“With Phil Freelon, his experienced team of 40 designers, and other professionals who intend to join Perkins+Will, we look forward to offering clients a deeper level of cultural design expertise,” — Charlotte Business Journal
This one just hurts. Even though we'd run across the Freelon Group on project RFP's occasionally, I've long admired how he's built up his firm and was able to compete against the bigger companies, especially in the cultural arena. So, to see them sell off to P+W...is there anyone left who they... View full entry
It's party prep time for the City of Karlsruhe in Germany. Berlin-based architecture firm J. MAYER H. and Rubner Holzbau were recently commissioned by the city to design a temporary pavilion for its 300th anniversary in 2015. The wooden pavilion will be built in Schlosspark and serve as an event venue for the celebration. Construction will begin in March 2015. — bustler.net
Find out more on Bustler. View full entry
The commercialisation of the urban landscape has resulted in the privatisation of public space. As city centres have become tributes to consumption, private interests have permeated these spaces. They have become awash with pseudo-public consumer spaces which belong to corporations rather than the citizenry. Although these places hold the semblance of being “public”, they are owned by corporate interests and are therefore under private control and not accountable to the public. — New Left Project
From The New Left Project's series on The Contemporary City. View full entry
The Commission of Fine Arts [...] has praised Gehry’s designs in the past but asked him to consider minor revisions. [...] In response, Gehry submitted a redesign that incorporates a few dozen more trees – but left the basic components of the memorial untouched. Gehry did not attend the presentation of the new designs last week, and an architect at his firm said: “We are staying with the overall big ideas for the project.” — theguardian.com
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Though abortion and the legal disputes that often surround it are visible media topics, abortion clinics are often pushed to the fringes of communities where access is the most crucial. But what if they were integrated into the mainstream of our everyday space: clinics in malls, clinics on military bases, clinics on high school campuses, and open access to preventative care? — thedailybeast.com
Lori Brown explores this topic in her book Contested Spaces: Abortion Clinics, Women’s Shelters and Hospitals and delves into politics and architecture and how they manufacture landscapes with regard to reproductive healthcare access. Brown, an architect herself, will be giving a public... View full entry
Your assignment is to come up with an idea so revolutionary that it could be considered an important advance in industrial design.
Students at Rice University in Houston accomplished that with plans for a floating city that is being considered by one of the world's largest oil companies. Last year, the students won the inaugural Odebrecht Award for a radical design of man-made floating islands where as many as 25,000 oil workers and their families could live.
— npr.org
Previously featured in our Student Works and Screen/Print series, "The Petropolis of Tomorrow" proposes a new style of floating company towns to aid Brazil in offshore oil findings. NPR now reports that the project has surpassed its academic role to be considered by Petrobas, a Brazilian... View full entry
In many of our bigger cities, the drinking fountain disappeared along with police boxes, mile stones and horse troughs. However, a new initiative is attempting to revive this public utility, with the help of some of London’s best design talent.
Six of the city’s leading architectural firms have designed a series of new drinking fountains, as part of the Kiosk Challenge.
— phaidon.com
The 3D model renderings of architect, illustrator, and digital artist Joakim Dahlqvist are a tug-o'-war between reality and imagination — a constant tension reflected in the never-ending quest for design innovation. The smartly arranged objects in Dahlqvist's 3D renderings would have one... View full entry
In a new exhibition, Michael Pawlyn lays out his vision for architecture inspired by the natural world – including biorock buildings grown entirely underwater and whole office blocks being lit by learning from the blind sea star. [...]
“All my work is driven by a frustration with the word ‘sustainable’,” he says. “It suggests something that is just about good enough, but we need to be looking at truly restorative solutions.
— theguardian.com
Form per our fragmented cultures can follow the function of materials proved to work through our fragmented physics and building sciences. We rely highly on statistics in building sciences. In interpreting culture and evolution of culture, we have little to no consensus. — toskovic.com
I attempt to create a roster for building design of construction under plural sciences, plural cultures with the mission of completeness of expression from and to person, building, town, metropolis, the national arena, and larger hubs of human connection. View full entry
For a Modernist house designed and built by his firm Tonic Design + Tonic ConstructionFebruary 17, 2014 (Raleigh, NC) -- Vincent Petrarca, an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Architecture at North Carolina State University’s College of Design and a founding partner of... View full entry
His work is badly constructed, ravey-balls hair metal, a C.C. DeVille guitar solo that cannot—will not—end until the billionaire clients who keep paying for this shit can be stopped. — gizmodo.com
I guess this is what you get when you put a decent writer in charge of driving traffic.CPM = 1 / Journalism = 0 View full entry
To show you all some Valentine's Day love, we have more photos to share of Young Projects' recently unveiled "Match Maker" sculpture from the 2014 Times Square Heart Design competition.
Currently on display at New York's Times Square until March 11, 2014, the interactive heart-shaped sculpture pairs up individuals based on their zodiac sign compatibility.
— bustler.net
From left to right: Bryan Young of Young Projects; Sherry Dobbin, Director of Public Art for the Times Square Alliance; and David van der Leer, Executive Director of Van Alen InstituteFind more photos on Bustler.Related: Winning sculpture of 2014 Times Square Heart Design unveiled View full entry
Inspired by the engineering, intricate choreography, and impromptu interactions of your daily commute? Wish there was an open mic night for historians and urbanists? A show-and-tell for your creative musings on mass transit? Looking for a public platform to present your ideas to a captive audience?
Us, too. That’s why we are excited to announce PLATFORM, a new series of cross-disciplinary programs created by the public for the public. Have an idea? We’ll give you a platform.
— NY Transit Museum
The New York Transit Museum is launching an open exhibition program, accepting proposals for projects devoted to any and all aspects of public transportation. The aptly named Platform program will exhibit the first winning proposal in its subway station home in downtown Brooklyn, on Thursday... View full entry
REX recently unveiled their scheme for redesigning the historic Davis Brody building on 450 West 33rd St in New York. The $200 million project consists of repositioning, re-cladding and interior renovation -- making it yet another addition to major redevelopments to NYC's evolving neighborhoods... View full entry