Archinect - News

After being rejected by Princeton, three Michael Graves properties slated for purchase by Kean University

2016-06-28T17:27:00-04:00

Through his will, he donated the properties to Princeton University, his neighbor and longtime employer. [...] “We were grateful to be able to consider the possibility of accepting Michael Graves’s properties, but concluded that we could not meet the terms and conditions associated with the gift,” [Princeton] said in a statement. Among those “terms and conditions” were preserving the houses and making them fit for education — a cost that Kean said it was willing to take on.

Estimates by Kean's president, Dawood Farahi, place annual maintenance costs for the three Princeton, NJ properties (including The Warehouse, Graves' home and studio) at $30,000 to $40,000 per year, and "retrofitting the buildings for student use would cost about $300,000. The three properties were appraised for a total value of nearly $3.2 million."

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2014-11-17T14:53:00-05:00

Thursday, November 13:

Smithsonian hires BIG architecture group for $2 billion South Mall renovation plan: While approval is still pending, the large-scale renovation will include "two underground levels of visitor amenities" and could take up to twenty years to complete.

Lucas museum faces lawsuit from Friends of the Parks: The nonprofit advocacy group claims that cordoning off the Chicago waterfront for Lucas' museum violates the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing "equal protection and due process" for deciding what to do with land belonging to the state of Illinois.

Wednesday, November 12:

Two window washers trapped on scaffolding at 1 WTC: The two men were shortly rescued by firemen, after uneven ascending cables left them dangling at a 65-degree angle 827ft in the air.

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NJIT blasts Kean U. architecture school plans; calls proposal duplicative, wasteful

2014-11-12T13:23:00-05:00

Kean University’s plans to open a school architecture now face opposition from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, which claims the program would be a wasteful duplication and that Kean has failed to seek approvals [...] “If you have the state involved in sponsored programs, they would have to have a geographical disparity or offer different programs. I think it would hard not to come to that conclusion,” said Urs Gauchat, NJIT Dean of the School of Architecture and Design.

Previously in the News: Kean University announces the Michael Graves School of Architecture

More on this issue also in the latest episode of our weekly podcast, Archinect Sessions: Paul and Amelia discuss the ensuing beef between the two schools with co-hosts Donna Sink and NJIT graduate Ken Koense.

Kean University announces the Michael Graves School of Architecture

2014-10-28T13:23:00-04:00

The School’s curriculum will intensively utilize the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area and the Wenzhou region of China, where Kean University has an English-speaking campus [...] “Michael Graves’ philosophy is to draw by hand first so that the students see, “feel” and experience the new building spatially. Then, only after the drawing is complete will the students transfer the design to a computer so that the computer becomes an execution tool, not an ideation tool.”