Six residential projects have been selected as recipients of the 2013 AIA Housing Awards. The jury recognized projects in four award categories: One/Two Family Custom Housing, One/Two Family Production Housing (none selected this year), Multifamily Housing and Special Housing. — bustler.net
The 2030 Palette is an interactive online tool that puts the principles behind low-carbon and resilient built environments at the fingertips of architects, planners and designers worldwide.
Our goal is to inform the planning and design process at the point of inspiration. By curating the best information... highly complex ideas are made intuitive and accessible. Guiding principles are presented as individual “Swatches”, which together make up the larger fabric of sustainable built environments.
— Inhabitat
The site - www.2030palette.org - looks like a very useful resource. Could be useful for designers but even more so for client to get by in when trying "new" strategies. View full entry
Robert González wants to create a 3D digital replica of Downtown El Paso, using lasers.
The director of Texas Tech’s fledgling architecture program in El Paso says the student project would be part of a new historic preservation program he is developing here. The project would create a permanent record, in 3D, of El Paso’s most historic and endangered buildings.
— El Paso, Inc.
An exhibition of 3D captured border cities from around the world projected onto giant scrims filling an abandoned maquilladora, might be an interesting project. View full entry
The Hirshhorn Museum’s proposed Seasonal Inflatable Structure, also known as “the Bubble,” a project announced in 2009 and intended as an architecturally and culturally transformative space on the Mall, would operate at a loss in each of three scenarios examined in an assessment done by the Smithsonian. — washingtonpost.com
“We’ve said from the beginning, and the secretary [G. Wayne Clough] has said it, this is a bold project,” said Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for history, art and culture. “We’ve encouraged this, but it has to be raised by private money. In terms of doing that... View full entry
Four design firms have been shortlisted by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) for the major rehabilitation of the Athens Chancery project. The iconic modernist embassy building, designed by Walter Gropius with consulting architect Pericles A. Sakellarios, was constructed between 1959 and 1961 and is a protected architectural landmark. — bustler.net
The shortlisted firms are: Ann Beha Architects, Boston, MA DesignLab Architects, Inc., Boston, MA Machado Silvetti / Baker, Boston, MA Mark Cavagnero Associates, San Francisco, CA UPDATE: Ann Beha Architects selected for major rehabilitation of Gropius-designed Athens Chancery View full entry
It’s perched atop the depressing, low-ceilinged maze known as Penn Station, daily hive for 600,000 scuttling commuters.
The Garden’s presence is one major impediment to the 25-year-old dream of turning the decrepit and overcrowded Penn station into a smoothly operating city gateway.
— bloomberg.com
Are cities becoming "greater" these days?
(Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief, May 2013)
— monu-magazine.com
Are cities becoming "greater" these days? When two years ago, in our 14th issue of MONU Magazine entitled "Editing Urbanism", we claimed that in the Western world, the need for new buildings and city districts was decreasing or even ceasing to exist altogether due to demographic changes and... View full entry
The New South China Mall was once promoted as the world's biggest mall, but it's now pretty much deserted. — edition.cnn.com
BIG together with West 8, Fentress Architects, John Portman & Associates (JPA), Revuelta Architecture International and developers Portman-CMC have unveiled the urban planning proposal Miami Beach Square, the centerpiece of a 52-acre Miami Beach Convention Center District development. Portman-CMC is one of two development teams currently in the race for the project. — bustler.net
UPDATE: OMA Wins Miami Beach Convention Center Competition View full entry
In Venice, Sandmeier wanted to tell the story of a whole neighborhood, not just emphasize the architectural merits of any one structure, and in doing so build a history of architects and artists working together. "Buildings are important for different reasons. Sometimes it's the architecture, sometimes it is the history, and sometimes it is the context," she explains. "Venice is a place with such rich cultural context that underlies the whole community, there is a lot to talk about." — kcet.org
Mimi Zeiger reports from the self-guided tour "Venice Eclectic: Modern Architecture from the '70s and '80s", part of "Curating the City Modern Architecture in L.A.," the Conservancy's ongoing contribution to Pacific Standard Time: Modern Architecture in Los Angeles. View full entry
... how does using a different physical space have an impact on learning? Bosch argued that changing the environment helps teachers and students to break free from old habits: "One of the things you can do is create an environment where you cannot function the same way as you used to. What happens when you go out of the school into a theatre, you have to improvise. When you improvise, you start learning and developing." — guardian.co.uk
Eric Moss gets to play a real-life game of Sim City. The architect's 1986 master plan for Culver City proposed 43 buildings and half are completed today. Eric joins us along with others from across the country to discuss urban revitalization. — live.huffingtonpost.com
Since we announced that the international architecture competition to design the Central Mosque of Prishtina, Kosovo had not (yet) turned out a clear winner, we have received many, many mosque design entries, some of which we have published here on Bustler.
Another entry well worth featuring is this design collaboration between Portuguese firms OODA and AND-RÉ with AFA CONSULT / Rui Furtado as the engineering partner.
— bustler.net
Previously: No Clear Winner (yet) in Kosovo’s Central Mosque of Prishtina Competition View full entry
Jeffrey Inaba’s firm INABA was commissioned by Red Bull Music Academy to transform four floors of a vacant building in New York's Chelsea neighborhood into a model learning environment. INABA has used dramatic walls and lighting to create unique collaborative work areas in place of the... View full entry
Choosing your dream home has become as simple as picking furniture from the Ikea catalogue for residents of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, where a neighbourhood of affordable architect-designed kit houses has just been launched.
Aimed at first-time buyers, the city's "I build affordable in Nijmegen" initiative has paired 20 architects with building companies to produce about 30 designs – from detached timber cabins to redbrick terraced houses – with a construction cost of as little as €115,000.
— guardian.co.uk
From 8A Architecten, the archtiects, "8A designed houses for first time buyers for the IbbN-program in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. ‘IbbN’ stands for ‘Ik bouw betaalbaar in Nijmegen’, translated in English as ‘I build affordable in Nijmegen’. This is a special program for first time... View full entry