Archinect - News

MASS Design Group announces acquisition of long-time Santa Fe collaborator Atkin Olshin Schade Architects

2022-11-16T12:03:00-05:00

MASS Design Group has announced its acquisition of Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Atkin Olshin Schade Architects (AOS) in a move they say will offer an enhancement of the relationship the two have built already through years of collaboration.

The merger makes the new combined entity Santa Fe’s largest architectural office, with further opportunity to leverage AOS’s Philadelphia operation in order to pursue “innovative approaches to preservation, adaptive reuse, and design for mission-focused organizations throughout the northeast and nationally.”

Previously on Archinect: MASS Design Group founder Michael Murphy announces he is stepping down, will join the faculty at Georgia Tech

It comes just under a month after MASS’s co-founder Michael Murphy left the firm to take a position on faculty at Georgia Tech University, handing over the reins to his former Senior Principal and Managing Director Christian Benimana and Patricia Gruits as well as the firm’s co-founder and current Chief Design O...

Tadao Ando-designed 20,662 acre estate for Tom Ford finally finds a buyer

2021-01-12T11:42:00-05:00

After more than four years on the market, Tom Ford’s sprawling New Mexico estate has finally found a buyer. The property, better known as the Cerro Pelon Ranch, sits just outside Santa Fe in the Galisteo Basin area, and measures a whopping 20,662 acres.

The home features the Silverado Movie Town, which is built on the site in the 1980s, writes Joyce Chen for Architectural Digest. The set was originally used for the Western film Silverado, and later for films including 2011's Thor.

Previously on Archinect: Tadao Ando's sprawling Santa Fe compound for Tom Ford hits the market at $75M. Image: kevinbobolskygroup.com

As we reported four and a half years ago, when the property was first listed, Cerro Pelon Ranch had construction oversight provided by LA firm Marmol Radziner.

Read our interview with Tadao Ando, Tadao Ando Interview: 20 Minutes with a Master

"Built by award-winning architect Tadao Ando, the main house sits low to the earth over an expansive reflecting pool, with a wide walkway cutting across the water," writes Chen.

George R.R. Martin wants to build a castle in his backyard to the dismay of his neighbors

2020-09-10T12:13:00-04:00

George R.R. Martin, creator of Game of Thrones, has submitted plans to build a real-life 'castle' in his Santa Fe backyard. Neighbors, however, are refusing to bend the knee. The Daily Mail reports the author describing the structure as a "seven-sided library" in a planning application submitted to the City of Santa Fe.

Plans submitted to the City of Santa Fe

See more from R.R. Martin's planning application submitted to the city, in the gallery of images below.

Screenshot of Winterfell. Game of Thrones.

The GoT inspired project features a 27-foot-high tower, which seems to be the point of contention for the creator's neighbors. "We thought it was Winterfell when we first saw the plans," one of Martin's neighbors jokingly remarked. "All it was missing is Jon Snow and a couple of dragons."

R.R. Martin lives in a surprisingly normal house in a modest suburb of Santa Fe, as seen below.

George R.R. Martin's Santa Fe residence. Image from Google Street View.

Check out the castle-themed mai...

100+ artist-collective Meow Wolf brings their unique combination of architecture, art and technology to the Life is Beautiful festival in Vegas

2017-09-25T15:17:00-04:00

Meow Wolf is a unique collaboration of more than 100 artists and designers. They use architecture, painting, sculpture, video and audio engineering to create immersive multi-sensorial environments. The works of art they create can be walked in, climbed on and played with.

Truly multidisciplinary, Meow Wolf mixes architecture, art and entertainment to create fantastical environments.

Kate Russell courtesy of Meow Wolf

In 2016, they opened their first permanent exhibition, called “The House of Eternal Return” in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Meow Wolf transformed a former bowling alley in the industrial area of Santa Fe, into a 20,000 square foot fantastical immersive environment. The exhibition is composed of dozens of rooms and secret passages for kids and adults.

House of Eternal Return, Santa Fe. Lindsay Kennedy courtesy of Meow Wolf

House of Eternal Return, Santa Fe. Kate Russell courtesy of Meow Wolf

House of Eternal Return, Santa Fe. Lindsay Kennedy courtesy of Meow Wolf

Meow Wolf also r...

Art collective Meow Wolf's cool new model for artists to make an excellent living

2017-07-13T13:53:00-04:00

Full-time creative positions, like architects and sound engineers, come with considerable salaries and benefits. “We have 20-year-olds making $50,000 a year with us,” remarks Everett.

Meow Wolf may have put the starving artist trope to rest in the form of a magnificent new business/installation model.

Photo by Kate Russell. Courtesy of Meow Wolf.

As this article explains:

Since the Santa Fe-based art collective Meow Wolf opened its permanent installation, the House of Eternal Return, in March 2016, the project has been an unmitigated success in terms of viewership and profits. Housed in a 20,000-square-foot former bowling alley, the sprawling interactive artwork welcomed 400,000 visitors in its first year—nearly four times as many as expected—and brought in $6 million in revenue for the collective’s more than 100 members.

Founding members of Meow Wolf: Corvas Brinkeroff, Sean Di Ianni, Vince Kadlubek, Caity Kennedy, Matt King. Courtesy of Meow Wolf.

In even better news: at this time of this report Meow Wolf is currently hiring!

Examining the International Airport “species” from “In The Unlikely Event”

2016-08-16T20:31:00-04:00

“In The Unlikely Event” by artist Janet Abrams digs into the nature of the fantastical International Airport typology — “a significant species of monumental urbanism, perhaps the archetypal City State of our time”...Created in 2013...ITUE is an ambitious large-scale ceramic installation that showcases the Top 30 of the world's busiest international airports as terra cotta ceramic bas-reliefs, which Abrams molded individually by hand.

Arranged like ancient fossils at a natural history museum, In The Unlikely Event (ITUE) is part two of Abrams' ongoing "A Natural History of Technology" case study series. In ITUE, each airport stands as a physical architectural expression of its home country's ambitions to compete in the global economy.

In The Unlikely Event, view during its US debut at form + concept gallery, Santa Fe, May 27 2016. Photo courtesy of Janet Abrams.

The exhibition is currently at Santa Fe's form + concept gallery until August 22. Read more about the project on Bustler.

Paolo Soleri Amphitheater featured at SITE Santa Fe Biennial

2016-08-08T01:28:00-04:00

Architect Conrad Skinner’s five-year research project into the history of the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater plays a lead role in much wider than a line, SITE Santa Fe’s 2016 biennial dedicated to new art from the Americas. The exhibition which features 35 artists and two archival projects including Skinner’s, runs at SITE Santa Fe through January 8, 2017.

Skinner’s project introduces visitors to much wider than a line with a 700 square-foot gallery that includes a photographic mural of the Amphitheater from which projects an arcing concrete bench, architect’s drawings reproduced from Soleri’s sketchbooks, and a micaceous clay model of the Amphitheater by artist Eliza Naranjo-Morse.

The Paolo Soleri Amphitheater re-imagined Western theater space by introducing Native American precedents and represented the turning point in Native American arts education that the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) initiated in the mid-1960s. The Amphitheater grew out of a creative collaboration betw...