Star architects such as Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, and Daniel Leibiskind have created sensations with singular, unconventional designs that look (and sometimes are) unbuildable. John Silber thinks that’s a problem. He’d like to see our buildings showing less individualism, more standards. Silber is the former president of Boston University and the author of Architecture of the Absurd: How “Genius” Disfigured a Practical Art. — studio360.org
A house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the style of a Mayan temple has sold for US$4.5 million (Dh16.5m) after two years on the market.
The buyer was Ron Burkle, a supermarket magnate and investor who is known for preserving historic properties.
— thenational.ae
Shigeru Ban, known for his paper tube structures and disaster relief projects, as well as several ground-breaking homes in Japan, has produced a small minimum security prison. Just eight blocks north of the Americano, the Shutter House opens and closes it’s tightly perforated metal shutters as the warden sees fit. — barkitecturemag.com
After several starts and stops San Francisco’s greenest office building is finally well on its way to completion. The San Francisco Public Utility District commissioned the project more than ten years ago, but after the dotcom bust and the squeeze of the recession they asked KMD Architects to go back to the drawing board. What they came up with is a reduced cost LEED Platinum building with a living machine, a large roof-mounted solar array and integrated wind power. — Inhabitat
Coop Himmelblau’s wildly ambitious L.A. high school opened to great acclaim and local controversy. Two years later, we ask: how is it actually working? — metropolismag.com
Archinect's Building of the Week series is brought to you by our friends at OpenBuildings.com, the web's most comprehensive directory of buildings. Acoustic clarity and precision were governing principles for the design of this recital space and outdoor stage for the Masters Program in music at... View full entry
Simon Henley's new book, The Architecture of Parking (Thames & Hudson), casts an objective eye over car parks, one of the most important but most neglected building types of the modern era, and finds a strange and haunting beauty. — guardian
'Using formal expression to overcome any shortfall in the quality of construction' ... The Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth, (above) designed by The Owen Luder Partnership. View full entry
Steven Holl's Sifang Art Museum will be opening in Nanjing, China, in November of this year. In the mean time they have launched a pretty site with some nice alternating photographs of the building. Check it out. View full entry
Mecanoo architecten has won the architectural selection for the new Noorderpoort regional community college in Stadskanaal, the Netherlands. The 8,500 m² college is like a mansion with beautiful wetlands as a front lawn situated within the town's green heart. — bustler.net
There’s nothing sillier than an M.F.A. What does it mean? Did you learn anything? No. To be a master you have to learn languages and you have to have these things. Nobody gets them. I don’t think the art form is so complicated that you need a college course in order to read it. — Paris Review
Paris Review's Thessaly La Force visits and talks to one of art world's giants Lawrence Weiner in his LOT-EK designed and installed live-work studio in New York. They talk about the neighborhood, art, and why he doesn't eat lunch but loves the cocktail parties. View full entry
As mentioned in previous posts I have been studying in Copenhagen with the Danish Institute of Study Abroad. In the last week we were treated to study tours to either Norway and Sweden or Finland and Sweden. My group traveled to Norway and Sweden. — University of Illinois Chicago (Matthew)
Winners have been announced in the [LONDON] Information Pavilion. The international ideas competition, hosted by [AC-CA], invited architects and architecture students to design a temporary, freestanding information pavilion within the world famous Trafalgar Square in the Heart of London during the 2012 Olympic Games. — bustler.net
The language was impossible to understand, but the building itself communicated in a clear vernacular: thick columns, coarsely hewn and partly painted white, were topped with gold-haloed icons and lovely scarves that must have been embroidered by hand. The ceiling in the back was only an arm’s breadth above my head... — The New York Times
Evan Rail travels to the Carpathian foothills near Zakarpattia, the western region of Ukraine. The vernacular folk architecture includes a number of unusual wooden churches dating from the 15th to 18th centuries. After years of neglect, the buildings are in danger of disappearing and... View full entry
Meanwhile eric chavkin suggested that "This skate board house has more to do with physio-culture like some experimental soviet projects ie the slanted floors of 'the house of dreams', an architectural experiment to study effects on dreaming. I like the anti-gravity aspects and it reminds me of the space station interior in Kubrick 2001 Space Odyssey it expresses the anti-gravity ideal of early modernism.
In a feature entitled Architecture and Design Graduates – How to Secure Your First Position, James Long/Ellicott Long provides "some useful guidance on how to maximise your chances of success in securing that initial role and draws on examples" that he has experienced both in the UK... View full entry
Six years ago, the Rural Studio, a program based in western Alabama and run by Auburn University's architecture school, launched the $20K House Project, with the goal of producing a model home for $20,000. — Wall Street Journal
