Archinect - Features

10 Controversial Buildings That Became Iconic Landmarks

2024-10-07T06:48:00-04:00

Architectural landmarks often become beloved symbols of their cities, but many were not always welcomed with open arms. Throughout history, some of our most acclaimed structures have in fact provoked heated debates, divided public opinion, sparked fierce controversy, and in one case, caused the late great architect Richard Rogers to be attacked by an elderly Parisian with an umbrella.

To mark World Architecture Day 2024, we take a look back through the history of some of the architectural structures most beloved by the public today, and demonstrate how their status as landmarks was hard-won.

To see how a building initially deemed a monstrosity, an eyesore, or an insult to tradition can evolve into the defining element of a city’s character is an interesting exercise in itself. Beyond the novelty, however, these stories raise apt questions for architects today. To what extent do, or should, we design in response to present tastes? Do we too quickly abandon ideas today in response t...

Nicole Hollis on NICOLEHOLLIS: 'One Thing I Have Learned Is That Nothing Replaces a Site Visit'

2022-07-27T09:00:00-04:00

For the latest episode of our Studio Snapshot series, Archinect connected with Nicole Hollis, Founding Principal and Creative Director of award-winning design firm NICOLEHOLLIS. Established in 2002 and run in partnership with her husband, CEO Lewis Heathcote, the San Francisco-based practice has grown into a household name in the world of luxury residential, hospitality, and product design.

Hollis opens up about the firm's guiding principles when accepting new commissions, key qualities in new hires, the challenges her team went through during the pandemic, and the advice she has for young professionals hoping to pursue an interior design career.

Studio BANAA on Turning Diversity Into a Creative Force

2021-02-25T09:43:00-05:00

For our latest Studio Snapshot, Archinect had the pleasure of chatting with Nastaran Mousavi and Dane Bunton, founding partners of San Francisco-based architecture practice Studio BANAA.

Hailing from different corners of the world — Dane is a Bay Area native and Nastaran grew up in Northern Iran — the two have been steadily fusing their diverse backgrounds with the city's eclectic California blend to create fresh and dynamic spaces not shy of colors, patterns, and personality. We talked about their new housing research campaign, surviving the pandemic as a small practice, and launching new, innovative business endeavors.

Kate Katz and Ryan Shaaban, Tulane University MArch graduates, Consider the Urban Grid's Relationship to Sea Level Rise

2020-06-26T12:00:00-04:00

Kate Katz and Ryan Shaaban are recent graduate students from Tulane University's 5-year M.Arch program. Together the two explore the impact of rising sea levels and alternative approaches to coastal city infrastructure. According to both students, their thesis "strives to change the perception of how we as humans relate to nature by accommodating the dynamic qualities of water into the urban grid network."

Archinect connected with Katz and Shaaban to learn more about their final thesis project, their experience transitioning to remote learning, and their thoughts on graduating during a global pandemic. Their project was selected to be featured in Tulane's 2020 Thesis Show and chosen as one of the top four presentations in their graduating class.

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for architecture graduates. Students were displaced as schools shut down, academic communities had to adapt to a new virtual format, end-of-yea...

A Conversation With the Architect Who Is Bringing the World's Iconic Buildings to the Chessboard

2019-11-26T07:42:00-05:00

Trained architects turning their hand to product design is not a new phenomenon. In the 21st century Sam Jacob Studio is producing t-shirts and Zaha Hadid Architects are producing everything from vases to shoes, at the turn of the previous century architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh was designing clocks. It is common for architects diversify into other careers, as polymathic architecture education fosters a wide variety of skills.

Living Walls: Balancing a Plant-Centric Process with People-Centric Design with Habitat Horticulture's David Brenner

2019-11-14T10:00:00-05:00

The built environment shapes our lives daily. Yet as we further explore the landscapes of the metropolitan areas we call home, designing with plant life is often seen as an accessory or an afterthought. However, for the San Francisco-based multidisciplinary design firm Habitat Horticulture, the possibilities for plant-centric spaces and the potential plants have to make our lives better is extremely high.

Founding principal and lead designer David Brenner explains that his passion for plant life started at a young age in his grandparents' garden. Today, Brenner seeks to shift the perception people have about plant life, often portrayed as “static accessories” to the built environment, by creating a way for people to experience these beautifully complex entities through larger than life living wall installations.

For this week's Studio Snapshot, Brenner talks about his multifaceted team and how they create structural feats that go beyond standard plant management and cultivation. Ac...

David Baker Architects on Growing a Team-Based, Family-Friendly Practice

2019-08-07T10:37:00-04:00

San Francisco's David Baker Architects is a leading office in the realm of affordable housing design. Founded in 1982 by University of California, Berkeley-trained architect David Baker, the firm has designed over 8,000 units of affordable housing across the San Francisco Bay Area, and has garnered hundreds of design awards, including the American Institute of Architects California Council's 2012 Distinguished Practice award.

Baker, who was elevated to the AIA's College of Fellows in 1996, runs the practice with principals Amanda Loper and Daniel Simons. Their work, which spans affordable, senior, workforce, and low-income housing types, is distinctive for the inventive sense of materiality and playful but dignified formal approaches the architects pursue as they go about fulfilling the myriad and sometimes tedious requirements specific to these types of projects. Using this approach, the team strives to concretize their "passion for and deep understanding of the power of humane an...

