The Crystal, the new extension to the financial institution Nykredit in Copenhagen, Denmark, by schmidt hammer lassen architects, has won an Emirates Glass LEAF Award in the category ‘Best Structural Design of the Year’ 2011. [...] The Crystal is sited northwest of the existing Nykredit Headquarters, called the Glass Cube, on the edge of the new waterfront and the historic Copenhagen. — bustler.net
Recenly erected traffic signal in front of historically significant Neutra VDL House in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. No notification was ever sent to institutions, individuals and organizations in charge of the house which is open to public. — Orhan Ayyuce
As architects we struggle to add public value in architecture so that our profession survives and makes us worthwhile, the people who are in charge of infrastructure, as in this case, the traffic engineers, don't see any value in something like the historic home of the modern... View full entry
The Plasmatic Concepts / iPad app includes never seen before photography of the house along with photographs of famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman, courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Trust. An interactive timeline, rotating 3D models, plans and sections, are some of the features that... View full entry
If all goes as planned, the New Museum’s five-year-old building on the Bowery will become something of an amusement park beginning Oct. 26, with visitors hurtling through a giant plastic tube from the fourth floor to the second — New York Times
The world’s most-famous architect sailed into a storm of old-fashioned Washington controversy this week.
At a public conversation Wednesday at the National Archives, Frank Gehry encountered hostile questions from audience members about his designs for a memorial to Dwight David Eisenhower planned for a prominent spot on Independence Avenue, just south of the Mall.
— washingtonpost.com
The architects recognize that the armory as an exhibition space is a far cry from conventional “white cube” galleries, or what Mr. Herzog called “egocentric, architecturally driven museums.” But he said the spaces are likely to inspire artists, not limit them. “Artists have increasingly started to like strange places to put their art,” he said. “The specific conditions are unique and interesting and every artist is challenged to put his paintings or performances in such historic conditions.” — New York Times
Given his stature, the demolition of Terminal 6 arguably ranks as the most significant loss of a transportation building in New York since Pennsylvania Station was razed in the early 1960s.
Mr. Cobb does not think of the two events as analogous, however. “This is not pure greed,” he said. “This is the myopic view of engineers. They just can’t figure out how to reuse it and they don’t put enough value on it to figure out how to reuse it.”
— New York Times
When I mention that architecture seems to be an afterthought in many new houses, Brady interjects: "If at all." It's a serious point because, she says, many homes are simply constructed off-the-shelf from manuals; even the once ubiquitous term "architect designed" has been ditched. — Guardian
Peter Hetherington recently chatted with Angela Brady the new president of RIBA. According to her new homes (in England) must be better designed. To this end RIBA is proposing a Future Homes Commission, to start the conversation on how to build better new homes. Besides improving the... View full entry
A dazzling €44 million (£37.7m) arts centre in the northern Spanish city of Avilés is to close after six months amid political squabbling as the country asks itself what to do with a glut of glittering new museums.
The Niemeyer centre, which was designed by the celebrated 103-year-old Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, was intended to have the same impact on the industrial Cantabrian sea port as the Guggenheim museum has had on Bilbao, 150 miles to the east.
— guardian.co.uk
Chyutin Architects is threatening to resign after the Wiesenthal Center withheld a scheduled payment over what center officials say is the architect’s failure to meet certain contractual obligations on the $100-million project, according to Wiesenthal spokesman Lior Chorev in Jerusalem. — latimesblogs.latimes.com
Last Saturday, October 1, the Royal Institute of Architects, RIBA, not only awarded the 2011 Stirling Prize to Zaha Hadid Architects for the best new European building built or designed in the United Kingdom—the office's second consecutive Stirling Prize win—but also presented this... View full entry
Suzanne Labarre of Fast Company uses the term "Lady Parts" in a review of the self-designed Shanghai studio by/for Taranta Creations. Liebchen correctly points out "When its vaginal, its a "design crime." But Philip Johnson gets to hold his little Johnson/model of the AT&T building on the cover of time magazine and everyone's fine with it? http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1979/1101790108_400.jpg"
In the third part of the CONTOURS: feature Sherin Wing, talks about urban justice. Specifically the needs of those impoverished, living in our own urban centers often in what Sherin describes as "Segregated urban centers". Drawing on the work of Edward Soja, Distinguished Professor... View full entry
A design competition opened in December 1860 with a month's deadline; it drew 171 submissions. The winning architect, Garnier, was a blacksmith's son who had studied at the École des Beaux Arts, taking its Grand Prix de Rome for architecture in 1848. — online.wsj.com
The Evelyn Grace Academy, a cutting-edge new secondary school in Brixton, south London by Zaha Hadid Architects has won the prestigious £20,000 RIBA Stirling Prize 2011 for the best new European building built or designed in the United Kingdom. This is the second year running that Zaha Hadid Architects have won the RIBA Stirling Prize; last year they won the award for their MAXXI Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome... — RIBA
The results of the 2011 Solar Decathlon has just been announced, and the winner is University of Maryland WaterShed house! The beautiful water-conservation themed house has been leading the competition pretty much since the first day that the Solar Decathlon kicked off, taking first place in the architecture contest and scoring in the top five in almost every contest; from engineering to communications. — Inhabitat