Archinect - News

Archinect LAX >< DET Mini Sessions; A Conversation with Architect/Academic Andrew Zago

2017-05-31T16:03:00-04:00

This week we are releasing a series of conversations, or "Mini-Sessions", with architects and designers in LA and Detroit, in partnership with the Los Angeles Design Festival. The festival will be taking place in Downtown LA from June 8 to 11th. Today we're sharing my conversation with Andrew Zago, LA-based architect and educator. We talk about growing up in Detroit, early inspirations, working on Thom Mayne’s iconic Sixth Street House, his so-called unusual early work in Jeff Kipnis, and his approach and thoughts on the current state of architectural education.

If you’re able to attend the LA Design Festival, make sure to check out the live panel, titled LAX >< DET, discussing the connection between LA and Detroit, a collaboration with the Detroit Design Festival and the L.A. Forum for Architecture and Design. The event will be taking place on June 10th, from 2-4pm at ROW DTLA 777 Alameda Street, and will include Edwin Chan, Chris Denson, Lorcan O’Herlihy, and Eileen Lee.

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2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial participants announced

2017-03-06T13:14:00-05:00

Preparations for the second Chicago Architecture Biennial are in full swing, with the big reveal of the 2017 participants today. Titled “Make New History” and with Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee as Artistic Directors, the 2017 roster has the names of over 100 firms — many of them well-known — representing over 20 countries. The 2017 CAB will take place at the Chicago Cultural Center and additional sites across the city from September 16 through January 7, 2018.

Building upon the themes and ideas presented in the successful 2015 edition, the 2017 biennial will showcase a diversity of architectural work from across the globe and will focus on “examining the underpinnings of this resurgence of historical interest” and “the efforts of contemporary architects to align their work with versions of history.”

“We hope to examine, through the work of the chosen participants, the continuous engagement with questions of history and architecture as an evolutionary practice,” Sharon Johnston says.

Her...

"The Architectural Imagination" Venice Biennale participants revealed

2016-03-02T15:56:00-05:00

Twelve firms, including Greg Lynn Form, MOS Architects, Preston Scott Cohen Inc., and Zago Architecture have been selected by curators Cynthia Davidson and Mónica Ponce de León to create speculative architectural presentations for the 2016 U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The presentations will be based on four real-world Detroit sites: Dequindre Cut/Eastern Market at 1923 Division Street, Mexicantown at 6370 Vernor Highway, the US Post Office at 1401 West Fort Street, and the Packard Plant at East Grand Boulevard and Concord Avenue.

According to a press release, the idea behind the exhibition is to demonstrate "the creativity and resourcefulness of architecture to address the social and environmental issues of the 21st century" and will have applications beyond the specific sites featured. As previously mentioned at Archinect, at the exhibition twenty photographs of Detroit submitted via a contest designed to tell a larger narrative about the city will be available in postcard ...

Vertical Studio at SCI-Arc Proposes a Hybrid Brothel/Child-Care Center

2014-10-15T12:22:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)

SCI-Arc’s elective vertical studios pair small groups of upper-level, graduate and undergraduate, students with elite faculty and international architects. In these studios, students develop projects which explore particular interests and focus. They have the opportunity to work with architects visiting the school, and gain insight into a broad range of issues concerning approaches to building, the environment, technology, theoretical stances, and personal interests.

Visiting faculty Jeff Kipnis’ design studio, one of 10 vertical studios offered at SCI-Arc this fall, is focused on developing a design proposal for a hybrid brothel/child-care center (watch studio intro above). The unique brothel will offer female and male services to select clients with a full range of additional optional accommodations including gourmet meals, fine libations and entertainment. The day-care/pre-school accepts infants...

Drawing Architecture - Conversation with Perry Kulper

2012-08-05T11:50:00-04:00

If “action painting” is produced by the dynamics of dripping, smearing, and sweeping brushstrokes of paint to reveal the complex character of abstract art, then “action drawing” would be something like juxtaposing lines, planes, volumes, typographical elements, photographs, and paper cutouts on a drawing that aims to uncover the intricate universe of architectural ideas.

Each of Perry Kulper’s architectural drawings is a cosmos of information and possibilities that resist the banal and simplistic reductionism so typical of contemporary architectural representation. Series after series, his drawings display objects as background, and background as object in a constant visual journey of an architecture that doesn't settle and always evolves: an architecture of ideas.

WAI Architecture Think Tank discussed with Perry Kulper the concept, intention, and potential of drawing architecture.

WAI: There was a moment in our academic experience in which we became very interested in the potential...