MAD Architects' new China Entrepreneur Forum Conference Centre has broken ground in the rugged, snow-capped mountains of Yabuli, located in northeastern China. China Entrepreneur Forum Conference Centre by MAD Architects, located in Yabuli, CN. Image: MAD Architects. The new centre will act as... View full entry
Harvard GSD's iconic Gund Hall will undergo a significant transformation and expansion, the school announced this morning. Selected for the task are Herzog & de Meuron as design consultant and Beyer Blinder Belle (BBB) as architect of record. Photo courtesy of Harvard Graduate School of... View full entry
Having to work through a flurry of logistical challenges from 3,700 miles away, Lucerne-based Roeoesli & Maeder Architects (or ro.ma) led an international design team to successfully complete the new Swiss Embassy in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. The architects describe the design as “an... View full entry
In the past — or in schools with higher proportions of white students — a student acting out might garner an intervention by their principal, or a concerned teacher’s phone call to parents. But today, throughout the US, discipline in many schools has become a matter of law enforcement, rather than education. In New York, the majority of school guards — 5,000 School Safety Agents patrolling 2,300 public and private schools — are civilians employed by the School Safety Division of the NYPD. — urbanomnibus.net
Out of fearful reaction to school shootings and other safety concerns, many school environments look and feel like prison to the students attending. Through an extensive background on how school design has gotten to this point, "Where School Meets Prison" examines the impact prison-like design has... View full entry
With its affordable and attractive places to live, the Austrian capital is fast becoming the international gold standard when it comes to public housing, or what Europeans call “social housing” ― in Vienna’s case, government-subsidized housing rented out by the municipality or nonprofit housing associations. Unlike America’s public housing projects, which remain unloved and underfunded... — huffingtonpost.com
In Vienna 62% of its citizens reside in public housing, standing in stark contrast with less than 1% living in US social housing. The Austrian capital boasts regulated rents and strongly protects tenant's rights, while US public housing functions as a last resort for low-income individuals... View full entry
Changing the mindset behind short-term wooden constructions is MIT. A group of researchers at the university are leading an initiative to investigate new mass timber designs- wood-based buildings designed to be more efficient and cheaper than, yet just as durable as, concrete and steel buildings. The team proposes building mass timber longhouses - large wooden engineered houses built from massive pieces of timber. — interestingengineering.com
Mass Timber Design, MIT's architecture workshop exploring sustainable building design at the intersection of architecture and technology, has developed a Longhouse prototype. Mass timber, a wood-based building design and construction technology, has continued to be explored for its... View full entry
There is no single showstopper and it will be a difficult year for the judges, weighing up the varying shades of reticence on the list. Together, the buildings make a bit of a dull group, celebrating the mute and austere over the bold and expressive – repeating the tenor of last year’s list, which scandalously failed to include Herzog & de Meuron's Tate Switch House. — The Guardian
The Guardian architecture critic, Oliver Wainwright, isn't particularly impressed with this year's selection of six projects for the coveted RIBA Stirling Prize, awarded annually for Britain's best new building. Calling it "a bit of a dull group" and questioning especially the inclusion of the... View full entry
Now on the market for the first time since 1973 is the Studio City residence known the world over as the Brady Bunch house. Built in 1959, the property was discovered by location scouts a decade later and appeared in every episode of the hit TV show except the first. [...]
Sited on a .29-acre lot that abuts the LA River, the cultural icon is listed with an asking price of $1.885 million. Due to the intense interest expected, no open houses will be scheduled.
— Curbed LA
Curbed LA quotes the show's creator, Sherwood Schwartz, explaining in an 1994 interview why this particular house was chosen for the Brady Bunch exterior shots from 1969 to 1974: "We didn’t want it to be too affluent, we didn’t want it to be too blue-collar. We wanted it to look like it would... View full entry
The Pavilions, designed by Thomas Phifer of Thomas Phifer and Partners, is a 204,000-square-foot building providing 50,000 square feet of indoor exhibition space. That is more than five times the space available in Glenstone’s original building, designed by Charles Gwathmey (and currently installed with an impressive Louise Bourgeois exhibition, drawn from the collection). — Washington Post
The new 'The Pavilions' space by Thomas Phifer and Partners (with landscapes designed by Peter Walker and Partners) is scheduled to open on October 4 and will showcase pieces by big name artists like Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Richard Serra, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Photo: Iwan... View full entry
Many funerary homes still around these days typically feel stuffy and gravely outdated, like you suddenly stepped back into a previous century. Based on their personal experiences, architects Michiel Hofman and Barbara Dujardin of the Amsterdam-based firm HofmanDujardin took their own approach... View full entry
President Donald Trump boasted earlier this year that the US would spend only $200,000 to $300,000 on a new US Embassy in Jerusalem, but it seems the project will cost nearly $20 million more than that estimate. [...]
The US spent just under $400,000 on modifications to the consular facility that allowed it to open as the US Embassy in May, but the State Department told CNN at the time that it planned "for construction of a new extension [...] as well as for additional security enhancements"
— CNN
Back in March, the 'Builder in Chief' promised that the highly controversial new United States Embassy in Jerusalem would have to be built "very quickly and very inexpensively" at a bargain price tag of around $250,000. According to documents made public this month, the State Department however... View full entry
Following a devastating fire that broke out last month, the Glasgow School of Art has begun dismantling parts of the celebrated Mackintosh building that were comprised by the damage caused by the flames and at risk of sudden collapse. In a statement on the progress of the disassembly, the school... View full entry
Eric Baldwin kicked off a new series, Designing Practice. lt kicked off featuring chats with Evelyn Lee (of AIA’s YAF and Practice Innovation Lab) and Lola Sheppard (of Lateral Office) regarding Alternative or Expanded practice models in the 21st century. Plus, Duo Dickinson (architecture critic... View full entry
Kiev is a city of eclectic beauty, with modernist landmarks that dot the skyline. But as the capital grows and evolves, many of these Soviet-era gems are falling out of favour and into disrepair, with many already cleared away to make room for newer projects. — Calvert Journal
The short Soviet Modernism, Brutalism, Post-Modernism: Buildings and Projects in Ukraine from 1960 – 1990 was recently released in support of the upcoming book of the same title, examining some of Kiev's remarkable concrete architecture heritage. Still from Soviet Modernism, Brutalism... View full entry
The 378-page recommendation report filed by a group of preservationists, including preservationist Richard Schave and architect and 20th century architectural historian Alan Hess, calls on the city to protect the three most iconic structures of the Los Angeles Times complex [...] Purely from a design perspective, preserving The Times complex — once known as Times Mirror Square — is a difficult proposition. — latimes.com
The Los Angeles Times complex consists of three iconic structures which preservationists are pushing to make historic monuments. There is the 1935 building by Gordon B. Kaufmann featuring “The Times” neon sign and the grand Globe Lobby, Rowland Crawford’s late moderne style Mirror Building... View full entry
