Clad in a vivid yellow aluminum facade that perfectly complements L.A.'s typically sunny blue skies, Animo South Los Angeles High School's newest building signals a fresh start. After a massive fire in 2014 destroyed half of the campus, which has been around since the 1950s, locally based... View full entry
A 250-meter-long bouncing net three stories above ground. A 50-meter-long suspended bridge with glass-panel flooring.
Walking trails amongst a lush jungle of animal-shaped topiaries in a five-story terraced garden. A 40-meter-tall waterfall cascading from an opening in a vaulted glass roof canopy. An art sculpture made up of four giant, integrated slides.
And that's just scratching the surface.
— cnn.com
Safdie Architects's $1.27 billion Jewel Changi is the latest addition to Singapore's impressive Changi Airport. This donut-shaped structure will function as a central hub connecting three of the airport's current four terminals. Safdie's design features five stories of retail, gardens and... View full entry
At an impassioned four-hour public hearing [...] by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), around 50 members of the public, as well as Selldorf, the Frick’s director Ian Wardropper and members of the commission debated the proposed $160m Annabelle Selldorf Architects-designed expansion and renovation of the Frick Collection in New York. The LPC remains undecided on the project, which is due to break ground in 2020 [...]. — The Art Newspaper
"Many of the strongest criticisms throughout the hearing, particularly on this multi-storey library extension, came from local residents, although the neighbourhood speakers overall seemed split on the project," The Art Newspaper reports. Take a closer look at the expansion scheme, designed... View full entry
Nestled into an armpit of Westminster Abbey, hidden behind a flying buttress that leaps up to the chapterhouse, stands what appears to be a gothic space rocket. Sinuous bronze tracery loops its way up the faceted shaft, framing crystalline windows between bands of lead arrowheads, like go-faster stripes shooting towards the heavens. — The Guardian
British architect Ptolemy Dean's new addition to Westminster Abbey, The Weston Tower, is the first significant addition to the gothic structure since 1745. This new $30m tower provides the first public access to the church's triforium space above nave. Here visitors can climb to the attic and... View full entry
David Chipperfield Architects' Nobel Center, criticized by some as dominating, has developed its final design for the interior of this new Stockholm space. The firm added a number of new public exhibition areas that will be free of charge with a design aimed at strengthening the vertical... View full entry
London-based firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners recently completed the Macallan Distillery and visitor experience in Speyside, Scotland. The design is set into the landscape of the The Macallan estate, a distillery established in 1824 producing one of the most sought after whiskys in the... View full entry
“Whenever Weiwei is involved, he offers more than just a formal solution,” Mr. Herzog said by phone from Basel. “I think that’s why we get along well. We can develop concepts together without being bound by personal taste.” — The New York Times
The NYT's Rebecca Schmid chats with Jacques Herzog about inspiration, curation, industrial spaces, and, of course, Ai Weiwei. View full entry
Officially called the “House-Monument of the Bulgarian Communist Party”, the building fell into disrepair following the collapse of the country's socialist government in 1989, but remains a popular landmark and tourist attraction. The trip comes before an expected visit by European and Bulgarian experts at the end of 2018, who will report on the building’s structural integrity with the view of opening it officially to tourists. — The Calvert Journal
The insulation that burned out of control on Grenfell Tower had never passed the required safety test and should never have been on the building, a BBC investigation has discovered. Panorama understands the manufacturer, Celotex, used extra fire retardant in the product that qualified for the safety certificate.
A more flammable version was then sold for public use, the programme believes. Celotex said it is co-operating with the police investigation and inquiry.
— bbc.com
Last June the Grenfell Tower fire in London killed 72 people prompting ongoing investigations. It has been found that the RS5000 insulation used in the building's refurbishment gives off toxic fumes containing cyanide when burned. Almost all who perished in the fire were killed by smoke. The... View full entry
A sinkhole has formed on the North Lawn of the White House, and predictably, the temptation was too great for many on social media, who filled the void with all the “drain the swamp” jokes and metaphors one could imagine.
But forget the obvious political jabs and the fact that President Trump uses that phrase as a rallying cry about eliminating corruption in Washington: The saying has some geological merit.
— The New York Times
"The White House sits at the intersection of a Quaternary colluvium (base of steep slope) deposit & a Pleistocene fluvial (river) & estuarine deposit," Jess Phoenix, a volcanologist, geologist, and... View full entry
“Fitts-Woolard Hall will be a state-of-the-art facility that truly supports our vision of collaborative, interdisciplinary instruction, research and innovation,” states NC State University Chancellor, Randy Woodson. “This project is vital to the future of the College of Engineering.” — NC State University
NC State University has broken ground on Fitts-Woolard Hall, a new $150 million engineering building on Centennial Campus. In the past 10 years, engineering undergraduate enrollment at NC State has grown by 22 percent, and graduate enrollment has more than doubled. Designed by Clark Nexsen, the... View full entry
The House of the Beautiful Courtyard at Herculaneum and the House of the Cryptoporticus in Pompeii will each be the site of a new installation by artist Catrin Huber, as part of a Newcastle University project designed to create a new dialogue between contemporary art, Roman wall painting and archaeological remains. — Apollo Magazine
Expanded Interiors at Herculaneum. Photo: Amedeo Benestante."By investigating two distinctive Roman houses, our project sets out an exchange of knowledge between old and new," the Expanded Interiors project website explains. "We are exploring what Contemporary painting and site-specific fine-art... View full entry
That we are now starting to get to grips with PoMo architecture’s controversial legacy is welcome, not least because other important buildings have already been destroyed, and others are threatened. [...]
Today the worlds of design and conservation are more closely allied than before. But even as this latest batch of postmodern buildings has won protected status, it is worth noting that important brutalist buildings are still excluded from the roster.
— The Guardian
Commentary by Catherine Croft for The Guardian on Historic England's recent selection of 17 postmodern buildings to be listed as heritage without extending the same love to important examples of the brutalist school. Recently received Grade II listed status: Judge Business School, University of... View full entry
The Tuscon based D.U.S.T, was profiled in a recent Small Studio Snapshot. Thayer-D commented "This aesthetic seems to work well in desert like climates." which makes sense since D.U.S.T explained their approach as "doing our best to respond to the dreams, goals and desires of our clients and to... View full entry
After months of hard work reviewing submissions, selecting content, editing, designing and working with the best printers in the industry, we're excited to announce the second issue of Ed, "Architecture of Disaster," is now available for purchase. If you're an annual subscriber, your copy has... View full entry
