Archinect

AIANY Selects Seven Firms for New Practices New York 2012

2012-02-03T19:01:00-05:00

The AIA New York Chapter recently announced seven promising and pioneering new architecture and design firms from the New York area to receive the New Practices New York 2012 awards. The seven selected firms are: Holler Architecture; The Living; Abruzzo Bodziak; SLO Architecture; formlessfinder; Marc Fornes & THEVERYMANY; Christian Wassman.

Palais Stoclet | An Enchanted House Becomes a Family's Curse

2012-02-03T18:34:00-05:00

Now the Palais Stoclet, considered the best surviving realization of a Gesamtkunstwerk, or "total work of art," faces an uncertain future as it marks its centennial. For the past decade this Jugendstil masterpiece has been a battleground for the four sisters who inherited it, even as they seek to protect the coveted private property from the ravages of decay, pollution, theft and the prying eyes of the public.

Portuguese Architect Paulo David Receives 2012 Alvar Aalto Medal

2012-02-03T17:41:00-05:00

The 2012 Alvar Aalto Medal was awarded to Portuguese architect Paulo David last night at the World Design Capital Gala in Lahti, Finland. In the view of the jury, David’s architecture forms a convincing synthesis of contemporary and traditional architecture.

Montalba Architects, Inc. seeking Digital Modeler / Renderer in Santa Monica, CA, US

2012-02-03T17:21:00-05:00

Montalba Architects, Inc is an award-winning, design oriented architectural practice based in Santa Monica, CA handling retail, commercial, and custom residential projects. We are looking to fill (1) full-time salaried position for a Digital Modeler / Renderer.

Roles / Requirements include:

the ability to self motivate in a small creative office environment
be well organized and diligent
must possess great verbal, written, and graphic communication skills
must have a very high level of working knowledge of Rhino or 3DS Max & Photoshop
Mac OS X experience preferred

Absolutely no phone calls.

Attachments over 5MB will not be reviewed.

Montalba Architects, Inc. will review all submitted applications and select candidates for an in-person interview.

'The Lens' Draws Sharp Comments at Town Hall Meeting

2012-02-03T17:07:00-05:00

About three-quarters of the people who spoke favored renovating the existing pier or picking a "Mediterranean-style" design for a replacement. The ultra-modern design of "The Lens" did not draw support from most of the people who spoke. "We are paying for $50 million for a sidewalk over the water," one commenter said. "I wanted Mediterranean style. (I) feel we are being locked into (a design) that doesn't have any local flavor."

New York City High-Rise Housing: Distribution of Public Space in the Late Capitalist Metroplois

2012-02-03T15:54:00-05:00

Hi Archinect,

I'm currently doing research on high-rise housing as a typology, and looking for precedents (built or unbuilt, probably they will be unbuilt) that display a novel use of public horizontal space (i.e sky plazas/atriums/parks, aggregated terracing, etc.) in the vertical city. The heroic illustrations by Hugh Ferris of the 1916 zoning code describe the maximum building envelope in Manhattan as a soaring volume that is pentagonal in section, however--with the few exception of buildings like Jean Nouvel's yet to be built Midtown tower--most residential buildings in NYC interpreted the zoning code through the use of mild set backs, resulting in terraces (usually private) every 10, 15, or 20 stories. Others gifted part of their plots to city in the form of plazas (public), so as to gain the right to build higher, gain certain tax benefits, and maximize square footage vertically, i.e. rentable space, profit.

I'm not interested in either of these design strategies. I wo...

John Pawson's Muse Music

2012-02-03T15:16:00-05:00

In a way, my influences are eclectic. Music doesn’t make me want to go and design a house, in a way it’s a more physical pleasure. It’s maybe a break for me or a tunnel to something else. I’ve never had a lot of music in the office. To me music is to be listened to and art is to be looked at. I never understood that thing of using art as decoration. It has to mean something to me otherwise I wouldn’t have it. And I can’t work with music. I find it too stimulating in a way.

Taiyuan Theater IV by Yaohua Wang Architecture

2012-02-03T15:03:00-05:00

Los Angeles architect Yaohua Wang - many may still remember his Nanjing Lab proposal - has sent us his latest project, a schematic design proposal for the experimental Xianghong Theater in Taiyuan, China.

