Today’s News - Friday, January 18, 2013
• Brandes Gratz explains the many differences (and a few similarities) between Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina: both "make clear that infrastructure needs radically new design and construction. Altering how things are done, with a new environmental awareness, is necessary everywhere."
• King reports on the "Ocean's Eleven" of urban experts at the first Bloomberg Businessweek design forum: it "veered from broad observations to, at moments, the canned focus of a business pitch light on theory and heavy on images."
• Chaban offers a thoughtful (and often amusing) slide show essay of NYC's best new architecture: it was perhaps "a little humbler, a little less showy" in a "lean year," but it is "sensible architecture for a wiser time."
• Calys sees the "birth of the cool" in San Francisco with the new SFJAZZ Center: watch out NYC - the "nexus of jazz music may be shifting westward."
• Skateboard scraps will scrape the sky in the winning design for this summer's MoMA/P.S.1 YAP pavilion (very cool).
• Hill heads to Chicago to hang with Gang and her gang, touring projects and the office (almost emptied for the Art Institute show).
• A Zambian architect tackles the ever-growing sticky-wicket that is architects' copyright protection.
• Frampton pens an eloquent tribute to Huxtable: "one is left with the uncomfortable feeling that she was never sufficiently recognized by the architects and architectural critics of my generation" (+ link to her 1974 obituary of Louis Kahn).
• Two we couldn't resist: for fit city fans - video of "piano stairs" in Stockholm proves folks will choose stairs over the escalators - if it's fun.
• NYC's feral cats can haz fun with architect-designed shelters ('tis true - we wuz there).
• Weekend diversions:
• At "Making Room" at MCNY, you can "test-drive" micro-apartments "poised to take space efficiency to the next level."
• Q&A with Graves re: his show at the Virginia Center for Architecture and his Wounded Warrior Home Project (with a little whimsy thrown in).
• Detroit takes center stage x 2: two "controversial" photo shows at the National Building Museum ask "whether districts of ruined, abandoned buildings reverting back to nature can define a city. The answer is no."
• Reading Binelli's "Detroit City Is the Place to Be," you "keep asking yourself the question: When will he get to the part that proves this town is the place to be?"
• Grabar grapples with Bosker's "Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China" and the country's "obsession with 'duplitecture'" (great pix).
• Morgan cheers new tomes on Stoller and Korab - who "seems to have had more fun" (great slide shows).
• Uglow's biography of Sarah Losh, a "forgotten genius of 19th-century England," is incredibly "atmospheric."
• "In Touch: Landscape Architecture Europe" presents in-depth case studies without succumbing to "design-speak."
• A great sampling of images from "Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air" (we want at least one!).
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Two Storms, Two Cities: Not Many Parallels Between Sandy, Katrina: The differences are many, the similarities few...and require radically new responses...both hurricanes make clear that infrastructure needs radically new design and construction...Altering how things are done, with a new environmental awareness, is necessary everywhere. By Roberta Brandes Gratz- Citiwire |
San Francisco Design Forum Features "Ocean's Eleven" of Urban Experts: ...Bloomberg Businessweek Design 2013...veered from broad observations to, at moments, the canned focus of a business pitch light on theory and heavy on images. By John King -- Janette Sadik-Khan; Peter Walker/PWP Landscape Architecture; Jeanne Gang/Studio Gang Architects; Thom Mayne/Morphosis; Ada Tolla/Giuseppe Lignano/LOT-EK- Architectural Record |
The 2012 Designer Dozen: New York’s Best New Architecture Is a Celebration of Public Space: ...a lean year...Still, there are surprises to be found...Maybe a little humbler, a little less showy...This is sensible architecture for a wiser time. By Matt Chaban -- Louis Kahn; Morris Adjmi Architects; SOM; Michael Van Valkenburgh; Jean Nouvel; Andrew Franz Architect; ShoP Architects/Ellerbe Beckett; Rogers Marvel Architects; Frank Gehry; WXY; Foster + Partners; Weiss/Manfredi; Ennead Architects; Leni Schwendinger [slide show essay]- New York Observer |
Birth of the cool: SFJAZZ new Center: 30 years in the dreaming and two years in construction, the SFJAZZ Center will open January 21...if the exultant splash...is any indication, the nexus of jazz music may be shifting westward. By George Calys -- Mark Cavagnero; Auerbach Pollock Friedlander; SIA Acoustics [images]- San Francisco Examiner |
Hit the Wall: Ithaca, New York-based CODA uses skateboard scrap to construct "Party Wall" for this summer's MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program...."Just building another canopy wasn't interesting to us." [images]- The Architect's Newspaper |
Studio Visit: Studio Gang Architects: "The world is our studio, Chicago is our home." Beyond the idea that the work of Jeanne Gang's office extends outside of the proverbial "Second City," this quote rings true in other ways... By John Hill [images]- World-Architects.com |
