Robert Venturi, who along with his wife Denise Scott Brown formed one of Philadelphia’s best known architectural firms, has retired and the firm known as Venturi Scott Brown and Associates Inc. has been renamed VSBA. — bizjournals.com
"How do we revitalize a neighborhood? Put a train station there!" he questions. Yet he cautions that design can't fix social problems. "Infrastructure has fallen out and we expect public spaces to pick up the slack." — Oakland Local
C B Smith-Dahl talked with Walter Hood about the work his firm West Oakland-based Hood Design has done redesigning Lafayette Park in Old Oakland and Splashpad Park by Lakeshore. The discussion also touched on the topic of gentrification and the importance of an urbanism of diversity. View full entry
In Archinect's latest feature Color in Architecture — More Than Just Decoration, Frank H. Mahnke (author of COLOR, Environment, & Human Response) explores the links between color, space and human neuropsychology. anf thought it was a "Great article... fits in well with the themes and topics being explored over at the Architectural Association's Research Cluster on Colour in Architecture and Urbanism,
In Archinect's latest feature Color in Architecture — More Than Just Decoration, Frank H. Mahnke (author of COLOR, Environment, & Human Response) explores the links between color, space and human neuropsychology. For more information check out the interdisciplinary... View full entry
Even by the generous standards of Kinect hacking, that’s mighty weird. — IDEAbuilder @ Youtube.com
IDEAbuilder has built a hands free online home configurator for their clients. Using Microsoft Kinect home owners can go online and snap together the home of their dreams from a library of digital fabrication ready components that are robotically manufactured in our factory. The app is... View full entry
Less than a fifth know architects prepare construction drawings, and only nine per cent understand that they control site budgets; 15 per cent don’t even know that architects design buildings. — architectsjournal.co.uk
What About the Last Suprematist? When one speaks of revolutionary art, two kinds of artistic phenomena are meant: the works whose themes reflect the Revolution, and the works which are not connected with the Revolution in theme, but are thoroughly imbued with it, and are Colored by the new... View full entry
Seung, who is the third Korean architect ever selected and the only one to get invited twice, says he hesitated to participate in the Biennale. This is because of the 64 star architects invited, there were only two from Asia: Seung and Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima. “I thought the European architecture world doesn’t respect Asian architecture. After hesitating, I decided to go and discuss Asian architectural values that aren’t found in Western architecture.” — english.hani.co.kr
Constructed on Sydney’s Harbour’s Cockatoo Island, the interactive 42 meter-long landscape installation, entitled Dune, is composed of hundreds of fibres that brighten according to human sounds in what Roosegaarde describes as “techno-poetry”. — Vogue
Dune X is an interactive landscape of light for the 18th Biennale of Sydney that visibly reacts to the behavior of people that come into close proximity. Hundreds of sensors detect motion, and optical fibers dim and brighten in response to the movements of people passing by. Dune X is being... View full entry
The $3.5 billion development covers 12,355 acres and was built to house about 500,000 people, and this is one of "several satellite cities being constructed by Chinese firms around Angola," writes Redvers. — businessinsider.com
On October 22, 1953, Sixty Years of Living Architecture: The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright opened in New York on the site where the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum would eventually be built. Two Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings were constructed specifically to house the exhibition: a temporary pavilion made of glass, fiberboard, and pipe columns; and a 1,700-square-foot, fully furnished, two-bedroom, model Usonian house representing Wright’s organic solution for modest, middle-class dwellings. — bustler.net
The building has two colossal, uneven leaning towers (the highest rises 768 feet) that are conjoined at the top by an enormous angular bridge. Conservative estimates put the cost at nearly $900 million; Koolhaas, for his part, says he has “no idea” of the price. What is certain is that the CCTV building now dominates the skyline of Beijing, just as it dominates the airwaves of the country. — thedailybeast.com
Attached are some photos of the CCTV building that I recently took while in Beijing. View full entry
Rusty Shackleford quipped "I wonder what the realtor spin will be with these units... ‘Japan style luxury!’ ‘MINI COOPER with plumbing! Going fast!’ ...I lived once in 275sg.ft. place in NYC. A more appropriate name for this housing type would be JAIL." KarjaCH countered "if properly designed with great attention paid to detail, 300 sf can be the most amazing place to live". Meanwhile hanque helpfully pointed out "if you look at the RFP they've already been designed."
Archinect’s latest project featured in the Showcase series is the House in Ovar, Portugal, by architect, Paula Santos. News NYC launched the adAPT NYC Competition, a pilot program to develop a new housing model for the City’s growing small-household population. adAPT NYC seeks to... View full entry
Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation (remember THE PINK PROJECT?) has sent us first images of the new home Frank Gehry designed for the initiative. Completed this week, the building is located in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, the neighborhood most devastated by Hurricane Katrina back in August of... View full entry
As Britain's housing shortage deepens, we asked top architects for their solutions to the affordable living dilemma — guardian.co.uk
UK's The Guardian taps Charles Holland from FAT architects, Glenn Howells of Glenn Howells Architects, Sarah Wigglesworth of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects, Lynsey Hanley, author of Estates: An Intimate History (Granta), Kevin McCloud, designer, presenter of TV's Grand Designs, and Dickon... View full entry
The developer David W. Levinson could have set for himself the simple task of commissioning a better-designed tower for 425 Park Avenue than the one that’s been there since 1957.
But that would have been a very low bar.
He has engaged four of the world’s leading architects to compete for the job: Norman Foster of Foster & Partners, Zaha Hadid of Zaha Hadid Architects, Rem Koolhaas of OMA, and Richard Rogers of Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners.
— cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
