“I try to be the face that I was looking for growing up,” Brown said. “So if I go into a room or an auditorium and just one person is interested in architecture, then I’ve accomplished my mission.”
The name comes from a milestone this past August, when the 400th African-American woman became licensed as an architect. There are 110,000 licensed architects in the country.
— Michigan Radio
Raised in Detroit, architectural designer Tiffany Brown won a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge grant for her project “400 Forward”, which aims to bring in more black girls and women into the field of architecture and urban planning. According to Brown, only 0.3 percent of U.S. architects are black... View full entry
Kengo Kuma is one of Japan’s most significant living architects, thanks to his sophisticated integrations of traditional architecture with up-to-the-minute technologies. Unusually sensitive to materiality and technique, Kuma’s designs are irresistibly tactile, often resembling hand-woven... View full entry
This isn’t a new phenomenon for 2017–see Tiananmen Square, North Korea’s totalitarian buildings, Nazi architect Albert Speer. But this year we were reminded of architecture’s enduring power to be used as political propaganda thanks to Trump’s proposed border wall. — Fast Co Design
Architecture has played a fundamental role in the propagandized rhetoric of the Trump Administration. The aim of any kind of propaganda is to promote an idea or an ideology, and Trump and his administration have used architecture to promote their own program and ideology with an... View full entry
Beverley "David" Thorne, the last of the Case Study architects and the designer of Dave and Iola Brubeck’s modernist California and Connecticut homes, died December 6 in Sonoma, Calif. He was 93. [...]
Bev designed Harrison House, Case Study No. 26, in San Francisco in 1963.
— Enter Tint Name
Case Study House #26. Photo via csh26.info.The Case Study #26 "Harrison House" Thorne designed in San Rafael, California is the only Case Study House in the San Francisco Bay Area. View full entry
Architecture, like contemporary art in the 1990s and legal theory a decade before, faces a critical moment in theory and practice. What do black citizens of major U.S. cities and global cities have to look forward to in the coming century in terms of urban conditions and their agency in determining how these conditions change and transform? What does an approach to cities that takes into account black agency, social codes and aesthetics have to offer to city-making as such? — CNN
CNN Style highlights USC architecture dean and CriticalProductive editor, Milton S. F. Curry, and his recent role as lead organizer behind Spatializing Blackness, a three-part panel discussion on "contemporary thinking and creative work related to black aesthetics, urbanism and the lived... View full entry
After a couple of days though, the peace and diversity of the countryside became meditational, a panorama that seemed dreamlike through my windscreen...Spectacular modern installations appeared on remote corners in the most far-fetched of places, that they sometimes seemed like a figment of my imagination. — NYT
Ondine Cohane traveled to Norway to tour the Norwegian Scenic Routes. A collection of (so far) 144 wonders, that have been built to encourage tourism, with 46 more to be completed by 2023. Snefjord rest area | Architect: PUSHAK arkitekter | photo by Anne Olsen-Ryum Eggum rest... View full entry
The University of Bristol, in the South West of England, is set to recieve a new £80 million library development on its Clifton campus by 2021. The team for the project is formed of Hawkins\Brown, Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects and BuroHappold. The architect-led team has extensive previous... View full entry
Architects know best, as they often claim. With conviction, they’re sure certain details will make a space more hospitable, more beautiful, more preferable, and more enjoyable...But an emerging field of research is now uncovering and quantifying our psychological response to buildings: cognitive architecture. The hope is that by better understanding through science what exactly it is people like or dislike about our built environment, designers can truly improve it. — Fast Co Design
What does it mean to see a building? As we approach a building, what is that calls our attention? The door? The entry? That corner detail that is doing something we have never seen before? Architect Ann Sussman and designer Janice M. Ward are two leading researchers studying how our brains see... View full entry
Hannah Wood, Archinect’s Features Columnist, dug into the topic of America and the AV: Digital Mobility for Architects. Following conversations with Yale professor Keller Easterling, Carlo Ratti of MIT’s Senseable City Lab and three former, Easterling students. Who are the... View full entry
China’s State Council announced that “weird architecture that is not economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly will be forbidden.” Many architects and members of the public understood the frustration and bewilderment, even if they questioned the subjective nature of the official instruction. — The Economist
That was a close call, thankfully 'Weird Architecture' that is economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly is still completely accepted and encouraged. China may be forcing itself into a semantically and conceptually charge subjectivism that could potentially bring... View full entry
MacDonald Becket ’52, former chairman of the board and CEO of the architecture firm Welton Becket and Associates, died in Phoenix, AZ. He was 89. Becket, who graduated from the USC School of Architecture, was a driving force in the development of architecture in Los Angeles. Two of his major roles in California were coordinating the master planning and architectural implementations of the 260-acre Century City project and in the successful renovation of the state capitol building in Sacramento. — news.usc.edu
Among his many achievements, Becket was a founding contributor to MoCA's Architectural and Design Endowment in Los Angeles. He also designed the personal homes of former US presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford attesting to Becket's far reaching influence. View full entry
Today, RIBA announced the 2018 cohort of RIBA Fellows, who will serve as “ambassadors for architecture”, says RIBA President Ben Derbyshire. The 15 elected RIBA Chartered Members were commended for their significant contributions to the architecture profession. Current UK or International... View full entry
FreelandBuck has recently completed an 8,000-square-foot (or square-cubed) office interior/exterior for Hungry Man Productions headquarters in Los Angeles. Hungry Man asked FreelandBuck to potentially think outside the box and evaluate the traditional organization of an office. The result being a... View full entry
A renowned architect and longtime Albuquerque dweller, Predock recently donated the Downtown property where he once lived and practiced to UNM – the school that helped turn the once-budding engineer into an artist.
In the more than 60 years since he matriculated at UNM, Predock has designed projects all over the world [...].
But he has maintained ties to UNM, even designing the building that houses its School of Architecture and Planning.
— Albuquerque Journal
The Vessel, a 150-foot-tall climbable sculpture made of bronzed steel and concrete, topped out Wednesday, serving as the public centerpiece of Hudson Yards Public Square and Gardens. Designed by Heatherwick Studio, the $150 million interactive landmark includes 154 interconnecting flights of... View full entry