Is an architect entitled to copyright protection? The Law of Copyright is firmly established by the Copyright and Performance Rights Act...of the Laws of Zambia; another closely related act is the Registered Designs Act...The concept of copyright ownership of architectural designs is very clear in itself but not clearly defined in the law. By Musunka Silungwe -- Zambia Institute of Architects/ZIA- Times of Zambia |
Ada Louise Huxtable: In Memoriam: ...she wrote of the on-going built environment without ever indulging in gratuitous ad hominems attacks or falling into the all-too-common fatal flaws of provincialism and pretension...one is left with the uncomfortable feeling that she was never sufficiently recognized by the architects and architectural critics of my generation. By Kenneth Frampton- Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park |
The Dreaded Stairs: Can we get more people to take the stairs over the escalator by making it fun to do? See the results...66% more people than normal chose the stairs over the escalator...Fun can obviously change behavior for the better. We call it the fun theory. [video]- thefuntheory.com / Volkswagen |
I Can Has Architecture! Designers Build Winter Shelters For New York Street Cats: “Architects for Animals: Giving Shelter" -- H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture; Francis Cauffman Architects; M Moser Associates; Callison Barteluce; Stonehill & Taylor Architects/City College; Zimmerman Workshop; Kathryn Walton/The American Street Cat; Pilot Projects Design Collective [images, links]- Architizer |
"Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers": Think you could live in just 325 square feet? ...micro-apartments are poised to take space efficiency to the next level...test drive one of the tiny abodes at a new exhibition...will also unveil the top designs for Bloomberg’s adAPT NYC micro-apartment design competition... Opens Jan 23 at the Museum of the City of New York. -- Citizens Housing & Planning Council [images, links]- The Architect's Newspaper |
The Democracy of Design: Q&A with Michael Graves: ...proved that good design can, and should, be accessible to all...“From Towers to Teakettles: Michael Graves Architecture and Design" at the Virginia Center for Architecture, Richmond, VA -- Wounded Warrior Home Project [images]- Richmond Magazine (Virginia) |
Detroit Is Not a Ruin: At the National Building Museum, a controversial set of two new photography exhibits asks us to consider whether a city can die, whether districts of ruined, abandoned buildings reverting back to nature can define a city...The answer is no: Detroit is still alive, but perhaps shamed by its decline. -- Camilo Jose Vergara; Andrew Moore [images]- The Dirt/American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) |
In Yet Another Book on Detroit, Nostalgia Rears Its Backward-Looking Head: "Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis" by Mark Binelli...You can’t get the title out of your head the whole way through...you keep asking yourself the question: When will he get to the part that proves this town is the place to be?- Next City (formerly Next American City) |
Why We Shouldn't Mock the Idea of an Eiffel Tower in Hangzhou: There are serious cultural reference points to be found in China's obsession with 'duplitecture.'...[it] isn't scanning design magazines for inspiration; it's watching movies..."Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China" by Bianca Bosker argues that the significance of these constructions has been unfairly discounted. By Henry Grabar [images]- The Atlantic Cities |
Ready for Their Close-Ups: "Ezra Stoller, Photographer" by Nina Rappaport and Erica Stoller: ...a handsome volume on...“the photographer of choice for architects of curtain-walled corporate landmarks,” as critic John Morris Dixon notes; "Balthazar Korab, Architect of Photography" by John Comazzi: ...small format doesn't do Korab's work justice, but his is the more interesting story...[he] seems to have had more fun too... By William Morgan [slide shows]- Architectural Record |
“The Pinecone” by Jenny Uglow: Forgotten genius: Sarah Losh and the strange, beautiful, "pantheistic" church she built in an obscure corner of 19th-century England...I have never read a biography quite so atmospheric...- Salon |
Cutting-edge "In Touch: Landscape Architecture Europe" by the European Federation for Landscape Architecture: ...presents in-depth case studies of 11 European landscape projects...striving to capture not only the best contemporary landscape architecture...but also uncover what makes these works uniquely European...thankfully resisting the temptation to succumb to design-speak. -- Estudi Martí Franch; Ardevols Assocaits [images]- The Dirt/American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) |
18 Of The World’s Most Amazing Tree Houses: "Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air" collects 50 of the most incredible arboreal dwellings from around the globe. -- Terunobu Fujimori; Lukasz Kos; Romero Studios; Inredningsgruppen; Tham & Videgård Arkitekter; SandellSandberg arkitekter; Tom Chudleigh/Free Spirit Spheres; Nicko Bjorn Elliot; Michael Ince; Go Hasegawa; Andreas Wenning/baumraum [slide show]- Fast Company |
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-- OMA: CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, China
-- "Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities" by Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner
-- "Invisible Cities" at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts |
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