Until recently, though, Mr. Meier had never broken ground in South Korea. He checked that off his list with the newly opened Seamarq Hotel, a towering white complex overlooking the East Sea in the city of Gang-neung. “Our client chose a really magnificent site,” Mr. Meier said from his New York office. — The Wall Street Journal
When asked why the company chose not to commission Rem Koolhaas' OMA, who are already involved with designing the department store’s art foundation, Costa says that the decision to select BIG was based on the firm’s disruptive thinking and that OMA was already working with German department store KaDeWe in Berlin. “We were confident to work with new architects,” he says. — Business of Fashion
Tune in to tomorrow's Archinect Sessions to listen to a fuller discussion of what this disruptive design choice means for BIG, for Paris, and for flagship stores everywhere. In the meantime, here's a window display from Galeries Lafayette, circa 2007:And here's a quick refresher on what Bjarke's... View full entry
Judged by a five-member jury including Architect's Newspaper editor-in-chief William Menking and Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MOMA Martino Stierli, the 2016 New Practices New York winners are MODU, SCHAUM/SHIEH, stpmj, Studio Cadena, Taller KEN, and the suitably-named... View full entry
FA investigators take standard architectural and digital tools such as telemetry, video-footage syncing and shadow clocks, and repurpose them to reveal the secrets of conflict zones. Weizman's team has also pioneered plume analysis...Weizman and his colleagues' brief is as wide-ranging as man's cruelty to man: they mine the information seam where enemies clash, where migrants drown, natives are dispossessed and civilians bombed. — Wired
For the January 2016 issue of WIRED magazine, Michael Hodges profiled the work of Forensic Architecture (FA) and the organisation's director Eyal Weizman. View full entry
Architect Frank Gehry has been named the recipient of the 2016 Harvard Arts Medal, which will be awarded by Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust at a ceremony on Thursday, April 28. The ceremony, presented by the Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, will include a discussion with Gehry moderated by actor John Lithgow, who is host of the event.
This marks the first time that the Harvard Arts Medal has been awarded to an architect.
— gsd.harvard.edu
Related FOG stories in the Archinect news: Frank Gehry and Maya Lin find their ancestral roots on PBSDoes Frank Gehry – or his firm – have what it takes to save the LA River?Archinect's critical round-up of LACMA's Frank Gehry exhibition View full entry
From masterplans to reconfigure London after the Great Fire of 1666 to contemporary responses to earthquakes and tsunamis, the exhibition considers the evolving relationship between man, architecture and nature and asks whether we are now facing a paradigm shift in how we live and build in the 21st century. — BBC News Magazine
Paul Kerley talked with curator Jes Fernie, about a new exhibition, Creation from Catastrophe, at the Royal Institute of British Architects. View full entry
Frank Gehry and Maya Lin join the ranks of those who have explored the history of their ancestors via the PBS show "Finding Your Roots." The show, which is in its third season, has attracted a passionate live-tweeting audience, one of whom wryly noted that "I did not know that Maya Lin's teacher... View full entry
In seventies I would ask the architects if they were doing anything ecological with their work and they wold turn around and say who is this guy get him out of here... — RootSimple
Mr Homegrown interviews Glen Small. View full entry
Following RIBA's announcement back in September, Zaha Hadid was presented with the 2016 Royal Gold Medal yesterday evening...Though particular projects in her practice haven't been without its disputes, Hadid has long been a force in the architectural field. Being the first woman to win on her own accord, the RIBA Gold Medal is a crown jewel to Hadid's illustrious career, as well as another major highlight for women in architecture. — Bustler
More on Archinect:Zaha Hadid announced as winner of 2016 Royal Gold MedalSheila O'Donnell + John Tuomey win 2015 RIBA Gold Medal for ArchitectureArchitectural historian Joseph Rykwert receives 2014 Royal Gold Medal for Architecture View full entry
Fittingly for Furniture February, Alvar Aalto would have turned 118 this month, which has prompted Archinect to celebrate his paradigm-defining designs. We're not the only ones: the existing Alvar Aalto Museum and the Museum of Central Finland will be getting an extension (the winners of the... View full entry
[Healthabitat, the non-profit Paul Pholeros co-founded,] developed a model called Housing for Health...working with Aboriginal communities, conducting a survey of all housing and completing urgent repairs using mainly local Indigenous contractors, and adding whatever upgrades or repairs they can afford until the money runs out.
The organisation has improved more than 8,000 houses – a third of Australia’s Indigenous-controlled housing stock – and with them the lives of 55,000 people.
— The Guardian
More on Archinect: New study suggests Aboriginal collective memory reaches back more than 7,000 years Mindscraper: high-rise educational facility renderings in Sydney unveiled by Grimshaw & BVN An illustrated history of Canberra, the Australian capital designed by American architects Peter... View full entry
Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, will be the recipient of New South Wales' first high-rise educational facility, courtesy the firms Grimshaw and BVN. Based on the "Schools-within-Schools" pedagogical model, where learning is "delivered in stages rather than via age groups," the school... View full entry
In an interview with The Times, Dame Zaha Hadid said that the Qataris “should do something” about the issue of migrant workers. [...]
“I’m not a defender of the Qatari situation, but it’s important to get the facts right and then we can discuss it. I’m very happy that the press make the government aware of problems on certain sites. But it doesn’t apply to this site.”
— designmena.com
To read the full (paywalled) The Times interview with Dame Hadid, click here. Previously in the Archinect news: "7,000 construction workers will die in Qatar before a ball is kicked in the 2022 World Cup," new ITUC report findsZaha Hadid defends Qatar World Cup role following migrant worker... View full entry
Moore’s appreciation of Disneyland was notorious in an era when the ‘truthfulness’ of modern architecture was largely unquestioned. — places journal
"No architectural essay of the time foretold the preoccupations of postmodernism more memorably: “You Have to Pay” featured the very first architectural appreciation of Disneyland, which had opened just ten years earlier. Moore’s provocation would be upped three years later when Robert... View full entry
“I give it two years, max [...] It will be US business interests that finally push congress into lifting the embargo – they’re all going crazy being shut out of this market.” American architects and developers are already queuing up to be first in line, ready to pounce on investment opportunities when the embargo drops. Frank Gehry sailed into Havana in December, aboard a streamlined yacht he designed for himself, here to “offer his expertise to Cuba” according to a government statement. — theguardian.com
“You know that Cuba is at the centre of attention of many people,” Gehry told the gathered crowd. “And in the immediate future it will attract many investors – particularly the tourism sector. But I am sure that you know to be careful with those projects.”Related stories in the Archinect... View full entry
