Three category winners and several finalists have been announced at the 2012 SKETCH SHOWDOWN, AIA Philadelphia's annual napkin sketch competition. The organizers received 105 entries from China, New Zealand, and the United States with authors ranging from high school students to architects with over 20+ years of experience in the profession. The entries are now on view in Philadelphia through September 15 at the AIA Bookstore at Washington Square (7th & Sansom Streets). — bustler.net
Imagine you’re a New York City building official, and the mayor’s office has decided to let an artist build a living room six stories up in the air and wrap it around a historic statue of Christopher Columbus in the middle of one of Manhattan’s busiest intersections.
Oh, and the plan is to have 100,000 people climb up stairs to view it.
— New York Times
According to its architect Eric Kuhne, head designer at the multinational firm CivicArts, Bluewater is "a city rather than a retail destination". — Guardian
With the news that the enormous north Kent shopping mall, is planning an extension Owen Hatherly examines the mall and its environs to ascertain the secrets of Bluewater's success. View full entry
The project received approval from the Architectural Board of Review (ABR) last year, but this week, with the plan returning for final sign-off on some late-hour landscaping tweaks, the board majority, for what appeared to be political reasons stemming from the gay-marriage flap, opted to abstain from voting on Monday. — independent.com
Helene Schneider, the mayor of SB, and a proponent of marriage rights, says Chick-fil-A’s Architectural Approval Shouldn’t Hinge on Owner’s Politics. View full entry
Architecture for Humanity has just recently announced the winners of its latest Open Architecture Challenge, [UN]RESTRICTED ACCESS. The prestigious, bi-annual humanitarian design competition focused on re-imagining former military sites. — bustler.net
On August 6, the Tropical Storm Haikui brought two days of heavy rains that caused massive flooding and landslides throughout the capital city of Manila in the Philippines. Over 800,000 people were evacuated from their homes and 250,000 people have moved into emergency shelters. [...]
Architecture for Humanity is committed to helping communities in Manila rebuild and prevent future disasters. We need your help.
— architectureforhumanity.org
“We want to copy Manhattan,” he said over lunch near his studio. “I love Manhattan. It’s a very interesting place. But if you want to copy something that was accomplished in 200 years, it’s very difficult. New York was not designed by architects, it was designed by time.” — NYT
Jane Perlez profiles Wang Shu and his wife, Lu Wenyu of Amateur Architecture Studio. Their conversation touched on the architects' concerns regarding China’s rush to urbanization along Western models. They also discussed how the two split off duties in the firm. View full entry
London’s surprising win that morning was attributed to its focus on urban regeneration and legacy: perhaps the first time an Olympic bid had specifically presented the Games as merely the warm up for a longer-term rejuvenation. — blueprintmagazine.co.uk
After all the wrangling over the updated designs for the Durst Organization-overseen 1 World Trade Center (we’ve heard there was a list of 20 changes the developer wanted from the Port, all eventually granted), new renderings have been released for the project. They show a building that looks a little sharper, perhaps a little less striking, but something still bound to dominate the skyline, as if that were not already abundantly clear from the just-about-topped-out tower. — New York Observer
Bustler.net posted a list of the 2012 Recipients of the AIA Small Project Awards. Reacting to the Saint Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church; Springdale, AR by Marlon Blackwell Architect Orhan Ayyüce posted an image of Fire Station No. 4, Columbus, Indiana, 1967, by Venturi and Rauch asking "Do you think so too? As a student FS 4 was a big deal for me and still is."
News Janelle Zara wrote about The New Architectural Wisdom of Airports: Ikea, iPads, And Ice Skating Rinks for Art Info. aml pointed us to her "more skeptical take on contemporary airports" and airport urbanism over at her blog. Therein she argued "my main point is that airports are and... View full entry
Terreform ONE has announced twenty finalists of its open international design competition, ONE PRIZE 2012: FROM BLIGHT TO MIGHT. The competition drew 115 teams and 655 team members from more than 20 countries and five continents. Many questioned the American Dream and offered new 21st century possibilities. Several projects called for a rethinking of the boundary between the derelict area and its adjacent urban fabric. — bustler.net
Columbus, Ind., looks like any other small town, with its small shops and restaurants. But what sets this town apart is its architecture. — npr.org
In this excerpt from his new book, City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age, PD Smith explores the history of ‘invisible’ urban infrastructure, from the network of subterranean steam pipes synchronising Paris clocks in the 1870s to the ‘organism’ that is Seoul today. The next step: a city that talks back to its citizens? — australiandesignreview.com
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... View full entry
London has its gracious Victorian mansions, New York has its elegant brownstones and Paris has its ornate Empire-style buildings. But what architectural legacy will future Abu Dhabi residents have to remind them of the city's early boom period?
The fear is that Abu Dhabi's headlong modernisation will eliminate all evidence of the city's evolution, leaving nothing significant to bridge the gap between the pre-oil age and the skyscraper city currently being built.
— thenational.ae
