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Today's News - November 10, 2006

We lose an Irish "enfant terrible." -- CNU launches 2007 Charter Awards competition. -- Glancey sides with Rogers re: Olympic design/build process: "The result is nearly always…second-rate architecture. A little meagre. A little tinny. And about as Olympian as a garden shed." -- Obata is often underwhelmed by Olympic over-hype. -- Salt Lake City takes building green seriously. -- University of Minnesota has utopian vision for a green community built from scratch. -- The Scots want to make an entire island green. -- Kazakhstan building a capital city from scratch: "a cross between Moscow and Las Vegas…a cocktail of Eurasian modernity and Soviet confectionary" (a building in the shape of a dollar sign?!!?) - the slide show says it all. -- Some big names have soaring plans for St. Petersburg, Russia - but not all are pleased. -- Hopefully all big plans will include smog-eating cement. -- One size does not fit all in designing safe school environments. -- Award-winning projects in Detroit do not a city make - it's time to demand better design across the board. -- In L.A., "a dreary, 'functionalist' flop" gets more than a facelift. -- On Cape Cod, McMansions take the dunes while Modernist gems rot. -- For his Stirling Memorial Lecture on the City, Weizman takes on the growing relationship between war and design. -- A British "upstart" takes Prince Philip Prize. -- Eliasson's "Eye See You" on view around the world.

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Obituary: 'Enfant terrible' of Irish architecture, Sam Stephenson, 72: Ireland's best-known and most controversial architect -- Stephenson Gibney and Associates [images]- Archiseek (Ireland)

Call for entries: Congress for the New Urbanism 2007 Charter Awards; deadline: January 22, 2007- Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)

Running on empty: 2012 Olympics have been conflated with an over-ambitious plan to "regenerate" vast tracts of east London and Essex...Richard Rogers is right to protest against an Olympics treated as a business enterprise rather than as an event that...might yet inspire us all. By Jonathan Glancey- Guardian (UK)

Interview with Gyo Obata, the genius behind HOK and the London 2012 Olympics stadium: While the world is marvelling at Herzog and de Meuronąs stadium for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, one man might be a little underwhelmed...believes that sometimes the purpose of the project gets buried beneath shock value and hype.- FX magazine (UK)

Salt Lake City embraces green building: ...adopted an ordinance requiring builders of commercial structures, apartments and condos to meet national environmental building [LEED] standards if they are funded by city loans, grants or tax rebates.- Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)

University of Minnesota unveils...utopian vision for a community of 20,000 to 30,000 built from scratch...a place where the latest advances in agriculture, non-polluting energy, construction and transportation coexist with all the amenities: the arts, the resources for continuing education, and recreation.- Minneapolis Star Tribune

HIE [Highlands and Islands Enterprise] to turn island into test area for green technology: ...renewable energy, efficient heating systems and environmentally friendly transport would be combined on a scale which has yet to be tried in the UK.- The Scotsman (UK)

The Kazakhstan Klondike: Forget Borat. Kazakhstan is hoping to become a powerhouse in Central Asia...a brand new capital city...an entire urban neighborhood...will feature replicas of 19th-century European architecture...new finance ministry...designed in the shape of a dollar sign... -- Amanshel Tschikanoew; Norman Foster; Kisho Kurokawa [slide show]- Der Spiegel (Germany)

Gazprom Skyscraper Designs Revealed: ...represents a turning point for the city's development and will change the city's skyline forever. -- Rem Koolhaas; Herzog & de Meuron; Massimiliano Fuksas; RMJM; Daniel Libeskind- St. Petersburg Times (Russia)

Hermitage director joins outcry over city-centre skyscraper plan: The plans by Russia's biggest energy company [Gazprom] to build a tower opposite the 18th century Smolny cathedral on the Neva river have incensed local preservationists.- Guardian (UK)

A Concrete Step Toward Cleaner Air: Visitors to the Venice Biennale can check out the smog-eating cement that Italian inventors claim will help cities clean themselves...a reminder that smart innovation applies also to mundane products and can offer unexpected solutions...The results so far are astonishing... -- TX Active/Italcementi- BusinessWeek

Security and Schools: Creating Safe Educational Environments: ...sound security strategies are not a one-size-fits-all approach. Design, technology, policies, and procedures are essential components of developing school security plans. By Barbara A. Nadel, FAIA -- Kodet Architectural Group; LWPB Architecture; OWP/P; Spector Group; Thomas Blurock Architects- Buildings.com

New buildings, good reviews: Chicago-based architects praise projects in Troy, southwest Detroit...let's remember one or two awards do not a city make, and keep demanding better designs across the board. By John Gallagher -- Valerio Dewalt Train; Teng & Associates; Hamilton Anderson Associates- Detroit Free Press

Broad Art Center lifts concrete divide from UCLA: Richard Meier and Michael Palladino have taken a building that was essentially a wall and made it into a window. And the view through the window is good.- The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

In Cape Cod’s Dunes, Something’s Growing Besides Scrub Pine: Big houses spring up on a protected seashore as Modernist homes decay...most of the small and unobtrusive Modernist houses that have been taken over by the Park Service — some of them architecturally significant — are rotting away, to the chagrin of preservationists.- New York Times

Build it up, tear it down: Architect Eyal Weizman lectures on the growing relationship between war and design..."Destruction by Design: Military Strategy as Urban Planning" for the annual James Stirling Memorial Lecture on the City.- McGill Daily (Montreal)

A Curious Mind Wins Design Prize: Britain's prestigious Prince Philip Prize is awarded to upstart Thomas Heatherwick, whose unique international projects always amaze [slide show]- BusinessWeek

An I for an Eye: [through] Jan. 7, in place of this season’s array of bags, shoes and other LV [Louis Vuitton] monogrammed aspirations, Olafur Eliasson’s new work, “Eye See You” will stare out from the windows of Vuitton stores around the world [image]- New York Times

New Jiang Wan Cultural Center, Shanghai: While the skyline explodes in a thicket of skyscrapers, a cultural center beckons to a new era of environmental concerns. -- RTKL [images]- ArchNewsNow

-- SANAA: Competition Sketches, De Kunstlinie Theatre and Cultural Centre, Almere, The Netherlands
-- "Shopping" in Tokyo (Part 1)

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