33:00-04:00

Architecture and journalism, like politics, sometimes make strange bedfellows.

"Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, the great Mexican builder who died April 16 at age 94, was responsible for many of the monumental public works that defined the Modernist look and aspirations of his country in the post-World War II era. Among his projects were the stunning Museum of Anthropology in Chapultepec Park, the Azteca stadium, the Basilica de Guadalupe (all in Mexico City), the Museo Amparo in Puebla and the Centro Cultural de Tijuana."

Elena Poniatowska interview in La Jornada.

On the Folk Art Museum: Save Modernism from the Modern

2013-05-07T13:20:00-04:00

The Modernism worth pursuing — worth protecting — is the one where Gregor Samsa wakes up transformed into a large insect, and ends up with an apple embedded in his carapace, which is exactly what the Folk Art Museum is to the Museum of Modern Art, right now, right where it is.

On Places, David Heymann presents an incisive critique of MoMA's decision to raze the Folk Art Museum building, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.

From a quiet beginning — "Here is why I think the American Folk Art Museum is a great Modernist building" — Heymann works his way to a pointed conclusion: "Modernism in the architecture of the Modern is just another sad Historical Revival Style, the very thing Modernism as an ideology set out so intently to destroy."

Editor's Picks #314

2013-05-07T13:14:00-04:00

Over at the LA Times, Christopher Hawthorne reported on LACMA Director Michael Govan’s plan’s for $650-million new building by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor...Eric Chavkin commented "New construction has always been fundraising tail that wags the museum dog. Big names to draw bigger money...Now that AMPAS is leveraging it's Oscar prestige to be a part of LACMA, a new name to entice donor dollars is Zumthor, a name that means absolutely nothing to most.

News
Michael Z Wise reviewed the newest edition of Albert Speer, Architecture by Léon Krier for the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Wise concluded his review "Though he is again bemoaning a contemporary inability to regard classicism in a detached manner, it is Léon Krier who is in a delirious thrall to a malevolent aesthetic".

Will Galloway was surprised "wow, i didn't need another reason to dislike krier, but this one certainly seems more than enough to set aside any other complaint about the guy and never revisit them. its amazing that someone could hate modernism so much that even hitler's vision for the world seems palatable to him. nasty". For his part Steven Ward
argued "I'd rather see the swastika redeemed for its original associations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika) than see any redemption of Speer's work. It's not that the style(s) from which he borrowed were bad so much as his intentional bombastic over-scaling of everything. These buildings were meant to communicat...

Gehry pulls out of MOCA's 'A New Sculpturalism' exhibition

2013-05-03T16:11:00-04:00

Frank Gehry has pulled out of a major architecture exhibition set to open June 2 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, a move that could force the show to find a new venue or face the prospect of being canceled altogether. The exhibition... is an exploration of the last 25 years of Los Angeles architecture, with work by Gehry, Thom Mayne, Michael Maltzan, Barbara Bestor, Lorcan O'Herlihy and many younger architects.

Kimbell Art Museum announces the Renzo Piano-designed pavilion will open on Nov. 27

2013-05-03T14:11:00-04:00

The highly anticipated expansion to the Kimbell Art Museum, designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) and Kendall/Heaton Associates, opens to the public on Wednesday, November 27, 2013. Renzo Piano’s colonnaded pavilion stands as an expression of simplicity—glass, concrete and wood—surrounded by elms and red oaks, some 65 yards to the west of Louis I. Kahn’s vaulted, luminous museum of 1972.

Similar in scale to the Kahn building, the 300-foot-long, 22-foot-high building is composed of two parallel wings stretching from north to south, connected by two glass passageways. To the rear, the west wing will have a green sod roof, which appears to rise out of the ground with berms on either end and concrete retaining walls on the sides. The front, east wing is topped by a glass, steel and wood roof system. The wafer-thin top layer of this system, which features louvered photovoltaic cells, hovers above the east wing's most prominent feature: enormous laminated wood beams that appear to float above the concrete and glass walls and which are held aloft by square concrete columns.

