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A unique new philanthropic initiative from Michael Hsu Office of Architecture (MHOA) is offering nonprofits in the Austin, Texas area the chance to win a $20,000 pro-bono consultation in the interests of providing much-needed space to organizations affected by the city’s rapid transformation... View full entry
The massive brushfires in Australia have damaged a large portion of the country's landscape. As of today, according to BBC News, "more than 100 fires are still burning in the states of New South Wales and Victoria." Many have lost their homes and family members in addition to the amount of... View full entry
Row New York announced [...] that award-winning architecture firm Foster + Partners will design a new boathouse and flagship location for the nonprofit organization, which offers a competitive rowing and academic success program to students from underserved communities throughout New York City. The new 14,000-square- foot facility is being designed pro bono by Foster + Partners in association with Bade Stageberg Cox [...]. — Row New York
"Located on the Harlem River in northern Manhattan, the new boathouse will allow Row New York to dramatically expand its youth program for middle and high school students from New York’s most underserved schools and will feature a learning center with two state-of-the-art classrooms to... View full entry
"We explained what the agency does and what we stand for, and he gave me a handshake right there," offering to work pro bono. [...] Of his design — a series of two-story, garden-surrounded buildings that echo the modest scale of the neighborhood, their shiny roofs the only Gehry-esque note — he says: "This building is not fancy but has all of my heart and soul in it. I worked hard to make spaces for the kids and families that would use it so that they would feel special." — hollywoodreporter.com
Gehry's Watts involvement previously in the Archinect news:Frank Gehry-designed children's center planned for Watts neighborhood in L.A.Can a Frank Gehry design help change the dynamic of Watts? View full entry
Frank Gehry, whose firm provided the work free of charge, spelled out his vision for a piece of property that extends nearly two blocks. The two-story structures will fit the neighborhood... offering a scale and a 'body language' that is residential in nature...[The] Children's Institute project is one of several signs that new services and amenities are coming to the neighborhood, which recently commemorated the 50th anniversary of the historic civil unrest that erupted in 1965. — Los Angeles Times
More recent Frank Gehry-related news on Archinect:Gehry's product designs to be honored by Museum of California DesignFrank Gehry opens up about the emotional side of his architectureFrank Gehry's renderings for L.A.'s Sunset Strip revealedGehry to prioritize hydrology in LA River revitalization... View full entry
The rural village of Sinthian in southeastern Senegal is home to the THREAD arts center, a new artists' residency and cultural community space set to open this March. The idea for the arts center originated from the long-term efforts of doctor and local Sinthian leader, Magueye Ba, who spearheaded... View full entry
MASS Design Group is one of a handful of nonprofits showing that design isn’t just for the wealthy, nor is it just image-making. The challenge, for MASS and others trying to do public service design work, is to make their operations financially sustainable. As students, MASS provided much of their work on the Butaro Hospital pro bono, but they are not students anymore. The staff of MASS eclipsed 20 in the past year... — blog.sfgate.com
Related: ShowCase: Butaro Hospital in Rwanda View full entry
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) today called for Congress to pass legislation that includes architecture school graduates in the same programs that offer other graduates loan debt assistance if they donate their services to their communities and elsewhere. — aia.org
The AIA/AIAS initiative comes as both President Obama this past weekend and likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney today urged Congress to head off a scheduled increase in student loan interest rates this July. Also today, the AIAS released a survey of almost 600 architect school... View full entry
The Great Lakes Century is a pro bono initiative of SOM's City Design Practice.
We found dozens of important efforts to clean and protect the Lakes and the St. Lawrence, but no comprehensive vision for their entire ecosystem. So we did what we do: took a comprehensive look at the natural setting, how unenlightened human hands had messed it up, and then created a set of strategic principles – to begin a broad-based, bi-national dialogue (which we had never done before).
— thegreatlakescenturyblog.som.com
Ruth Price, president and artistic director of the Jazz Bakery since it debuted in 1992, said Tuesday that she didn’t know Gehry, or even ask for his help, before he called about six months ago to volunteer his services.
“He said, 'I’m doing this for two people: Sydney Pollack, and my wife, Berta.’ ” Film director Pollack, a close friend of the architect, died in 2008..."
— latimesblogs.latimes.com
