Today’s News - Tuesday, December 3, 2019

●  A doubly sad way to start the day: Anderton honors SCI-Arc founder and architect Ray Kappe, 92, "one of the pillars of Los Angeles architecture," and "pays tribute to a life well-lived, through interviews with some of those who knew him, as well as clips from Kappe himself."

●  Walker & Chandler honor Kappe, "LA's trailblazing modernist architect. 'The world of architecture would not be what it is without him,'" sayeth SCI-Arc director Hernán Díaz Alonso.

●  Rozzo pays tribute to Dion Neutra, 93, "Between them, Richard and Dion Neutra exerted their influence upon the built environment" with "lithe and airy structures - at once elegant and breezy. Dion was perhaps best known for his work as an aggressive and sometimes prickly steward of the Neutra legacy."

●  Davidson x 2: Perhaps the third try will be the charm re: new plans for Lincoln Center's Geffen Hall: "In place of that eggshell-and-gold light box, we'll get an architectural turducken," with public spaces by Tod Williams Billie Tsien, and "Diamond Schmitt's curvaceous blond-wood auditorium. (Heatherwick is no longer involved - another cannonball dodged.)"

●  He parses the perils of a proposal for two 39-story apartment towers a block away from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. "Swaths of Olmstedian wilderness nuzzle remnants of Beaux-Arts symmetry and strokes of sleek modernism - being drawn into the wars over scarce urban resources: housing, light, and air. New York should bake the right to sunlight in public spaces into its laws. Green spaces aren't fungible or a frill. They're what make the city livable."

●  In Chicago, AS+GG's supertall Tribune Tower East "proposal returns with minimal changes - the majority of the revisions focus on how the development will handle vehicle loading, traffic circulation, and pedestrian access - arguably more exciting change - improvements to the adjacent riverfront plaza and a realigned pedestrian promenade."

●  Meanwhile, London's second tallest skyscraper, the Trellis by Eric Parry, "gets the go-ahead after three-year fight - despite concerns its 73-storey, 1,000ft height will blight views of the Tower of London" (lots of pix!) + A round-up of "London's giants."

●  Moore revisits "a very British fiasco," the Millennium Dome, 20 years later: "It was supposed to be the ultimate symbol of Cool Britannia. Instead it became a nightmare that exposed the spin and hubris. It set a pattern in which the skills and integrity of architects were crushed by the mechanics of public-private partnerships" ("a Thames-side bog with a plastic bag over its face" - ouch!).

●  Aliento reports on Australia's affordable housing crisis - and "some small moves to fix a big problem," with local governments "now stepping up to the plate - state and federal budgets for affordable housing are 'pathetic.'"

●  On a (slightly) brighter note, "abandoned malls are sputtering back to life with mega-churches, rooftop pools, and homeless shelters. Municipalities and developers nationwide have come up with unique ways to give dying shopping centers new life."

●  Morgan cheers RISD's new dorm by Tehrani's NADAA as a "design triumph - the kind of serious, innovative, and environmentally sensitive public work of art that Providence should be encouraging" by "a thoughtful artist who would rather be good than trendy. Subtly wins over flash."

●  Crosbie's great Q&A with Frances Halsband: The "architect who never designed a hospital gives a doctor just what he ordered" for a surgical clinic in Kyabirwa, Uganda.

●  Baldwin rounds up a series of public projects over the last decade that are "building a new vernacular" in modern Morocco.

●  Scarpa on paid competitions: "What is sorely needed is an organization that officially sanctions all design competitions and proves that they have the ability to pay the design professional in accordance with industry standards and have the funds to build the projects" (with links to some other interesting commentary).

●  ICYMI: ANN feature: INSIGHT: Conners Ladner: Designing Landscapes to Adapt to Hurricane Season: By focusing on cultivating native ecosystems, landscape architects can help to build landscapes that are both more resilient and more authentic to place.

Going green:

●  Lam minces no words: "We're in a climate crisis with a 2030 deadline. Let's act like it. In Canada, our government's policies overall are 'insufficient' to 'highly insufficient'" (can Canadian Architects Declare's call for "immediate action" make a difference?).

●  Sitz parses Obama's keynote at Greenbuild 2019 re: sustainability and affordability: "He identified two connected concerns as the most critical: climate change and the economy. Authentic concern for constituents was just one of the leadership strategies. He emphasized the importance of convening a diverse team."

●  Dixon & Oldfield, two of the authors of "Guide to Low Carbon Commercial New Builds," one in a series of free, technical guides, explain that "several years of research, combined with case studies - demystify and summarize best-practice, integrated low-carbon design principles."

●  Zeller on Quadrangle's 80 Atlantic, Toronto, "Eastern Canada's first mass timber office building. Any leftover prejudices against wood have been demolished - led by the pioneering work of Canadian architects and engineers."

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