The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on Wednesday finally abandoned its long-planned project to cover the museum’s interior courtyard in Washington D.C. with a distinctive, temporary inflatable bubble.
Citing financial uncertainties, Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian Institution’s under secretary for history, art and culture, made the announcement. He said outgoing director Richard Koshalek, who resigned last month after failing to receive full support for the bubble...
— artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
Renderings by Tappan Zee Constructors LLC, the team selected to design and build the bridge at a cost of $4 billion, show a structure crowned by 400-foot-high towers that look like insect antennae waving aimlessly in the wind.
Four pairs of masts tilt outward, from which cables splay to support the road deck. The towers are intended to form an iconic image, but they are just stumpy.
This is a site that deserves the magnificence of the Golden Gate Bridge.
— bloomberg.com
The LEGO Group today revealed the design of the experience center “The LEGO House”. The center, which will be built in Denmark, illustrates the systematic creativity of LEGO bricks and is expected to attract 250,000 visitors annually. — aboutus.lego.com
UPDATE: Lego House in Billund, Denmark, begins construction by laying giant Lego brick–shaped foundation stones View full entry
As the person in charge of design for Ford's entire vehicle porfolio, Mays looks at architecture a lot. And he's ever mindful of buildings and how they're designed whenever he sets about creating a new car or truck for Ford.
What he's learned — and what he likes— about architecture, and Chicago architecture in particular, will be his focus when he joins the panel discussion "Big Ideas in Small Places" on Thursday at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
— bizjournals.com
Occupying some 350 square-metres of lawn in front of the Serpentine Gallery, Sou Fujimoto's delicate, latticed structure of 20mm steel poles will have a lightweight and semi-transparent appearance that will allow it to blend, cloud-like, into the landscape and against the classical backdrop of the Gallery's colonnaded East wing. Designed as a flexible, multi-purpose social space - with a café sited inside - visitors will be encouraged to enter and interact with the Pavilion... — serpentinegallery.org
The company will be moving all of its teams from its current office near Grand Central to two floors at the new office, the interior of which architect Frank Gehry has agreed to design.
Gehry is already leading the expansion of Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. A source familiar with Facebook's plans said the company is "extraordinarily pleased with [Gehry's] ability to delivery an incredible quality of design at a remarkably efficient price"...
— mashable.com
"Bracingly forward-looking, Zumthor's design for LACMA would give the city a much-needed jolt of architectural energy." — Los Angeles Times
Zumthor's design, which obliterates the original campus of LACMA, would cost an estimated $450M to construct, with another $200M in soft and operating costs built in.A few questions abound: is this really any different (in overall approach) than OMA's ill-fated masterplan from roughly 10 years... View full entry
Donald Judd bought 101 Spring Street, an 1870 cast-iron building, in 1968 for $68,000.
He stripped the dilapidated building down to its plaster walls and wood floors, illegally removing distractions like fire sprinklers.
Then Judd (1928-1994) spent decades turning the spaces into a showcase for his art and a place to rest his head on a bed made of wood planks. It’s carefully related to the colored tubes by Dan Flavin that march across the room, echoing the rhythm of a gorgeous row of windows.
— bloomberg.com
Last few days Istanbul has been the site of mass protests and battles raging for the Gezi Park (translating as stroll park) in Taksim District where the prime minister Erdogan's government wants to build a "Shopping Mall," a kitschy copy of a 19th. century building, Taksim Military... View full entry
The August Smart Lock is the secure, simple, and social way to manage your home’s lock. Now you can control who can enter and who can’t—without the need for keys or codes. And you can do it all from your smartphone or computer. — august.com
Key-less entry has been available for cars for ages. It's about time buildings adopt this new technology. Fortunately, this new product is designed by master product designer Yves Behar, of Fuseproject. View full entry
Our XD team revealed a few projects they're working on at Adobe MAX 2013. The team has been exploring how new form factor displays, new interactions (like touch and gesture), cloud connections and even new hardware might change how you all create and in turn how it might impact what software we need to build. — youtube.com
Crews that built the railing committed what experts called a basic mistake - they welded the bolts in place firmly in their slots rather than leaving a small amount of room to accommodate a natural expansion of the bicycle path that happens in hot weather.
As a result, scores of the 1-inch-diameter bolts have been sheared off along the 1.2-mile bike path on the southern side of the span's skyway section.
— sfgate.com
Increasingly it's been cities that have taken the lead on critical issues, from gun control to immigration reform to economic stimulus to climate change. Given the migration of people into cities worldwide, this trend is sure to continue. We might even be in a de facto transition to a society dominated by economically and politically powerful cities — a contemporary version of the great city-states that arose in the 13th century and ruled Europe until the consolidation of modern nation-states. — Places
For almost a decade David Burney has been Commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction in New York City. In an interview with Places editor Nancy Levinson, he reflects on the urban design record of the Bloomberg years, focusing especially on PlaNYC, the ongoing post-Sandy recovery... View full entry
With so much discussion going on with former Nazi Party relics these days, German developers are trying to revive a valuable real estate, the Nazi built Prora resort complex which served to Hitler's upper ranks. Once it is fixed and put on the market, it will be called "Sea Symphony" with a... View full entry
At $3.74 billion, plus another $200 million in contingencies, the “Transportation Hub” at the World Trade Center—not even the busiest station in the Financial District—will be far and away the most expensive train station built in modern history.
The Hub, as it’s known in Port Authority speak, will be the crowning artistic statement of the World Trade Center complex, perhaps the last grand gesture at a site that was supposed to be full of them.
— observer.com
