Archinect - News

Theaster Gates teams up with Prada to launch incubator for emerging designers of color

2021-09-02T17:01:00-04:00

Theaster Gates is teaming up with Prada to launch a program that will support and invest in up-and-coming artists and designers of color.

Dorchester Industries, the design and manufacturing arm of Theaster Gates Studio, in partnership with Gates’ Rebuild Foundation and Prada Group, announced the launch of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab. Based on the South Side of Chicago, it is a three-year program that will serve as a platform for artists of color by creating opportunities to amplify their work, invest in their development, and expose them to organizations looking to work with diverse talent.

Designers in the areas of fashion, furniture, industrial and graphic design, and the arts will be trained, funded, and mentored through design awards and public programming. It will provide a platform for exhibitions, performances, and public dialogue, creating “a nucleus of design intelligence on the South Side,” as stated on Gates’ Instagram.

Related on Archinect: A Con...

Umberto Riva has passed away in Italy at age 93

2021-07-01T12:48:00-04:00

Multiple news outlets are reporting that Umberto Riva has died in Italy at the age of 93.

The Italian architect was referred to as a maestro by his contemporaries who reacted to news of the passing of the architect and painter last week in Palermo.

Born to a Milanese family in 1928, Riva studied in Venice before eventually obtaining an apprenticeship in the office of Carlo Scarpa. Major works included the redevelopment of Piazza San Nazaro and the Biblioteca Europea, both in Milan; power plants in Campobasso and Termoli; a restored café in Padua; and several successful lamps for the Italian studio Tacchini.

Riva was widely known for a wide array of projects ranging from his stately private residences, well-lit interiors spaces, and designs for furniture that incorporated Riva’s sense of luminescence while communicating a simplicity of form reminiscent of his lifelong influence, Constantin Brâncuși.

“My work is constantly fostered and tested by my being in this world. Plus, there is...

AIA forecast indicates a great market for design job seekers in 2017

2017-01-31T13:34:00-05:00

Unemployed? Well, you shouldn't be: according to the AIA Consensus Construction Forecast, non-residential building projects are predicted to be strong throughout 2017, which means that design talent is currently in high demand. As AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker explains in a press release, "virtually every segment of the design and construction market is reporting that recruiting and retaining qualified staff is a growing issue. Many workers left the industry during the downturn, and others left the workforce entirely, and rebuilding a competent and productive workforce is a challenge, particularly when the national unemployment rate is below five percent.” (By the way: if you want tailored advice for how to get hired at specific firms, check out Archinect's series "How To Get a Job At ___").

View full press release:

Washington, D.C. – January 31, 2017 – With construction spending continuing on an upward trajectory, 2016 can be considered a successful year for the nonresidential bui...

Ettore Sottsass works in David Bowie's Memphis collection head to auction

2016-10-13T13:22:00-04:00

On November 11th in London, Sotheby's will be auctioning off the late great David Bowie's Memphis, Milano collection, which includes works by architect and designer Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Cibic, and Michele De Lucchi, among others. The works embody the Memphis movement's 1980s philosophy of 'New Design' which basically serves as the thesis for postmodernism, or as the movement's website puts it, "a new expressivity in the form of new shapes, materials and patterns."

For more on the intersection between music and design:

Real architects design chairs

2014-08-11T13:07:00-04:00

Pretty much every architect in the alphabet has produced a chair, a miniature version of their particular aesthetic. [...] Buildings are all very well, but it seems you haven’t truly made it as an architect until you’ve given us something to sit on. [...] “Mentally, it’s a very good exercise, to go from [designing] a building to the smallest bit in a building,” [Alex Michaelis] says. “You go back to the detail of the human body."

America's Leading Design Cities

2014-07-09T19:35:00-04:00

Architects are the highest paid group of designers, and they are also generally the most highly educated. Architects employed in firms earned median hourly wages of $35.30, while their self-employed counterparts earned $22.90. But, when looking in terms of concentration, the nation’s leading clusters for architects may not be what you think.