News

Orhan Ayyüce penned Review: Carlson-Reges House, RoTo Architects. In it Orhan described how Carlson-Reges House has grown out of logistics and a "story within a story". Steven Ward waxed nostalgic about the fact that he had an "opportunity to visit this house with mr rotondi in 2003. stunning - and completely unique. there really could never be anything else like it. and the brewery is a magic little 'neighborhood'."

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, officially opened to the public on, June 1. Since Chinese officials had put Ai Weiwei on 'city arrest' in his hometown Beijing, he was not able to attend the ceremony together with his design collaborators Jaques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. Fred Scharmen’s first thought was "They really did make it out of cork!”
and bothands posts “Agreed about the lighting - pinholes through the water could've been cool..." However, Michael Jantzen thought it "Looks best from above, kind of dreary underneath, like a dark basement. Just not very inspiring to me" and accesskb agreed "ummm... dark and cold under there... not a nice place to sit with London's weather."

Donna Sink wanted people to note "this sentence from the OMA page: The project was designed out of OMA's New York office with project architect Oana Stanescu, in collaboration with Donda and 2x4. Archinect school blogger done good!" This came following the announcement that an OMA-designed temporary pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival was inaugurated today with a screening of Kanye West's debut short film Cruel Summer.

Wendy Goodman did a story for New York magazine on Swiss-based HHF Architects recent collaboration  with "Chinese artist, dissident, and human-rights cause célèbre Ai Weiwei" . Together they built an ultramodern country bungalow for two Columbia County art collectors. 18x32 quipped "Dissidents are all the rage this year, I can't believe you don't already have one".

Work/Firms/Blogs
Gregory Walker believes the latest Case-Shiller housing price index taunts us with a mixed report with some regionally dependent signs of bottoming for the market. 

JNBouchard wrote about the process and design of his CV/Portfolio as an example of Integrated Design or How to get over the pile. The general consensus of commentators was that his inclusion of  a CD was outdated. Additionally Marc added "I think the others are being a bit harsh. ..However, I agree with the rest about the CD. N...I would do your portfolio as a package, print out only one if its too expensive. Then create another, smaller work samples that you can leave with the office, just 2-5 pages even."

Don't forget to check out HSU House by Epiphyte-Lab LLC from Ithaca New York. The project is a small 2200 sq.ft. house designed using passive solar principles and rises out of a hillside south of Ithaca in upstate New York.

Schools/School Blogs
Megan Basnak from the School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo shared some project details and great photos of the Bee Tower proposal, winner of the recent HIVE CITY bee habitat design competition. Out of two finalist teams, the group of 3-1/2 year Master of Architecture students won the right to have their design fabricated and constructed on a predetermined site in Buffalo's SiloCity.

Despite not yet being finished, design/buildLAB at Virginia Tech held a dedication ceremony and look forward to the Grand Opening of the completed amphitheatre on June 23.

John Tubles also informed us that Sh*t is getting real… and...it’s a great thing! He went on to discuss his initial rejection from TU Delft and then rapid acceptance to a whole series of graduate programs and his final commitment to a spot in the incoming class of MArch students at Harvard GSD.

Discussion Threads
white fang started a thread to discuss similarities between BIG and Patrick Schumacher? EKE argued that while "Ingels seems genuinely focused on designing buildings that make people's lives better....Whatever the design agenda of Schumacher and Hadid is, a nurturing humanism is about as far from it as you can get." Meanwhile trace™ offered up the following "BIG's forms are basic, mostly predictable and boring, imho. ...Schumacher has a rigor that is far more sophisticated (not necessarily better) and that is shown in his plans and forms."

oiko is looking for advice about going back to architecture after a life of raising kids. Medusa replied "When I was in 4th year studio, one of my classmates was a 41-year old lady with kids.  So you wouldn't be the first one to ever do it.  If you really want to do it, go for it.  It's no different than going back to school for any other career.  It's just a matter of budgeting your time efficiently."

Finally, Emily Kemper started another thread to discuss the interview Inhabitat published a couple of weeks ago with Dr. Joe Lstiburek, founder of Building Science Corporation. She started off by posting "I've grown to understand Joe's perspective ever since I started working on this side of the building industry and I have to say I agree with a lot of his points, even if they come off as brash".

For his part holz.box felt "i used to really be disgusted by joe, he seems to get a ridiculous amount of pleasure insulting everyone. but he's grown on me, i just wish he wasn't so beholden to petroleum-based foam...i get what he's saying, he just lacks... tact, maybe? but the dude is right, the average architect (even if he knows a sh*t ton about construction) struggles to adequately detail or even understand bulk moisture, vapor, air infiltration, exfiltration, issues in the envelope." whistler concluded "hmm if we actually performed our role as he states we should, we would be seen as being more credible in the eyes of the building community and perhaps even be able to command a decent fee for services from clients and not look like a bunch of egotistical ‘stylists’.- just saying!"