Today’s News - Tuesday, October 29, 2019
● Hahn pays tribute to Ingo Maurer, the "poet of light" who "re-conceptualized lighting design with his tongue firmly in his cheek."
● Finch shares his personal memories of Jencks, "critic, scholar and a true gentleman" - and "a constructive provocateur."
● Russell cheers the new MoMA: It's "new voices, experiences, and expressions are bracingly transcendent."
● Kamin x 2: He parses "the latest design tweaks" to the Obama Presidential Center - it has "a more dynamic, faceted profile," but "has yet to become a compelling object from all sides. There's still time to get this hugely important project 100% right."
● He sits down with the "design-savy" Maurice Cox, who "could be Chicago's most consequential urban planner in decades - if anyone has a chance to marshal the forces of urban planning and architecture in favor of more equitable growth, Cox is probably the guy" (he also weighs in on the Obama Center and the Thompson Center).
● Holland delves into China's "post-weird" architecture, and how it has "evolved in the Xi Jinping era" from being "an architects' playground" to "looking to the country's history and culture for expressions of modernity" ("local architects now have a 'fairer chance,'" too).
● Bacchi looks into the "living laboratory" that is Dubai's Sustainable City, which aims to be a "net-zero" - residents "zig zag through the streets on bicycles or aboard small electric carts. Cars are banned from most of the area."
● Cheeseman & Anderson delve into how protests hve spurred "city innovation" in Beirut. "What started with a handful of volunteers roaming the streets with garbage bags and brushes, morphed into an organized force to support local NGOs. But whether the momentum can outlast the mass dissent remains to be seen."
● Janzer reports on Chicago's Territory, a non-profit launched by architects to mentor and train teens to be urban designers transforming public spaces. "We want to show that young people really can have a voice and change the neighborhoods they live in."
● Van Mead mulls "the quiet failure of a Chinese developer's 'Manhattan in Africa'" because it refused to include affordable housing. Johannesburg is "a rare example of an African city that had the courage to push back against external investment that would have benefited only the elite" (though it may end up with "disconnected car-centric gated communities instead").
● Bains takes a deep dive into Dubai's Museum of the Future, "known as one of the most challenging construction projects ever attempted -.it would have been an impossible undertaking without parametric design and BIM - it has become a showcase for future technology building design."
● Five top landscape firms team up to save the National Mall Tidal Basin, and maximize its "potential as a public space."
● World Monuments Fund announces its 2020 World Monuments Watch: "25 at-risk sites facing daunting threats such as encroaching urbanization, political turmoil, natural disaster, and violent conflicts" (Notre-Dame de Paris included).
● Fairs parses the Conran Foundation rescuing London's Design Museum with a £3 million loan - "specialist" exhibitions are blamed for its revenue fall.
● Abello's great Q&A with HOK and NOMA's Kimberley Dowdell, who explains how "more equity in architecture equals more equitable development."
● Wood offers fab profiles of "the emerging female architects of East Africa": "I went in search of women who are making their mark on the future of the region's built environment." - In Johannesburg, The Leonardo, Africa's tallest building, "is set to open, and it's designed mostly by women" - one of the female-led team talks about the difficulties she faced: "I really had to work hard to prove myself - to step up and speak out and make sure that I was being heard by the men."
● One we couldn't resist: Bjarke Ingles offers "an architect's guide to living on Mars" in "an imaginative" TEDtalk.
● ICYMI: ANN feature: McGraw brings us Building Abundance #5: Small City Rejuvenation and Architectural Abundance: Schools are more than conduits of knowledge. Through regenerative design, architects can rethink of how learning is delivered that emphasizes its importance to small cities and rural areas.