San Francisco-based Design Firm SAW Tackles Architecture's Design Blindspots by Challenging Possible Outcomes

2019-06-13T13:34:00-04:00

Within architectural practice, navigating through blind spots in the design process is something many studios work through. In Dan Spiegel and Megumi Aihara's case, SAW's mission is to approach these moments of design obscurity by focusing on their passions for architecture, landscape architecture, and design. With their goal of designing both for the inside and outside, Spiegel and Aihara use object materiality and scale to produce potential outcomes in spatial design.

From their stunning residences to the integrative urban-scaled projects they design, SAW uses their interdisciplinary approach to develop highly technical yet subtlety beautiful landscape and architectural works. For this week's Studio Snapshot, Archinect chats with Spiegel and Aihara about their experience in running a practice and the strategic risks they take when designing for the ever-changing environment.

Screen/Print #62: A Year After Ghost Ship Fire, Writer and Activist Jaime Omar Yassin Reflects on City's Response

2017-09-22T09:00:00-04:00

In December of 2016, a fire broke out during a show at Oakland's Ghost Ship, a DIY-venue located in a two-story warehouse. The incident tragically took the lives of 36 young concert-goers and prompted national discussions (including one on our podcast) of the safety and vitality of DIY venues and the long-term effects of such building code violations for gentrification and zoning.

Neeraj Bhatia discusses his transcalar design-research practice, the Open Workshop

2017-07-17T11:39:00-04:00

The Open Workshop was founded in 2011 and is located across San Francisco and Toronto, Canada. It is a design-research office working at multiple scales to examine the negotiation between architecture and its territorial environment. Projects include consulting on the redesign of Bruce Mau's office and accolades include the Architectural League of New York's 2016 Young Architects Prize.

The founder, Neeraj Bhatia, discusses the studio's interdisciplinary approach and remaining undefined as a practice.

Designing for Disaster, Before It Happens: Resilient by Design Seeks Architects

2017-06-02T12:41:00-04:00

Disasters resulting from climate change, such as sea level rise, often cause billions of dollars of damage. In an era when the United States Federal Government has largely withdrawn from climate change policy, San Francisco Bay Area-based Resilient by Design has released a design brief in hopes of assembling ten teams of architects, engineers, designers and experts to help anticipate and design for the needs of the region before massive devastation occurs. So what architects should apply?

Morphogenesis, an Odyssey Through the Digital and Physical World

2017-03-18T11:15:00-04:00

Morphogenesis, a virtual reality art installation, is touring the globe, bringing a primal, otherworldly experience to audiences without the need for a ticket to Burning Man.

New Bureau Spectacular Exhibition at SFMOMA Explores the Narrative Properties of Architecture

2017-03-06T12:56:00-05:00

At a moment of social stratification and increasingly bitter divisions, a timely new exhibit at SFMOMA by Bureau Spectacular celebrates an architecture of egalitarianism. The exhibition, titled insideoutsidebetweenbeyond, showcases the studio’s drawings alongside a comic, When I Grow Up, and five three-dimensional models that explore “the communal aspect of urban life through surrealistic forms and situations.”

Strange bedfellows: exploring shades of privacy in co-living

2016-06-20T12:18:00-04:00

From chaste bunking to on-site Pilates classes, co-living companies have as many versions as a cover band. But each incarnation raises the question: how do we architecturally define privacy in the 21st century?

Snøhetta's expanded SFMOMA is 235,000 square feet of egalitarianism

2016-05-10T11:13:00-04:00

Snøhetta’s expansion of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—which incorporates numerous elements of Mario Botta’s 1988 design while simultaneously introducing a far more egalitarian vibe—seems to be a miniature of the constraints and progressive-mindedness of San Francisco itself. Multiple entrances, an emphasis on intimate scaling instead of grand gestures, and dedicated staff floors that sit blatantly atop the public galleries, invert many of the preconceptions of traditional museum design. Instead of attempting to shape the city with a bold new vision, Snøhetta has allowed the city to shape the museum. It is the anti-Bilbao: if not in effect, then certainly in intention.

The gimp room, the padded cell, the medical office: inside the world of Kink.com

2016-04-26T10:02:00-04:00

“If you do your job right then no one will notice,” it’s been said. There may be no better exemplar of this truism than the work that goes on behind the scenes of a porn film. In the heat of an onanistic moment, the last thing you want to think about is bad design. Yet, an adult film is very much a designed object – particularly when it comes to the elaborate structural and fantasy elements involved in BDSM and kink.

Invasion: A First-Hand View of Gentrification in San Francisco

2014-11-24T10:13:00-05:00

A recent Bay Area transplant sees old and new duke it out over the Bay Area's shifting public-private fault line.

The Deans List: David Gissen of California College of the Arts

2013-11-21T13:27:00-05:00

The Deans List is an interview series with the leaders of architecture schools, worldwide. The series profiles the school’s programming, as defined by the head honcho – giving an invaluable perspective into the institution’s unique curriculum, faculty and academic environment.

For our first installment, we spoke with David Gissen, the Director of Architecture at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

525 Golden Gate Seismically and Systematically Sustainable

2012-04-16T13:45:00-04:00

by Nam Henderson

One beneficial result derived from the public's growing familiarity with the phrase “green design” is a renewed examination of what defines green or sustainable design. Within the field of architectural design and construction, this prominence has inevitably prompted a conversation on the nature of sustainable architecture. The proliferation of superficially and systemically “green” buildings during the past decade has also spurred this dialogue. Specifically, I am referring to a range of normative practices including the use of green roofs, green walls, wind turbines, various integrated energy and graywater systems or solar panels, as well as industry standards like LEED, SITES, or BREEAM.