Archinect - News

"Wheel of Everyday Life" installed at Rice Gallery

2013-02-13T18:41:00-05:00

In her work, Swedish artist Gunilla Klingberg explores her interests in everyday consumerism and forms of Eastern spirituality. To do this she covers architectural spaces with ornate, repetitive patterns that she creates by transforming supermarket, fast food, big box store, and common household product logos. She incorporates these into large-scale, circular patterns that resemble sacred mandalas. Mandalas are cosmological diagrams that symbolically represent the universe and its cycles of life, death, and rebirth. As with a mandala, Klingberg's Wheel of Everyday Life begins at a central point and expands outward as if it could continue to infinity.

Bracket 2 — Goes Soft launch event in Houston February 17

2013-02-13T10:30:00-05:00

Bracket [Goes Soft] HOUSTON Book Launch and Discussion with Neeraj Bhatia, Ned Dodington, Scott Colman, and Christopher Hight. February 17th @ Architecture Center Houston

Renzo Piano’s Menil Collection Wins the 2013 AIA Twenty-five Year Award

2013-01-16T18:32:00-05:00

The AIA today selected the Menil Collection Houston, designed by Renzo Piano, to receive the 2013 AIA Twenty-five Year Award.

Blaffer Art Museum, designed by WORKac, opens in Houston

2012-12-10T19:15:00-05:00

WORK Architecture Company's dramatic new addition and renovation of the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, Texas has opened to the public with a twenty-year survey dedicated to influential American sculptor Tony Feher.

Founded in 1973, the Blaffer Art Museum is a preeminent contemporary art museum without a permanent collection set in the midst of University of Houston’s enormous central campus. With high-profile exhibitions that are free and open to the public, as well as extensive educational programs, the museum has the potential to act as a gateway between the university and the city. However, its visibility and identity were previously hampered by the fact that its entrance was hidden and accessible only through an internal courtyard. Within, its galleries were excessively impacted by circulation, including a stairway in the middle of two galleries, and another gallery only accessible by a hallway through the administrative offices.

The project represents an important sh...

Rem Koolhaas dismisses preservation in Houston, offers an alternative approach

2012-10-12T14:28:00-04:00

Building upon a short Wednesday evening presentation he gave at Rice, Koolhaas opened with discussion of historical preservation, a topic that elicited mixed emotions for the architect while, at the same time, offered a window into his approach to the built environment. "Preservation is a highly artificial term," he explained. "History happens and leaves its traces . . . I have to say, I prefer history without preservation."

In 25th anniversary year, Menil Collection names architect for initial expansion into neighborhood

2012-06-11T15:20:00-04:00

Almost twenty-five years to the day after Dominique de Menil and architect Renzo Piano celebrated the opening of the central museum building of the Menil Collection, Director Josef Helfenstein announced that the Board of Trustees has unanimously chosen the Los Angeles -based architecture firm Johnston Marklee to design the Menil Drawing Institute, the first major building project to be initiated under an ambitious plan for the institution’s future.

bracket [goes soft]: Dredge Locked

2012-04-19T13:10:00-04:00

In anticipation of today's event, Publish Or... bracket [GOES SOFT], we are showcasing a piece from the book each day this week. We hope to see you tonight!

Dredge Locked
by Alex Yuen

Unnoticed by many, Houston’s shipping channel, like many such commercial waterways around the globe, is subjected to a continual process of dredging, in order to maintain a certain breadth and depth to accommodate the vessels that enter and leave Houston every day. This material, however, is seldom regarded as anything but waste and is deposited and contained, either within the channel or on shore, taking up space and spreading the harmful bi-products of the petrochemical facilities in the area. Up to this point, such actions have rarely been scrutinized and this system of isolating and hiding the contaminated material, even at such a massive scale, continues. Yet as the world and Houston move into a new era of awareness and accountability, major possibilities are lost by simply sweeping ...

ULI/Hines Competition Announces the 2012 Finalists + Honorable Mentions

2012-03-05T15:12:00-05:00

Graduate-level student teams representing the University of California-Berkeley, Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and a joint team from the University of Colorado and Harvard University have been selected as finalists for the tenth annual Urban Land Institute (ULI) Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. This year’s finalists were charged with proposing a long-term vision for creating a distinct identity for a new downtown Houston district.

MFAH hires Steven Holl Architects to design expansion

2012-02-02T16:36:00-05:00

The board's long-range planning committee chose Holl, based in New York City and Beijing, after reviewing site-specific concepts from three internationally known architecture firms, including Snøhetta and Morphosis, according to a statement from board chair Cornelia Long.

Houston's Trafalgar Square? Big name architects vie to design futuristic METRO Central Station

2012-01-28T18:05:00-05:00

Some of the names might already sound familiar to Houston design aficionados. Interloop principles Mark Wamble and Dawn Finley are professors at Rice. Denari received his undergraduate architecture degree from UH. Snøhetta is a finalist for the upcoming contemporary galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and SHoP Architects are behind the current renovations for the Blaffer Art Museum.

Three Firms Selected for Museum of Fine Arts Houston Expansion

2011-05-31T19:34:00-04:00

The Museum of Fine Arts Houston has selected three architecture firms—Morphosis, Snøhetta and Steven Holl Architects—to submit conceptual design proposals for an expanded MFAH. The project entails the construction of a building intended primarily for post-1900 art, a parking garage and the integration of surrounding MFAH buildings and public spaces.

Plans to fulfill Marzio dream of arts facility progress

2011-05-31T13:40:13-04:00

Just six months after the death of its longtime director, Peter C. Marzio, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has chosen three architects to submit designs for the new building he envisioned and hired a firm to search for his successor. Selected from an international list of 10 candidates, the firms are Morphosis, Snøhetta and Steven Holl Architects. Each will develop a concept for a building to house post-1900 art as well as a parking garage.