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Obituary by Jennifer Hahn: German industrial designer and "poet of light" Ingo Maurer, 87: Over the course of five decades, [he] re-conceptualised lighting design with his tongue firmly in his cheek, while being among the first to adopt the latest technical innovations from LEDs to OLEDs...Deyan Sudjic, co-director of London's Design Museum, tweeted that Maurer was simply "the most inventive and creative lighting designer of the century".- Dezeen |
Paul Finch: Remembering Charles Jencks - critic, scholar and a true gentleman: shares his personal memories of the writer and Maggie’s Centre co-founder: ...a constructive provocateur...His almost intuitive sense of what had happened and what was happening resulted in him becoming a major critical figure.- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
James S. Russell: The New MoMA Is Bigger, More Diverse, and More Open to the City: Women’s empowerment, concentrated wealth, Instagram tourism, Black Lives Matter, and evolving gender expression: These are some of the topics engaged by the new Museum of Modern Art...Growth brought an opportunity for the museum to reexamine the triumphal pageant of Modernism...new galleries and stairs all draw the city...into the experience...the jumble of buildings outside seem to press themselves against the glass...MoMA’s new voices, experiences, and expressions are bracingly transcendent... -- Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Gensler; Yoshio Taniguchi; César Pelli; Philip Goodwin; Edward Durrell Stone; Philip Johnson; Jean Nouvel; Tod Williams Billie Tsien- CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) |
Blair Kamin: An exclusive look at the latest design tweaks to the Obama Presidential Center. Is the third time the charm? The first version...was heavy and funereal...Version two...was taller and less severe [but] still pretty massive and intimidating...version three...a more dynamic, faceted profile...has yet to become a compelling object...from all sides. That matters...when you’re planning on putting a 235-foot-tall tower in Jackson Park and dramatically altering a landscape...by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, you had better be pitch-perfect from every angle...design still looks more intimidating than welcoming...There’s still time to get this hugely important project 100% right. -- Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects; Michael Van Valkenburgh- Chicago Tribune |
Blair Kamin: In his first in-depth Chicago interview, Mayor Lightfoot’s planning chief talks about the Obama Center, the Thompson Center and reviving struggling neighborhoods: Maurice Cox, the highly regarded, design-savvy urban planner...lured away from Detroit...could be Chicago’s most consequential urban planner in decades...to concentrate on the task of reversing the decades of discrimination, decay and disinvestment that have plagued minority neighborhoods...The stakes associated with his efforts are enormous...if anyone has a chance to marshal the forces of urban planning and architecture in favor of more equitable growth, Cox, 60, is probably the guy.- Chicago Tribune |
Oscar Holland: 'Post-weird': How Chinese architecture evolved in the Xi Jinping era: ...once seen as an architects' playground...architects...are increasingly looking to the country's own history and culture for expressions of modernity...a post-millennium construction boom...Foreign architects...viewing the country as...a loosely-regulated tabula rasa on which to test bold new ideas...Yet, for every success, there were countless opportunities for ridicule..."China Homegrown: Chinese Experimental Architecture Reborn" offers examples of small-scale projects expressing national character through vernacular architecture...overseas designers have shown increased cultural sensitivity...local architects now have a "fairer chance." -- Robert Whitlock/Li Lei/Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF); I.M. Pei; Zaha Hadid Architects; OMA; Lu Andong; Wang Shu/Lu Wenyu; Ma Yansong/MAD Architects; WEI Architect; David Chipperfield; WSP; Büro Ole Scheeren; Li Hu/Open- CNN Style |
Umberto Bacchi: 'Living laboratory': New Dubai city pushes for green revolution in the desert: Comprising low-lying villas that are home to thousands, the city aims to be a "net-zero" settlement, producing all the energy it needs from renewable sources on site: In the Sustainable City, residents zig zag through the streets on bicycles or aboard small electric carts...Cars are banned from most of the area. -- Baharash Architecture- Place / Thomson Reuters Foundation |
Abbie Cheeseman & Finbar Anderson: A better Beirut? From street clean-ups to revived buildings, protests spur city innovation: Activists say a rising number of young people are harnessing the protests to crowdsource improvements to the capital city: What started with a handful of volunteers roaming the streets with garbage bags and brushes, morphed into an organised force offering their own trucks and warehouses to support local NGOs...deserted buildings have been repurposed for community initiatives...But whether the momentum can outlast the mass dissent remains to be seen.- Place / Thomson Reuters Foundation |
Cinnamon Janzer: Teen Urban Designers Transform Chicago Public Spaces: ...it sometimes seems like there’s nowhere for them to be in the adult-dominated real world. Territory, a Chicago-based nonprofit launched by architects Helen Slade, Mike Newman and Rashmi Ramaswany in 2012, has set out to change that..."it’s a reality that young people are perceived as liabilities when they’re in public spaces"...students receive mentorship and training from...architects, designers, engineers, urban planners...carried out several youth-led projects in collaboration with the city of Chicago...Inspired by Minneapolis’ Juxtaposition Arts and New York City’s Hester Street...“We want to show that young people really can have a voice and change the neighborhoods they live in."- Next City (formerly Next American City) |
