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Today’s News - Wednesday, June 24, 2020

● Holland brings us eyefuls of NBBJ's Net City, "a Monaco-sized 'city of the future' in Shenzhen" for tech giant Tencent that "will prioritize pedestrians, green spaces and self-driving vehicles" for a population of some 80,000.

● Mike Yorke, president of the Carpenters' District Council of Ontario, parses Sidewalk Labs' canceled Quayside in Toronto that "was to be built entirely from mass timber - a chief selling point. The legacy of the concept is still there. Mass timber has not gone away. It is just getting started."

● Kamin uses Studio Gang's soon-to-open Vista Tower to start a tour of "Chicago's impressive gallery of 'down-the-alley' views - the long vistas of such buildings form an important, but overlooked, part of Chicago's architectural glory - no eyesores in this bunch."

● Machado Silvetti's Glass House Project to wrap in glass part of ruins of Menokin, the 1769 home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence in Virginia, will make "fingerprints in handmade bricks, marks of hand tools, and the successes and failures of the builders" visible, and oofer "views of the surrounding landscape - where generations of enslaved laborers once worked."

● Brussat, not unexpectedly, takes issue the Menokin project: "If its 'restoration' goes forward - its beauty and its legacy will be condemned to oblivion. The intention is unobjectionable, but the project has, it seems to me, gone off the rails - a shame and a betrayal."

● Speaking of historic preservation - and good news for preservation advocates and fans: the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH) online content is free to all through June 30.

● Belogolovsky's great Q&A with Chengdu, China-based Liu Jiakun, architect of the inaugural Serpentine Pavilion Beijing: "His architecture is rooted in social and vernacular traditions - and is characterized as being fully integrated with nature. What is a good building for you? 'Well, it is like defining oneself, which is a very difficult task.'"

● Cogley brings us Kengo Kuma's chicken coop at Casa Wabi artist retreat in Mexico: "Better acquainted with projects for people, the firm decided to adapt the model of communal housing for the birds."

● While we're checking out chicken coops, Ravenscroft brings us Goldsmith's urban floating chicken farm in Rotterdam (check out the pix of the photo-bombing - 'er render-bombing - chicken - one of 7,000 - that's a lotta hens!).

● Call for entries: "BRIDGING" Yongxin Old City Wenxing Bridge International Design Competition; open to professionals & students (big(!) cash prizes).

● Eyefuls of the winners and finalists in the Yangliuqing National Grand Canal Culture Park Master Competition, "intended as a new way to kick-start the overall development of Western Tianjin."

● Yale School of Architecture students win the 2020 HUD Innovation in Affordable Housing Student Design & Planning Competition for a housing proposal for Santa Fe, New Mexico, that included an innovative financing model.

COVID-19 news continues:

● ""This Is Not the End of Cities," Part 1 of Florida's 3-part essay that "breaks down overlapping crises that are reshaping America's cities" - he "examines why predictions of the impending end of cities are overblown - and why they may come back stronger."

● Chayka looks into "how the Coronavirus will reshape architecture - we have arrived at a new juncture of disease and architecture. The challenge is reconciling the need for a long-term architectural plan with the pandemic's ongoing unknowability."

● Miranda asks 12 experts about how L.A. should be redesigned for coronavirus: "It will have architects reaching for new technologies and reintroducing old ones. But first, architecture firms must weather the pandemic. The majority expressed anxiety about what is to come."

● Sorokanich talks to six experts about "how we'll live, work, and play in cities after COVID-19" - the "architects and urban planners explain the changes coming to our shared spaces."

● Stathaki looks at an international roster of architects and organizations who are "sharing ideas, initiatives and design proposals that would help us navigate spatially this strange 'new normal'" (nary a whiff of - or very little - PR-chitecture).

● Neal E. Robbins: "The trampling of Venice [and other frail destinations] shows why tourism must change after Covid-19 - one that also benefits residents" requiring "a new mindset [to] see destinations as people's homes, not just attractions."

● Diamond Schmitt's Matthew Lella looks at "how COVID-19 could impact theater design. It's hard to see how we could open a traditional theater with social distancing restrictions, unless we are clever about it" ("double family bubbles," anyone?).

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Oscar Holland: Tencent is building a Monaco-sized 'city of the future' in Shenzhen: Technology giant...plans for an almost entirely car-free..."Net City"...will prioritize pedestrians, green spaces and self-driving vehicles...ambitious city-within-a-city is set to occupy a stretch of reclaimed land jutting out into the Pearl River estuary...to accommodate a population of some 80,000 people...plan centers around a "green corridor" designed for buses, bikes and autonomous vehicles...an "interconnected, human-focused organic ecosystem"...individual buildings...will be designed by variety of different architecture firms. -- Jonathan Ward/NBBJ- CNN Style

