Archinect - News

Shedding its Fusty Architectural Past, Philly Welcomes Nordic Starchitect Snøhetta

2013-03-28T19:40:00-04:00

The latest evidence of Philadelphia’s architectural comeback? The Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta is coming to town for a project at Temple University. “We have a fantastic tradition of quality architeture and urbanism in Philadelphia, but we do go through low ebbs in that tradition,” says Harris Steinberg, the executive director of PennPraxis, the clinical arm of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design.

The Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta has designed some of the most notable buildings and public spaces in the world over the last 15 years. The new Oslo Opera House. Egypt’s Bibliotheca Alexandrina. A reconfigured Times Square in New York, and a massive expansion of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Next up? Temple University’s library, on a still-gritty stretch of Broad Street between Montgomery and Norris in North Philadelphia. Snøhetta director and co-founder Craig Dykers is delivering a lecture on campus next week, sharing some of his firm’s work with Temple students and a general audience of designers, architects and urbanists.

Dykers might shed some light on Snøhetta’s early stage thinking for the library project, but design work has not yet begun, so don’t expect any renderings.

Even so, Dykers is likely to address a full house. The Oslo-based firm, which was featured in a glowing 5,400-word New Yorker profile in January, is very much in vogue. Plenty of its...

Olafur Eliasson Designs Mayors Challenge Award Trophy

2013-03-20T20:36:00-04:00

In our last news post, we reported about the city of Providence, RI winning the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge. Besides raking in the $5M top prize money, Providence can now also marvel at another perk that comes with winning the Grand Prize: a stunningly beautiful award trophy designed by acclaimed Danish artist Olafur Eliasson.

The award is a spherical model formed by three concentric circles – square, circle, and dodecagon – encircling a hanging compass. To design the award, Eliasson drew inspiration from the very spirit of The Mayors Challenge – fueling ideas and innovation for a better tomorrow for cities everywhere. No matter where the prize is placed or located, the compasses will point the same way – assisting viewers and uniting the prize winners in imagining their collective responsibility to navigate towards the greater good for all.

The Grand Prize award trophy will be installed at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

The other four cities that w...

Six Finalists of NYC’s Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge

2013-03-11T17:27:00-04:00

New York City leaders have announced the winning prototypes from the Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge which launched last December. [...] The competition had invited architects, students, urban designers, planners, technologists, and policy experts to create physical and virtual prototypes that imagine the future of NYC’s approximately 11,000 public pay telephones.

Design for an Aging Population

2013-02-06T23:23:00-05:00

A new multidisciplinary field has emerged in several universities in which sociologists, psychologists and urban planners work to tailor architectural designs to seniors as that demographic continues to grow. In America, 54 million people are over the age of 55 and that number is predicted to increase over the next 30 years by nearly 50 per cent. Despite most people’s desire to age in their own homes, most will be required to seek alternative arrangements.

The Raw Design Movement for Interior Design

2013-01-21T14:07:00-05:00

In an industry constantly pursuing innovative design that is both environmentally and ethically sound, the implementation of raw materials is directing interior design in 2013. Natural materials are being sourced and taking on new forms as designers reinvent familiar items with sustainable credentials.

Outside The Box Idea To Tackle China’s Population Problem

2013-01-17T14:02:00-05:00

In an innovative response to the current property squeeze in China, a Beijing architectural and a design firm have combined creative forces to develop a portable house and garden on the back of a tricycle. The Tricycle House and Garden is a sustainable mobile home with its design and construction inspired by the shape and movement of an accordion. The playful designed is also being described as the “adult cardboard box fort box.”

The People’s Architecture Office (PAO) and People’s Industrial Design Office (PIDO) in Beijing developed the clever modular home as a single-person dwelling for those who wish to live in the city but simply cannot afford it due to increasing property prices.

Zaha Hadid Modernises UK’s Oldest University Building

2013-01-17T13:58:00-05:00

Construction on Zaha Hadid’s anticipated Softbridge building extension to the University of Oxford building in the UK is set to commence at the end of the month. The Middle East Centre Project is an upgrade for St. Antony’s College, one of seven graduate colleges that are part of the original building. While the the building’s foundation date is unclear, it is the oldest university in the English-speaking world with teaching on the site believed to have commenced in 1096.