Nick Van Mead: The quiet failure of a Chinese developer’s ‘Manhattan in Africa’: A refusal to include affordable housing led Johannesburg to reject glossy plans for high-end housing, offices, a rail station and entertainment district. It seems the city will get disconnected car-centric gated communities instead: Modderfontein was to be to Johannesburg what Eko Atlantic is to Lagos, Nigeria - a shiny new start...that promised to fix all its existing problems...Frances Brill [and] Ricardo Reboredo...interviewed 50 consultants, architects, engineers and local authority planners involved to piece together what happened...a rare example of an African city that had the courage to push back against external investment that would have benefited only the elite. -- Zendai Group; Atkins; Arup- Guardian Cities (UK) |
Elizabeth Bains: Museum of the Future: The building designed by an algorithm: Even in a city building as quickly, and as much, as Dubai, the [museum] is known as one of the most challenging construction projects ever attempted: Local architectural firm Killa Design...came up with the shape...it would have been an impossible undertaking without parametric design and Building Information Modelling (BIM)...aims for a LEED Platinum...exhibitions also will emphasise sustainability...hopes to offer an optimistic view of the future...Even before opening, it...has become a showcase for future technology building design. -- BuroHappold- BBC Future |
Five top landscape firms join forces to save the National Mall Tidal Basin: DLANDstudio, GGN, Hood Design Studio, James Corner Field Operations, and Reed Hilderbrand...to maximize the Tidal Basin’s potential as a public space. The coalition exists within the National Mall Tidal Basin Ideas Lab...hopes to compile a broad range of perspectives from the firms in order to combat the many challenges...proposals will be presented in an Ideas Lab exhibition slated to run next summer... -- National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP)- The Architect's Newspaper |
World Monuments Fund Announces 2020 World Monuments Watch: Bears Ears, Easter Island, Landscape near Machu Picchu among 25 At-Risk Sites: ...facing daunting threats such as encroaching urbanization, political turmoil, natural disaster, and violent conflicts, or present compelling conservation opportunities.- World Monuments Fund/WMF |
Marcus Fairs: Design Museum rescued by £3 million loan after financial position deemed "not sustainable": Falling attendances...contributed to a cash crisis earlier this year that left the institute with a deficit of £1.2 million...Paying visitors decreased 20%...Revenue fall blamed on "specialist" exhibitions...rescued by a £3 million loan from Conran Foundation...Departure of directors "not related" to finances... -- Deyan Sudjic; Alice Black; Tim Marlow- Dezeen |
Oscar Perry Abello: More Equity in Architecture Equals More Equitable Development: Of all the resources denied or extracted from historically disenfranchised and marginalized communities...good design might seem like an afterthought. But...you can find architects at almost every turn...as Kimberley Dowdell explains..."if we diversify the profession, that actually creates more opportunities for people to actually work on the communities that they’re from...I define equity as making it right...equitable development is about acknowledging the wrongs of the past...and providing some level of remedy" -- HOK; National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA)- Next City (formerly Next American City) |
Hannah Wood: The Emerging Female Architects of East Africa: ...includes Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda - is currently in the middle of a construction boom...I went in search of...women from across East Africa, at different stages in their careers, who are making their mark on the future of the region’s built environment..."this is the moment for young women..." -- Victoria Heilman/VK Green Architects/Tanzanian Women Architects for Humanity (TAWAH); Emma Miloyo/Design Source/Architectural Association of Kenya; Devothe Mukeshimana/Journeyman International, Rwanda; Assumpta Nnaggenda-Musana/TECO, Uganda; Maliam Mdoko/Press Trust, Malawi- Archinect |
Africa's tallest building is set to open, and it's designed mostly by women: A building in Sandton, Johannesburg's financial center...The Leonardo, a 55-story building...measures 745 feet (227 meters) in height...Designed by South African firm Co-Arc International Architects...The team...was female-led, with nine of the 11 positions performed by women. This unusual fact...went unnoticed until a photo was taken...Malika Walele, 27, an architect who oversaw construction at the site from November 2017, spoke to CNN about the difficulties she faced in her role..."I really had to work hard to prove myself...I really had to step up and speak out - make sure that I was being heard by the men."- CNN Style |
An architect's guide to living on Mars: What would it take to live on Mars? In an imaginative talk, Bjarke Ingels shares his prototype Martian "city" in Dubai, where they're building technologies that humanity would need to thrive on the Red Planet. -- BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group [video]- TEDTalks |
ANN feature: Edward McGraw: Building Abundance #5: Small City Rejuvenation and Architectural Abundance: Schools are more than conduits of knowledge. Through regenerative design, architects can rethink of how learning is delivered that emphasizes its importance to small cities and rural areas.- ArchNewsNow.com |
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