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Today's News - Tuesday, May 6, 2008

-- London's Architecture Foundation is in the market for a new director.
-- Day says Melbourne faces a watershed moment re: growth vs. a livable city.
-- Hume calls for a better city planning process than treating it as a game of winners and losers.
-- Q&A with head of L.A.'s City Planning Commission: her vision is taking hits.
-- In Orlando, developers are trying "to make buildings more art than architecture."
-- Welcome to Orange County, China: is the country "doomed to repeat all of America's mistakes?"
-- "A Vision for Agricultural Urbanism" for British Columbia.
-- Bridging the gap between designed and actual performance in "sustainable" buildings.
-- Crosbie on the need to stop giving banal buildings "Get out of Jail Free" cards just because they're green.
-- Chicago's first LEED school teaches the "the A, B, Es of eco lessons."
-- Is there such a thing as "British" architecture? (too many great essays - you choose).
-- Q&A with el-Khoury: yes, there is a "Toronto style."
-- For Myers, Toronto was Heartbreak House.
-- Goldberger on the "Heatherwick Effect."
-- Calatrava's Jerusalem bridge almost ready for its close-up (but when will anyone be able to use it?).
-- An eyeful of Bridewell Island's winner and runners up.
-- Atlanta team named City of the Future National Champion.
-- Call for entries: Architect Magazine's 2nd Annual R+D Awards. -- Deadline reminder: BusinessWeek/Architectural Record Awards.
-- With all this planning talk, we couldn't resist: Denver man calls for Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission (gets a City Council "review and comment" meeting on Thursday).

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Rowan Moore quits as Architecture Foundation director: ...plans to focus on his writing career... Former foundation chairman Will Alsop...denied the scrapping of the [Hadid] headquarters building had led to Moore's resignation.- BD/Building Design (UK)

Watershed for this liveable city of ours: What we value is the crucial question as Melbourne grows. Do we continue escalating growth by engulfing the hinterland? Or do we consolidate, limit the city by legislative boundaries, build more densely — and up? ...good design is just a beginning. By Norman Day- The Age (Australia)

Let's find a better way to plan a city: City planning in Ontario has come to resemble nothing so much as the judicial system. Both are treated as if they're games in which there must be a winner and a loser...the chances for mistakes are enormous. By Christopher Hume- Toronto Star

Q&A: Jane Ellison Usher...president of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission..[with] Gail Goldberg, director of the LA Planning Department...set out on a course to deliver a great urban city...by adopting a manifesto entitled "Do Real Planning"...that vision is taking hits.- The Architect's Newspaper

Downtown Orlando developers looks to huge artworks to convey an aura of cool: "We're trying to make buildings more art than architecture"... -- Baker Barrios Architects [slide show]- Orlando Sentinel (Florida)

Welcome to the O.C.: China’s rising elite is importing a new American lifestyle, complete with fake lakes, stucco ranch houses, and Hummers in the driveway. But as these gated communities grow, is China doomed to repeat all of America’s mistakes? -- Bassenian Lagoni Architects [images]- GOOD Magazine

Grand design's come a long way from 1981: Not just housing in this Hodgins' plans...Their goal: to finalize a development plan for a vacant 215-hectare piece of property once known as the Spetifore lands...Today's key component is to embrace agriculture, not pave it over..."A Vision for Agricultural Urbanism" -- Andres Duany- The Province (Vancouver)

Op-Ed: Sustainability In Commercial Buildings – Bridging The Gap From Design To Operations: As more actual energy performance data on high-performing buildings becomes available, clearer and more realistic expectations will help to establish confidence within the building design and construction industry about costs and savings. By Adam Hinge, Om Tajeda & Michael Bobker- The Sallan Foundation

The Duty to Beauty: Sustainability always seems exempt from the crime of banal building... Second-rate (and worse) pieces of architecture that claim the mantle of sustainability always have a “Get out of Jail Free” card safely tucked away...who dares to complain? By Michael J. Crosbie -- James Wines/SITE- AIArchitect

Chicago's first LEED-built green school teaches the A, B, Es of eco lessons: Tarkington School for Excellence -- OWP/P- Medill Reports (Chicago)

Britishness: What you have here is a collection of essays...about what defines British architecture right now...Is there anything in the whole process of delivering architecture via the UK which we can pin down as in some way unique? By Hugh Pearman -- Robert Adam; Zoe Berman; Bill Dunster; Sam Jacob/FAT; Charles Jencks; Deborah Saunt; Jeremy Till; Tom Verebes; Fuksas; Hans van der Heijden/Biq; Kengo Kuma; Rafael Viñoly- RIBA Journal (UK)

Why Toronto's got style: To those who insist this city has no distinctive school of architecture – that it is 'squat, flat, bland, cheap'...Rodolphe el-Khoury is probably the most articulate voice for the idea that there is, indeed, a "Toronto style" in architecture. -- Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg (KPMB); George Baird; Barton Myers; Jack Diamond; Shim-Sutcliffe; Hariri Pontarini; Jane Jacobs; Libeskind; etc.- Toronto Star

The architectural ballad of Barton Myers: Mentor. Master. Visionary. He rode into town in a blaze of creative glory and left with bitter regret. All he really wants now is his due...For this particular master builder, Toronto was Heartbreak House – a place where promises were often broken and prayers were rarely answered.- Toronto Star

The Heatherwick Effect: What can a designer bring to the world of architecture? The popularity of [his] designs is a testament to his drive to make his work comprehensible to people who don’t know the first thing about design. by Paul Goldberger- New Yorker

Calatrava’s Bridge in Jerusalem Incites Controversy: ...due to be finished at the end of May, despite a history of opposition from residents, environmental groups, and others—and an apparent lack of purpose in the short term. By Esther Hecht [slide show]- Architectural Record

Urban Splash's Bridewell Island: winner and runners up: ...saw two different approaches adopted in designs for the key central Bristol site — construct a new tower or recycle most of what’s already there. -- Allford Hall Monaghan Morris; Feilden Clegg Bradley; Sauerbruch Hutton; Spacecraft Architects; Ian Simpson [images]- BD/Building Design (UK)

City of the Future National Champion: "The City in the Forest" -- EDAW/BNIM/Praxis 3/Metcalf & Eddy [images]- The History Channel

Call for entries: 2nd Annual R+D Awards honor innovative materials and systems at every scale...open to building technologies of all types; deadline: May 29- Architect Magazine

Deadline reminder: The 11th annual BusinessWeek/Architectural Record Award; deadline: May 15- Architectural Record

Man pushes creation of panel to prepare city for space aliens: ...proposed ordinance would require the creation of an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission...As required, the city is holding a "review and comment" meeting on the proposed ballot initiative...- Rocky Mountain News (Denver)

-- Construction start: UNStudio: Five Franklin Place, New York City
-- Studio Granda: Hof Residence, Skakafjordur fjord, Iceland

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