Every building is unique, and each has good things and some not-so-good things. The new website Honest Buildings launched today to make it a lot easier to learn about projects and open up a discourse on how to make them perform better. As the site matures, the creators see it developing into an organic gathering place for discourse on the built environment – a social media hub just for buildings. — Inhabitat
OriginOil, a start-up based in Los Angeles, CA., has begun a pilot of its urban algae farm concept at the La Défense complex near Paris. Wastewater from buildings nourishes algae growth; algae is processed to make heat. The company is attempting to prove that integrating algae production into large building complexes will help bring them closer to net zero. — smartplanet.com
The Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris today announced Ball-Nogues Studio from Los Angeles as the winner of the 2012 edition of the “Pavillon Spéciale” competition. Now in its 2nd edition, the Pavillon Spéciale consolidates its role as an annual spring architectural series that gives young emerging international architects the opportunity to build with students a temporary project in the heart of Paris. — bustler.net
Our very own Paul Petrunia, founder and publisher of Archinect and Bustler.net, had the honor to serve on the International Expert Committee for this year's pavilion competition. View full entry
... thousands of hard-hatted construction workers in sweat-soaked T-shirts are laying the groundwork for the newcomers’ own temple and archive, a massive complex so large that it necessitated expanding the town’s boundaries. Once built, it will be more than five times the size of the US Capitol.
Rather than Bibles, prophets, and worshippers, this temple will be filled with servers, computer intelligence experts, and armed guards.
— wired.com
HENN StudioB, the design and research studio of Berlin-based Henn Architekten, has won the first prize in the invited international competition to design a new sports center in the southeast Jiangsu Province of China. The Nantong Sports Center establishes a hybrid of landscape, public space and athletic functions. — bustler.net
For Archinect’s latest Working out of the Box feature, Paul Petrunia interviewed Pinterest Co-Founder Evan Sharp. Will Galloway asked "say shouldn't someone interview paul for this feature too?" to which Paul responded "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".
For Archinect’s latest Working out of the Box feature, Paul Petrunia interviewed Pinterest Co-Founder Evan Sharp. Will Galloway asked "say shouldn't someone interview paul for this feature too?" to which Paul responded "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"... View full entry
Copenhagen-based firm WE Architecture has shared with us their entry "Skyscape" to the open competition for a new church building in Våler, Norway. — bustler.net
Controversy has erupted over the memorial to President Dwight Eisenhower proposed by Frank Gehry for a site next to the Mall. The memorial’s large size and unconventional emphasis on Eisenhower as a “barefoot boy from Kansas” drew objections from the Eisenhower family, which in December called for it to be redesigned. A mounting public debate has since coalesced around familiar cultural positions. — Washington Post
Related: Frank Gehry: 'There's a backlash against me' Driehaus and Krier do battle against Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial design Eisenhower Family Raises Objections to Planned Memorial Eisenhower family calls for timeout in approval of memorial Frank Gehry refines his Eisenhower Memorial design... View full entry
Swapping cement and steel for timber is the vision of a number of environmentally-minded architects who are planning high-rise buildings across the world.
Architect Michael Green has plans for a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver, while plans are afoot in Norway and Austria for 17- and 20-story buildings that use wood as the main building material, eschewing steel and concrete.
— CNN.com
In Inner Mongolia a new city stands largely empty. This city, Ordos, suggests that the great Chinese building boom, which did so much to fuel the country's astonishing economic growth, is over. Is a bubble about to burst? — BBC
China, of course, is not new terrain for international architects. Many top American firms have run offices inside China for a decade or more. The new arrivals, though, come not by invitation or out of curiosity but because they need work. They are, as Michael Tunkey, head of the China office for the North American firm Cannon Design, says, “refugees from the economic crisis.” — New York Times
Mr. Kundig first visited Frey House II about 25 years ago. "The design is a bit strange, but it completely resonated with me," he said. "I'm influenced by architecture that toes the line between rugged and beautiful, that demonstrates how they can be the same thing." He notes that Mr. Frey's simple design nodded to the local vernacular of humble miners' shacks. — WSJ.com
NL Architects have shared with us a new project "Hallway House". It has been conceived within the framework of a 'match making' program set up by the Dutch Architecture institute (NAi). The Dutch Architecture institute (NAi) together with Housing Corporation VANKE has organized a Sino-Dutch... View full entry
Van Alen Books is a new architecture and design bookstore and public reading room located in NY. How will @DelaineIsaac fare with this newly industrialized space? Does LOT-EK address the dearth of public meeting and forum spaces in the city? — YouTube
Apple is actually taking a site that is now parking lots and low-rise boxes and making it worse for the community. Yes, it will be iconic, assuming you think a building shaped like a whitewall motorcycle tire is iconic, but it will reduce current street connectivity, seal off potential walking routes and, as I wrote some time back, essentially turn its back on its community. With a parking garage designed to hold over ten thousand cars, by the way. — Switchboard
Kaid Benfield, staff member at the Natural Resources Defense Council, slams Apple on it's proposed new HQ in Cupertino. Before you run off to return your idevices, though, consider that the new Archinect iPhone app will be released shortly ;) Related: Apple's new headquarters lacks vision Plans... View full entry