Archinect - News

Neil Denari launched his new monograph MASSX at Archinect Outpost last night

2018-11-28T17:34:00-05:00

Thanks so much to everyone that braved the LA rush hour traffic to attend our book launch & signing with Neil Denari last night at Archinect Outpost. As predicted, all of the copies of MASSX we secured were quickly sold. We have heard from many of you out there who wanted to buy a copy, but couldn't attend our event, so we're reaching out to the publisher to see if we can snag some more copies of this very limited release.

During my conversation with Neil we spoke about his early vision for the monograph, the process of producing and editing this giant tome, his approach to communicating his work through print (Neil did all the layout and graphic design for this book!), and his vision for the next monograph, which he promises won't take another 19 years to release. We will be releasing this conversation as a podcast or article very soon, so stay tuned.

Over the course of the next few months we will be hosting more of these events, with local and international architects, to talk ab...

Here's your chance to get a super limited-edition copy of MASSX, Neil Denari's highly anticipated new monograph

2018-11-24T11:00:00-05:00

Join us Tuesday, November 27th celebrate MASSX, the latest monograph from Neil M. Denari Architects at Archinect Outpost.

We will be selling 20 copies of MASSX, priced at $162.50 + tax. It is recommended that you arrive before doors open at 6 if you want to get a copy of the book, as they will sell to the first people in line (if you already have a copy of MASSX, please feel free to bring it to the event to get it signed and receive secure access to the conversation).

The conversation will start at 6:30, and doors will close at that time until the conversation ends. Space will be limited, so priority will be given to those who buy a copy of MASSX or bring their own copy.

HL23, by Neil Denari

Archinect Outpost to host launch of Neil Denari's highly anticipated new monograph MASSX

2018-11-15T12:26:00-05:00

Join us in celebrating MASSX, the latest monograph from Neil M. Denari Architects at Archinect Outpost on Tuesday, November 27th, 6-8 PM.

We will be selling 20 copies of MASSX - come early to ensure you get a copy! Please note that there will be limited space available at the event, and we can only allow a small number of people in the space at a time. Doors open at 6pm, and queueing up in advance is recommended to get a copy of the book.

This formidable monograph of Neil M. Denari Architects can be viewed as a point of departure for examining architecture’s role in the contemporary world. It contains more than 700 pages of material that has evolved over time, the majority of which has never been published, and offers both a rich history of projects and an extraordinarily in-depth examination of the firm’s practice. The book arranges selected projects, buildings, concepts, references, arguments, and sensibilities (all together classified as “things”) chronologically, from the begin...

Heather Roberge named Chair of UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design

2017-07-14T19:15:00-04:00

Associate Professor Heather Roberge has been appointed to the position of chair of the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design effective July 1, 2017. She will take over for interim chair, Professor Neil Denari, alongside whom she has served as interim vice chair during this past academic year.

A designer and educator who has served on the faculty at UCLA since 2002, Roberge is the founder and principal of Murmur, an award winning practice based in Los Angeles. Roberge’s research and professional work investigate the spatial, structural, and atmospheric potential that digital technologies have on the theory and practice of building. Her teaching emphasizes innovative approaches to material, computation, and manufacturing to expand the formal vocabulary and spatial implications of building envelopes and assemblies.

Don't miss Neil Denari's “Displaced Buildings in Aperiodic City” at the ‘T’ Space Gallery

2017-05-25T20:35:00-04:00

Think you've seen all of Neil Denari's work? Eleven inkjet drawings featuring unbuilt visions by Denari's studio NMDA will be showcased in his “Displaced Buildings in Aperiodic City” exhibition, opening May 27 at the Steven Holl-designed ‘T’ Space Gallery in Rhinebeck, New York. If you'll be in the area in the coming weeks, it could be worth checking out.

NMDA created the drawings over the past seven years. Ranging from port terminals to museums, each project was originally designed for specific contexts in various cities.

Image credit: Neil M. Denari Architects.

“A number of buildings designed over the last seven years have been displaced from their original context as a life-enhancing act, given that their material lives never began. Designed for specific contexts in various cities, they now occupy peculiar voids in Aperiodic City,” Neil Denari writes. “In this new context, these buildings take on new meanings, yet they retain all the attributes of their original locations. But the ...

Neil Denari’s Chroma_topia: Generally Different Towers for Shanghai research studio

2015-12-07T12:51:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by UCLA Architecture and Urban Design.

“Chromatopia, at first, aims to be a collective project designed by eight individuals, a collective enterprise that negotiates its individual differences within a regime of agreement. The utopic overtones (or undertones?) openly engage the premise of a new and different world, yet the world depicted here is made up of the existing impulses of Shanghai. More towers, more programs, more color — to offer at a political level more publicness too, which may be more atopic in its mission, that is, to make a borderless utopia, one that would infect the life and spirit of the city.” — Neil Denari

↑ Chroma_topia: Generally Different Towers For Shangai installation at RUMBLE, 1025

Two defining images of Chinese modernity have been circulating the media circuit for the past thirty years: 1) the image of a seemingly endless stretch of vertical density on the form of high rise towers, captured in elevation as the stacking of bal...

Our brand new interview podcast "Archinect Sessions One-to-One" premieres today! Listen to episode #1 with Neil Denari

2015-11-09T18:21:00-05:00

Our new podcast, Archinect Sessions: One-to-One is an interview show, straight-up. Each episode features a single interview with a notable figure in contemporary architecture – it's that simple. Usually, One-to-One will be led by me or Paul Petrunia, while occasionally others will serve as guide. The conversation will be casual and spontaneous, touching on the interviewee's role in the expanding range of architectural practice, and will serve (we hope) a valuable archival role in future discourse.

