Archinect - News

The Obama Foundation is hiring a design associate to work on the Obama Presidential Center

2022-12-01T09:34:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for an Auditorium and Seating Designer at Theatre Projects Consultants, we are using our Job Highlights series this week to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Senior Associate of Design for the Obama Presidential Center.

The role, situated in Chicago, calls for an individual to join the wider Obama Foundation team delivering the high-profile project. Responsibilities for the successful candidate will include managing the project’s budget, workflow schedule, and on-site construction team, as well as managing the procurement and installation of all furniture, fixtures, equipment, accessories, and art for the center.

Why the role interests us

Over one year since former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama personally broke ground on the Obama Presidential Center, the recruitment of individuals to oversee on-site constructio...

Obama Presidential Center Director, Louise Bernard, discusses the site's progress

2022-06-22T11:51:00-04:00

The construction will take place holistically at once. Except for our athletic facility, whose timeline is little bit later. And there is all the landscaping work that will commence once the construction is further along. The vision of what the center will be is firmly understood. The drawings are complete and ready to be executed upon. The concrete work will be the next phase. People will begin to see the construction coming out of the ground beginning in the summer.

Bernard told ARTnews she wants the 19-acre TWBTA-designed library and parks complex to “serve as an example” for other developments in the city. The Director also described the museum's four-floor gallery layout, which is topped by a "Sky Room" feature in addition to a 5,000-square-foot special exhibits gallery located on the building's lowest level. When discussing the space she shared, "we will delve into topics that we only touch upon in the core exhibit.”

The museum will also include a replica of the oval office, and core galleries consisting of mostly donated objects filtered through the focal point of the historic 2008 Presidential election, with the curatorial direction being “not just to be about him but about the people who made his presidency possible.”

Billie Tsien to receive honorary doctorate at the Boston Architectural College's 2022 graduation ceremony

2022-05-18T18:43:00-04:00

Architect, educator, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners co-founder Billie Tsien is set to receive an Honorary Doctorate and deliver the commencement speech at the Boston Architectural College’s (BAC) graduation ceremony on Friday, May 27th.

“It is an immense privilege to have Billie Tsien deliver the BAC’s commencement address to our graduating class in-person this year,” said Boston Architectural College President Mahesh Daas. “Her commitment to designing deeper and slower existential experiences grounded in an unmistakable sense of service, materiality and profound optimism complements the BAC’s own commitment to furthering social justice, inclusion, and diversifying design education.”

Previously on Archinect Sessions: "Starts with me, ends with us": A conversation with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien on Archinect Sessions Episode #22

This is the latest addition to Tsien’s long list of accolades, including the National Medal of the Arts from President Obama, the Tho...

Los Angeles honors President Obama with renaming of two roads

2018-09-05T16:13:00-04:00

Rodeo Road will be renamed after President Barack Obama, city leaders decided this week. But it’s not the first roadway in LA that lawmakers agreed to name after the 44th president. In 2017, the state legislature approved a resolution to designate the stretch of the 134 freeway that runs between Pasadena and Eagle Rock as the President Barack H. Obama Highway. A year later, however, there’s little evidence of that decision.

A 3.7 mile stretch of road in Los Angeles, now called Rodeo Road, will be renamed Obama Boulevard honoring the country’s first African American president. Located in the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw neighborhood, the road was chosen for its significance in the black community and its relation to a 2007 rally site Obama held at the beginning of his campaign.

Obama Boulevard is not scheduled to be fully renamed until Presidents Day in 2019. Another Obama named stretch of road in Los Angeles is also awaiting new signage. A stretch of the 134 freeway running between Pasadena and Eagle Rock has been approved to be named the President Barack H. Obama Highway, however the money for new signage has yet to be raised.

Land surrounding Michael Heizer’s "City" could lose national monument protection under Trump Administration

2017-07-31T14:55:00-04:00

As City—Michael Heizer’s vast Land Art installation in the Nevada desert—nears completion, the fate of the federally protected land surrounding it could soon be decided. Ryan Zinke, the US Interior Secretary, visited the state on Sunday, 30 July, as part of a review of 27 national monuments ordered by President Donald Trump, which could result in some of these lands being reopened to development.

"A number of museums banded together to call for the site’s preservation," The Art Newspaper explains the background of City's current surroundings (previously also on Archinect), "and in 2015, Obama created the Basin and Range National Monument, which covers 704,000 acres in southern Nevada’s Lincoln and Nye counties, including the land surrounding City and several Native American rock art sites. The next year, he created the Gold Butte National Monument, which covers 300,000 acres in Clark county."

