Besides the thing itself, architecture concerns itself with two kinds of sign about it: iconic signs and symbols. Iconic signs resemble the thing itself. They are the plans and elevations and isometrics. The more symbolic architecture is that of language, the word, the logo and so forth. The postmodern turn shifted the emphasis from the iconic to the symbolic.
I think [Eyal] Weizman has created an architecture about a whole other kind of sign – the index.
— Public Seminar
"Indexical signs are traces of events: where there is smoke there is fire. The smoke does not resemble the fire. It is not an icon. Nor does it have a code like a symbolic sign system. Forensics is a matter of working backwards from the index to the event of which it is the sign, like in a... View full entry
How do designers experience their cities as locals? No two people, let alone architects, perceive even the most frequented cities in the same way. There's no city that embodies that like the way Los Angeles does it. Beyond the ample sunshine and smog, juice diets, drought consciousness (or not)... View full entry
Julia Ingalls highlighted the work of Design Build Research (DBR), based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Currently a non-profit institute led by architect Michael Green and creative entrepreneur Scott Hawthorn, one of the earliest projects was building a theater when TED headquarters’ moved... View full entry
First, there was a competition: specifically, the What-To-Print-In-3D? design contest, in which Planbureau studio won a Makerbot Replicator 2 capable of printing 100 micron resolution samples for the molds of their LOGIPLACES 3D concrete puzzles. So far, they've created 16 to 36 piece puzzles of... View full entry
NCARB is phasing out the ARE 4.0 and introducing the ARE 5.0 in late 2016, which means that depending where you are with your licensing exams, you'll probably need to figure out how your ARE 4.0 credits apply to the new version. Anticipating this need, the NCARB has released a "Transition... View full entry
Somewhere along the lines of recent years, I became the unofficial interviewer for the semiannual Neutra Award, offered by Cal Poly Pomona to highly regarded master architects in Neutra's vein. In the past, it has been awarded to Tadao Ando, Michael Rotondi and now, Enrique Norten of TEN... View full entry
Jvantspijker urbanism architecture has redesigned the main space of an old steam factory in the Delfshaven neighborhood of Rotterdam, to become an open loft office. A central glass meeting room, with a pantry and stairs leading to the plant-filled roof organizes the large warehouse space in a... View full entry
Weizman’s new book, 'The Conflict Shoreline' (Steidl in association with Cabinet Books, 2015), a richly illustrated volume produced in collaboration with American photographer Fazal Sheikh about the displacement of the Bedouins in the Negev/Naqab desert. — Los Angeles Review of Books
George Prochnik and Eyal Weizman discuss the latest work by the Forensic Architecture team, Bedouin displacement in the Negev and "threshold of detectability." View full entry
Located in Kansas City, architecture firm Populous did the design for Citi Field where the Mets play and the renovation design for Kauffman Stadium for the Royals. For them, this World Series provided a platform for what the firm do for both ground-up design and ballparks that have preexisted. [...]
Populous will assuredly continue to be the main player in sports facility design. Having both Citi Field and Kauffman Stadium hosting games helped showcase why.
— forbes.com
After we wrapped our first live-podcasting series, "Next Up", held at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles' Chinatown and at the opening weekend of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, we had over four hours of live interviews to release. Now, we're letting them loose as "Mini-Sessions", leading... View full entry
Students and professionals nearly filled up the Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Tuesday night to listen to guest lecturer Caroline Bos, co-founder and principal urban planner of UNStudio. Bos spoke about UNStudio’s design process that continues to shift even after her... View full entry
[Kundig] builds houses that look like rustic jewels atop glacial rock in the Cascade Range of Washington state, or along the San Juan Islands waterfront or in the California high desert.
Typically made of some combination of weathered wood, concrete and rusted steel, the structures also include generous stretches of glass [...]
The son of Swiss émigrés, Mr. Kundig was strongly influenced by the rugged topography of the Pacific Northwest, where he was raised.
— wsj.com
More on Tom Kundig's work in the News:Tom Kundig loses lawsuit against his Washington valley cabinLawsuit Filed Against Architect Tom KundigTom Kundig on the Frey House II View full entry
James Corner Field Operations (JCFO) has been selected to design the National Building Museum's Summer Block Party 2016 installation. The National Building Museum selected JCFO after the success of 2015's "The BEACH," an installation designed by Snarkitecture that allowed 180,000 Washington... View full entry
In the dappled afternoon sunshine of the VDL House’s backyard in Silver Lake, senior Archinect Editor Orhan Ayyuce sat down with Enrique Norten, winner of this year’s Richard J. Neutra Award for Professional Excellence, to talk about modernism’s legacy and evolution since the mid-20th... View full entry
When Mayor Garcetti announced Gehry’s appointment, he declared him to be the “Olmsted of our time,” referring to godfather of landscape design, Frederick Law Olmsted, creator of New York City’s Central Park. He is nothing of the sort. As Gehry himself admitted: “I told them I’m not a landscape guy.”
What he might prove to be is the funding-friendly, catch-all solution to pulling the river’s statutory partners together to make something happen.
— Olly Wainwright
"If he can suppress his expensively eye-catching cliches and channel the spirit of his early work – when he was a rough-and-ready bricoleur of everyday LA, a magician of chain-link fencing and corrugated sheeting – he might well be the man for the job. Like the rest of this chaotic... View full entry
