...doesn't the general freakout over the shutdown suggest, in and of itself, its fundamental folly? It hurts to lose the 405 even for a weekend not because freeways are so valuable or because we love them so much but because we've painted ourselves in a corner in terms of mobility. We have left ourselves no escape hatches or viable alternatives. — LA Times
LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne eyes impending automotive doom. Follow the link for a thoughtful piece on "the city's great synecdoche" and how its future might impact architectural landmarks. View full entry
LA architecture office INABA and NYC graphic designers MTWTF have shared with us their design for the information center for Little Tokyo Design Week: Future City. The festival, which opens this Thursday, July 14, celebrates the intersection of Japanese design and technology with experimental... View full entry
This exhibit is comprised of four recent projects by the New York based firm Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis Architects (LTL). This site specific installation foregrounds the productive role of drawing in LTL's work, turning the walls and floor into etched and printed surfaces. — Los Angeles Forum for Architecture & Urban Design
Coinciding with the recent completion of a building at Claremont College, LTL will be showing recent work through their rigorous drawings in an installation within the WuHo gallery, curated by the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture & Urban Design. The work exemplifies a unique trajectory that... View full entry
Architects: Acconci Studio, Asymptote, Cleater Studio, Kol/Mac, Metaxy, Leeser
Architecture, Studio Daniel Libeskind, SHoP, and SITE
— Architecture Omi
Opening Saturday JULY 9 2011 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM The Fields Sculpture Park at OMI :1405 County Route 22 Ghent, New York 12075. Bring your smart phone for an evening of architecture in the landscape. By pointing your iPhone or Android at the sky, you will see virtual pieces of... View full entry
Each fall High Desert Test Sites invites artists to create experimental projects adjacent to California's Joshua Tree National Park. This year HDTS invited Ball Nogues Studio to create a structure in a remote region of the Mojave Desert. This presents a unique opportunity to make an intervention upon an unfettered landscape at a grand scale. — unitedstatesartists.org
Peter Zumthor's first completed building in the UK opens this Friday, July 1: the 2011 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. The concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. One enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. — bustler.net
The kinetic sculpture ‘Chimecco’ is a large interactive wind chime by artist Mark Nixon. It is currently being exhibited at Sculpture by the Sea in Aarhus, Denmark: one of the most popular outdoor sculpture exhibitions in the world. The design was selected as one of the winners of an open competition from over 350 submissions. — bustler.net
If you're in Denmark this week, visit the exhibition which opened June 2 and still runs until July 3, 2011 along the spectacular three-kilometer long coast line from Tangkrogen to Ballehage in Aarhus. View full entry
Some local high school students tackled architect R. Buckminster Fuller’s famed geodesic dome during the University of Memphis’ Architecture Summer Camp. Architects from local firm brg3s lectured on structural design and helped the students build their newspaper dome. — downtown.wmctv.com
Opened just this past weekend was Steven Holl's highly anticipated Cité de l’Océan et du Surf, a museum dedicated to surf, the ocean and their roles upon our leisure, science, and ecology. Located in Biarritz, France, a hot spot for surfers and ocean lovers, the museum is like a temple to worship the surf gods with its open air plaza surrounded by rock waves. — Inhabitat
Brazilian real estate developer Gafisa decided to ask people directly, what they want in their new apartments? Launched last week, the Edifício Colaborativo (Collaborative Building) initiative transformed the company’s fan page on Facebook in a crowdsourcing platform, intended to harvest innovative ideas for a new building. As Fred Scharmen
said "Can't follow the portugese, but those are some awesome images!"
Archinect featured two new Op-Eds this week. The first entitled The Neglected Public Bathroom is by Adrian Coleman a graduate architecture student at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning. Directed by Professors Galia Solomonoff, Liam Gillick, and Nathan... View full entry
DESIGN ASSOCIATION NPO, organizer of TOKYO DESIGNERS WEEK, has founded “ARIGATO” PROJECT We’ve been receiving warm support from all over the world since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. People in many countries showed their warmth and support .This project is to show our... View full entry
World Architecture Festival (WAF) has confirmed Michael Sorkin will head-up the ‘super-jury’ at this year’s WAF Awards, to determine which building, from entries across the globe, will be crowned with the ultimate prize - ‘World Building of the Year 2011’. — bustler.net
The jury will also comprise Ben van Berkel of UNStudio, Rotterdam; Jo Noero of Noero Wolff Architects, Cape Town; Odile Decq of ODBC, Paris; and Kongjian Yu of Turenscape, Beijing. If you are thinking about submitting projects into the WAF Awards, you better hury; all entries close on July 1. View full entry
Leading architects on both sides of the Atlantic hit out at the institute this week after American architect Richard Gage, part of the group Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, delivered a lecture at RIBA HQ on Monday night.
The venue was booked by fellow American and RIBA member Craig Phillip Kiner, an associate at Zaha Hadid Architects.
— bdonline.co.uk
Institute reviews policy after controversial event booked by Zaha Hadid Architects associate The RIBA is reviewing its policy on hiring out 66 Portland Place following a storm of criticism over its hosting of a group claiming that New York’s Twin Towers were brought down through a... View full entry
If you're in London this summer, don't miss to check out this year’s Architecture Room at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, curated by Piers Gough of CZWG and Alan Stanton of Stanton Williams. The exhibition opened on June 7 and runs through August 15, 2011. — bustler.net
If you're in New York next week, make sure to check out the book launch party of the Hall of Femmes project, a new book series highlighting the contributions of women in design. Presented by the Art Directors Club, the party will be hosted at the ADC Gallery (106 West 29th St., New York) next week Tuesday, June 28. The event is free and open to the public. — bustler.net