Today’s News - Wednesday, November 15, 2017
EDITOR'S NOTE: An early-morning engagement means we may, or may not, be able to post tomorrow. Either way, there will be an atypical posting on Friday (much news to catch up with!).
● In the wake of vehicular terrorism, architects and urban designers "are considering how to make pedestrians safer without destroying their way of life. But such melding of safety and design is not easy."
● Architects "brainstorm better ways to rebuild" after the California wildfires: a "useful approach would be to create widely applicable prototypes"; density would be good, but "a tough sell."
● Puerto Rico's Architecture Schools post-Hurricane Maria, Part 1: Q&A with the University of Puerto Rico's Interim Dean Mayra Jiménez-Montano: "Resiliency has always been present one way or another in our curriculum but has never been so relevant as today."
● Puerto Rico's Architecture Schools post-Hurricane Maria, Part 2: Q&A with Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico's Dean Luis V. Badillo-Lozano: "This crisis cannot be wasted - we all have to learn from this."
● KUOW Public Radio's Adolph ponders "how Seattle fell out of love with Amazon - we're going to have to admit that it's really time to wean ourselves off our Amazon addiction" (one former Amazon exec is "profoundly irritated by the less-than-grateful attitude among the locals").
● Lamster says Dallas Arboretum's new pavilion "tops the list" of "the most beautiful places" in the city, where "exceptional works of modern public architecture are relatively few and far between."
● Weeks' Q&A with Lamster re: the North Texas landscape and projects like Toyota's HQ: "It's not so much about whether I like it or dislike it - it's important to think about what it means to build a corporate campus in a location like Plano and how it's done."
● Kamin parses Chicago's new Wilson station that "doesn't, thank goodness, resemble a sleek monorail at Disney World," and is "proof positive that transit infrastructure need not be synonymous with dull design."
● King parses a plan to replace SF's Art Nouveau-style commodes and kiosks with new, modern ones, creating a "toilet tempest," especially for San Francisco Beautiful: "The designs are hideous. They show zero imagination" (he supports the updates).
Your must-reads for the day:
● Rennix & Robinson offer a lengthy take-down of contemporary architecture: along with the "heebie-jeebies, if it doesn't make you feel desperately, crushingly alone, it's probably not a piece of prize-winning contemporary architecture - made for people who do not poop" (the retelling of Eisenman/Alexander 1982 debate is amusingly painful - or is painfully amusing).
● Brussat, of course, couldn't agree more: "the writing is elegant and delightfully unaffected," and "almost qualifies as a point-by-point summary of my own long list of themes in the discourse against modern architecture."
● D'Aprile, meanwhile, couldn't disagree more: Rennix and Robinson's "Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture" is "so laden with irony - the poorest of substitutes for analysis - that it is difficult to discern a core argument - the real culprit: the absolute necessity for everything produced under capitalism to turn a profit."
● Brussat, of course, calls D'Aprile's take a "lame modernist rebuttal" (from "her modernist cocoon") to Rennix and Robinson's "massive, and massively effective, assault" on contemporary architecture.
Winners and finalists (and lots of 'em)!
● Winners of the Morrisons Island International Design Competitions, HH+ and Francis Keane Architects, outline their plans: "Cork must decide whether it wants a barrier or a threshold between it and its waterways"; an official "Walls" plan "would cause social and economic stagnation for generations" (+2nd & 3rd Place winners).
● Bisset Adams wins the competition to design the Southmere Village Library, "modeled on a swan's nest," at London's Brutalist Thamesmead estate ("made infamous' in "A Clockwork Orange").
● 13 projects win the Urban ULI 2017-2018 Global Awards for Excellence; among them, SOM's University Center-The New School wins the ULI 2017-2018 Global Awards for Excellence (great presentations).
● David M. Schwarz Architects' Sundance Square in Fort Worth, Texas, nabs the International Making Cities Livable 2017 IMCL Honor Award.
● Four student teams are finalists in the AECOM/Van Alen Institute Urban SOS 2017 competition.
● Eyefuls of the AiA Design for Aging Review Awards, 14th Edition, for the best in senior living design.
● 10 projects win 2017 AIA International Region Design Awards.
● Welton parses the shortlist in the 2017 Fentress Global Challenge student competition for airport design: "Aviation and architecture: Could there be a more futuristic, visionary collaboration?"
