The practical problem to solve in meditation space is making it as quiet as possible, making the architecture as quiet as possible. The architecture has to come to rest if you want the mind to come to rest. And the architecture has to be, doesn’t have to be, but it’s best if it’s holding you to the ground as opposed to ascension. — Metropolis Magazine
Metropolis conducts a Q&A with Michael Rotondi on the design of sacred spaces. What he says is a beautiful way to look at architecture, meditative space and ourselves. View full entry
The Architects' Journal reported that Wolf Prix referred to the Venice Architectural Biennale as an ‘expensive dance of death’ and went on to claim a ‘great’ biennale would have featured forums and themes looking ‘behind the scenes’ at decision-making. mimiz took on the charge "having just come back from venice where I moderated several panel discussions on the behind the scenes making of interventions at the US Pavilion, I think Prix is sucking on some sour grapes."
For the latest feature in the Student Works series Nicholas Waissbluth explored the inaugural workshop for the INSITU program which took place in Medellin, Colombia. INSITU is an initiative founded by Blokcad Lab and uAbureau in 2011 to implement projects that investigate the... View full entry
"Zawia#00:Change discusses the significantly changing realities imposed on all social, political and economic systems and their influence on design disciplines. Zawia#00:Change will attempt to demonstrate whether architects are ready to embrace changing ideals and new modes of operation, and whether they are willing to help better people’s lives rather than focusing on glorifying design or architecture." — www.zawia.co
Zawia is a periodical, English and Arabic publication and collaborative events on architecture, design & urbanism. The first volume Zawia#00:Change is out now! It features contributions from Saskia Sassen, Stefano Boeri, Joseph Grima, WAI architecture think tank, Carlo Ratti, Markus... View full entry
Opening on September 15, “The Source” is a six-screen installation housed in a circular pavilion built by architect David Adjaye on Liverpool’s Albert Dock, for which Aitken has filmed conversations with 15 creatives including musician Jack White, architect Jacques Herzog, contemporary artist Thomas Demand, actor Tilda Swinton, photographer William Eggleston and the artist Mike Kelley, who died soon after the interview. — ft.com
Frank Gehry is arguably the world's most famous architect, and while hist projects are notoriously expensive to construct, they may be worth it, at least for residential developers. In Manhattan, the penthouses at New York by Gehry are up for rent for $60,000 per month, and in Hong Kong, an apartment in a newly completed Gehry-designed condo tower overlooking the harbor has just sold for $61 million. Talk about a Pritzker prize. — New York Observer
More than ten years at the center of the Chinese architectural avant-garde, the role of standardarchitecture as an architectural paradigm solidifies more and more on international ground. Not interested in defining the new Chinese, nor to perpetuate the role of the status quo of the architecture... View full entry
What constitutes a modern professional workplace is changing rapidly, and Gensler, the San Francisco design and architecture firm, is betting those changes will factor more heavily not only into clients’ interior design decisions, but every single real estate decision they make.
That bet led Gensler to hire a well-known name locally in both design and real estate circles: Robert A. Peck.
— washingtonpost.com
Innovation and research are the themes that define the work of the seven teams and the seven installations that articulate SPAINLAB, the exhibition at the Spanish Venice Biennale Pavilion curated by the architects Anton Garcia-Abril and Débora Mesa of Ensamble Estudio. — bustler.net
Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. View full entry
"It's a clever way to save money," Anneli Sjogren, head of photography at IKEA, said during a recent interview at the company's sprawling photo studio in this sleepy southern town. "We don't have to throw away kitchens in the Dumpster after the photo shoot."
Instead, sets for entire rooms—spanning kitchens to bathrooms to porches—can be mocked up and created on a computer screen without the help of a single camera.
— online.wsj.com
Proposals to reinvigorate the city centre of Aberdeen, Scotland by High Line architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro have been rejected by City Councillors. [...] The Full Council voted 22-20 - with one abstention - to reject the scheme but agreed to retain proposals to refurbish Aberdeen Art Gallery, redevelop the site of the City Council’s former St Nicholas House headquarters and the Upper Denburn area, and to invest in ‘City Circle’ plans to make the city better connected for pedestrians. — World Architecture News
A curving, fluid-seeming container made of ombré charcoal glass, Hadid’s design makes for a shape that is distinctly sexy. “The bottle’s dark, translucent qualities offer a sense of mystery that awakens our curiosity,” the Pritzker Prize winner explains. The vessel, whose sensuous lines echo the bottle that Karan’s late husband, sculptor Stephan Weiss, designed for her 1994 scent Cashmere Mist, is sure to awaken many. — architecturaldigest.com
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding student projects on various Archinect People profiles. Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Student Work. ↑ Savannah Extended Hotel... View full entry
Since it was finished half a dozen years ago, Herzog & de Meuron's 40 Bond Street has become one the foremost icons of the current generation of New York City architecture. Or so the design cognoscenti think. But what about everybody else? Among average New Yorkers, opinions are mixed in this funny video. One guy who definitely does not like the place is a cranky old neighbor from down the block. — New York Observer
Rumor has it that Pritzker Prize–winning French architect Jean Nouvel has been selected to design a mammoth new building for the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), renowned for its exhibitions of 20th-century and contemporary Chinese art, in Beijing. If reports prove to be true, Nouvel will not only have the distinguished honor of executing this highly coveted commission, but also to win bragging rights for outgunning his blockbuster contemporaries, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid... — jingdaily.com
UPDATE: Jean Nouvel Confirmed as Winner of the National Art Museum of China Competition View full entry
When asked, the German-born “Father of Fonts” insists that there is nothing similar about designing a typeface and designing a house. “They’re totally different,” he says, in excellent English peppered with correctly implemented expletives. “With a typeface, you design a space. A letter is defined by the inside space, more than it is by the outside. You design for shape, but also for function.”... “In either case,” he concedes, “the design is as much about function as it is about aesthetics.” — dwell.com