DS+R vs. Tod Williams Billie Tsien?

2016-06-01T14:40:00-04:00

It is not the first time, though, that a design like this has been pitched for the university. However inadvertently, the DS+R design resembles another proposal for the campus—a draft project that was eventually revised. While the resemblance between two draft renderings is hardly consequential, this one comes as a surprise, given the nature of the projects and the history between the firms.

Raking only the choicest aesthetic muck, in this piece Kriston Capps wonders at the passing similarities between Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects' initial proposed design for the University of Chicago's David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts and Diller, Scofidio, and Renfro's recently unveiled plans for the Rubenstein Forum, before bringing up the destruction of TWBTA's Folk Art Museum Building, which was destroyed to make way for DS+R's MoMA expansion. As Capps writes, "The tortured history between these firms suggests that a resemblance is something that these firms would rather avoid."

The latest on TWBTA:

Hole, no: Archinect's comparison of exterior facades

2015-08-20T09:07:00-04:00

There's a thin line (or radius, in this case) between what enhances a design and what simply makes it look like it's trying too hard. In the case of buildings with circular openings on their exterior facades, the effect is often visually arresting, but is it good architecture? The COR building in Miami is arguably a blend of both: its proposed highly sustainable wind turbines, mounted in the circular openings of the exterior facade, make it stand out on the skyline as well as on energy-savings meters. Compare this to the Dream Downtown Hotel in Manhattan (see below), which is...well, it doesn't have wind turbines in its holes, let's put it that way.

However, the Dream Downtown Hotel is aiming for an altogether different effect, which it achieves brilliantly. Thanks to the combination of stately steel and outsize circular holes, it's quite visually attractive without being ostentatious.

Presumably, guests would want to stay here because it's interesting without tipping over into Las Ve...

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DS+R vs. Tod Williams Billie Tsien?

Hole, no: Archinect's comparison of exterior facades