Op-Ed: Mike Yorke: The upshot of Sidewalk Labs’ canceled Toronto project: The ambitious development...was to be built entirely from mass timber...use of modular cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glue-laminated timber (glulam) was a chief selling point...But the project’s cancellation changes little regarding mass timber’s future...the true legacy of [Quayside ] lies [with] wood construction...a test case for what’s possible...all these ideas can be picked up by other developers...The legacy of the concept is still there...Mass timber has not gone away. It is just getting started. -- Heatherwick Studio; Snøhetta; Michael Green Architecture- The Architect's Newspaper

Blair Kamin: Jeanne Gang-designed, soon to open Vista Tower adds to Chicago’s impressive gallery of ‘down-the-alley’ views: ...the soon to open 101-story, 1,191-foot-tall [tower] by Studio Gang is giving northbound drivers on Lake Shore Drive a high-octane visual jolt...brings a dose of geometric fluidity to the city’s strait-laced skyline...the long vistas of such buildings...form an important, but overlooked, part of Chicago’s architectural glory...There are no eyesores in this bunch, as the following examples show: -- Holabird & Root; Graham, Anderson, Probst & White; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge; Frank O. Gehry & Associates; Ernest A. Grunsfeld Jr.- Chicago Tribune

Glass House Project launched for Menokin, home of Francis Lightfoot Lee: ...new model for restoration that will preserve the remaining portions of the 1769 house and replace missing walls, floors, and sections of the roof with sections of glass...home built by the signer of the Declaration of Independence...direct connections to Menokin’s past can be found among the ruins. Fingerprints are visible in handmade bricks, marks of hand tools are etched on the timbers, and the successes and failures of the builders are revealed...views of the surrounding landscape through the glass walls will continually connect visitors to the natural environment and the traces of the tobacco plantation where generations of enslaved laborers once worked. -- Machado Silvetti; DATA Investigations; Eckersley O’Callaghan; Encore Sustainable Architects; John Fidler; Reed Hilderbrand; Tillotson Design Associates- The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia)

David Brussat: Aborting Menokin’s legacy: ...built in 1769 by Francis Lightfoot Lee...the only remaining unpreserved home of a Virginia signatory to the Declaration of Independence...If its “restoration” goes forward...it will remain the only such unpreserved homestead. Its beauty and its legacy, however, will be condemned to oblivion...look at the image...Can anything worse be imagined? The intention is unobjectionable, but...the project has, it seems to me, gone off the rails...a shame and a betrayal...in these days of rage and absurdity, an argument could be made to destroy Menokin in order to atone for its place in history. Unwittingly, that is already being done. -- Machado & Silvetti Associates- Architecture Here and There

Free Access to Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH) Through June 2020: In recognition of the impact of coronavirus on campus instruction and the rise of unplanned distance learning, University of California Press is pleased to make all of our online journals content free to all through June 30, 2020.- Society of Architectural Historians (SAH)

Vladimir Belogolovsky: “In The 1990s, We All Became Free”: In Conversation with Liu Jiakun/Jiakun Architects: His architecture is rooted in social and vernacular traditions, oriental aesthetics, close observation of everyday life, refinement of folk skills and wisdom, and is characterized as being fully integrated with nature...What is a good building for you? "Well, it is like defining oneself, which is a very difficult task."- ArchDaily

Bridget Cogley: Kengo Kuma builds blackened-wood chicken coop at Casa Wabi artist retreat in Puerto Escondido, Mexico: Better acquainted with projects for people, the firm decided to adapt the model of communal housing for the birds...clay bricks were produced at Casa Wabi at a kiln for ceramics designed by Álvaro Siza...Kuma and Siza are among a number of other architects from around the world that Sodi has enlisted to build structures on the site. -- Tadao Ando; Gabinete de Arquitectura; Alberto Kalach- Dezeen

Tom Ravenscroft: Goldsmith unveils design for urban floating chicken farm in Rotterdam: ...set to be built alongside its existing waterborne dairy farm...Floating Farm Poultry...shares many of the same ideals of placing farming in the city, near to buyers...farm was also designed to be educational. Publicly accessible walkways...allow visitors to see how the farm operates.- Dezeen

Call for entries: “BRIDGING” Yongxin Old City Wenxing Bridge International Design Competition; open to professionals & students; Wenxing Bridge linking the new and old urban areas, and activating the blocks and landscape belts on both sides of the Heshui River; (big!) cash prizes; registration deadline: September 1 (submissions due September 15)- Yongxin County People’s Government / CBC (China Building Centre) / Urban Environment Design (UED) Magazine

Results: Yangliuqing National Grand Canal Culture Park Master Competition: As an important node on the Grand Canal, the future of Yangliuqing...to be the engine of the overall development of Western Tianjin. The competition is intended as a new way to kick-start urban planning motions... -- Kenya HARA X LIU Yichun Joint Team (Japan & China); Seung H-Sang; Martha Schwartz; XIE Xiaoying X QI Xin; Wang Xiangrong- Urban Environment Design / UED Magazine

Jack Balderrama Morley: Yale architecture students win HUD affordable housing competition: ...won the 2020 Housing and Urban Development Innovation in Affordable Housing Student Design & Planning Competition for a housing proposal for Santa Fe, New Mexico...Yale School of Architecture students Helen Farley, Kelley Johnson, and Jackson Lindsay, along with Yale School of Management student Eva Leung...credited their innovative financing model as part of the reason they won...“We began thinking about how we might design in policy or financing measures to ensure the long term vitality of the project..." - Alan Plattus- The Architect's Newspaper

