Today’s News - Tuesday, August 11, 2020
● Saffron parses what looks to be a building boom in Philly that includes 3,600 new apartments (and some "bird-killing all-glass towers"): "A real neighborhood could finally emerge on the Delaware River. And that's just the waterfront" (developers "scrambling" to cash in on a "lucrative" property tax abatement program before it expires).
● King parses RAMSA's deluxe Nob Hill condo project and Leddy Maytum Stacy's Mission Bay apartment building that includes units reserved for formerly homeless veterans: They "serve much different needs" but share "something more basic - the need for all housing to offer a sense of being at home - crucial if we're to build diverse, livable cities that will last" (backyards "to die for" included).
● Eyefuls of the "father of New Urbanism" Leon Krier & Ben Pentreath's resoundingly approved Fawley Waterside "smart town" on the Hampshire coast that will include 1,500 homes and "swathes of other facilities" that "will sprawl beyond the boundaries of the now-demolished power station on to the surrounding national park."
● Ravenscroft reports on MAD Architects' "sinuous" Wormhole Library on the Chinese island of Hainan overlooking the South China Sea - the first in a series of seven pavilions to be "built as part of a rejuvenation plan to improve public space along the coastline of Haikou Bay."
● William Morgan cheers two new bus shelters near Providence, RI's new pedestrian bridge that are "handsome and distinctive - almost elegant, but could their design have been a little more adventurous? Why do we so often attempt architecture without architects?"
● Dickinson parses Christopher Alexander "building a legacy in beauty. Starting with humanity in architecture that uses AI as a tool - versus the driver - of architects," it has evolved into the Building Beauty Program in Sorrento, Italy + perspectives of "5 central creator/implementators."
● Harvard GSD's student- and recent grad-organized "Design Yard Sale raises $126,000 to benefit non-profit anti-racism organizations - a constructive way to celebrate both design's tangible fruits, and its potential for social agency."
● Kate Wagner offers the fascinating "secret history of America's worthless Confederate monuments. Far from 'magnificent' artistic masterpieces, they are the Campbell's Soup Cans of Confederate hagiography - about as easy to produce as the average fire hydrant."
● Architectural historian and preservationist Anna Marcum calls for "mass-removal" of "mass-produced" Confederate monuments: "They will not be missed. Put them in a field in the middle of nowhere. A simple plaque cannot right the ideological wrongs of the Confederacy."
● Brazil's "government seeks to install antennas and cables above three architectural masterpieces by Oscar Niemeyer - reportedly designed to detect and 'neutralize' drones. Brazil's National Institute for Historic and Artistic Heritage was reportedly unimpressed by the plans."
● Call for entries: Biodesign Challenge 21, international competition that partners high school and university students with scientists, artists, and designers to envision, create, and critique transformational applications in biotech.
● Call for submissions: 1<WORLD<2: McHarg Center's McBlog is looking for perspectives on other ways of knowing/producing knowledge outside of the Western traditions; open to all students and early-career practitioners who wish to contribute to discourse re: ways of drawing and acting in the world-in-process.
COVID-19 news continues:
● Davidson: "Pundits fired up their anti-New York prejudices: city folk are constantly exhaling all over each other. When hell is other people, the path to salvation runs through a cul-de-sac. Turns out it isn't" - as a new study reported in the Journal of the American Planning Association found - "density is not the enemy."
● Crosbie's great Q&A with planner, urban designer, and Smart Growth advocate Shima Hamidi, who led the "new, landmark study" that "challenges assumptions about urban design and pandemics - density doesn't kill - sprawl does."
● Mathias Agbo, Jr. pens a thoughtful letter from Nigeria: "As an African, my perspective is both unique to our continent and universal to everyone. Solving the new problems created by Covid-19 will ultimately mean tackling the old ones. So many designers and planners have offered viable solutions - now is the time for authorities to listen."
● An impressive group of Canadian architects weigh in on how architectural design and practice is "changing in the face of the pandemic" - and "the sometimes worrisome, but often hopeful impacts of COVID-19 so far, in 11 different sectors."
● AEC firms serving the hospitality sector "foresee mostly renovation and adaptive reuse, rather than new construction," and are "girding for a spate of hotel foreclosures - some of these properties will likely be converted to multifamily, mixed use, or student housing."
● An illustrated scenario of "what coronavirus will do to our offices and homes," followed by input from Burney, Pearman, Choi, and others.