Cor(nudie)r Collage Competition

2012-02-03T12:48:00-05:00

Leeser Architecture seeking Marketing Development Manager in Brooklyn, NY, US

2012-02-03T09:45:00-05:00

Leeser Architecture is seeking a marketing development manager to lead the marketing efforts of the office. The position requires a candidate who is experienced in self-directed explorative ventures into both the domestic and international markets to open new opportunities for the office.

Candidate will be able to demonstrate proficiency in the following areas:

Responding effectively and efficiently to RFP and RFQ’s
Development of promotional material in multiple formats and platforms demonstrating both effective communication of a firm’s work along with strong graphic design skills
The ability to take initiative and prioritize workload in a self-organized manner
Excellent communication skills
Proven experience representing an office in the marketplace to develop new contacts

We offer our employees a creative working environment with room for professional growth. We are looking for individuals with highly innovative approaches to work on cutting edge desi...

EASA010 by Raya Boyukova

2012-02-03T09:45:00-05:00

European Architecture Students Assembly
Manchester, August 2010
Workshop: Artificial Identity

http://www.a-i-r-a.com/

Is There a Jewish Architecture?

2012-02-02T20:13:00-05:00

Within the parameters of the building art there cannot be artists like Saul Bellow and Philip Roth or like Sidney Lumet and Woody Allen, who in books and movies probe the excruciating details of the Jewish encounter with American capitalism and lifestyle. Architecture cannot tell stories about one’s Jewish mother or one’s Jewish nose. Especially in the era of high modernism, architecture possessed limited expressive resources for detailed cultural critique.

Is there a type of Jewish architecture that unifies the work of Louis Kahn, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, and Daniel Libeskind?

Architectural historian Mitchell Schwarzer reviews Gaven Rosenfeld's ambitious book, Building After Auschwitz: Jewish Architecture and the Memory of the Holocaust, and comes away unconvinced.

Flows, Systems, Atoms - STUDIO ONE Symposium

2012-02-02T19:11:00-05:00

from the symposium website...

"The Inaugural Studio One Symposium will be held February 10-11, 2012. Focusing on the studio's themes of architectural agency at an ecological and infrastrucutral scale, the symposium will bring together a global roster of influential designers and thinkers for two days of design, discussion, and debate.

MORE ON STUDIO ONE
To paraphrase Bill McKibben’s 1985 description of New York, the San Francisco Bay has as much to do with nature as a cow has to do with Cool-Whip. Instead of “nature” per se, the bay is a complex assemblage of manifold systems, few of them classically natural, and yet all of them, often invisibly, contributing to our own, architectural occupation of the landscape. However – as with the cool-whip – our own desires for landscapes like the bay would too-often submerge these manifold relationships in favor of something that looks exactly like “nature,” while actually being nothing of the kind.

From the effects of hydraulic mi...

Arts and Transit plan being prepared for Planning Board review; Rick Joy named as station architect

2012-02-02T19:06:00-05:00

As Princeton University officials prepare to submit plans for the proposed Arts and Transit project to the Regional Planning Board of Princeton for site plan approval, they have selected an architect to design the new Dinky station building and Wawa and to renovate the existing station buildings for use as a restaurant and café.

The architect, Rick Joy, is one of the leading young American architects. He is based in Tucson, Ariz., and has experience designing train stations and retail space, and in working in university settings. He will design the proposed building that would house the new Dinky station and Wawa, and will redesign the current station buildings, which are intended to become retail restaurant spaces. He will also collaborate with Steven Holl Architects, the firm that is designing the projects academic buildings, on the design of the project's public plaza spaces.

"Rick was selected for his ability to understand the significance of a place and its landscape and ...

Video: The making of the Metropol Parasol

2012-02-02T18:22:00-05:00

This film explores how the Metropol Parasol affects the people who live and work around it, as well as the historic area in which it sits. The Metropol Parasol is one of the largest wooden structures in the world and was completed in April 2011. It has become a new centre for Seville. The Metropol Parasol was designed by Architect, J. MAYER H., with engineering consulting from Arup.

The New French Hacker-Artist Underground

2012-02-02T18:00:00-05:00

Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of “restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.” The group claims to have conducted 15 such covert restorations, often in centuries-old spaces, all over Paris.

Why jobs require cities

2012-02-02T17:48:00-05:00

If we’re going to find jobs in the U.S. and the rest of the world, they’re going to have to be found in exactly the area where China is finding them — tertiary industry, or services. How do you create service-industry jobs? By investing in cities and inter-city infrastructure like smart grids and high-speed rail. Services flourish where people are close together and can interact easily with the maximum number of people. If we want to create jobs in America, we should look to services...

