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Today’s News - Tuesday, September 16, 2014

•   Russell x 2 re: "obdurate" architecture and "willful buildings that demand heroic efforts to preserve" + celebrity architecture vs. "architecture as a social and environment-enhancing art. The two need not be mutually exclusive."

•   Saitta debates starchitecture through a Denver lens, where "starchitects have both enhanced and eroded the quality of our built environment" (so have "locatects"): "Is there a sweet spot where architectural boldness and innovation meet sensitivity to local context, history, and culture?"

•   Hume, meanwhile, hails Maki and Correa's Aga Khan Museum and Ismaili Centre: "a needed dose of civic ambition" on an otherwise "forlorn site" in Toronto: "the arrival of something that aspires to permanence, let alone excellence, feels provocative" - it "doesn't confront so much as it quietly raises the stakes. And all this without resorting to preciousness."

•   Adler on building communities with a soul: "Charming neighborhoods are not magic. We just need to recognize that features like character are actually up to us" - using smart public policy.

•   Kimmelman is "intrigued" by three young architects' "9 x 18" plan "because it's about more than apartment buildings plopped onto vacant land. The plan is rough, but a start."

•   A Hong Kong developer wants to convert four luxury projects into 4,000 tiny apartments: "Other players may follow the shift in strategy" if the developer wins approval.

•   Lamster laments a "dog-chasing-its-tail phenomenon" in Dallas, which is spending millions to develop an urban playground while "moving forward with a plan to drive a massive highway through that space, cutting the city off from the very amenity it is building."

•   Moore minces no words about what he thinks of plans for London's Garden Bridge: it "perpetuates the idea that you can plan a city by headlines, stunts and novelties, a culture of I'm-a-celebrity-build-me-some-infrastructure, rather than addressing what it really needs."

•   Green parses the four "inventive" design proposals for D.C.'s 11th Street Bridge Park to be built on the foundation of an old freeway spanning the Anacostia River (hopefully to include cleaning up a rather stinky part of the river).

•   Voters approve funding to develop 14 new parks in Seattle that "won't dramatically alter the physical landscape of the city," but will make the city that much more livable.

•   A former Australian prime minister bemoans Sydney being fed "junk" apartments: "he stressed the importance of preserving and enhancing open spaces, and avoiding cement-heavy, Alcatraz-like 'archi-parks' designed by 'ponytail-wearing architects'" (we hear mullets are making a come-back, too).

•   In the U.K., MPs to try their hand at urban design in a "move to help them understand built environment better."

•   A new Moscow-based webzine shows "an ugly side of Russia" that "transforms" the grim and mundane "into a raw but compelling diary of youth made by the generation born at the turn of 1990s" (amazing images).

•   On brighter notes: a tasting of "how wineries evolved from chateau-only to high design" (a toast to all!).

•   One we couldn't resist: Bjarke illustrates his architectural philosophy on a big (what else) piece of paper "highlighting his inspiration for what he calls 'promiscuous hybrids.'"

•   Eyefuls of the winners of the inaugural City of Vancouver Urban Design Awards.

•   Call for entries: James Marston Fitch Mid-Career Fellowship and Samuel H. Kress Mid-Career Fellowship Grants + 32nd Annual IALD International Lighting Design Awards.

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