NL: In some cases, the local professional design community regards university-based design centers as potential competitions What is the UACDC's relationship with the local professionals?
SL: Well, teaching and research hospitals don’t refrain from delivering medical services. We've enjoyed broad-based support from the professional design communities — but still, these types of skirmishes are symptomatic of a structural underdevelopment in the design profession.
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Over at Places Design Observer, Nancy Levinson interviewed Stephen Luoni Director of the University of Arkansas Community Design Center. The two discuss UACDC's projects such as their Visioning Rail Transit in Northwest Arkansas: Lifestyles and Ecologies, Low Impact Development: A Design Manual... View full entry
The tower is unmistakably a Niemeyer creation. Standing tall in the heat of Brazil’s interior, it’s concrete dressed in a whitewash, the tower, like all his other creations looks as if it has been plucked from a 1960s conception of a city on the moon. — therealbrazil.com
The Buzz from Brazil, reports on Torre Digital TV Tower, 104-year-old Oscar Niemeyer's latest project in Brasilia. News via this discussion. View full entry
Winners have been announced at this year's ResilientCity.org Design Ideas Competition. Of the twenty finalist entries, the concept "Living with the Water Paradox" by Nok Ratanavong, Sang Ok Kim, and James Kim was selected as the First-Place winner. Winner of the special prize for Best Insights was the proposal "full of fuel", and two Honourable Mentions were given to "Manifestations for a City" and "FIH in Fairview Mall". — bustler.net
The 2010 ResilientCity.org Design Ideas Competition invited architects, city planners, urban designers, engineers, landscape architects, and students of these fields to contribute their ideas about creating more resilient cities as we move into a century where cities will be subjected to the... View full entry
On Thursday, the City Planning Commission will be asked to give its final approval to both the environmental impact report for the project and the development itself, with a final hearing before the Board of Supervisors looming. — sfgate.com
Chronicle writer John King is starting to sound more luke-warm on this plan, now that several of the more "sustainable" features have been trimmed: "may include" green energy; housing units added (but ferry terminal was moved); redevelopment money off the table... I don't quite get what the Board... View full entry
MONU is one of the leading independent architecture magazines published today, bringing together challenging themes with interesting architecture writers and theorists. It is excellent and deserves to be read by anyone interested in urban issues. — MONU
MONU - magazine on urbanism has published its 14th issue featuring among others contributions by Rem Koolhaas/OMA and Adolfo Natalini/ Superstudio on the topic of Editing Urbanism (Rotterdam, April 19, 2011) MONU's 14th issue features contributions by UNION3, Felix Madrazo, Alexander Sverdlov... View full entry
Sometime before 1 a.m. on April 11, a group of activists installed handmade benches at 10 different locations throughout San Francisco as a political statement against the city's sit-lie ordinance. The law, approved by voters last November, prohibits sitting or lying down on city sidewalks. — San Francisco Guardian
A spokesperson from the group offered to share images of the benches with the Guardian on condition of anonymity. The person noted that the benches were built by hand using wooden pallets found on the side of the road. The images were sent in an email with the subject line, "Angry queers protest... View full entry
The new 1.1-kilometer (0.68 miles) route will link the Greenwich Peninsula next to the O2 Arena with the Royal Docks on the north bank of the Thames and will cost an estimated £40 million ($65 million)... Transport for London (TfL) are hoping that building work on what will be the first urban transport system of its kind in the UK will be completed in time for the opening of the London 2012 Olympics on July 27. — Matthew Knight, CNN
The line is expected to take 2,500 per hour 300 feet above the River Thames with an a trip lasting just 5 minutes. Design by Wilkinson Eyre, of Gateshead Bridge and Guangzhou International Finance Centre fame, will be constructed by Mace, who's known for projects such as the London Eye and the... View full entry
... a new exhibit is having fun imagining what [Paris] will look like in the year 2100: 2º C warmer, due to climate change, but also a whole lot greener, where pedestrians rule and every building has a roof garden. — treehugger.com
The exhibit, which is the work of Yannick Gourvil and Cécile Leroux of the architecture firm Collectif et alors, is called "+2º: Paris s'invente!" Part of the City's Week of Sustainable Development (April 1-7), it was born of a simple idea: having acknowledged that the planet is... View full entry
An exploration of Neurath's ideas on visual media, universal knowledge systems and the modern metropolis. — Press Announcement
I was excited to receive a press release (for once, a vital press release!) announcing the paperback publication of Nader Vossoughian's book on Otto Neurath, a seminal influence on collectivist urbanism and social practice in design. This book follows Nader's exquisite show The Global Polis... View full entry
A happy example exists at the southwest corner of Northeast 15th Avenue and Prescott Street, a funny little jog in the road where a downtown-to-Alameda streetcar line used to end. After the streetcar stopped running, city leaders opted to plant a few trees and lay down pavement rather than rejigger the road or turn the triangle-shaped spot into something useful. — Anna Griffin, The Oregonian
While architect Mark Nye and Architects Without Borders are working on a solution of their own, the Sabin Community Association will be holding a meeting on May 9th to determine what the triangle will become. David Sweet and Rosemarie Cordello, of the Sabin Community Association, had contacted... View full entry
News Archinect 3.0 launches. Thanks to all the hard work by Paul, Alex and Theo! Report bugs, and discuss new version here. Coinciding with the 3.0 launch was a raft of new features. These included: 5 (student) Projects: by Alexander Maymind 5 (student) Projects is a group of projects... View full entry
And yet, few want to know that. The otherwise omniscient Kenneth Frampton was recently heard to say, “The New Urbanists … are they still around?” “They make porches for white Southerners, don’t they?” is Rodolfo Machado’s joshing version. Unfortunately, architecture students from our elite schools believe this more easily than the truth... — Metropolis Magazine
Andrés Duany is looking to open a new architectural can of stylistic worms. And he wants you to reply. The gist of the argument can be summed up by the following quote: "The problem, it seemed to us, was not one of inadequately designed “unprecedented typologies.” Suburban... View full entry
According to those reports, the project’s price tag has soared to $27 million from an initial estimate of $7.6 million. But that is not an apples-to-apples comparison. All it reveals—surprise— is that city officials low-balled the project’s overall cost when they announced that Gang and her firm, Studio Gang Architecture, had bested 107 entrants from nine countries in a design competition for the center. — Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune
The Ford Calumet Environmental Center— darlingly nicknamed the 'Best Nest'— was officially unveiled on Earth Day in 2004. Seven years later, the project has yet to materialize into anything despite a 2006 completion date. Perhaps merely a political stunt, on-his-way-out Mayor... View full entry
The AIA and it's Committee On The Environment [COTE] have selected the top 10 buildings that exemplify environmentally-minded architecture and design. These projects and their architects will be honored in New Orleans at the 2011 AIA National Convention.These buildings are chosen because of their... View full entry
Documentary by SBS Dateline (Australian TV) about the Chinese real estate market. — SBS Dateline
