The hotel plan by the Procaccianti Group Inc. [...] is being welcomed by construction-trades unions, city officials and surrounding business owners. But Ned Connors, an architect and historian of the Weybosset urban renewal project, says he will miss the Fogarty building.
It’s not ugly, he said, it’s just … different. At about 50 years old, he said the Fogarty building is in the most dangerous time in a structure's life: when it’s too old to be hip but too young to be venerated.
— providencejournal.com
Sadly the architectural design of the proposed extended stay high-rise hotel that has been OKed by Providence City Council last December to replace the Fogarty building could not be any more generic and bland. What do you think, Archinectors? Do we have Providence locals here among our readers... 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... View full entry
The city of Rio de Janeiro canceled the construction contract for the Olympic tennis center on Thursday, just 200 days before the start of the games, fining the consortium responsible for delays and breach of contract for the mostly finished venue. [...]
Rio City Hall, which is responsible for the construction, did not say how the tennis center, which is 90-percent complete, will be finished.
— reuters.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Will Rio's Olympic venues be ready in time for the 2016 Games?Brazilian engineering companies building Olympic venues "very probably" broke laws, accepted bribesOlympic Infrastructure Displaces Brazilian Families View full entry
What's new(ish) in large-scale, sustainable development? Well, the Next Tokyo 2045 project is in the running. Described by CTBUH in a journal paper as "a mile-high tower rooted in intersecting ecologies," the 12.5 square kilometer project is designed to be a protective barrier against coastal... View full entry
For 45 years, Iran's most famous modern monument, the Azadi (Freedom) Tower in Tehran, has been the backdrop to every major news story coming out of the country...Hossein Amanat was a rising star in Iran's architectural scene when, in 1966, he won a national competition to design the monument...Its historical pull, he believes, lies in the tower's evolution as a 'symbol of Iran'...that is both intensely Iranian and Islamic at the same time. — BBC
More on Archinect:The young woman who designed Tehran's new popular bridgeKhamenei's fight against "un-Islamic" architecture in Iran View full entry
The organisers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are refusing to pay a British architect for her designs for its main stadium unless she gives up the copyright and signs what amounts to a gagging order, it has been claimed.
Zaha Hadid Architects, which won the original contract to build a state-of-the-art national stadium in the Japanese capital, has reacted angrily to the attempt by the Japan Sports Council to effectively seize ownership of the copyrighted designs.
— the Telegraph
New details continue to emerge from the dispute between Zaha Hadid Architects and the organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which is rapidly shaping up as one of the most acrimonious conflicts that the profession has witnessed in decades.According to the Telegraph, the Japan Sports Council (JSC)... View full entry
The project’s makeup is evidently still undergoing changes, as the developers have waffled between either hotel or office options in the base of the buildings...
Given the sky-high prices developers can obtain for office space in Meatpacking and surrounding blocks, office may indeed make more sense than hotel...
In any case, the buildings will become the most prominent in the neighborhood by a significant margin. The two towers will stand 28 and 38 floors apiece...
— newyorkyimby.com
Previously: REVEALED: Bjarke Ingels’ Brand New High Line Towers View full entry
One can now find the place where many South Londoners took refuge during World War II. The tunnels at Clapham, now open to the public for the first time, once catered for over 8,000 people.
After lying dormant for 70 years, the tunnels and beds left untouched have been reopened.
— Architect's Newspaper
Related:• NBBJ proposes 3 moving walkways to replace London's Circle Line• Cut away confusion from your NYC commute with these beautiful subway maps• How Engineers Are Building a New Railroad Under New York City View full entry
Hey London, how do you feel about a major span across the Thames being corporately sponsored? Because that's what's going to happen with the Garden Bridge.
It's just been announced that Sky, the media behemoth owned by Rupert Murdoch, has given an undisclosed amount to the Garden Bridge Trust. But this is no altruistic gesture: one of the gardens on the bridge "will be named by Sky".
— Londonist
As the article notes, there are a slew of issues – besides aesthetic ones – plaguing the newest Thames crossing. First, Sky is set to sponsor the bridge. Second, attendance projections suggest that queues will be necessary and South Bank will get even more crowded (so much for expediting... View full entry
The pervading sentiment in the architectural community is that Adjaye, a Ghanaian British architect, is the odds-on favorite...
What no one has suggested publicly (though its oft-mentioned in social settings) is that Adjaye will be chosen because he is black. The rationalization is President Obama will “naturally" tap him for the job...
Adjaye, who was born in Tanzania to Ghanian parents, and holds British citizenship, has a very different experience than his African American peers...
— ArtNet
"The black British experience is a far cry from the African American experience, and it's undermining and lazy to presuppose that the first black President will favor an architect simply because of the color of his skin."Related:Archinect's front runners for the 2016 Pritzker PrizeThese are the... View full entry
There are now officially 100 supertall (300-plus-meter) skyscrapers in the world following the completion of 432 Park Avenue in New York City. The construction of supertall buildings has increased at an astounding rate in recent years, an indicator of the tremendous growth within the global tall building industry. Whereas the first 50 supertalls took 80 years to complete – between 1930 and 2010 – the total number of supertalls has doubled from 50 to 100 in just five years. — ctbuh.org
"With supertall skyscrapers becoming increasingly common, many look to the megatall (600-plus-meter) distinction as the new frontier for the world’s tallest buildings." Buckle up, everyone.Related stories in the Archinect news:Sorry, Willis Tower, but Shanghai Tower just kicked you out of the... View full entry
After 21 years away, the NFL is coming back to Los Angeles. The winner after months of waiting and a busy day of voting and discussion among the NFL team owners in Houston was St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke [...]. The exciting twist is that the San Diego Chargers have the option to join the Rams in their huge, shiny stadium—which is poised to be the NFL's biggest and most expensive venue, with a price tag well over $2 billion. (It'd be the priciest sports venue in the nation's history, too.) — la.curbed.com
Previously in the Archinect news: Organic kale for posh LA football fans: Newly unveiled stadium design sports a farmers' market and VVIP parkingQuest for LA football stadium enters the next round: Carson City Council approves its NFL stadium proposalAEG scraps plans to bring an NFL football... View full entry
President Obama gave his final State of the Union speech last night, which prompted the AIA to issue a statement outlining policies it feels President Obama and Republicans in Congress should enact this year in order to bolster the health of the architectural profession. These include: •... View full entry
...the Paddington Place scheme – a huge development around the eponymous London station intended to include a 72-storey tower designed by Renzo Piano... [has] drawn the ire of Sir Terry Farrell, the famous architect and local resident who was also, slightly awkwardly, previously in charge of the developers’ masterplan for the area.
Farrell, known for designing the MI6 building on the Thames and Charing Cross station, made his views known in a dense, 1,500-word objection...
— the Guardian
Brutalism lost the good fight in 2015. [...]
Demolition on another building by Johansen began late last year as well: Stage Theater, once known as the Mummers Theater, in Oklahoma City. The Oklahoman‘s Steve Lackmeyer called the 1970 project the number-one modernist building in the city that should have been spared. [....] Preservationists had hoped to turn it into a children’s museum. Models of the building show what a delightful museum it might have made [...].
— citylab.com
Brutalike stories in the Archinect news:Orange County legislators fail to save Paul Rudolph's Government CenterArt college professor suggests makeover for brutalist Boston City HallBrutalism: the great architectural polarizerNew movement urges to call Brutalism 'Heroic' instead View full entry