Archinect - News

17 years in the making, Caples Jefferson's Louis Armstrong Center finally debuts in Queens

2023-07-07T18:09:00-04:00

July 6th marked the long-awaited public opening of New York City’s new Louis Armstrong Center in Queens, culminating a 17-year journey to properly honor the legacy of the man called 'Satchmo' in the neighborhood he proudly made his home from 1943 until the music finally ended in 1971.

The small, 14,000-square-foot design from Caples Jefferson is located the directly across 107th Street street from the storied musician’s landmarked former residence (now the Louis Armstrong House Museum) in the still heavily working-class section of Corona, Queens.

Image courtesy of Albert Vercerka/Esto

The project was thus conceived to be an interpretive welcoming center to the museum’s visitors, with a documentary archive, exhibition area, and live jazz room all tucked into its eye-catching bronze-colored faceted flat glass façade envelope.

Image courtesy of Albert Vercerka/Esto

The architects explain: "In order to expand the capacity of this relatively modest hou...

Architecture students from the Royal Danish Academy create a "Guide Book Of DIY Chairs"

2020-04-27T21:38:00-04:00

“We decided to treat the situation as an opportunity to reflect, unite and create together with a group of young talented architecture students, who were all crawling the walls due to lock-down and home isolation.” A-A Collective

At a time where the world is closing down and consumerism is on hold, A-A Collective completes a digital based workshop for 80 architecture students at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation - Institute of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape.

Chair by Helene Engehagen

Students and teachers in home isolation around Europe, from a total of 5 different countries, completed the virtual workshop in one week. Students could only build with household work tools and materials available from their local builders merchant.

Chair by Elen Finstad

Due to current restrictions the workshop draws inspiration from the principles of Enzo Mari’s classical Autoprogettazione collection. The students were challenged not only to design a chair, but also to do a manual of their design, allowing other people to “copy” it.

The guidebook, containing a total of 63 different chair designs, can be downloaded for free here.

David Adjaye on Designing a Museum That Speaks a Different Language

2016-09-22T00:11:00-04:00

I was completely moved by the corona motif. It seemed like a way to start to tell a story that moves from one continent, where people were taken, along with their cultures, and used as labor, then contributed towards making another country and new cultures. That history then continues in the decorative patterning of those panels.

Adjaye.