Today’s News - Thursday, September 1, 2011
EDITOR'S NOTE: A reminder that we're taking Monday's and Friday's off through Labor Day. We'll be back Tuesday, September 6. Happy Weekend! (Apologies for delay today - the Internet gods were not kind.)
• Woodman and Glancey offer their (blisteringly) amusing takes on this year's Carbuncle Cup winner and runners-up, "all richly deserving of their place on the shortlist" of an "award loathed by architects and their clients."
• King continues his call for America's Cup not to "steal" an important swathe of San Francisco waterfront for private super-yachts.
• An eloquent, mince-no-words criticism of L.A. allowing Welton Becket's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to deteriorate: "this once magnificent building points in part to Los Angeles' fixation on the newest and shiniest of toys."
• Gardner minces no words re: what he thinks about Lower Manhattan's Fiterman Hall (but "at least it promises to be functional").
• Boddy x 2: Vancouver may be considered one of the world's most livable cities, but it's not without its flaws - if the city's current challenges were created by design, there's hope that excellent design can carve the way to solutions as well.
• He cheers Winnipeg's Plug In ICA that "gives itself away with a wink and a twinkle" as "a breath of fresh air in the chary world of contemporary Canadian architecture."
• Wise offers the "dramatic tale" of a Jewish Zionist architect and his Arab Muslim client that resulted in "one of the most fascinating 20th-century dwellings in the Middle East."
• An eyeful of a Beijing-based architect and artist's series of drawings of urban landscapes that focus on "the spontaneous interaction between the urban environment and human activities" (and they're stunning!).
• Leagues and Legions launches an online dialogue about the practice of tactical urbanism and socially active design to spark dialogue during the Institute for Urban Design's upcoming Urban Design Week.
• Wish we were winging our way to Copenhagen Design Week today!
• Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects honors 18 projects with Awards for Excellence in Architecture.
• Call for entries: Luminale 2012: ideas and innovations in lighting design, energy efficiency, new technologies and materials for the urban quality of life.
• Weekend diversions:
• At MoMA, "is the 'me' in "Talk to Me" the machine or the person using it? You decide."
• At Architecture Omi's "Augmented Reality," architects fill a bucolic Hudson Valley landscape with "fantastically layered structures and environments without touching a twig of the wetland, forest, and rolling farmland."
• Sydney hosts "Emergency Shelter," an outdoor three-day pop-up exhibition highlighting the need for emergency shelters in disaster zones, designed by some notable names.
• Hawthorne wants to like Klein's 1997 "The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory," but it ends up being "more alienating than illuminating."
• Q&A with Chambers re: "Urban Green: Architecture for the Future" and why "the current green building industry is only addressing a small percentage of the problems" - design needs to do "more with ecology instead of always depending on technology."
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MediaCityUK wins 2011 Carbuncle Cup: Amid strong competition, the Salford media hub is voted this year’s worst UK building...number of submissions was slightly down...still managed to identify six crimes against the built environment, all richly deserving of their place on the shortlist. By Ellis Woodman -- Rowan Moore; Hugh Pearman; Jonathan Glancey; Wilkinson Eyre/Chapman Taylor/Fairhurst Design Group; Bond Bryan Architects; Molyneux Architects; Grimshaw/Atkins; Rogers Stirk Harbour; 3XN/AEW [images]- BD/Building Design (UK) |
Carbuncle Cup 2011: MediaCityUK is crowned Britain's ugliest new building: The controversial annual award for the country's worst new building goes to the BBC's new Salford home, with the Museum of Liverpool in hot pursuit...award loathed by architects and their clients... By Jonathan Glancey
-- Wilkinson Eyre/Chapman Taylor/Fairhurst Design Group; Richard Rogers; 3XN/AEW; Grimshaw/Atkins. [images]- Guardian (UK) |
Message to America's Cup: Don't steal our bay: The fate of the open water at Rincon Park has emerged as a flash point because the plan, as it now stands, sacrifices the park's spacious vistas to create a sort of private lagoon...Even if America's Cup is the city's main attraction in the summer of 2013, it shouldn't have the entire waterfront to itself. By John King [images]- San Francisco Chronicle |
L.A. Turns Its Back on a Cultural Icon: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion stands like an aging and neglected dowager...obvious deterioration of this once magnificent building points in part to Los Angeles' fixation on the newest and shiniest of toys...The slow decomposition of this public treasure represents a shameful shirking of responsibility...What's happened here is deplorable. But it would be a bigger shame if it's allowed to continue. -- Welton Becket (1964)- Los Angeles Times |
Lower Manhattan's Fiterman Hall holds no promise of architectural distinction: ...feels distinctly out of place amid the rationalist towers of the Financial District, as well as the older masonry skyscrapers...at least it promises to be functional... By James Gardner -- Pei Cobb Freed & Partners- The Real Deal (NYC) |
