Archinect - News

Ellen van Loon departs OMA after 26 years

2024-07-26T19:10:00-04:00

The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) announced the retirement of Partner Ellen van Loon from the firm after 26 years.

The announcement says: “Ellen has indicated that she wishes to enter a new phase in her life in which she will have more time to herself. It goes without saying that we deeply regret her decision. Ellen has been a trusted colleague and powerful force within our firm for decades. She also is, and will remain, a dear friend to all of us.”

Van Loon, who was born in the Netherlands and educated at TU Delft, joined the firm in 1998 after working at Foster + Partners. OMA is approaching its 50th year in 2025. Partners Shohei Shigematsu, Jason Long, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, David Gianotten, and Reinier de Graaf remain in charge along with founder Rem Koolhaas, who turns 80 in November.

Cal Poly architecture and environmental design Dean Christine Theodoropoulos announces retirement

2022-12-01T16:25:00-05:00

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo has announced that Christine Theodoropoulos, Dean of the institute’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design, is to retire. Upon joining Cal Poly in 2012, Theodoropoulos became the first woman to serve as dean of the college, and after more than a decade in the position, will become the second-longest-serving dean in the college’s 75-year history.

“It has been an honor and privilege to work with so many amazing members of the Cal Poly community over the past decade supporting our students and helping to shape the built environment of California and beyond,” Theodoropoulos said while announcing the news. “I am looking forward to continuing collaborative efforts serving communities, both locally and globally.”

Among Theodoropoulos’ achievements during her time as dean include developing an academic masterplan and diversity strategic plan for the college, including the establishment of the college’s first DEI Committee....

Richard Meier is retiring as name change signals firm restructuring

2021-06-24T13:34:00-04:00

Architect Richard Meier is retiring from his firm renamed Meier Partners in a restructuring plan that signals an official end to the 86-year-old architect’s involvement with the practice.

Meier has been away from the office since the fall of 2018 after sexual harassment allegations published in The New York Times that spring ensnared him in the Me Too movement sweeping across various high-profile industries at the time.

Meier founded the firm in 1963 after brief stints in the studios of SOM and Marcel Breuer, eventually contributing designs for the Getty Center and San Jose City Hall before stepping down. Richard Meier & Partners Architects was then headed briefly by Bernhard Karpf, who left in July of 2019 to start his own practice in Brooklyn.

Previously on Archinect: Richard Meier steps down

New additions to the firm were also announced as Meier and his daughter Ana continue on in advisory roles. George Miller will become COO and Dukho Yeon is the firm’s new lead designer. Both...

Richard Rogers to step down from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

2020-09-01T13:27:00-04:00

British-Italian architect Richard Rogers will soon retire from his namesake architecture firm, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), which was founded in 1977.

Rogers is one of the leading lights of late-20th century High-Tech architecture, and helped design many significant buildings, including the Pompidou Center, the Lloyd's of London building, the Millennium Dome, and Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 structure.

BuildingDesign reports that the firm recently filed paperwork in conjunction with Rogers's departure in order to set a name-change for the practice into motion. The firm's constitution requires that a principal's name be removed from the firm's title once within two years of their departure. The remaining partners, Ivan Harbour and Graham Stirk, have indicated previously that the name of the firm could simply become "Stirk Harbour & Partners," though it is possible they may add the names of recently elevated partners to the title, as well.

BD reports that Rogers's retirem...

Boomers poised to leave suburban Dust Belts in their wake

2019-11-25T22:00:00-05:00

The U.S. is at the beginning of a tidal wave of homes hitting the market on the scale of the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. This time it won’t be driven by overbuilding, easy credit or irrational exuberance, but by an inevitable fact of life: the passing of the baby boomer generation.

A report in The Wall Street Journal highlights the coming vacancy crisis set to impact America's retirement communities and exurbs as members of the Baby Boomer generation age out of independent living with fewer members of younger generations left—or willing—to take their places.

The report states, "One in eight owner-occupied homes in the U.S., or roughly nine million residences, are set to hit the market from 2017 through 2027 as the baby boomers start to die in larger numbers, according to an analysis by Issi Romem conducted while he was a senior director of housing and urban economics at Zillow. That is up from roughly 7 million homes in the prior decade."

It gets worse: According to The Wall Street Journal, up to 21 million homes could be vacated by seniors by 2027, more than twice the number of new properties built during the decade that preceded the Great Recession.

Multigenerational and communal, but not a commune

2018-03-06T18:26:00-05:00

The heart of each community is the common house, or a space, where group meals are offered once or twice a week, together with activities and events. Houses are connected by pathways. Instead of a lawn mower in every garage, there often are no attached garages. Cars are exiled to peripheral parking areas, while a single, shared lawn mower suits the needs of everyone.

Tom Verde covers a new trend in retiring, not communes but cohousing communities. From Denver and Boulder, CO to Amherst MA or Davis CA, currently there are only 165 communities nationwide, but another 140 in the planning stages.

Robert A.M. Stern to step down as Dean of Yale School of Architecture

2014-11-10T19:13:00-05:00

After nearly two decades of leadership, School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern ARC ’65 is reportedly planning to step down. Five faculty and administrative staff members at the School of Architecture said that Stern will retire from the school when his term as dean concludes in Spring 2016. Professor Michelle Addington added that he has also been a major influence on her own approach to architecture.

Phyllis Lambert steps down from Canadian Centre for Architecture

2013-12-05T14:01:00-05:00

Phyllis Lambert, 86, announced Wednesday she is retiring as chair of the board of trustees of the museum and research centre she founded in 1979. A tireless defender of Montreal’s built heritage, Lambert has taken an active role in every major urban planning debate in the city in the last four decades, from redeveloping the Old Port to protecting Mount Royal.

Phyllis Lambert, founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, is stepping down as chairperson. She had also served as Director of the CCA until 1999. Toronto architect Bruce Kuwabara will succeed her as chair of the world-renowned museum and research center.

Before becoming an architect in the 1960s, Lambert established herself as Director of Planning for the Seagram Building, where she was responsible for hiring Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as the designer. She recently published a book, Building Seagram, chronicling the experience.

Peak People: Soon the World Will Have to Compete for Workers

2012-10-25T12:08:00-04:00

The world is on the threshold of what might be called “peak people.” The world’s supply of working-age people will soon be shrinking, causing a shift from surplus to scarcity. As with “peak oil” theories — which hold that declining petroleum supplies will trigger global economic instability — the claims of the doomsayers are too hyperbolic and hysterical. These are not existential threats but rather policy challenges. That said, they’re very big policy challenges.

Robert Venturi retires, and firm renames

2012-07-26T14:45:00-04:00

Robert Venturi, who along with his wife Denise Scott Brown formed one of Philadelphia’s best known architectural firms, has retired and the firm known as Venturi Scott Brown and Associates Inc. has been renamed VSBA.

Gordon Walker designs a house for the future

2011-10-10T15:14:25-04:00

Walker showed his idea around. The response was near freezing. "So far, people don't like them," he says. "They say, 'I want something I recognize.' "The baby boomers are coming of age, and I always imagined that they were more design-minded than they turned out to be." Or they just haven't caught up to Gordon Walker.

A Seattle architect designs a house for him and his wife to grow old in, and realizes he's way more cool than most other senior citizens.