Richard Florida: This Is Not the End of Cities [Part1]: Both the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement create opportunities to reshape cities in more equitable ways: ...a couple of years from now, we will look back and see that the roster of the world’s leading cities is unchanged...Urbanization has always proven the greater force...today's crises...underscore the need to rebuild...in ways that are better, more just, more inclusive, and more resilient...crises may...ultimately help to arrest a series of developments that have worked to undermine cities...the vanguards of a healthier, more sustainable and resilient future. Remaking and rebuilding...necessary first step in the long-overdue process of healing and recovery for our nation as a whole.- Bloomberg CityLab

Kyle Chayka: How the Coronavirus Will Reshape Architecture: What kinds of space are we willing to live and work in now? Much of modernist architecture [was] a consequence of the fear of disease, a desire to eradicate dark rooms and dusty corners where bacteria lurk...we have arrived at a new juncture of disease and architecture...we might find ourselves longing for a few more walls and dark corners...we’re also confronting the limits of public space...The challenge is reconciling the need for a long-term architectural plan with the pandemic’s ongoing unknowability. -- Alvar Aalto; Aino Aalto; Le Corbusier; Adolf Loos; Beatriz Colomina; Mies van der Rohe; Marcel Breuer; Koray Duman; Florian Idenburg/Jing Liu/SO-IL; Kisho Kurokawa; Paola Antonelli; Deborah Berke; Ilias Papageorgiou; Tobias Armborst/Georgeen Theodore/Interboro; Steven Holl- New Yorker

Carolina A. Miranda: How should L.A. be redesigned for coronavirus? Are doorknobs out? To live through the COVID-19 pandemic is to see the surfaces of our cities rewritten by invisible narratives of contagion...It will have architects reaching for new technologies and reintroducing old ones...But first, architecture firms, like all other businesses, must weather the pandemic...Of the 12 Los Angeles firms contacted...The majority...expressed anxiety about what is to come. -- Brett Steele/UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture; Mark Lee/Sharon Johnston/Johnston Marklee; Barbara Bestor/Bestor Architecture; Hernán Díaz Alonso/SCI-Arc; Bob Hale/RCH Studios; Lawrence/Brooks + Scarpa; Paul Danna/Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM); Thom Mayne/Morphosis; Rachel Allen/RADAR; Michael Maltzan Architecture; Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA); Milton Curry; Paul Murdoch Architects; Kulapat Yantrasast/wHY- Los Angeles Times

Lara Sorokanich: Six experts on how we’ll live, work, and play in cities after COVID-19: Architects and urban planners...explain the changes coming to our shared spaces. -- Janette Sadik-Khan/Bloomberg Associates; Kimberly Dowdell/HOK/National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA); Rachel Gutter, president of International WELL Building Institute; Joseph Allen/Harvard Chan School of Public Health; Andy Cohen/Gensler; Thomas Woltz/Nelson Bird Woltz landscape architects- Fast Company

Ellie Stathaki: Architecture seeks designs for a post-pandemic world: Ongoing debates in the industry range from education, workspace, community, construction, housing and anything that the last few months’ challenges have touched and transformed: ...the discussion in the community has been gathering pace, with designers and architects sharing ideas, initiatives and design proposals that would help us navigate spatially this strange ‘new normal’... -- Curl la Tourelle Head Architecture; Pallavi Dean/studio Roar; Hassell; Linda Morey-Burrows/MoreySmith; Joan Renaud/ACDF Architecture; Angie Lee/FXCollaborative; Tara Gbolade; Miranda MacLaren/Morris + Company; Sarah Goldblatt- Wallpaper*

Neal E. Robbins: The trampling of Venice shows why tourism must change after Covid-19: Coronavirus has given hotspots like the besieged Italian port breathing space - and a vision of a new, greener kind of tourism: ...over-tourism has a clear downside for the frailest destinations...mass tourism - adding to Venice’s existing issues...is bringing [it] to within a hair’s breadth of collapse...Yet Venetians believe that they can still save Venice...the months-long Covid-19 breathing space...ignited the hope that this difficult moment for the world could eventually offer a turning point...The need in...so many other destinations is for a new tourism, one that also benefits residents...requires a new mindset [to] see destinations as people’s homes, not just attractions.- Guardian (UK)

Matthew Lella/Diamond Schmitt Architects: How COVID-19 could impact theatre design: ...how to make socially distanced seating viable, and other implications COVID-19 might have for entertainment venue design: The return of live events in the transition following a pandemic can captivate and send a strong message...It’s hard to see how we could open a traditional theatre with social distancing restrictions, unless we are clever about it...The idea of ‘double household’ or ‘double family’ bubbles is already being talked about as a phase in easing social distancing...What does it look like to see groups of people 2 meters apart?- Auditoria magazine (UK)

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