Trevor Boddy on how to design Vancouver into a better city: Although Vancouver's architecture and reputation as one of the world's most livable city has been long admired, it is not without its flaws...If the city's current challenges were created by design, there's hope that excellent design can carve the way to solutions as well..."We need leadership in our design thinking."- Vancouver Observer |
Plug In ICA: Turning Point: All of Winnipeg now seems to rotate around Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art’s new downtown premises...gives itself away with a wink and a twinkle...a breath of fresh air in the chary world of contemporary Canadian architecture, where a safe, almost archeological neo-modernism rules the land...leads the way for the rest of the Canadian art world. By Trevor Boddy -- DPA+PSA+DIN Collective (Neil Minuk/DIN Projects; David Penner; Peter Sampson/PSA Studio) [images, links]- Canadian Art Magazine |
Two-Family Home: The French ambassador to Israel’s distinctive residence in Jaffa tells the story of an unusual—and eventually ruptured—friendship between a Jewish Zionist architect and his Arab Muslim client...Oded Rapoport, the son of its architect, who told the dramatic tale of how his father and his client together created one of the most fascinating 20th-century dwellings in the Middle East. By Michael Z. Wise -- Yitzhak Rapoport (1936) [slide show]- Tablet Magazine |
Urbanized Landscape Series by Li Han / Atelier 11 | China: Inspired by the unprecedentedly rapid urbanization process undergoing in China, Beijing-based architect and artist Li Han has developed a series of drawings on the subject of urban landscapes...to present the spontaneous interaction between the urban environment and human activities. [images]- ArchDaily |
City Sessions: Public, Practice, Evaluation and Failure in Tactical Urbanism: Leagues and Legions (LGNLGN)...has just launched an online dialogue about the practice of tactical urbanism and socially active design. Organized in conjunction with Urban Design Week, an upcoming public festival presented by the Institute for Urban Design...- Urban Omnibus |
2nd International Copenhagen Design Week: "Think Human" presented by the Danish Design Center, September 1-6- Danish Design Centre |
Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects honors 18 projects with Awards for Excellence in Architecture -- Gensler; Virginia Tech Solar Team; Reader & Swartz Architects; Robert M. Gurney, FAIA, Architect; Studio 27 Architecture; Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company; Carlton Abbott and Partners; Bonstra | Haresign Architects; David Jameson Architect; HKS/Thompson & Litton; design/buildLAB; 3north; SmithGroup- Virginia Society AIA |
Call for entries: Luminale 2012: the platform for ideas and innovations on lighting design, energy efficiency, new technologies and materials and for the urban qualities of life in our towns; deadline: September 30- Luminapolis |
Review> QR This: "Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects" at MoMA: There’s a smattering of utility in the objects on display...but there’s also a helluva lot of speculative, critical conceptual work...I came away a little browser-beaten...If you know all about interaction design, there’s plenty here you’ve already seen ...That’s a reason to see it, not to skip it...is the “me” in Talk to Me the machine or the person using it? You decide... By Rachel Abrams [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
Out of Thin Air: Architecture Omi's "Augmented Reality: Peeling Layers of Space Out of Thin Air"...just north of Hudson, NY...fantastically layered structures and environments...without touching a twig of an idyllic, twenty-some acre landscape of wetland, forest, and rolling farmland. -- John Cleater; Vito Acconci; Asymptote; Daniel Libeskind; SITE; Leeser Architecture; SHoP Architects; Kol/Mac [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
"Emergency Shelter": an exhibition highlighting the need for emergency shelters in disaster zones and bringing awareness to the public about the role of the design and construction industry in the aftermath of natural disasters; on the Customs House forecourt Sydney, Australia, September 1-3 -- LAVA; Jean Nouvel; PTW Architects; Tonkin Zulaikha Greer; Cox, Koichi Takada Architects; Sou Fujimoto Architects; Terunobu Fujimori; Green Leaf [images]- Emergency Shelter Australia |
Reading L.A.: Norman M. Klein on our collective amnesia: "The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory (1997), is an ambitious book...that often seems to be at war, or at least in a prolonged spat, with itself...more alienating than illuminating...little patches of land full of good ideas but topped with rhetorical barbed wire, walled off not just from the reader but from one another...you get tired of ripping your shirt making the short climb from one to the next. By Christopher Hawthorne [images]- Los Angeles Times |
Interview with Neil B. Chambers, Author of "Urban Green: Architecture for the Future": "I don’t want to come across as anti-green, because I’m not. But the current green building industry is only addressing a small percentage of the problems...design doing more with ecology instead of always depending on technology...This is how we will become keystone species." -- Chambers Design; Green Ground Zero [images]- The Dirt/American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) |
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