Today’s News - Thursday, June 18, 2009
• Lively Q&A with the winning team behind the Queens Plaza improvement project: "Repurposing of the city can make a dinosaur into an incredible asset" (great pix).
• Big plans for Coney Island redevelopment get an important thumbs-up; not all are pleased.
• Kamin previews Van Berkel's temporary Millennium Park pavilion: "at once thoughtful and delightful, packing just enough bling to stand up to the park's star attractions" (great pix, too).
• Hume cheers Toronto's new WaveDeck: "It is exactly this kind of design excellence and boldness that will bring the waterfront back to life."
• We were going to swear off any more Chelsea Barracks, but how could we resist:
• Pearman (for the WSJ, no less): "It could be argued that Charles has usurped one architectural firm in order to hand a fat commission to another - his own."
• Stewart says "almost no-one has come out of this looking good; not architects, nor journalists, nor royalists."
• Letts lets loose with "the voice of the little man against big-swank architecture."
• First signs of who might be on Qatari Diar's new shortlist, and a call to boycott the new competition.
• Heathcote visits Ando and Piano galleries in Venice: the city "has become even richer through these new interventions, a welcome relief from all those frescoes. And all that beauty."
• Q&A with Tschumi re: Elgin Marbles - keeping them in London any longer is now an "untenable" situation.
• UCSF new cancer research building "reflects the university's quixotic and misguided belief that design guidelines can elevate anonymous, bulky buildings into the realm of significant architecture" (read: it's not Vinoly's fault).
• Sears Tower's new skydeck on the 103rd floor offers a rare vantage point: straight down (shades of Grand Canyon?).
• Kitchener library expanding with a green makeover.
• Some interesting experiments in living on water, but "the era of marine communities springing up with Toll Brothers-like efficiency is years away."
• Call for entries: International Urban Landscape Award (IULA) 2009 Competition.
| |
|
|
|
To subscribe to the free daily newsletter
click here
|
Queens Plaza: Infrastructure Reframed: Margie Ruddick, Sandro Marpillero and Linda Pollak talk about how the project seeks to redefine the idea of nature in the city, integrating infrastructure, art and ecology. -- WRT Designs; Marpillero Pollak Architects; Michael Singer [images]- Urban Omnibus |
City’s Coney Island plan gets important nod: As protesters chanted outside, the City Planning Commission overwhelmingly voted to support the sweeping redevelopment effort...a 27-acre amusement and entertainment district...plan envisions 4,500 housing units—including 900 classified as affordable—as well as retail and other services.- Crain's New York |
Populist gem joins 'Cloud Gate' at Millennium Park; Van Berkel's temporary pavilion an interactive salute to Burnham: ...at once thoughtful and delightful, packing just enough bling to stand up to the park's star attractions...pavilion is no high-end gas station, as harsh critics would have it. It symbolizes a Chicago rooted in a proud past but adapting to a complex present. by Blair Kamin -- UNStudio; Douglas Garofalo [images]- Chicago Tribune |
Waterfront on a roll with classy WaveDeck: Quite simply, there's nothing like it in these parts...It is exactly this kind of design excellence and boldness that will bring the waterfront back to life. If this is a sign, the change that this city fears so desperately could be the best thing that ever happened to it. By Christopher Hume -- Adriaan Geuze/West 8; DTAH [image]- Toronto Star |
Prince Charles Tears Down Mr. Rogers's Neighborhood: ...the Qataris didn't just ditch Mr. Rogers. They abandoned the whole plan and announced they were going back to the drawing board with the help of The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment...It could be argued that Charles has usurped one architectural firm in order to hand a fat commission to another -- his own. By Hugh Pearman -- Rogers Stirk Harbour; Quinlan Terry- Wall Street Journal |
Only Charles has kept his dignity on Chelsea Barracks: The reality is, the saga has been a fog of assumptions, assertions and half-truths...All this precious talk of democracy and the unalienable purity of the planning process have covered up the reality that...this is another chapter in the grand architectural tradition of “Us Vs Them”. In short, almost no-one has come out of this looking good; not architects, nor journalists, nor royalists. By Dan Stewart -- Rogers Stirk Harbour- Building (UK) |
Op-Ed: Richard Rogers Gets Fired: How Prince Charles convinced Qataris to revise their plans for a £3 billion building in London...What drives Rogers really crazy is the way recent events have been presented...as the voice of the little man against big-swank architecture. And yet it is true. The prince...is indeed more in tune with lay tastes on architecture than the London planning elite. By Quentin Letts- Forbes |
Chelsea Barracks developer draws up new shortlist: Qatari Diar is preparing to invite a dozen practices including SOM, Allies & Morrison, Edaw and Demetri Porphyrios to pitch for its revised masterplan...Call for boycott of new competition after Rogers sacking is branded ‘undemocratic’... -- Rogers Stirk Harbour; Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Arrivederci, white cube: ...the art circuit's latest blockbuster gallery, the Punta della Dogana, chime with a trend for the reuse of industrial buildings and found space...a space as cavernous and powerful, as haunted by use and memory, as any building in this liquid city...Fondazione Vedova...would be a one-liner were it not for a surprising, mesmeric quality... By Edwin Heathcote -- Tadao Ando; Renzo Piano- Financial Times (UK) |
Keeping the Elgin Marbles in London Is Now 'Untenable': Bernard Tschumi designed a new Acropolis Museum for Athens, which will open this weekend. SPIEGEL spoke with him about the end of Great Britain's argument that Greece has no proper home for the Elgin Marbles. [images]- Der Spiegel (Germany) |
Crit: Inside Vs. Outside: Rafael Vinoly's Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building at UCSF: ...design guidelines have obstructed the possibility of architecture communicating the work that takes place inside...reflects the university’s quixotic and misguided belief that design guidelines can elevate anonymous, bulky buildings into the realm of significant architecture. [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
Get Vertigo! SOM-designed observation platforms at the Sears Tower's skydeck allow visitors to walk on air...at the 103rd floor...The Ledge, an addition that will add yet another vantage to its mix: straight down. -- Skidmore, Owings & Merrill [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
Downtown Kitchener, Ontario library to get $25 million makeover: All new construction will target LEED Gold certification. -- Levitt Goodman Architects; Walter Fedy Partnership; Phillip H. Carter Architect [image]- Daily Commercial News (Canada) |
A Fluid Definition of Self-Sufficiency: Four artists have created the Waterpod, a barge on which they live sustainably...isn’t the only project exploring water-based living...Seasteading Institute...developing a floating home based on the design of an oil rig... [images]- New York Times |
Call for entries: International Urban Landscape Award (IULA) 2009 Competition; entrants may be based anywhere, but the schemes must be in or planned for the UK or Germany; cash prizes; deadline: September 3- Topos – The International Review of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design / Eurohypo Aktiengesellschaft |
Engaging Students in Smart-Building Design: Illinois Institute of Technology New Student Residence Halls: Performance-calibrated building design and student-centric spaces will give students control over their environment and generate performance data to be shared with university and architectural communities beyond the IIT campus. -- Dirk Denison Architects [images]- ArchNewsNow |
|
-- Allied Works Architecture: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), Ann Arbor
-- Competition winner: BIG & Michel Rojkind: Museo Tamayo, Atizapan, Mexico |
|
|
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window.
External news links are not endorsed by ArchNewsNow.com.
Free registration may be required on some sites.
Some pages may expire after a few days.
© 2009 ArchNewsNow.com