This week, the Tokyo-based firm SANAA released a proposal for its first building in the United States since its principals—Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa—won the Pritzker Prize in 2010. Located in New Canaan, Connecticut, the 65,000-square-foot glass, steel, concrete, and wood headquarters for the Grace Farms Foundation will wind its way along a piece of the 75-acre property owned by the nonprofit charitable organization. — archrecord.construction.com
The final results of the 9th Annual Emirates Glass LEAF Awards have been announced in London. Winner of the Public Building Award, and also Overall Winner for 2012, was Sou Fujimoto Architects for their project Musashino Art University Museum & Library in Tokyo, Japan. — bustler.net
Brooklynites might consider themselves lucky. In Manhattan, Madison Square Garden’s owners are renovating, spending nearly $1 billion. Judging from results so far, it won’t be enough. The Barclays Center is no Garden disaster, just an extraordinarily expensive lost opportunity. — bloomberg.com
The 10,000 or so jobs promised have not materialized. Of the 2,250 affordable housing units pledged out of 6,300, only 181 are planned for a first tower, and ground for the building has yet to be broken. — NYT
Liz Robbins explores the impending political, logistical reality of the Barclays Center arena, in Brooklyn. She also examines the as yet fulfilled, hopes for community wide benefit, with regards to affordable housing and job creation. Yet, the large entertainment and sports complex has... View full entry
Three winning designs have recently been announced in the international competition for the architectural and urban planning design of Boka Artist Residence in the Bay of Kotor, Republic of Montenegro. The competition, organized by architectural studio Sinestezia from Belgrade, Serbia, announced Japanese architect Tomohiro Hata from Kobe as the first prize winner. — bustler.net
So far, Broad has built 16 structures in China, plus another in Cancun....The company is in the process of franchising this technology to partners in India, Brazil, and Russia. What it’s selling is the world’s first standardized skyscraper, and with it, Zhang aims to turn Broad into the McDonald’s of the sustainable building industry. — Wired
Photo by Noah Sheldon Lauren Hilgers traveled to Hunan, China where she had a chance to interview Zhang Yue, founder and chairman of Broad Sustainable Building. Broad gained internet "fame" earlier this week by erecting a 30-story building built in 15 days, using prefabricated and... View full entry
Bud Goldstone (1926-2012), a former aerospace engineer who worked for over 50 years to save Watts Towers, has died at the age of 86.
In 1959 he devised the test to prove the Towers were structurally sound and stopped the City of Los Angeles from demolishing them. He was a founding member of the Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts, Inc., which successfully sued the city in 1985 to save the Towers from the city's neglect.
— kcet.org
Precisely one year ago, Bustler reported on the topping out ceremony of the new 6,000 m² (64,583 sq ft) academic building for the Amsterdam University College, designed by Delft, NL-based Mecanoo architecten. One year later, this past Friday, September 21, the building was officially opened by Amsterdam councilor Lodewijk Asscher. — bustler.net
Neither is this switcheroo exactly new. That is a big part of the reason the City Planning Commission works so hard to ensure certain design flourishes and details in ambitious projects like the Riverside Center. — New York Observer
Yet again—the World Trade Center, Atlantic Yards, the Williamsburg waterfront—a New York City developer has dumped his high design stalking horse when it actually comes time to build their project. This time, Christian de Portzamparc was used to get the eight-acre Riverside Center... View full entry
"Around the world, architects and designers are finding innovative ways to evoke emotion through bold use of color," says Jackie Jordan, director of color marketing, Sherwin-Willilams. "From climbing gym to concert hall, the eight projects below demonstrate how vivid, playful hues will... View full entry
in the latest edition of ShowCase: New Keelung Harbor Service Building, Archinect presents the first prize winning project by Neil M. Denari Architects, Inc. (NMDA). The details include; 120,780 square meters, Ground breaking: 2013, Completion: terminal (2015), office building (2017). double o zero immediately noted that "Something like this would have countless comments just a few years ago. Now it is just another thing".
The recent feature Instigating Change with Common Ground, written by John Southern is a critical but largely positive review of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Therein, he put forward the argument that this year’s "Biennale doesn’t have much to be cynical, negative, or nasty about" and... View full entry
... if they do tear down the building, they'll replace it with another architecturally significant structure. When I spoke with Ron Naylor, who works in Facilities Management at Northwestern, he promised a building "the aesthetics of such that people are going to marvel at it." — wbez.org
Rael and San Frantello still have thousands of rods left over, but depending on how big they want to go, Ashley could probably help them out again — he still has a mountain of about 700,000 of them sitting in the parking lot of his Milpitas warehouse. — NPR
Husband and wife design partners Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello have recycled parts of a "boondoggle" into a piece of architecture. Rael San Fratello Architects new(ish) project SOL Grotto uses 1,368 distinctive glass rods, from the failed solar company. The view through the rods... View full entry
I’m no architecture critic, but the word “iconic” keeps popping to mind. In an industry full of soulless suburban campuses, give Jeff Bezos & Co. credit for building this in the city, at least. — geekwire.com
The geeks speak on two new planned tech campuses. Which one do you prefer? View full entry
I do not think the arena’s architecture should relate better to the context. The immediate context is the developer Forest City Ratner’s two cheaply clad, faux-historicist malls across Atlantic Avenue. The larger context is the lowrise brownstone neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. To relate to the first would be depressing; to relate to the second, impossible. The real building is an exact analogue to the renderings of this site, which... blur and dematerialize the neighbors. — newyorker.com