NJIT College of Architecture + Design Spring Lecture Series 2012

2012-02-02T17:10:00-05:00

The series begins Feb. 13, 2012 when Harvard University Assistant Professor Kiel Moe, Graduate School of Design, speaks about “Matter Is But Captured Energy.” Moe’s research and pedagogical focus is on the formation of energy in architecture. For more information, please visit: http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/#/people/kielmoe.html.

The venerable NYC-based Robert Siegel, principal of Robert Siegel Architects will discuss “Movement” on Feb. 27, 2012. Siegel was previously the chair of the AIA New York Chapter Committee on the environment and served on the NYC High Performance Building Initiative. For more information, please visit: http://robertsiegelarchitects.com.

Ted Ngai, of atelier nGai, a lecturer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will discuss “Ecophysiological Architecture” on March 5, 2012. Ngai teaches and conducts research at the Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE) in New York City. For more information, please visit: http://www.tedngai.net/.

A...

Indy's Super Bowl Building Boom

2012-02-02T17:00:00-05:00

“I’m never trying to be disparaging to these other communities in any way,” says Bill Browne, a local architect on Indianapolis’ host committee who has looked at what other Super Bowl cities have done. “But we came away with the sense that they’re putting on an event. We’re certainly putting on an event here, but we are absolutely trying to transform a number of elements of our community as a part of this.”

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.

Bicycling Under Attack in Congress

2012-02-02T16:24:00-05:00

http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2012/02/01/bicycling-under-attack-in-congress/

"This week, we found out just how much of a change we are in for, and although cycling advocates were braced for some bad news, the new Transportation bill—its official title is “The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act”—is far worse than what anybody had expected. Here are some details:

• Completely reverses 20 years of bicycle and pedestrian-friendly federal transportation policy.

• Completely eliminates the dedicated funding for the Transportation Enhancements program that funds the cycling and walking projects.

• Allows states to build bridges without safe access for cyclists and pedestrians, as previously required.

• Completely eliminates Bicycle and Pedestrian and Safe Routes to Schools coordinators in state DOTs.

• Repeals the Safe Routes to Schools program.

• Eliminates language that ensures that rumble strips “do not adversely affect the safety or mobility of bicyclis...

Ribbon Cutting Marks Completion of First HBEER Home

2012-02-02T16:08:00-05:00

By Whitney Hale, Carla Blanton

A ribbon cutting was held for the first prototype from the University of Kentucky's Houseboat to Energy Efficient Residences (HBEER) initiative with local, state and federal dignitaries on January 27 in an established residential area near downtown Monticello, Ky.

HBEER is a partnership between the UK College of Design, the Center for Applied Energy Research at UK, the Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation (KHIC) and the Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC).

The multi-year project was initiated in the fall of 2009 and directly responds to the impact the current economic downturn has had on the houseboat manufacturing industry in the Commonwealth. More than 50 students and faculty at the college's School of Architecture were responsible for researching and developing initial models of energy-efficient, affordable housing that could be produced by the region's houseboat manufacturers.

Today, HBEER is creating green jobs and bringing back to w...

SCI-Arc Welcomes Art Director Rick Carter as New Trustee

2012-02-02T14:45:00-05:00

The Prolific Academy Award-Winning Art Director Joins SCI-Arc’s Board of Trustees as the LA Architecture and Design School Prepares for its 40th Anniversary Celebration

LOS ANGELES, CA (February 2, 2012)—The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) today announced it has elected Academy Award winner Rick Carter to join its Board of Trustees. The 23-member SCI-Arc Board is chaired by land-use attorney Jerry Neuman, who stated “At the center of SCI-Arc is creativity and an enduring ability to challenge convention and change it for the better. Rick is the personification of these core values. He brings an incredible amount of expertise, vision and leadership to the Board and our School.” The SCI-Arc Board includes noted individuals such as Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Ted Tanner, Kevin Ratner and Tom Gilmore. The trustees unanimously elected Carter during their quarterly meeting held January 19-20 in Los Angeles.

SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss says of Carter: “The ...

Day #4 (Barbados) - or how I fell in love

2012-02-02T13:13:00-05:00

On study tours you have to be guided by what is available on the ground and on the advice of your hosts. Today myself and the other lecturer went in search of areas for the students to undertake a number of site analysis. However soon after we arrived to Bridgetown we were aided by a suspicious, but very friendly Rastafarian street vender who gave an interesting perspective of development or lack there of. How's that for advice?

