The Harvard University Graduate School of Design has announced three appointments to the position of Professor in Practice of Architecture: Jeanne Gang (MArch ’93), Sharon Johnston (MArch ’95), and Mark Lee (MArch ’95), effective July 1, 2018. All three will also be, prior to their faculty... View full entry
A major new public art work by Rachel Whiteread modelled on a suburban US house will be unveiled next week at the new US Embassy in Nine Elms, south London. The wall sculpture, titled US Embassy (Flat pack house; 2013-1015), will greet embassy visitors as they enter into the lobby through the consular court. The work was commissioned by Art in Embassies, a US governmental body. — The Art Newspaper
Artist Rachel Whiteread's name has become synonymous with the production of architectural interventions, invention and material playfulness through her large-scale artist sculptures, specifically her casts of the interiors of buildings. Her newest addition, installed in the US Embassy titled, US... View full entry
Virtual reality, a technology that most associate with gaming, entertainment and dystopic warnings from sci-fi writers including Ray Bradbury and Neal Stephenson, has moved into the real estate world in a big way. — The Guardian
With increasing frustration of penthouse shoppers reaching an immeasurable high, a novel application of new technology has been making a splash in the real estate market. Virtual reality has become the go-to tool for allowing real estate investors the opportunity to see precisely what they are... View full entry
The $600-million project, called 1111 Sunset, would include high-rise condominium and apartment towers, town houses, shops, restaurants and two acres of public open space designed by James Corner Field Operations, the landscape architect behind New York’s High Line elevated park. [...]
The 98-room boutique hotel is to be designed by Kengo Kuma. It would be the major Los Angeles project for the high-profile Japanese architect known for melding his structures to their natural surroundings.
— Los Angeles Times
Image: SOM/Palisades.First announced last October, the redevelopment of the William Pereira-designed former Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District HQ, right on the edge of Downtown Los Angeles and Echo Park, is further taking shape. Besides new renderings of the 1111 Sunset Boulevard... View full entry
Volkan Alkanoglu has a prolific history of producing provocative interventions that playfully embrace the audience while researching and experimenting with the limits of color, geometry, depth and the representational techniques which use them. From his Cloudscape playground in Florida to his... View full entry
Still, the house offers the rigor of thought and careful design and supports projection. Maybe we come to realize that it is our simple, logical certainties that have most misled us. — Under Construction
The advantage to coming to a well-known work late and as an outsider—I’m a writer, not an architect—is that I saw it fresh, away from the noise of adulation and reaction. Making a model of Eisenman's House II gave me a chance to experience it closely, over time, as well as provided a... View full entry
Preliminary Research Office, headed by Yaohua Wang, Dingliang Yang and Chloe Natanél Brunner, has shared their proposal for the YeouiNaru Ferry Terminal. The proposed Ferry Terminal is situated upon Seoul’s Han River and is surrounded by both natural and urban landscapes. The project uses... View full entry
Anthony kicked off Cross-Talk #3: Biennales, Triennials and Exhibitions. For which Jonathan Rieke critiqued the Chicago Architecture Biennale noting "The biennial staged a pseudo-Félibienian sorting". via Jonathan RiekeIn response to the entry from Viola Ago and Hans Tursack, Galo... View full entry
Richard Meier’s oeuvre is known for bold, geometric buildings cast in luminous white, a color he believes enhances nature and refracts the world. One of the most recognized architects alive today, Meier has dedicated five decades to his field and worked on projects around the globe. As part of... View full entry
Following a long battle with terminal lung cancer, the beloved architect Neave Brown has passed away at the age of 88. Known for his modernist social housing, Brown's projects are considered to be some of most innovative and successful low-cost housing schemes of the late 20th century with many... View full entry
Yet what has drawn the most concern and curiosity with regards to Quayside is a uniquely 21st-century feature: a data-harvesting, wifi-beaming “digital layer” that would underpin each proposed facet of Quayside life. According to Sidewalk Labs, this would provide “a single unified source of information about what is going on”—to an astonishing level of detail—as well as a centralized platform for efficiently managing it all. — City Lab
While tech companies struggle to discover the new way to get a glimpse into our daily habits—attempting to discover how and where we spend our time and money—Alphabet might have just brought the ‘Truman Show’ approach to marketing. With Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet, announcing... View full entry
Thomas Heatherwick plans to bring more eccentricity to Manhattan’s west side with two condo towers covered in a bubbled facade and bisected by the High Line, as CityRealty reported on Wednesday. The straddling pair at 515 West 18th Street, currently known as the Hudson... View full entry
That, Mr. Zwirner said, is the site of what in the fall of 2020 will become the new heart of his New York operation: a five-story, $50 million gallery designed by Renzo Piano. [...]
The precise design has yet to be determined — Mr. Piano is in the early stages of the process. But it is likely to have a similarly spare aesthetic to Mr. Zwirner’s current spaces, by Annabelle Selldorf.
— The New York Times
In its article about art dealer David Zwirner's upcoming Renzo Piano-designed gallery and global headquarters, the NYT recounts a telephone interview with Piano about (early) design visions for the building: "You kill art by making just white boxes, so you need to integrate emotion in some way... View full entry
An architecture policy sets an aspirational goal for what we value about the built environment, and helps create a framework for that contribution to culture. The Ordre des architectes du Québec (OAQ) is actively consulting with the government on the establishment of a provincial architecture policy. This is a positive move and shows leadership in the preservation of Canadian culture. It is an example that our federal government should follow. — theglobeandmail.com
Canadian architecture needs the support of a national policy in order to survive the global competition. Canada's architecture must be seen under the umbrella of cultural policies that support local arts, culture, and businesses. As it stands, the country has no architectural policy to speak of... View full entry
Architect Robert Frasca, FAIA, founding design partner of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects (ZGF) and an influential figure on Portland and Oregon's architectural scene for several decades, has died on January 3 at the age of 84. ZGF has released the following obituary: It is with great sadness that... View full entry