Need some inspiration as you sketch out that dream summer house? Maybe Tham & Videgård's Summerhouse project in Lagnö, Sweden could spark some ideas...Project description from Bolle Tham and Martin Videgård: Summerhouse Lagnö "The setting is the Stockholm archipelago... View full entry
The Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE) of The American Institute of Architects honored five educational and cultural projects for the CAE Educational Facility Design Excellence Award on Aug. 7.
The Educational Facility Design Awards jury selected the projects they perceived as exemplary learning spaces that further the client's educational programs and goals as well as exhibiting outstanding architectural design.
— bustler.net
Updated designs have surfaced for Amazon's new headquarters in downtown Seattle. Instead of the biospheres' uniformly diamond-shaped supporting structure (compare with previous renderings), the new images we just received from the project's architects, NBBJ, show a much more organic web of... View full entry
The exhibition re-envisions a series of urban environments that are typical for Chicago in order to examine alternatives to the way architecture engages the city. It is a collaborative effort by five teams – David Brown, Alexander Eisenschmidt, Studio Gang, Stanley Tigerman, and UrbanLab – determined to find potentials for spatial, material, programmatic, and organizational invention within the city. — City of Chicago
Same as it never was? What inspires a city to look back on abandoned plans? Along with the success of A+D Museum's "Never Built: Los Angeles", and anticipating the Bay Area's "Unbuilt San Francisco", The Atlantic Cities took a look at "City Works: Provocations for Chicago's Urban Future" at Expo... View full entry
Only a select few businesses find themselves atop the skyscraping office suites of downtown L.A., where ears pop on the way up, gourmet meals are served, VIP clients are entertained and earthquakes occasionally shake things up.
Working in these prestigious locations on the top floor of the city's five tallest towers are a big law firm, a metal service company, an investment management firm, a mutual fund company and a computer services firm involved in Japanese pornography.
— latimes.com
You learn with experience the things that are not worth doing. Most architects think, no matter what, they can make something out of any commission. For example, I don’t do prisons or hospitals, or restoration work. I do know, by now, who I am. And by now at least clients come to us with their eyes open. They don’t expect something we don’t do. — Architectural Record
The leggy damsel with raven hair and Doc Martens to match is unequivocal. ''No,'' she tells the small, freckled boy. ''You can't climb here. Go in there where it's safe.'' [...]
But the boy - not recognising her livery - can be forgiven his mistake. To him, the large, gridded edifice that she guards promises infinite climbability. [...]
The climbing frame in question is in fact art. It is this summer's Serpentine Pavilion, by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto.
— smh.com.au
What role should interactivity play in art? Should public opinion decide what is and isn't art? Can good art also have utility? These are a few polemics posed in the Sydney Morning Herald by columnist Elizabeth Farrelly, reacting to Sou Fujimoto's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, featured... View full entry
The new Raiffeisen Bank branch designed by NAU Architecture and Drexler Guinand Jauslin Architekten was completed this past May in the historical city center of Schaffhausen, Switzerland, after the design won first place in a competition back in May 2012. The design as a whole appeals to the senses, going beyond the basic functions of a bank to creating an open, welcoming place for customers through light, color, and efficient use of space. — bustler.net
For 20 years, the Mexican Museum, longtime tenant of Fort Mason Center, has sought to open a dedicated building in the evolving Yerba Buena Cultural District as its 14,000-object collection long ago outgrew the present space's capacity. The wait to integrate the museum into the first four floors of a Millennium Partners luxury high-rise may finally be ending - in about five more years. — sfgate.com
If San Franciscans like to describe their city as “49 square miles surrounded by reality,” the visionary ideas that were too grandiose for even San Franciscans to consider remain some of the most fantastic designs for any city in the world. Imagine a grand casino on Alcatraz, the city wrapped in freeways and a subdivision covering flattened hills north of the Golden Gate Bridge. — Architecture and the City Festival
San Francisco is a small yet fierce city; its 7x7 mile girth is home to a rich history of social activism, tech start-ups, foodies, artists, composting programs and absurdist housing rates. Given its compact and hilly terrain, any addition or subtraction would drastically impact the city’s... View full entry
The Case Study Houses have finally made the National Register of Historic Places (well, 11 of them have). [...]
The LA Conservancy's Modern Committee spent nearly a decade trying to get some of the CSHes recognized and last month the National Park Service officially listed 10 of the houses [...]; an eleventh "was determined eligible for listing but not formally listed due to owner objection," according to the Conservancy.
— la.curbed.com
Related: Why list Case Study houses on the National Register? View full entry
We have to admit, we haven't spent much time ogling the architecture of public pools. But those days are over, at least after catching a glimpse of Franck Bohbot's hypnotic photos of empty swimming vessels. [...] He is, he expressed, "interested in the relationship between the water, the architecture and the individual." — huffingtonpost.com
If you are in love with Franck Bohbot's photographs as much as we are, go and check out the Archinect In Focus feature we did with him in 2012. View full entry
Votes have been open for the Carbuncle Cup's annual naming and shaming since May. And now, here's the shortlist for the ugliest building of the year – from a swirly vertical pier to faux-fronted student flats. — theguardian.com
Click here to cast your vote in the poll for the UK's ugliest building of the year, hosted by The Guardian. In the running for this year's award are: Avant Garde tower, Bethnal Green, London UCL student housing, 465 Caledonian Road, Islington, London Porth Eirias Watersports Centre, Colwyn Bay... View full entry
Everyone makes mistakes. But when seemingly minor blunders are made in designing and building structures, the results can be catastrophic. Read about some of the more infamous architectural failures in history, and what we have learned from those mistakes. — NewSchool of Architecture + Design
[via NewSchool of Architecture + Design] View full entry
Any definitive insight into the formative stages of Roman architectural hubris lies irretrievable beneath layers of the city’s repeated renovations through the time of caesars, popes and the Renaissance [...] Now, at excavations 11 miles east of Rome’s city center, archaeologists think they are catching a glimpse of Roman tastes in monumental architecture much earlier than previously thought, about 300 years before the Colosseum. — nytimes.com
The New York Times recently reported on the ongoing excavations of Roman monumental remnants from the city's pre-Colosseum era at the Gabii digging site not far from the capital. Since last summer, a team of archaeologists and University of Michigan students led by classical studies... View full entry