Architectural representations often embody the tension between familiar and unfamiliar. In an effective rendering, the new buildings or landscapes share the same illusionistic space with images of existing buildings or landscapes, producing an almost exquisite confusion between real and unreal. — Places Journal
Architectural renderings are not photographs; or are they? Susan Piedmont-Palladino examines the hyper-real imagined worlds of contemporary architectural drawings through theories of the uncanny, and considers the disconcerting effect that occurs when "we can't quite sort out the relationship of... View full entry
It was 1962 all over again at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport yesterday. After three years in development, the public got a first glimpse of the highly anticipated TWA Hotel—and it’s groovy. With the Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center as its centerpiece and spiritual core, the 512-room hotel is poised to be a shrine to the so-called golden age of travel. — quartzy.qz.com
Connected to Eero Saarinen's TWA Flight Center, the new TWA Hotel plays up its architectural history — from the authentic Saarinen-designed Womb Chairs in each guest room to the rotary telephones. Certainly, the four-star plus hotel is equipped with contemporary amenities, like... View full entry
Construction is now underway for the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, which is scheduled to open in June in time for summer outdoor festivities at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Mexican architect Frida Escobedo — who was commissioned to design the 2018 pavilion in February — is... View full entry
San Francisco lives with the certainty that the Big One will come. But the city is also putting up taller and taller buildings clustered closer and closer together because of the state’s severe housing shortage. Now those competing pressures have prompted an anxious rethinking of building regulations. Experts are sending this message: The building code does not protect cities from earthquakes nearly as much as you might think. — New York Times
Taking a hard look at San Francisco's building codes, this NY Times piece goes in depth on what it means for city high rises if the next big earthquake hit. From the 1906 earthquake and fire to current seismic safety, concerns revolve around the number of skyscrapers built on liquefaction zones... View full entry
Cranbrook, known worldwide as an architectural set piece, is getting a new gem in its diadem — a Frank Lloyd Wright house.
The house was built in 1950 by Sara and Melvyn Maxwell Smith. The donation came from the Towbes Foundation.
“The Smith family always said they didn’t want this to just pass to another set of homeowners,” said Gregory Wittkopp, director of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. “The phrase they used was they wanted it to be ‘an educational resource.’ ”
— The Detroit News
The donation by the Towbes Foundation was a gift "that other design schools would kill for," The Detroit News reports and tells the legendary tale of A. Alfred Taubman donating a substantial portion of the windows to the cash-strapped Smith family to get the FLW-designed house finished before... View full entry
Azure Magazine's annual AZ Awards has just released their list of finalists. The competition offers architects, designers, manufacturers, and students across the globe a chance at getting their best work internationally recognized. This year's AZ Awards saw a total of 997 entries submitted, the... View full entry
Ahead of the May 7th sales launch, Bjarke Ingels and developer HFZ Capital have released several new renderings of the Eleventh, or the XI as it’s been branded. The West Chelsea hotel/condo project is notable not only for being Ingels’ first NYC condo project but for its asymmetrical, twisting silhouette. And in the new renderings, we’re able to get a better look at the pair of towers and their skybridge, along with, for the first time, the central courtyard and an apartment interior. — 6sqft
Renderings via Dbox for HFZ Capital GroupRenderings via Dbox for HFZ Capital GroupRenderings via Dbox for HFZ Capital Group View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles. (Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)... View full entry
Zaha Hadid Architects just revealed a design proposal for Lushan Primary School, a new learning center for 120 children from 12 local villages in a remote rural area of Jiangxi Province, China. The campus is designed as a network of intersecting barrel and parabolic vaults that accommodate... View full entry
Chicago-based architecture firm Studio Gang has signed on to design an eye-catching 26-story apartment and hotel tower in Chinatown.
The widely-respected firm has designed numerous projects in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York, including the expansion of the American Museum of Natural History. This would be its first in Los Angeles.
— la.curbed.com
Studio Gang has released plans to design a high-rise in Los Angeles' Chinatown, a space near the rapidly evolving Arts District downtown. The developer Compagnie de Phalsbourg, a French real estate investment company, brought on the firm to design the mixed-use building. The new project will... View full entry
Today OMA announced the completion of Torre, the third new structure the firm has completed in the Fondazione Prada arts compound, a former gin distillery in Milan. Standing at 60 meters tall, the white concrete Torre is a vertical art gallery that “is devoted to the development of a new... View full entry
ITAR Architectures, a firm based in Paris, recently completed their award winning project Batignolles, Paris 17th. Focusing on residential work, the firm states all components within their projects hold equal importance. ITAR Architectures explains, "Material diversity, selected structural... View full entry
Developers on Monday unveiled plans for Chicago’s second-tallest skyscraper, a tapering shaft of metal and glass that would soar above historic Tribune Tower, resemble the top of Batman’s black mask and be only 29 feet shorter than Willis Tower.
If completed, the $1 billion-plus project to repurpose Tribune Tower and build a skinny, 1,422-foot high-rise just northeast of it would bring more than 700 residences and 200 hotel rooms to an area north of the Chicago River.
— chicagotribune.com
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture are working with Los Angeles developers Golub & Co. and CIM Group to build Chicago's next skyscraper. Their design would take over Trump International Hotel & Tower's title of second-tallest in the city. Current plans for the new tower have... View full entry
A new Moscow apartment building has unveiled a fully-functioning facial recognition system designed to replace residents’ keys. [...]
As well as allowing homeowners to enter the building without a key, the system automatically selects each resident’s floor when they enter the lift, and keeps tabs on cars and pedestrians leaving the complex.
— Calvert Journal
Steven Holl Architects' new Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) will open to the public on April 21, 2018. The ICA's new building named the Markel Center will debut with its inaugural exhibition Declaration, an exploration of contemporary art’s power... View full entry