The plan and elevation of the east wing, which faces the Kahn building, is tripartite, which mirrors the tripartite plan and elevation of the Kahn building. This is the most overt of the Piano building’s numerous echoes of its esteemed predecessor. The facade’s central, 100-foot-long recessed glas...

A blueprint for women architects to overcome doubt, discrimination

2013-05-02T14:29:00-04:00

Women make up almost half the graduating architecture classes, but only 17 percent of architecture-firm leadership. Even as women have made great strides in the field over the last several decades, that disconnect hasn’t gone away.

MOCA architecture show, funded by Getty, could face cancellation

2013-05-02T12:46:00-04:00

The exhibition was planned as an exploration of the last 25 years of Los Angeles architecture, with work by Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Michael Maltzan, Barbara Bestor and many younger architects. It was funded in part by a Getty Foundation grant of $445,000. No other single show in the PSTP series received a grant as large, according to a Getty press release. A 272-page catalog, co-published by Rizzoli, is already complete.

Facing delays in finishing the installation of the show, the show will be canceled, or, at best, delayed.

Architecture as Child's Play

2013-05-01T19:31:00-04:00

At university, students from other courses felt that we in architecture weren’t really studying at all; to them the studio seemed like some kind of uber-kindergarten, legitimated for academic credit.... The architecture profession seemed from the outside, and perhaps even to us on the inside, to promise an idyllic eternal childhood of balsa and glue and gee-whiz drawings on computers.

On Places, Naomi Stead discusses the popular conception of architecture as a kind of "child's play."

What do dollhouses and architectural models have in common? Why should we care about Lego Architecture and Architect Barbie and the romantic depiction of architects in Hollywood movies?

She concludes: "If the profession of architecture is constructed from the outside as an escapist daydream, available for the idle fantasizing and wish-fulfillment of all, then this leaves the whole profession operating inside a doll’s house: idyllic, hermetic and controlled, but largely powerless to act in the actual world."

UC Davis selects SO – IL to design art museum

2013-05-01T18:30:00-04:00

UC Davis today announced that it has selected an emerging New York-based design firm, SO – IL, to design the campus’s planned art museum, envisioned as a regional center of experimentation, participation and learning. The firm will work with team members Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, a prominent architectural firm with offices in San Francisco, Seattle and Pennsylvania, and contractor Whiting-Turner, a national construction firm...

The new museum advances the way museums and architecture are approached in the 21st century.

Designed by SO - IL in partnership with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, and built by Whiting-Turner, the design incorporates a 50,000 square foot steel structure that floats atop a series of interconnected interior and exterior spaces. The gallery space will be 29,000 square feet.

In describing the building, the architects state:

Davis is an ideal setting for a museum that will sow new ways of thinking about the experience of art. The Central Valley breathes a spirit of optimism. Whether one is influenced by the sweeping views over the flat plains beyond to the horizon, or the sense of empowerment one feels when being able to cultivate and grow freely—the spirit of this place is of invention and imagination. It is precisely this spirit we capture in our architectural proposal for the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.

As an overarching move, the design proposes a 50,000 s...

LACMA taps Zumthor for $650-million new look

2013-05-01T14:08:00-04:00

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, an acclaimed Swiss architect is hoping to pull off what an acclaimed Dutch one could not. Next month LACMA will publicly unveil a $650-million plan by Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor for a dramatic new museum building along Wilshire Boulevard.

Tour the spectacular new Mariinsky Theatre with architect Jack Diamond

2013-05-01T13:50:00-04:00

It may seem surprising that a Canadian was chosen to design a Russian state-funded match for the historic Mariinsky Theatre. Gergiev, general and artistic director of the theatre, visited Diamond’s Four Seasons Centre, home of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, and was wowed. When Gergiev and Diamond met for dinner the following year, the two saw eye to eye on everything from acoustics to street continuity.

Jack Diamond, of Diamond Schmitt Architects, takes CBC on a tour of the new Mariinsky Theatre, to open tomorrow in St. Petersburg.

More about the Mariinsky II can be found on D+S's website.