The Bullitt Centre: A Green American Icon

2013-01-16T12:54:00-05:00

A brand new green building project is set to become one of the world’s most sustainable commercial office builds not for the new and innovative technology it has implemented but for the unique approach to green building the developers have taken.

Pharrell Talks Jean Prouvé, Gio Ponti, Zaha Hadid, And “Other Super Genius Guys” at Design Miami/

2012-12-10T18:19:00-05:00

The budding industrial designer also gave his top picks from the fair, which unsurprisingly all feature bright swaths of primary colors: a Charlotte Perriand bookshelf from Galerie Downtown accented with yellow squares; a Pierre Guariche chair from Demisch Danant, a Riteveld chair from Galerie Vivid; and a desk from Galleria Rossella Colombari by Gio Ponti, whom he was so delighted to have discovered: “He tried to make the office fun!”

EMPOWERHOUSE: Solar Decathlon Team, Habitat for Humanity and D.C. Goverment Celebrate Completion of Innovative Model for Affordable, Green Housing

2012-12-04T07:06:00-05:00

After several years of planning, design and construction, a team of students from The New School and Stevens Institute of Technology who participated in the 2011 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon celebrated the completion of Empowerhouse, an innovative model for affordable, energy efficient green housing located in the Deanwood neighborhood of Washington.

Developed in partnership with Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C. (DC Habitat), and the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), the project marks the first time in the Solar Decathlon's history that a team partnered from the outset with civic and government agencies to create a house specifically for a local D.C. community. It is the first Passive House—the leading international energy standard—in the District of Columbia, and already a recipient of a Mayor’s Sustainability Award.

"This project fulfills a longstanding vision of our team to create a house that would endure in a meaningful way after the Solar Decathlon was over,” said Joel Towers, executive dean of Parsons The New School for Design. “Empowerhouse illustrates The New School's commitment to design-led civic engagement, and is a true model of affordable sustainable housing that has the potential for national as well as international replication. Due to the success of this project, Parsons is...

Lack of Detail No Reason to Deny Copyright Protection to Architectural Works

2012-08-22T14:40:00-04:00

There is no requirement that architectural drawings contain sufficient detail to support actual construction in order to warrant copyright protection under Section 102(a)(5) of the Copyright Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held Aug. 15 (Scholz Design v. Sard Custom Homes LLC, 2d Cir., No. 11-3298, 8/15/12).

In a recent legal case issued by architecture firm Scholz Design Co., against builder Sard Custom Homes, it was confirmed that “Copyright protection of a pictorial work, whether depicting a house, or a flower, or a donkey, or an abstract design, does not depend on any degree of detail.”

Initially, however, in a lower court, the judge decided in favor of Sard Custom Homes, the defendant, claiming the stolen designs were taken from drawings with insufficient detail. When Scholz Design appealed, a higher court dismissed the initial decision, in favor of the plaintiff.

Good news for architects!

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

2012-07-13T13:29:00-04:00

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 Furniture.

↑ B+K Furniture Design inside Union Park townhouse in Boston, MA by Butz Klug Architecture

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

↑ Box construction by Droog Design through Moss inside Loft of Frank and Amy in New York, NY by Resolution: 4 Architecture

↑ Furniture by Oehm Design Inc

[UPDATE: project Scenography l'hallali removed by editor]

↑ Max Mara Soho in New York, NY by FZAD Architecture & Design

↑ sooshi seat by David McDermott

↑ Chelsea Workspace in London, UK by SYNTHESIS (Photo: Peter Guenzel)

↑ Amorfurniture in Novi Sad, Serbia by Alter Ego Architects

(Cover pic: MYchair, Walter Knoll, 2008 by Ben v...

Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Art-chitecture" Pinterest Board

2012-07-06T14:24:00-04:00

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 Art-chitecture.

↑ Surface Armatures by olalekan jeyifous

↑ Fantastic Trailer in Bloomfield Hills, MI by Cheryl Baxter

↑ Wintergarden in Shenyang, China by Ballistic Architecture Machine

↑ Walldesign for Scandic Hotels by Your Wallpaper

↑ smart brick by Tingwei Duan

↑ the stratus project in Ann Arbor, MI by rvtr

↑ Bacteria Masonry by Jili Huang

↑ Ribbon Folly by Virginia Melnyk

↑ "Her Secret is Patience" - Phoenix Civic Space Sculpture in Phoenix, AZ by artist Janet Echelman (structural engineer: Nathaniel Stanton, photo: Christina O'Haver)

(Cover pic: Deconstructing the Churches by michael jantzen)

Click here to see more "Ten Top Images on Archinect's Pinterest Boards" feature...

