As we entered the hot months of summer, July wasn't necessarily the most newsworthy of months in 2018. There were some gems in there, however, worth revisiting. Let's take a look at some of the stories that caught our attention...
As the weather heats up, we always encourage our readers to get offline with our summer recommended reading lists. This year we reached out to a number of individuals we profiled, interviewed, or had on our podcast, to share some of their favorite reads with our audience.
↑ Archinect's 2018 Summer Reading List
Designing Practice was a collection of conversations aimed at Moving Architecture Forward, edited by guest contributor Eric Baldwin,
Looking to the future, Designing Practice is a series that explores how the practice of architecture can evolve in the 21st century. Framed by contemporary conditions, the series asks architects and designers to consider the discipline’s broader context and imagine new models for moving architecture forward.
In July Los Angeles experienced a huge loss with the unexpected passing of food/culture writer Jonathan Gold. We dedicated an installment of Soapbox to present a collection of short videos on Gold.
This summer I sat down with Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee to discuss their practice, Johnston Marklee, in front of a live audience at this year's LA Design Festival. We discussed the origin of their practice, their relationship to LA, the eclectic group of collaborators they have worked with over the years, and their unique approach to telling the story of their work in their recently published monograph.
↑ Johnston Marklee, Live from the LA Design Festival
To celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, a book was published containing a carefully selected a collection of pieces published from its origin to today. I invited editors Mimi Zeiger, Chava Danielson and Michael Sweeney to to our recording studio to discuss the history of the Forum and the process of putting together this anthology.
↑ The LA Forum Reader Traces 30 Years of LA's Architectural Discourse
Snarkitecture's interactive installation Fun House opened at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C in July. Following their blockbuster ball pit that took over the Great Hall in 2015 and attracted a record-breaking 160,000 visitors, the New York design studio came back for the Museum's highly anticipated, annual "Summer Block Party."
↑ Snarkitecture's interactive 'Fun House' opens at the National Building Museum
“Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980” made its debut at MoMA in New York on July 15. “Toward a Concrete Utopia” was the first major U.S. exhibition that examines the distinctive works of Yugoslavia's architects that attracted global interest during the country's 45-year lifespan.
↑ First major U.S. exhibition on Yugoslav architecture to open at MoMA this Sunday
The Japan Art Association announced the laureates of its prestigious Praemium Imperiale Award in July, and French Pritzker-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc is this year's top honoree in the Architecture category.
↑ Christian de Portzamparc wins 2018 Praemium Imperiale Award
In July a five-tonne, 6m tall replica of Le Corbusier’s infamous Villa Savoye was towed into a Danish fjord and subsequently sunk as part of a summer art exhibition.
↑ Is that Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye floating in a Danish fjord?
In July MAD Architects' new China Entrepreneur Forum Conference Centre broke ground in the rugged, snow-capped mountains of Yabuli, located in northeastern China.
↑ MAD’s tent-like conference center breaks ground in China's rugged mountains
In more MAD news, their submission to “Southbank by Beulah” tower competition for downtown Melbourne generated quite a bit of attention on Archinect. Located at City Road and Southbank Boulevard, the skyscraper must include a mixed-use program of more than 220,000 square meters. The other competing teams were BIG, Coop Himmelb(l)au, MVRDV, OMA, and UNStudio.
↑ MAD proposes mixed-use tower topped with a cantilevered “cloud” for downtown Melbourne
Bjarke Ingels, along with fellow BIG partner Jakob Lange, went to Burning Man this summer, this time bringing the ORB, a giant reflective ball installation scaled to 1/500,000 of the earth’s surface. The project was announced in July with an Indiegogo campaign. Interested in seeing what the final product looked like on site? Search the news or wait until our August article tomorrow.
↑ Bjarke Ingels is crowdsourcing funds to bring a giant mirrored orb to Burning Man
Jeanne Gang's firm Studio Gang scrutinized their office for any existing pay gap in July. They found that despite their prioritization of equality there was in fact a small gender pay gap in their office. The promised to close that gap, and encouraged other practices to do so as well.
↑ Jeanne Gang closed the pay gap at her firm and urges others to do the same
American architect J. Meejin Yoon, founding principal of the Boston-based firm Höweler + Yoon (with partner Eric Höweler) and currently head of the architecture department at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning, was appointed as the next Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University in July of this year.
↑ J. Meejin Yoon named Cornell's next AAP Dean
In July The Telegraph explained the phenomenon of 'ghost gardens' which have been appearing across Britain during the country's most extreme heatwave in decades.
↑ Record heatwave is revealing hidden historic sites across Britain
Torrential downpours and subsequent floods and mudslides devastated parts of Western Japan in July, making it one of the country's most severe natural disasters.
Pritzker Prize laureate Shigeru Ban joined the relief efforts with VAN, the Voluntary Architects' Network he's leading, and his award-winning, low-cost, easy-to-assemble cardboard tube emergency shelter system to create a sense of privacy for evacuees having to spend their nights away from their flooded homes in an elementary school gymnasium in Okayama Prefecture.
↑ Shigeru Ban builds temporary shelter for flooding victims in Japan
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