● Finch cheers that, "in a world of mesmeric multiple images," architectural hand drawing "still plays an essential role in design" - with link to inaugural Architecture Drawing Prize winners' fab drawings!
● Eyefuls of the "stunning final entries" in the Arcaid Architectural Photography Awards 2017 (stunning is an understatement!).
● Two take home he Graham Foundation's 2017 Carter Manny Awards for architectural scholarship.
● The Nka Foundation names winners of 5th Earth Architecture Competition: All About Designing and Building an Arts Village for Senegal.
| |
|
|
|
To subscribe to the free daily newsletter
click here
|
How Will the Threat of Vehicular Terrorism Change Our Cities? ...urban designers are considering how to make pedestrians safer without destroying their way of life: Architecture has, sadly, often had to respond to terrorism...But such melding of safety and design is not easy...Wall Street bollards’ noninvasiveness is the result of careful design...Blair Kamin contrasted them to those in Washington D.C....that he characterized as a “lifeless void.” -- Rogers Partners Architects+Urban Designers; Matt Chaban/Center for an Urban Future; Cary Tamarkin [images]- Architectural Digest |
J.K. Dineen: Architects brainstorm better ways to rebuild after Wine Country fires: ...will require an army of building- department bureaucrats, not to mention thousands of carpenters, electricians and plumbers. But what role will architects play in the mad rush to rebuild the 8,889 structures lost...useful approach would be to create widely applicable prototypes...Density...will be a tough sell... -- Brandon Jorgensen; Anne Fougeron; Stanley Saitowitz; Craig Steely; Architecture of Resilience- San Francisco Chronicle |
After the Storm: Puerto Rico's Architecture Schools in the Wake of Hurricane Maria; Part 1 - University of Puerto Rico, San Juan:... classes resumed on Monday, October 30. The photos show how faculty and staff tried to find spots with a breeze since power had not yet been restored...Q&A with Interim Dean Mayra Jiménez-Montano: "Resiliency has always been present one way or another in our curriculum but has never been so relevant as today." [images]- Archinect |
After the Storm: Puerto Rico's Architecture Schools in the Wake of Hurricane Maria; Part 2 - Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Ponce: Q&A with Dean Luis V. Badillo-Lozano: "None of us were prepared for this kind of a situation and there is a lot to learn from it...This crisis cannot be wasted - we all have to learn from this." [images]- Archinect |
Carolyn Adolph/KUOW Public Radio: How Seattle Fell Out of Love With Amazon: We’re still working on our relationship: ...now we know that, despite the millions that have flowed to local governments...from Amazon, that money isn’t believed to be enough to pay for all the problems the company’s growth caused...we’re going to have to admit that it’s really time to wean ourselves off our Amazon addiction. Was there ever anything we could have done to save the relationship and remain HQ1 and Only? Amazon finds itself blamed for all the city’s problems.- CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) |
Mark Lamster: What's the most beautiful place in Dallas? The Dallas Arboretum's new pavilion tops the list: ...exceptional works of modern public architecture are relatively few and far between in this city...The gardens...are the raison d'etre for this grand ensemble...admirable simplicity is a reminder...that sometimes, and even usually, a simple box is the most efficient, effective and aesthetically appealing solution to a design problem. -- Russell Buchanan/Buchanan Architecture; SWA [images]- Dallas Morning News |
Jerome Weeks: Architecture Takes On The North Texas Landscape: We North Texans continue to fill our landscape with construction projects - like Toyota’s new headquarters in Plano. Mark Lamster says we need to consider what such developments mean to transit systems and to the environment..."it’s not so much about whether I like it or dislike it...it’s important to think about what it means to build a corporate campus in a location like Plano and how it’s done."- Art&Seek / KERA, North Texas Public Broadcasting |
Blair Kamin: New Wilson station shows CTA's Red-Purple Line modernization is on track: ...adeptly combines engineering with urban planning. The architecture isn’t perfect, but the overall result creates a good template...The results are worth the wait...It doesn’t, thank goodness, resemble a sleek monorail at Disney World...It already can be judged a handsome, useful addition to the cityscape - proof positive that transit infrastructure need not be synonymous with dull design. -- HNTB; Cecil Balmond [images]- Chicago Tribune |