This was also the first evening we've been back to the hotel before dark and I was able to take a walk across the street to the beach. A few moments in I noticed the entry to the Richard Haynes Boardwalk and immediately fell in love. I strolled along until the sun began to dip from the sky, surrounded by runners, families playing and a yoga class or two.

Presentation to Our Client

2012-02-02T11:58:00-05:00

Yesterday afternoon we presented our proposal to the board of the Masonic Theatre Preservation Foundation. Using models, drawings, diagrams and material samples, we walked them through our program, thoroughly explaining each design decision. They were very enthusiastic about what we had. We look forward to unveiling our project to the Clifton Forge Community on February 29.

Also present for the discussion was Leon Gerskovic, who will be putting together a short documentary of our project. He conducted interviews with both board members and students, and will continue filming the remainder of the process.

Are US Muslims abandoning domes and minarets out of fear?

2012-02-02T11:05:00-05:00

"You can have a grand dome and grand minaret, but if it doesn't really serve the purpose, if it only has a large prayer space and nothing else, then you're not really fulfilling the needs of the community," he says.

In post 9/11 America the construction of new mosques in the US has sometimes sparked controversy and even confrontation. Is that why some new Muslim houses of worship are being built without the most recognisable features of Islamic architecture - minarets and domes?

100 Ideas: 011 Free Ferries to All Boroughs

2012-02-02T09:57:00-05:00

Ferries and other craft once plied the city's waterways in such numbers that the water was more crowded than the land. Since we're encouraging people to occupy the edges of the boroughs, we need more ferry service. If IKEA can make it work, so can the city.

We're almost there: the Staten Island Ferry is free (as it should be: it would cost more to collect the fares than the fares offset). Stepping off the land is an instantaneous way to gain a new perspective on the City, as well as a sense of quiet.

Think of it as an analog for Con Ed's effort to get you to use alternate energy sources even if it robs them of revenue; it avoids requiring them to build expensive generating plants. Taking advantage of the waterways is another way to save the boroughs from building even more surface (and underground) transport.

If water is the great new frontier territory of New York, we should be on our way to the next homestead act.

Dubai Tall Emblem Structure by PURE Architecture

2012-02-02T03:56:00-05:00

By proposing this Flying Carpet structure in Dubai, we aim to rebuild Dubai’s image as a place where everyone is full of confidence and hope, a place where everyone’s dreams will come true, and a place where imagination and creativity remain the central force to city development.
Dubai is a city with numerous vertical towers but lack of connection between them. It does not need another one for this iconic structure. Our proposed Flying Carpet will act as a new type of horizontal connection to bridge all these vertical individuals together, to make the city more engaged but not divided. The weaving patterns of the skins and the woven structure recall a strong connection to the traditional Islamic culture. Diverse cultural and tourism activities are organized within, above and below the Flying Carpet. The elevated outdoor amphitheater located on the lower part will provide celebration and performance space for the city, the café on the top will provide 360 degrees panoramic view a...

Term Limits: Mayor Bloomberg Wants 10 New Gehry Buildings in Two Years

2012-02-01T17:22:00-05:00

“You should know that Frank and I had a conversation backstage,” the mayor said at the opening of the Signature Theater today, “and we both committed to each other that we would get 10 more Frank Gehry projects going here—in the next 700 days. If my math is any good, Frank, that is one every 70 days, so we should meet some time later today to get going.”

Hello From Occupy Oakland! (explosions!)

2012-02-01T15:31:00-05:00

Hello everyone!

It's been a while. If you don't remember me, I used to make travel videos and write editorials frequently for archinect, and buried in the school blog archives for SCIArc is my wonderful little blog.

As of late - and for better or worse given the events here in Oakland over the past week - I have become a dedicated activist with Occupy Oakland for the past three months, and yes, i have been tear gassed, flash bang grenaded, and nearly batoned and nearly shot with paint filled bean bag rounds, most recently this past Saturday (Good times! Carry a bandana soaked in lemon juice, yo!)

During my time with Occupy Oakland, i began to draw vignettes and landscapes of the occupation both as a form of therapy and to record my time there. Over time, my fellow activists became aware of my drawings, and constantly demanded that i print them. So i did, and people loved them, including a half dozen cops who may have bought them for no other reason than to dust them for prin...