ArchNewsNow


Today’s News - Tuesday, January 8, 2019

EDITOR'S NOTE: Happy New Year - we're b-a-a-a-c-k!!! Lots to catch up with...

●  LaValley offers "13 reasons why an architect's voice is their most important tool. In many ways, architects are fighting to stay relevant in a world that doesn't quite understand the gravity of their purpose and intent."

●  Torpy dives into the "debate over Atlanta's new architecture," and the city's planning czar "describing his efforts to jump-start engaging architecture and design in the city. 'I didn't say 'ugly' buildings; I said insulting buildings.' In reality, there are many developers and architects who are trying."

●  Davidson x 2: "The High Line has become a tunnel through glass towers" and "an elevated cattle chute for tourists" - aside from Hadid's "lissome star" and a few other architects who "carry off feats of tasteful theatricality, the jostling architecture expresses an aesthetic of self-absorbed preening - a social club for celebrity architects."

●  He offers "two cautionary tales" of small neighborhood parks in Manhattan and Nashville: "They harbor no endangered species and embody no distinguished landscape design. But both belong to the public, and elected officials plan to turn them over to developers to build desperately needed housing."

●  It's a Hadid kind of day: Hopkirk parses Schumacher's "explosive allegations" that "he was forced to agree to drop practice's name - and claims he was threatened with the sack if he objected to some of his opponents' demands" (he wasn't allowed to speak at her memorial service, either).

●  Meanwhile, ZHA "slams Olympic Park scheme," claiming it "will cause 'significant harm' to the design integrity" of its Aquatics Centre - "the proposals treat the venue as an inconvenient neighbor which can be modified at will."

●  Down Under, the developer is "forced to ditch" ZHA's £240 million Brisbane towers plan, and is now "looking for new designs for the site after losing a lengthy legal battle."

●  We would normally run in Thursday's "Weekend diversions," but the (fab!) show closes Sunday: Stierli and Kulic have put together a video guide of the highlights in MoMA's "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948-1980."

Of gender equity, #MeToo, and the Architecture Lobby's Solidarity Bloc

●  Gamolina says it's time to "stop asking where all the female architects are; we're right here. It's time to change this narrative. We need to listen to them, write about them, amplify them, and support them. We are not missing and we will no longer be hidden."

●  Zeiger parses "architecture's gender reckoning" in 2018: "#MeToo stripped bare any feel-good assumption that the profession had evolved beyond the Howard Roark model of the heroic architect - the culture of architecture begins in the academy" - and deans weigh in.

●  Hagberg Fisher parses a new step in architecture's #MeToo movement: "The Architecture Lobby's Solidarity Bloc offers more than just solidarity - offering resources (job opportunities, networking, referrals, moral support, etc.)" to those "who have been affected by sexual harassment and/or speaking up about it," but "there's still a long way to go."

Looking forward

●  Sisson offers "10 challenges that will define cities in 2019," and "the forces shaping urbanism in the coming year."

●  It's "important to pay more attention to the nuances of these 7 trends that will shape commercial construction in 2019" (technology; design-build; drones; Gen Z growing up included).

●  Schwab on "the architecture trend that needs to die in 2019: No. More. Open. Offices. They're sexist, bad for productivity, and make people miserable."

●  Wainwright's take on the best architecture of 2019: "Jean Nouvel gets weird in Qatar."

●  Ko offers her take on "the most anticipated buildings set to shape the world in 2019 - set to impress" (a few surprises - to us, at least).

●  10 New Year's resolutions for architects: "1. Sketch more. 3. Listen carefully. 6. Design with humor. 8. Break with programmatic convention. 9. Enter a competition ... and win!"

Looking back

●  Budds looks at "how cities became more equitable in 2018: Architects, politicians, and community leaders tried to design a fairer, more equitable place to live. No single intervention will solve deep-rooted inequalities, but as this year's efforts show, progress is taking place."

●  Kolson Hurley explains why "the old narrative of city and suburb is dead; in 2018. As some suburbs draw lines in the sand, others put out the welcome mat."

●  Metropolis tapped experts to "articulate the year's biggest takeaways - from resiliency to workplace productivity, diversity, architecture's #MeToo moment, the social and urban ramifications of resilience planning, just to name a few."

●  Moore picks 5 projects as the best architecture of 2018 (+ a turkey): "New council housing excelled," but it was "a bit of a flat year, in which the shortlist for the Stirling Prize was criticized for being a bit beige. Whatever a new not-boring style of British architecture might be, it needs to be cleverer than what is, in the end, a distinctly boring case of willy-waving."

●  Brussat makes his pick of the best traditional buildings of 2018, and is "dismayed at the preponderance of Deep South cities. Our section of the country had better up our game!"

●  Blake, on the other hand, has a rather vitriolic take on the "rise of alt-arch - the meme-strewn corner of the Internet devoted to the far right's fetish for the castellated, the timber-thatched, the Baroque - the alt-arch sets up the straw man of the debased new. It's clear that good architecture, Modernist or not, is not built by philistines."

  

Book online now!


NC Modernist Houses

 

 

 

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.

Yesterday's News

© 2019 ArchNewsNow.com