For our very first episode, I spoke with Neil Denari of Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA). Aside from his firm's work, Denari is a tenured professor at UCLA, and was the director of SCI-Arc from 1997 - 2001. We spoke about the shifting focus of architecture education, multitasking, Los Angeles and the recession's impact on architecture.

iTunes: Click here to listen and subscribe to the new "Archinect Sessions One-to-One" podcast
Stitcher: click here to listen
SoundCloud: click here to follow Ar...

On the ground: UCLA's year-end student expo, RUMBLE, includes flying robots, seceding cities and much more

2014-07-08T18:13:00-04:00

The big catharsis for UCLA Architecture and Urban Design comes by way of RUMBLE, an all-school expo held at the end of the academic year, that includes student work, final reviews, program installations, and lectures. Mixing content from students, practitioners, critics and faculty, the event spans a full week in June, and gives the public a chance to peek into A.UD's world. This year’s RUMBLE included work from studios led by Neil Denari, Frank Gehry, Craig Hodgetts, Greg Lynn, Thom Mayne and many more, showcased across two campuses for the first time in A.UD history.

In addition to their facilities on the main campus in Westwood, UCLA acquired a giant airplane hanger in Playa Vista for its satellite Hercules campus, now home to SUPRASTUDIO, UCLA’s M.Arch II program. You can read more about the goings-on at Hercules from our visit in December. Similar in parts to Blue Tape, USC’s big-bang showcase for its entire architecture school, RUMBLE offers the public a unique chance to see th...

Neil M. Denari Architects Wins New Keelung Harbor Service Building

2012-09-17T20:11:00-04:00

The entry by LA-based Neil M. Denari Architects has won the First Prize in the international competition for the New Harbor Service Building in Keelung, Taiwan.

UPDATE: more detailed information about this project can be seen here:
ShowCase: New Keelung Harbor Service Building

Houston's Trafalgar Square? Big name architects vie to design futuristic METRO Central Station

2012-01-28T18:05:00-05:00

Some of the names might already sound familiar to Houston design aficionados. Interloop principles Mark Wamble and Dawn Finley are professors at Rice. Denari received his undergraduate architecture degree from UH. Snøhetta is a finalist for the upcoming contemporary galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and SHoP Architects are behind the current renovations for the Blaffer Art Museum.

Neil Denari goes full circle, returns to his roots as airline designer

2011-05-25T02:25:00-04:00

As the recently passed-away Larry Totah remarked to Eric Chavkin in his review of the Ace Gallery show in LA last year, "Neil Denari is from Texas. He started out working in aeronautics; drafting, designing for airlines. That’s where the imagery comes from”.

Considering this, and Denari's love for all things Japanese, it's no surprise he was drawn to the competition to design a hip, new Japanese airline earlier this year. He won. And today the designs for Peach Airlines are unveiled. There's not too much to see yet, but so far so good.

Press release follows...

OSAKA & TOKYO May 24, 2011 - A&F Aviation Co., Ltd. (A&F Aviation), Japan’s first
dedicated low cost carrier (LCC) announced today that their airline will operate under
the brand name “Peach.”

The name “Peach” was chosen for its symbolism as a well-known and much loved fruit
that symbolizes longevity, energy and happiness across Asian countries. “Peach”
strives to be the airline that represents these traits.

To...

Neil Denari’s HL23 Residential Tower Rises in Chelsea - Review - NYTimes.com

2011-04-25T18:21:37-04:00

But like other architects of his generation, especially those who formed many of their ideas working in Los Angeles’s sprawling suburban maze, Mr. Denari is less interested in perpetuating the myth of the open road than in mining it for new ideas. His work has more to do with exploring adolescent fantasies than with celebrating personal freedom. It suggests a longing for a world — free, open, upwardly mobile — that began to break down more than 30 years ago.

Last week was Christopher Hawthorne's turn. This week the NY Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff reviews Neil Denari's HL23.

LA Times' Christopher Hawthorne reviews Denari's HL23

2011-04-23T04:53:00-04:00

For all its dynamism, precision and intelligence, there has always been something a bit antiseptic about Denari's work, as if it were hermetically sealed against emotion as well as imperfection. The New York building, with its fluid, digitally derived profile and facade of glass and panels of embossed stainless steel, won't dramatically change that impression. Its design personality is closer to robotic than balletic.

As previously mentioned on Archinect here in 2008 and here in 2011. The 156 feet-high, 39,200 square-foot building officially opens in June. Perched next to and on top of the High Line, the 12-unit building is rumored to be selling for as much as $2,600 a square foot according to Curbed. The might-be-LEED-Gold building is located at 517 West 23rd Street, New York, New York.

Luckily for us, the Denari-designed building opened its doors to LA Times' reporter Christopher Hawthorne. "... shows how much Denari has learned from those periods of immersion in Japanese culture, particularly when it comes to the ability of Tokyo architects to shoehorn ambitious buildings into small and highly restricted spaces. (Its robotic quality too seems somehow Japanese, a kind of half-imposing, half-childlike "Transformers" spirit channeled into architecture.) Denari, in fact, calls HL23's location a highly "Tokyo-ized" site, squeezed not just by the Manhattan grid but by a long list of other co...