High Tech Bus Stop in Paris by Patrick Jouin

2012-06-28T17:00:00-04:00

French designer Patrick Jouin has shared with us his latest project for client JCDecaux – a high tech bus stop (free Wifi anyone?) situated at the corner of Boulevard Henry IV and Place de la Bastille in Paris. Jouin has collaborated with JCDecaux on urban furniture since 2007, most notably for Vélib, the public bicycle sharing system in Paris.

U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Announces Participating Projects

2012-06-22T21:04:00-04:00

The U.S. Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, organized by the Institute for Urban Design on behalf of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will be devoted to the theme Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good. The exhibit features 124 urban interventions initiated by architects, designers, planners, artists, and everyday citizens that bring positive change to their neighborhoods and cities.

Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

Screenplay by Oyler Wu Collaborative

2012-06-19T17:22:00-04:00

LA-based architecture and design office, Oyler Wu Collaborative, is proud to announce their upcoming architectural installation entitled Screenplay. The installation will be unveiled at the Los Angeles Convention Center this Friday, June 22, 2012 as the featured installation of Dwell on Design 2012.

Press release from Oyler Wu Collaborative to follow:

Screenplay is conceived of as a ‘play’ on one’s visual perception. This twenty-one foot long screen wall is constructed of forty-five thousand linear feet of rope strung through a series of lightweight steel frames. The wall is designed with the intention of provoking a sense of curiosity by slowly revealing its form and complexity through physical and visual engagement with the work. The wall is made from a repetitious steel framework with rope infill that varies over the length of the wall in three dimensions, forming a thickened undulating screen made up of dense linework. In its orthographic, or ‘straight on’ view, the wal...

Character Building by Design With Company

2012-05-30T17:17:00-04:00

Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer of Design With Company have shared with us their project "Character Building," a series of functional, identity-creating objects they designed for a local Independent Media Center situated inside an old former post office building.

PACMAN Recycling Containers Win Iberian Urban Equipment Prize

2012-05-17T15:26:00-04:00

For the second consecutive year, Portuguese design office AND-RÉ has won the Iberian Urban Equipment Prize - Larus/Architectures, this year in the category Urban Furniture with "PACMAN", a captivating design that sets out to change the mindset of citizens in their relation with recycling. In 2011, the office won the award in the Lighting Design category with the "Verso" lighting system.

Cooper-Hewitt Launches New Online Guide to Design Week NYC

2012-05-17T14:28:00-04:00

Design Week NYC is almost here, and the plethora of events going on around New York City can be quite overwhelming. But worry not, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has launched a new tool that will come in very handy: a mobile-ready website, designweeknyc.org, highlighting design-related events around the city during ICFF, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, May 19-22.

Orange Barrel Media Announces LEED Platinum Headquarters in Columbus

2012-04-21T11:46:00-04:00

The new Orange Barrel HQ will reuse existing concrete storage silos and a renovated 10,000-sqft warehouse with a new 10,000-sqft addition. OBM President Pete Scantland says they’re aiming for LEED Platinum certification with the project. Solar panels will be located on the back side of a 120-foot tall structure rising above the new offices, while the front side will provide a showpiece advertising space.

Orange Barrel Media is a nine-year-old outdoor wallscape mural design and advertising firm that serves markets in New York, Boston, Charlotte, Columbus, Denver, Cleveland and Cincinnati. Yesterday, they announced a new headquarters in Columbus that includes an innovative solar-panel advertising tower and 20,000 square feet of space on a former concrete mixing plant adjacent to Downtown.

The new development was designed by George Acock of Acock Associates with Landscape Architecture done by Keith Meyers and his team at MSI+KKG.

re-thinking the national mall

2012-04-10T08:55:00-04:00

"A amphitheater at the base of the Washington Monument. A glass-enclosed restaurant overlooking the Constitution Gardens pond—and a winter-time ice-skating rink where the pond currently sits. A lively new Union Square, with streams of water arching into the Capitol Reflecting Pool. Those are among the ideas that architects and designers have floated for redesigning and reviving three sites on the National Mall..."

