Randall Stout, an environmentally sensitive architect who earned a national reputation for designing dynamically shaped regional museums, mostly in his native South, died on Friday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 56.

His brother, Steven, said the cause was renal cell cancer. — nytimes.com

“I started to cry a bit when I saw the finished result for the first time this morning,” said architect Annabelle Selldorf at the June 27 press preview of the newly expanded Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. [...] Visitors might have similarly emotional reactions to the results, including Pritzker-winner Tadao Ando’s multipurpose visitor center, which prioritizes circulation and the views of lush hills behind the Clark [...]. — blouinartinfo.com

It would be better to reconsider this wholesale demolition. Especially as the proposed replacement, designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, leaves much to be desired. [...] Or maybe it’s the quintessential Angeleno building? After all, replacing an aging faithful spouse with a younger, more stylish trophy wife is an established Hollywood custom. — Zócalo Public Square

“Our Chinese clients have their sights set on London, and they know what they want,” says Keith Griffiths, the Welsh-born chairman of Aedas, who presides over the 1,400-strong practice from its Hong Kong headquarters. “They are used to high rise, high density, truly mixed-use developments – having everything on one site, so you can live, work and play without ever leaving the building. We think that's the way London needs to densify.” — theguardian.com

Martino Stierli, a Swiss art history professor, has been appointed chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, Glenn D. Lowry, the museum’s director announced Tuesday.

Mr. Stierli, who will start next March, succeeds Barry Bergdoll, who stepped down last year to teach art history at Columbia University and remains a part-time curator at MoMA. — artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com

Since former Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the far west side is the city’s new Gold Coast and Manhattan’s last frontier, a necklace of ravishing projects have been announced along the Hudson River waterfront. The latest reveal is for a new 12-story, 88-unit condominium coming from Herzog & de Meuron Architects. The Hudson Square site at 156 Leroy Street will replace a handful of low-slung buildings that include two auto-body shops, a gentleman’s club and the former Lunchbox Diner. — 6sqft

DESIGNING_SOUTHAFRICA (D_ZA) in collaboration with the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) and the Mayor of Johannesburg are proud to announce the construction of an urban pavilion designed by world-renowned architect David Adjaye OBE. To be constructed in a public space within the Park Station Precinct in Johannesburg’s inner city, the project will highlight this historical junction in the city, while activating underutilised public space using innovative design. — designingsouthafrica.com

“Words like ‘holocaust’ have been used in reference to the idea that our house could inspire a rash of tear-downs which could then be replaced with modern homes. I designed my house specifically within the design guidelines of this historic district and to be compatible, a good neighbor. But the term ‘modernism’ just clicks a switch in people’s brain and they can’t see the house for what it is.” — nytimes.com

"I love the metaphor of Twister," he says. "When you begin the game, it's simple – put your left hand there, right foot here. But as you start piling on demands, you force architecture out of its box, and the building ends up bending over backwards in its efforts to please every single criteria and it ends up looking different. Maybe it's being from a Danish background, with the ultimate culture of consensus, but I always see the potential for synergy or harmony..." — Bjarke Ingels, independent.co.uk

The New York City Design Commission presented its annual awards for excellence in public design on 7 July—and among the winners is a company run by the commission’s president. Signe Nielsen, who has been the government agency’s president since 2012, is also a principal at Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects. [...]

This is not the first time that Nielsen’s firm has been recognised by the Design Commission while she has been at the head of the award-giving body. — theartnewspaper.com

But building the $2.25 million steel-and-glass structure he had in mind presented a number of challenges on Fire Island.

For starters, they had to dig 10 feet below sea level to bury the wood piles. Then they had to put a steel frame on top that could support 25 tons of glass.

Sam Wood, the contractor, had been working on Fire Island for 30 years and had never seen anything like it. “It’s built like a mini-skyscraper,” he said. — nytimes.com

"We're working with the other owners of the property and with Metro," said LACMA Director Michael Govan. "There's good reason to build a major development there. You've got subway access and density on Wilshire. My dream is some beautiful piece of architecture with an architecture and design museum at the base, which would add to Museum Row."

If built, the tower would offer a dramatic vertical complement to the relentlessly horizontal LACMA gallery building by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor — latimes.com

Buildings perform a variety of functions: They shelter, illuminate, and obscure surrounding people and landscapes. The fundamentally pragmatic purpose of architecture endows edifices with a wide range of functions, but rarely does architecture speak. Curator Joanna Warsza, however, organizes performances and interventions that implore architecture to speak back. — blouinartinfo.com

Two weeks ago, a translucent pod of glass-reinforced plastic, poised atop enormous sandstone boulders, appeared on a curve of lawn in Kensington Gardens in London. The folly [...] is by the Chilean architect Smiljan Radic, whom the nearby Serpentine Galleries chose to create a temporary structure in its front yard. It is the 14th year that the museum has commissioned a Serpentine Pavilion, always turning to an architect who has not previously built in Britain [...]. — nytimes.com