John King: Toilet tempest: SF eyes replacing Paris-style commodes, kiosks: Those Parisian-flavored public toilets and advertising kiosks that arrived here 20 years ago are likely to be replaced by new “street furnishings” with a straightforward, modern feel..."“The days of trying to be Paris are gone"...These 21st century aspects are what has San Francisco Beautiful on alert...“They show zero imagination - just popping a drab rectangle on the streets"...On the whole, I support the proposed updates... -- Roma Design Group [images]- San Francisco Chronicle |
Brianna Rennix & Nathan J. Robinson: Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture: And if you don't, why you should: ...[it] gives most regular humans the heebie-jeebies...You may think the ensuing blob-structure looks like a tentacled turd...but that's because you don't have an architect's trained eye...If it doesn't make you feel desperately, crushingly alone, it's probably not a piece of prize-winning contemporary architecture...We are not meant to live in modern buildings; they are made for people who do not poop.- Current Affairs magazine |
David Brussat: Left vs. modern architecture! “Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture,” by Nathan J. Robinson and Brianna Rennix...almost qualifies as a point-by-point summary of my own long list of themes in the discourse against modern architecture...the writing is elegant and delightfully unaffected...they err toward the end in assuming that skyscrapers are bad because they are tall...[they] are bad less because they are tall than because, these days, they are modernist, or contemporary, to use the essay’s word of choice.- Architecture Here and There |
Marianela D'Aprile: The Politics of Architecture Are Not a Matter of Taste: Why economics always supersede aesthetics: Rennix and Robinson's “Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture”...is so laden with irony - the poorest of substitutes for analysis - that it is difficult to discern a core argument....for all their efforts at making an argument rooted in left theory...[they]...entirely miss the mark...the real culprit: the absolute necessity for everything produced under capitalism to turn a profit. -- Zaha Hadid; Frank Gehry; Peter Eisenman; The Architecture Lobby- Common Edge |
David Brussat: Lame modernist rebuttal: ...“Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture,” a massive, and massively effective, assault by...Brianna Rennix and Nathan Robinson, on modern architecture...It apparently hit a nerve...a rebuttal ...called “The Politics of Architecture Are Not a Matter of Taste" by Marianela D’Aprile...in her modernist cocoon...what irks these modernists is how calling a building by its most basic descriptor so clearly reveals the virtually unbridgeable gulf between traditional and modern architecture.- Architecture Here and There |
Cork flood defences: Pulling together for design of Cork’s quays: Morrisons Island International Design Competitions winners HH+ and Francis Keane Architects outline their plans: Cork must decide whether it wants a barrier or a threshold between it and its waterways...Principally among our ambitions is to create an exciting new waterfront + Jury comments + 2nd & 3rd Place winners -- Save Cork City; A2 Architects; GKMP Architects [images]- Irish Examiner |
Winning design revealed for new library at London's brutalist Thamesmead estate: Bisset Adams will build the Southmere Village Library on the south bank of Southmere Lake, right beside the sprawling concrete housing estate that was made infamous [in] Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange"...winning proposal is for a library modelled on a swan's nest...constructed from cross-laminated timber [CLT]...part of wider plans to build 20,000 new homes in the area. -- Proctor and Matthews Architects; Mecanoo; Turkington Martin [images]- Dezeen |
13 Projects in North America, Europe and Asia Are Selected as Winners of the Urban Land Institute’s 2017-2018 Global Awards for Excellence. University Center-The New School, ULI 2017-2018 Global Awards for Excellence Winner -- Philippe Starck; SWA Group/Page; Ross Barney Architects/Sasaki/Alfred Benesch & Company/Jacobs/Ryan Associates; Sink Combs Dethlefs Architects (now Perkins+Will)/Elkus - Manfredi Architects/et al.; Nexus Partners/DSK Architects/Mark Seiberlich Concordia/Steven Bingler/MKThink/Steve Kelley; Herman Coliver Locus Architecture; ZGF/Nikken Sekkei/Jun Mitsui & Associates Architects/Studio on Site; Perkins+Will; KenKay Associates/Mary Miss/Engberg Anderson Architects/et al.; WOHA; Lake Flato Architects/Roman and Williams/Don McDonald Architects/Sprinkle & Co. Architects/Ford Powell & Carson Architects/Jim Kissling Architecture/Dado Group/Clayton & Little Architecture; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); etc. [images]- Urban Land Institute (ULI) |
