Yesterday, legislators in Orange County, New York failed to stave off the demolition of Paul Rudolph's Orange County Government Center. In January, county executive Steven M. Neuhaus vetoed a proposal that would entertain outside bids like Manhattan architect Gene Kaufman's, to purchase, restore, and repurpose the structure. Kaufman also proposed designing a new government center next door, with a proposed budget less than that of the county's current plan [...]. — curbed.com
Previously:Michael Kimmelman on why Paul Rudolph's brutalist Orange County building is worth savingFuture of Paul Rudolph's brutalist Orange County building still uncertainPaul Rudolph's brutalist Orange County gem to be repurposed as "arts hub"Gwathmey Siegel's Kaufman wants to buy Paul Rudolph's... View full entry
As buildings from the postmodern eon continue to age with their residents, questions about historic significance and aesthetic relevance start to surface, leading to often heated debates whether the structures we used to love so much already merit magisterial protection or should give way for the... View full entry
This week Amelia, Paul, Donna and Ken discuss the somewhat controversial Google Headquarters design by BIG and Heatherwick. On a completely different note, we also discuss the new, and the nation's first, slavery museum, Whitney Plantation, in Louisiana. As always, you can send us your... View full entry
How much more does it cost the public to build infrastructure and provide services for sprawling development compared to more compact neighborhoods? A lot more, according to this handy summary from the Canadian environmental think tank Sustainable Prosperity.
To create this graphic, the organization synthesized a study by the Halifax Regional Municipality [PDF] in Nova Scotia, and the research is worth a closer look.
— streetsblog.org
Epic Games, the company best known for Gears of War, has a very different plan for this generation of video games — one that expands far beyond what games are typically assumed to be. [...]
In this future, or present if you ask Sweeney, lessons learned from one field, say an architect designing a virtual building, can be applied to games or film, and likewise. Sweeney believes the potential application of the engine across all fields increases exponentially as information is shared.
— theverge.com
Last August, on the Apollonian campus of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, neuroscientists and architects came together to flush the architecture profession with a bit more cerebral rigor. Under the guidance of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), that... View full entry
Jean Nouvel applied for a court mandate ordering that his name and image be completely removed from all references to the "sabotaged" Philharmonie de Paris at the Parc de La Vilette. Nouvel boycotted the grand opening of the unfinished 2,400-seat concert venue in January. In a column for Le Monde... View full entry
With all the cultural, sports and real-estate projects launched throughout the United Arab Emirates, there have been persistent protests about the working and living conditions [...] ”Serious concerns about workers’ rights have not been resolved”, claims the advocacy group, asking for a commitment for ”more serious protection” from these institutions and Saadiyat Island’s developers. [...] appears to have made a serious effort to address the concern expressed by Western museums and architects. — theartnewspaper.com
Michael Kimmelman’s column this week, about the debate over plans to demolish a midcentury Paul Rudolph building in Goshen, N.Y., makes the case for why it should be saved. It is only one example of his taking up a cause. As The Times’s architecture critic, he has not been shy about advocacy.
Here, he describes why he’s been outspoken in supporting this building, which doesn’t have the profile of other fights he has taken up.
— nytimes.com
UPDATE: Orange County legislators fail to save Paul Rudolph's Government CenterPreviously:Future of Paul Rudolph's brutalist Orange County building still uncertainPaul Rudolph's brutalist Orange County gem to be repurposed as "arts hub"Rethinking a Spurned LandmarkGwathmey Siegel's Kaufman wants... View full entry
Seattle-based architect [Katrina Spade], originally from New England, has a vision that could radically reshape not just the death-care industry but the way we think about death itself.
She calls her plan the Urban Death Project, and it proposes a middle road between burial and cremation: compost. [...]
The centerpiece of the idea is an approximately three-story-high building in an urban center where people could bring their dead.
— thestranger.com
For [Hyperloop Transportation Technologies], the Quay Valley test track is a way to test its idea of smaller hyperloop rings that could eventually connect to a bigger loop that runs along I-5. For Quay Valley and Hays, the test track is a wildly futuristic attraction [...]
It follows a narrative pulled from the world of consumer technology, rather than conventional urban planning. Quay Valley isn't really a place with people yet ... it's a collection of technologies that residents will use.
— gizmodo.com
Transit oriented developments, or TODs, are mixed-use urban nodes designed with public transit as their core. The typology emerged from the idea that well-integrated and easy access to transit supports businesses and an active urban life, and that strategic transportation planning can help make... View full entry
Many of the tallest structures in the world are not designed by starchitects, and you’ve likely never seen them [...] dozens of nearly anonymous towers around the United States, most in small rural communities, dwarf all but the tallest man-made structures in the world.
Take the KVLY-TV Tower in Blanchard, North Dakota, a township of 26 people north of Fargo. At 2,063 feet (628.8 meters), it’s the tallest structure in the western hemisphere and the fourth-tallest structure in the world.
— Re:form
Ralph Stern, the dean of the faculty of architecture at the University of Manitoba in Canada, announced he will not seek reappointment following the publication of a damning report by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). Accused of contributing to the creation of a “culture... View full entry
Built largely in secret and under decidedly unorthodox circumstances, the Whitney [Plantation] had been turned into a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery — the first of its kind in the United States.
Located on land where slaves worked for more than a century, in a state where the sight of the Confederate flag is not uncommon, the results are both educational and visceral.
— nytimes.com
It’s not uncommon to live in Los Angeles and still feel like a tourist. The author and seminal California-commentator Carey McWilliams remarked that it took seven years of living in Los Angeles before he no longer felt in exile, and the city has struggled with a history of atomization and... View full entry