Updated photos of the schemes to redesign parts of the Mall in Washington DC. Includes proposals from snohetta; Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Ken Smith, Rogers Marvel, Peter Walker, etc.

design by Weiss Manfredi and OLIN

New York City's Design Schools are Booming, But Artists Want Biz Skills

2012-03-29T20:40:00-04:00

Released on Sunday by the Center for an Urban Future — a think tank focused on New York City — “Designing New York’s Future” cites that New York City graduates twice as many students in design and architecture as any other city in the country. While extolling the schools’ strengths, the report also advocates for more business coursework in curricula...

Chicago Architecture Foundation Gets an Appetite for Design

2012-03-09T14:53:00-05:00

Many of us evaluate a restaurant based on the food; after all, restaurants are about eating. But how many of us stop and think about the design--like the look of the interior, the materials used, and the color scheme--when it comes to our food experiences? This is the question that the Chicago Architecture Foundation wants you to think about through their series Appetite for Design.

Live/Work Design Contest Calls for Submissions

2012-03-02T19:19:00-05:00

Got a brilliant design idea in the live/work realm that is ready to take the world by storm? Well, now is your time to shine: Our friends at Dwell teamed up with Design Within Reach and launched the Live/Work Design Contest, which challenges designers to create a workspace “classic of tomorrow” – a new home-office solution that DWR could potentially manufacture and sell. Dwell will host the DWR-sponsored contest through the end of June [...].

The Yin and the Yang of Corporate Innovation

2012-01-29T17:56:00-05:00

....breakthrough ideas still come from individuals, not committees. “There is nothing democratic about innovation."

INCIDENTAL COMICS: Iconic Houses

2012-01-29T12:31:00-05:00

In an earlier draft of this comic, it appeared the Farnsworth house was being gnawed by ordinary beavers. My architect brother informed me that Mies van der Rohe was known for his innovations in steel and glass, not wood. So just to clarify: those are MUTANT beavers.

John Ronan, an architectural star in Chicago

2012-01-14T02:21:00-05:00

A Michigan native who as a boy played with Legos and wrote a fifth-grade essay titled "Why I Want to Be an Architect," Ronan wears the black-on-black palette that is a modernist uniform and goes well with his fluffy gray hair. The recognition for the Poetry Foundation headquarters is his second national Honor Award from the AIA. The first, given in 2009, was for the brightly colored Gary Comer Youth Center in the South Side's Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood.

5 Architects & Designers among USA Fellows for 2011

2011-12-07T21:26:55-05:00

United States Artists has honored the USA Fellows for 2011 at a festive event earlier this week in Santa Monica, CA. Fellowship grants of $50,000 each were awarded to fifty outstanding performing, visual, media, and literary artists or artist teams. USA Fellowships are presented annually in the disciplines Architecture & Design, Crafts & Traditional Arts, Dance, Literature, Media, Music, Theater Arts, and Visual Arts.

The five fellows in the Architecture & Design category are Ada Tolla & Giuseppe Lignano, Elena Manferdini , J. Morgan Puett, Jenny E. Sabin, and Mabel O. Wilson.

TEDxJacksonHole - Nona Yehia & Jefferson Ellinger - New Architectures: Nature and Phenomena

2011-12-05T17:05:06-05:00

Nona Yehia and Jefferson Ellinger established the architectural firm, Ellinger/Yehia Design LLC in 2003 to investigate links between architecture, landscape and technology. In 2004, the firm opened an office in Jackson Hole, Wyoming to further explore these inter-relationships.
Architects, artists, scientists and designers throughout the ages have been inspired by the beauty and elegance in nature; studying, imitating and attempting to recreate natural systems has shaped life as we know it. Today, the question is how natural phenomena can become instrumental in the design of new architectures that radically redefine our built environment.

Dutch Design Awards 2011: Live Performances + Call for Public Vote

2011-10-12T14:15:53-04:00

With the announcement of the prestigious Dutch Design Awards 2011 being only days away, we're happy to share videos and photos from three live performances created by Rotterdam-based Studio Dumbar. The performances are to promote the Dutch Design Awards categories: Spatial-, Product- and Communication Design.

See the videos of all three performances on Bustler.