International Making Cities Livable 2017 IMCL Honor Award, Built Project for Excellence in Creating Public Places for Community, Democratic Dialogue, Health & Equity: Sundance Square, Fort Worth, Texas: ...surrounded by museums, galleries, restaurants...furnished with a forest of 216 fountain jets, a wave wall fountain...thoroughly programed for concerts, theater, art festivals, and movies. -- David M. Schwarz Architects [images]- International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) |
AECOM and Van Alen Institute announce four Urban SOS 2017 finalists with bold ideas for creating more equitable cities: Multidisciplinary student teams were challenged to redefine the traditional “hOUR City”...providing broader access to opportunity -- Lisa Anne Garner/Universität Der Künste; Lauren Garner, RMIT/University; Vincent Clement Agoe, Derek Lazo, Serena Lousich, Mark Wessels, Sarah Skenazy, University of California, Berkeley; Sean Cullen, Chris Millar, Queen’s University Belfast; Wilaiwan Prathumwong, Perada Plitponkarnpim, Patcharida Sricome, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi [images]- AECOM / Van Alen Institute / 100 Resilient Cities/Rockefeller Foundation |
Design for Aging Review Awards, 14th Edition: Presenting the best in senior living design. -- C.C. Hodgson Architectural Group; Hord Coplan Macht; Shoesmith Cox Architects; RLPS Architects/MGA Architects; SFCS Architects; Perkins Eastman/NAC Architecture; BKV Group; Amenta Emma Architects; Duncan Wisniewski Architecture; Gensler; Wiencek + Associates Architects + Planners [images]- American Institute of Architects (AIA) |
10 Projects Chosen as Winners of 2017 AIA International Region Design Awards: ...honoring exemplary projects undertaken by architect members of the AIA-IR, encompassing six of the seven chapters located outside of the United States. -- M Moser Associates; Index Architecture; Moore Ruble Yudell; Andrew Bromberg; Louis Becker; John McAslan + Partners; RAW-NYC Architects; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); Paul Murdoch [images]- ArchDaily |
J. Michael Welton: Architects for Future Airports: Curt Fentress...is looking for the talent of the future. And what better way to find it than to hold a worldwide student competition for airport design?
2017 Fentress Global Challenge...narrowed the field down to a short list of 20...For young architects interested in air travel and all its implications, these are exciting times...Aviation and architecture: Could there be a more futuristic, visionary collaboration? [images]- Huffington Post |
Paul Finch: Drawings are the spiritual heart of architecture: With the winner of the inaugural Architecture Drawing Prize announced, he looks at how hand-drawn images still play an essential role in design: ...a reminder that in a world of mesmeric multiple images, the architectural drawing still has a powerful resonance...hand drawing is clearly still something taken seriously... [images]- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
See the stunning final entries in the Arcaid Architectural Photography Awards 2017: The 20 shortlisted photographs will be exhibited at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Berlin from 15 - 17 November, where visitors will be able to cast their vote for the overall winner... [images]- Lonely Planet |
The Graham Foundation announces 2017 Carter Manny Awards for architectural scholarship: ...[to] promising doctoral students engaged in advanced scholarship in architecture... -- James Graham/"The Psychotechnical Architect: Perception, Vocation, and the Laboratory Cultures of Modernism, 1914–1945"; Razieh Ghorbani/“The Space of Sanctions: Architecture and Construction in Contemporary Iran"- The Architect's Newspaper |
Nka Foundation Announces the Winners of 5th Earth Architecture Competition: All About Designing and Building an Arts Village for Senegal. -- Vitor Breder/Nayanne Guerra/Mário Soares/Yuka Perdigão Ogawa (Brazil); Jérôme Gruwé (France); Brittany Hill/Caitlin McDonnell (Australia)- Nka Foundation |
ANN Feature: Stormy Weather: Landscape Design Responses for a Changing Climate: As designers and engineers move forward to adapt communities to changing weather patterns, providing flood protection while integrating social and ecological benefits will generate value and multi-functional infrastructure. By Steve Albert, PE, CFM, Josiah Cain, ASLA, Prentiss Darden, MLA, and Jim Remlin, PE, LEED AP/Sherwood Design Engineers- ArchNewsNow.com |
|
|
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.
© 2017 ArchNewsNow.com