As President Obama leaves the White House, a closer look at his urban policy legacy

2016-12-30T18:04:00-05:00

City residents and urbanists had reasons to believe Obama would usher in a new urban era. [...] Now, as he leaves the White House, Obama’s legacy is being evaluated on many fronts, including within the realm of urban policy. In a new book called Urban Policy in the Time of Obama, academics appraise his successes and failures. CityLab spoke with the book’s editor, James DeFillippis, an associate professor in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.

Frank Gehry and Maya Lin to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

2016-11-17T12:56:00-05:00

Some good news from the White House: iconic designers Maya Lin and Frank Gehry will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in a ceremony on November 22nd. While both designers have already made tremendous contributions to the global aesthetic landscape, they're not done yet. Gehry is currently undertaking the revitalization of the L.A. river among other projects, while according to the White House's official site, Maya Lin is working "on a multi-sited artwork/memorial, What is Missing? bringing awareness to the planet's loss of habitat and biodiversity."

For more on President Obama and architecture:

How will President Obama's move to require overtime pay change architecture?

2016-05-31T19:44:00-04:00

For decades, bosses [in certain professions] have groomed their assistants to be the next generation of big shots by working them long hours for low wages. Call it the “Devil Wears Prada” economy, after the novel depicting life working for a fictionalized Anna Wintour, the longtime Vogue editor. But now, with the Obama administration moving to require time-and-a-half overtime pay for most salaried employees making less than $47,476 a year, that business model is suddenly under assault.

"The change presents more than an economic challenge for the companies that rely on the willingness of young, ambitious workers to trade pay and self-respect for a shot at a prestige job down the road."

The article doesn't explicitly reference architecture, but as Archinect's past coverage on the state of internships in the field makes clear, it could. Many firms employ a business model that involves underpaying interns and other young workers – or not paying them at all.

Like many of the employers quoted in the article, some architects contend that this culture breeds better architects in the long run. Additionally, since some firms won't be able to afford overtime hours, their interns will end up getting less "training time" (and fewer opportunities to impress the highers-up).

Thoughts?

For related coverage, check out these links:

What does President Obama's final year in office mean for architecture?

2016-01-13T13:18:00-05:00

President Obama gave his final State of the Union speech last night, which prompted the AIA to issue a statement outlining policies it feels President Obama and Republicans in Congress should enact this year in order to bolster the health of the architectural profession. These include:

• Strengthening the Historic Tax Credit

• Passing The National Design Services Act

• Retaining 2030 energy efficiency targets for federal buildings

The majority of these initiatives are designed to ease financial burdens, both by reducing student debt while stimulating tax incentives for construction (the AIA advocates for making the 179D Energy Efficient Commercial Building Tax Deduction permanent). Among other things, The National Design Services Act allows students to work off their academic loans through community service, while the AIA describes the Historic Tax Credit as a method of "promot[ing] investment in the buildings that make America what it is today." Archinect plans to follow the state...

Heizer's "City" now part of national monument, thanks to POTUS

2015-07-10T15:23:00-04:00

Using his authority under the Antiquities Act, the president created a protected area spanning roughly 704,000 acres in central Nevada’s Basin and Range, as well as smaller ones in California’s Berryessa Snow Mountain and Texas’ Waco Mammoth. [...] Broadly supported by environmentalists, [Basin and Range] is also home to a major earthen sculpture, “City” which the artist Michael Heizer has worked to create over nearly half a century.

All in all, these new monuments cover more land than the state of Rhode Island, adding significant mileage to Obama's public lands legacy. The Basin and Range (Nevada), Berryessa Snow Mountain (California) and Waco Mammoth (Texas) monuments cover lands that are either completely or mostly undeveloped, and their now-protected status will prohibit mining and energy leasing.

The designation also encompasses Michael Heizer's "City", the massive land-art project now in the final stage of its creation, located in Garden Valley, Nevada. "City" was an integral part of a public preservation campaign aimed at getting President Obama to act on the area. Heizer will reportedly attend the White House ceremony when the President will sign the monument proclamations.

Also now off the table are talks of a possible rail corridor through the Basin and Range area, chiefly for shipping nuclear waste to the nearby Yucca Mountain repository.

For more on the history of Heizer's "City":

#ProtectCity campaign l...