Amazon’s Spheres, a botanical gardenlike workspace for the retail giant’s employees, are primarily a private space.
But the company has set up a few ways for the public to access the geodesic domes — in downtown Seattle on Lenora Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues — starting Tuesday, when the Spheres officially open to visitors and employees.
— The Seattle Times
The Amazon Spheres, designed by NBBJ, will now be open to the public; however, getting in may be tricky. There is the option of entering from the ground floor to see an exhibition about the Spheres, and the much more difficult option to join a guided tour of the entire headquarters. Inside the... View full entry
Gehry has completed new — and nearly final — designs for the Grand, an open-air complex of apartments, condominiums, movie theaters, restaurants and shops that promises to enliven a city block that has been mostly dead for half a century. [...]
The delay helped improve the project, Himmel insisted. Five years ago, there was a "disconnect" between what Gehry wanted to build and what Related could pay for [...] Since then, Gehry has found ways to reconcile his vision with costs
— Los Angeles Times
Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.But wait, there's more: the LA Times writes that developing the block on Grand Avenue would finally unlock a design feature Gehry himself "baked into his design for Disney Hall" a long time ago — the ability of the concert hall's curvy metallic facade to receive... View full entry
Other than the conversion of the dining room into a library and a den into office space in 2000, the apartment has remained largely unchanged since the 1970s.
“Some people might see this as dated,” [Luca] Vignelli said. But much of the apartment feels timeless, as his parents intended, he added: “I would love to see somebody who appreciates the space and their presence in the space” as a buyer.
— The New York Times
The design legacy of the late Lella and Massimo Vignelli lives on in their New York home, which will be listed for $6.5 million. The home hasn't changed much since the couple bought it in 1978. Their children Luca and Valentina Vignelli, who are selling the duplex because they both live... View full entry
To me, everything looks fascinating from the air. But, for some reason, I never expected Bogotá, Colombia, to look so striking. — Fast Co. Design
Colombian artist, Camilo Mønón Navas has produced a series of images titled, Arial Façades, in which Camilo takes various perspectival photographs and assembles them whimsical and fantastical means while bringing his home city of Bogota to the surface through all its cultural glory. In... 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
Last year, the New Museum announced that Rem Koolhaas and Shoehei Shigematsu would be heading the institution's expansion that will nearly double their footprint in New York. The contemporary art museum has been situated at 235 Bowery in a building designed by the Japanese firm SANAA since... View full entry
But a number of prominent architects and urban planners have been speaking out against the material's overuse. [...] They raise questions about the impact glass structures have on our public spaces and the fabric of our cities. Developers demand floor-to-ceiling windows, abundant natural light and views worth charging tenants for -- but what about the rest of us? — CNN
Architects including Ken Shuttleworth (who worked on The Gherkin) and Alan Ritchie (who co-founded PJAR Architects with Philip Johnson) give their two cents on the issues about the abundant use of glass in skyscrapers, from energy efficiency to their uninviting appearance — and yes, that one... View full entry
One of architect Frank Gehry’s earliest public buildings collapsed this month as it was nearing the end of a five-year, $55 million renovation, forcing the owners to revise their plans.
The roof of the Merriweather Post Pavilion, a 19,000-seat open-air concert venue in Columbia, Maryland, crashed down in the middle of the night on Saturday, January 13, burying the seating below. No one was injured.
— archpaper.com
The concert pavilion was designed by Frank Gehry, Walsh, and O'Malley in 1967 and is being renovated to maintain presence among other performing arts centers. The design team opted to keep the original roof seeing it as the defining element of Gehry's design and were in the process of raising it... View full entry
“The Guardian Art Center is a lot more than just a museum,” says Ole Scheeren, principal of the eponymous Beijing practice Büro Ole Scheeren. The german architect has just completed a major project in the heart of Beijing: the Guardian Art Center, a custom-built auction house complete with... View full entry
London’s suggestive skyline already boasts a Gherkin, a Walkie Talkie and a Cheesegrater. Soon they may be joined by the Golf Ball. According to plans seen by the Guardian, a giant glass sphere taller than St Paul’s Cathedral could be built next to the Olympic park in east London. [...]
One design visualisation shows that the lower half of the orb would be fitted with tiered seating, while the upper half would form a spectacular vaulted roof.
— The Guardian
The Guardian has published a rendering of a new proposed concert venue resembling a giant glass sphere that could even dwarf St Paul's Cathedral. In typical London fashion, the project near the Olympic Park has already been dubbed "the Golf Ball," however the design's fate and origins remain... View full entry
A new project titled CASA ED & JO features a clean and curved design by NOARQ. The renovated house is located in Famalicão, Portugal with tucked away patios inside a triangular urban plot. CASA ED&JO by NOARQ located in Famalicão, Portugal. Image: João Morgado. The lot is highly... View full entry
“We always want people to think ‘What’s that?’ and be drawn inside our buildings,” says Rohan Silva, the 37-year-old co-founder of Second Home, provider of “unique workspaces and cultural venues for entrepreneurs and innovators”. The company opened its first space in Spitalfields, east London, in 2014 and now boasts users ranging from tiny tech startups to the likes of Volkswagen and auditing giant KPMG. — The Guardian
A winter wonderland, a tropic landscape, a colorful explosion of swirling surfaces and walls of color enveloping even the smallest of spaces— one could say that I was describing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's film sets and yet, this could become the description of the modern day office... View full entry
[...] the ever increasing mallification of our environment threatens to undermine the public common ground on which our societies were founded: public places should address an abstract, inclusive notion of the public, instead of a defined, limited, and exclusive (in the literal sense of the word) audience. Conversely, we should not confuse or conflate trite stores (even if they place trees inside and call themselves town squares) to be an ersatz public domain. — Failed Architecture
Janno Martens' essay for Failed Architecture explores the many deaths and resurrections of the shopping mall and highlights three phenomena of mallification — the creeping privatization of public spaces and replacement of the organically grown city with an imagineered 'experience' of what only... View full entry
The council housing designed 50 years ago for a progressive London borough remains a potent symbol of the achievements of postwar social democracy. — Places Journal
Prompted by Mark Swenarton's recent book, Cook's Camden, Douglas Murphy looks at the radically experimental public housing estates built by the London borough from 1966 to 1975, and the reevaluation of these extraordinary projects currently underway in our own era of unaffordable cities and... View full entry
In that spirit I set a challenge for myself: Could I come up not just with one but with 25 buildings that might have deserved the award this year? It took me a few days — and I was helped by some terrific suggestions from architects, critics and historians on Twitter and elsewhere online — but in the end finding 25 wasn't that difficult. — LA Times
LA Times journalist Christopher Hawthorne has penned, or passionately typed, an inquiry into the fact that this year's 25-Year-Award was awarded to—no one. In the article, Hawthorne walks us through the importance and aim of such an award and how to him, there are more than a few projects that... View full entry
