"His legacy will be admired for many years to come and his vision – to create a better everyday life for the many people – will continue to guide and inspire us," says Jesper Brodin, the CEO and president of the IKEA Group. — NPR
Over the weekend, the Swedish entrepreneur who created IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad (age 91), passed away quietly at his home in Sweden. The company confirmed Mr. Kamprad's death on Sunday, citing "short illness." The business magnate displayed a penchant for entrepreneurship from a young age, selling... View full entry
The chair of the Department of Architecture in AAP will bear the name of one of the college's renowned alumni: Richard Meier (B.Arch. '56).
The Richard Meier Chair of the Department of Architecture was announced by the college and by Richard Meier & Partners Architects, Meier's New York City– and Los Angeles–based practice for 55 years.
— Cornell AAP
The first person to hold the new title of Richard Meier Chair of the Department of Architecture will be AAP associate professor Andrea Simitch (B.Arch. '79). The 83-year-old Meier is the only Cornell alumnus to have received the Pritzker Architecture Prize (1984). View full entry
Gehry has completed new — and nearly final — designs for the Grand, an open-air complex of apartments, condominiums, movie theaters, restaurants and shops that promises to enliven a city block that has been mostly dead for half a century. [...]
The delay helped improve the project, Himmel insisted. Five years ago, there was a "disconnect" between what Gehry wanted to build and what Related could pay for [...] Since then, Gehry has found ways to reconcile his vision with costs
— Los Angeles Times
Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.But wait, there's more: the LA Times writes that developing the block on Grand Avenue would finally unlock a design feature Gehry himself "baked into his design for Disney Hall" a long time ago — the ability of the concert hall's curvy metallic facade to receive... View full entry
One of architect Frank Gehry’s earliest public buildings collapsed this month as it was nearing the end of a five-year, $55 million renovation, forcing the owners to revise their plans.
The roof of the Merriweather Post Pavilion, a 19,000-seat open-air concert venue in Columbia, Maryland, crashed down in the middle of the night on Saturday, January 13, burying the seating below. No one was injured.
— archpaper.com
The concert pavilion was designed by Frank Gehry, Walsh, and O'Malley in 1967 and is being renovated to maintain presence among other performing arts centers. The design team opted to keep the original roof seeing it as the defining element of Gehry's design and were in the process of raising it... View full entry
As we all know, a full-time job takes up a big part of a person's life. It's not just about getting your work done, but it's also about living with your co-workers for almost half of your waking hours. To be a happy and successful employee, it's critical to be well-aligned with the culture... View full entry
A new project titled CASA ED & JO features a clean and curved design by NOARQ. The renovated house is located in Famalicão, Portugal with tucked away patios inside a triangular urban plot. CASA ED&JO by NOARQ located in Famalicão, Portugal. Image: João Morgado. The lot is highly... View full entry
Ms. Yee, who oversees pastry for all the restaurants in the Resurgens Hospitality Group, used to be an architect, and she designs desserts the way she once did building interiors: meticulously sketching every element, testing many prototypes. And these days she has plenty of company: Many of the country’s top pastry chefs have practiced or studied architecture. — New York Times
As we have shown in Archinect's ongoing series Working Out of the Box, architects have a background and skillset that can be applied in many ways outside of traditional architecture practice. For example, these prominent pastry chefs all started off as architects and switched to designing cakes... View full entry
“We always want people to think ‘What’s that?’ and be drawn inside our buildings,” says Rohan Silva, the 37-year-old co-founder of Second Home, provider of “unique workspaces and cultural venues for entrepreneurs and innovators”. The company opened its first space in Spitalfields, east London, in 2014 and now boasts users ranging from tiny tech startups to the likes of Volkswagen and auditing giant KPMG. — The Guardian
A winter wonderland, a tropic landscape, a colorful explosion of swirling surfaces and walls of color enveloping even the smallest of spaces— one could say that I was describing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's film sets and yet, this could become the description of the modern day office... View full entry
The council housing designed 50 years ago for a progressive London borough remains a potent symbol of the achievements of postwar social democracy. — Places Journal
Prompted by Mark Swenarton's recent book, Cook's Camden, Douglas Murphy looks at the radically experimental public housing estates built by the London borough from 1966 to 1975, and the reevaluation of these extraordinary projects currently underway in our own era of unaffordable cities and... View full entry
Candidates seeking licensure will have until June 30, 2018 to test in ARE 4.0, after which ARE 5.0 will be the only accepted exam. The NCARB first announced the retirement of ARE 4.0 in 2014 providing testers with enough time to make the transition. Many have already switched to the latest version... View full entry
In that spirit I set a challenge for myself: Could I come up not just with one but with 25 buildings that might have deserved the award this year? It took me a few days — and I was helped by some terrific suggestions from architects, critics and historians on Twitter and elsewhere online — but in the end finding 25 wasn't that difficult. — LA Times
LA Times journalist Christopher Hawthorne has penned, or passionately typed, an inquiry into the fact that this year's 25-Year-Award was awarded to—no one. In the article, Hawthorne walks us through the importance and aim of such an award and how to him, there are more than a few projects that... View full entry
In her latest interpretation of the material, Prada asked the architects Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron — with whom she collaborates regularly — to design something in nylon for the show, and to select another talent from their field to do the same. They chose, respectively, the German designer Konstantin Grcic and the French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. T spoke to each of them about their designs. — The New York Times Style Magazine
Prada just wrapped up its anticipated fall/winter 2018 show, which the fashion powerhouse held in a converted warehouse in Milan, designed by AMO. "The building is organized in sectors that each correspond to a specific theme," a Prada statement describes the venue conversion. "Boxes, crates and... View full entry
The clown king of novelty infrastructure fantasies has once again stolen the limelight with his preposterous plan for a 22-mile bridge across the Channel. [...]
But none of this matters. In a world where Johnson got as far as flushing £37m of public money into the Thames on another fantasy project, the Garden Bridge, a great Channel crossing could easily be conjured into being.
— The Guardian
The Guardian's architecture critic, Oliver Wainwright, responds to the former London Mayor's suggestion to build a 22-mile bridge across the Channel and physically connect the European Union with the brexiting island kingdom (on top of the already existing 31.35-mile Channel tunnel). Let's just... View full entry
Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has defended proposals for a high-rise, mixed-use scheme in London – described as a ‘breakthrough project’ for the practice – following criticism over its size and location. Shortly before Christmas, the firm submitted plans to Lambeth Council [...] The scheme, the practice’s first major mixed-use residential and commercial development in the UK, has been dubbed a ‘two-fingered salute’ by opponents, who claim the proposals are too big for the site. — architectsjournal.co.uk
Zaha Hadid Architects combatted criticism of their proposal for the Vauxhall Cross Island site in London. Critiques of ZHA's plan claim the design overcrowds the area with towers that are too tall overshadowing the surrounding area and creating traffic congestion. ZHA director Jim Heverin... View full entry
Shortly, electricity will replace petrol and diesel as the fuel for our cars, and such a change could radically shift our urban landscape as the formal aspects of gas stations is then open to reimagining. Danish Architecture firm COBE is looking to do just that. Understanding that under current... View full entry