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Inga Saffron: Thousands more apartments are being proposed in Philly. Who will live there? Nevermind the pandemic and economic uncertainty, developers believe this is a good time to be building: A real neighborhood could finally emerge on the Delaware River. And that’s just the waterfront. Across the city, developers are scrambling to put together housing proposals before Philadelphia’s lucrative 10-year property tax abatement expires Dec. 31...August proposals would produce 3,600 new apartments - just slightly less than all the housing units that were approved in 2019...but how many of these projects are likely to be built? -- ISA; SCB; JKRP architects; Harman Deutsch Ohler Architecture- Philadelphia Inquirer |
John King: On Nob Hill and in Mission Bay, two new housing projects serve much different needs: But they share one profoundly satisfying aspect: Their backyards are to die for...Crescent, 44 deluxe condominiums...Edwin M. Lee Apartments, where 62 of the 119 units are reserved for formerly homeless veterans...The appeal in each case...[is] something more basic - the need for all housing, no matter the price level or architectural approach, to offer a sense of being at home...crucial if we’re to build diverse, livable cities that will last. -- Robert A.M. Stern Architects; Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects; Saida + Sullivan Design Partners; GLS Landscape Architecture- San Francisco Chronicle |
Greg Pitcher: Poundbury mastermind Leon Krier’s south coast ‘smart town’ approved: to replace 1960s power station with 1,500 homes swathes of other facilities to forge a ’smart town’ on the Hampshire coast: ...proposed Fawley Waterside scheme...will house up to 3,500 people and create almost 100,000m² of commercial, civic and employment space...will sprawl beyond the boundaries of the now-demolished power station on to the surrounding national park. -- Ben Pentreath- The Architects' Journal (UK) |
Tom Ravenscroft: MAD Architects reveals Wormhole Library overlooking the South China Sea: ...intended "to be a wormhole that transcends time and space"...in the city of Haikou on the Chinese island of Hainan...curved concrete building will house a library and facilities for users of the park...the first in a series of seven pavilions that are going to be built along the coast of Haikou Bay as part of the rejuvenation plan. -- Ma Yansong- Dezeen |
William Morgan: RIPTA’s New Bus Shelters: Bus stop shelters are a decidedly un-dramatic and non-sexy topic...the pair of just completed bus shelters.near the pedestrian bridge...are worth reviewing as attractive new contributors to the city's streetscape. These handsome and distinctive architectural elements were a real surprise...almost elegant, but could their design have been a little more adventurous...What if RIPTA had considered a competition...Why accept the good, when we might have had the great? Why do we so often attempt architecture without architects? -- WSP; Moskow Linn Architects- GoLocalProv.com (Providence, Rhode Island) |
Duo Dickinson: Christopher Alexander is Building a Legacy in Beauty: Artificial Intelligence (AI) might just eliminate architecture as a career...architect, educator, and author...has spent over 50 years revealing humanity in design and creation. Starting with humanity in architecture that uses AI as a tool - versus the driver - of architects...evolved to be an academic crystallization of his extraordinary theory and practice, the Building Beauty Program in Sorrento, Italy...University of Hartford has extended full academic credit for the...program's fully crafted pedagogy and classes...5 central creator/implementators are at the core...Their perspectives reveal why, how and what the program is: -- Maggie Moore Alexander; Sergio Porta; Yodan Rofè; Susan Ingham/KASA Architecture; Or Ettlinger- ArchDaily |
Student-organized Design Yard Sale raises $126,000 to benefit non-profit anti-racism organizations: ...a cohort of five Harvard GSD students and recent graduates...felt driven to rewire design’s agency amid a national reckoning on race and justice, one in which the design fields have been directly implicated...the concept of offering distinctive design items...arose as a constructive way to celebrate both design’s tangible fruits, and its potential for social agency...group secured fiscal sponsorship from the Architectural League of New York...- Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) |
Kate Wagner: The Secret History of America’s Worthless Confederate Monuments: They’re cheap, mass produced, and celebrate the Jim Crow South. Far from “magnificent” artistic masterpieces, [they] are the Campbell’s Soup Cans of Confederate hagiography...about as easy to produce as the average fire hydrant...In the late 19th and early 20th century, the Monumental Bronze Company...sold versions...for as little as $450...On Richmond’s Monument Avenue, the stone base of Robert E. Lee’s bronze statue is now painted over with graffiti and signage...a living monument...anticipates a more participatory city - the very antithesis of what it was originally meant to convey. -- Society of Architectural Historians (SAH); McMansionHell- The New Republic |
Anna Marcum: Mass Produced, Mass Removal: Op-Ed: A Confederate monument graveyard is within our grasp: I am frequently asked my opinion... “so, what do you think we should do about Confederate monuments?” My answer? Take them down. Unequivocally. Remove them from town squares, parks, boulevards, and civic buildings. They will not be missed...My proposal? Put them in a field in the middle of nowhere...A simple plaque cannot right the ideological wrongs of the Confederacy.- The Architect's Newspaper |
Brazil's modernist palaces could soon be disfigured by anti-drone systems: Government seeks to install antennas and cables above three architectural masterpieces by Oscar Niemeyer, report claims: President Jair Bolsonaro’s security chiefs are cooking up plans that could radically disfigure three of the modernist palaces at the heart of Niemeyer’s masterpiece...antennas - reportedly designed to detect and “neutralize” drones...increasingly used for “threatening and hostile acts”...Brazil’s National Institute for Historic and Artistic Heritage was reportedly unimpressed by the plans.- Guardian (UK) |
Call for entries: Biodesign Challenge 21, international competition partners high school and university students with scientists, artists, and designers to envision, create, and critique transformational applications in biotech; early brid registration deadline (save money!): September 1 (regular & late registration: December 18 & January 15)- Biodesign Challenge |
Call for submissions: 1<WORLD<2: McHarg Center's McBlog is looking for perspectives on other ways of knowing/producing knowledge outside of the Western traditions; open to all students and early-career practitioners who wish to contribute to discourse surrounding ways of drawing and acting in the world-in-process.- McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design |
Justin Davidson: COVID-19 Studies Are Proving That Density Is Not the Enemy: Pundits fired up their anti-New York prejudices: city folk are constantly exhaling all over each other; suburbanites can relax in their roving decontamination chambers on wheels. When hell is other people, the path to salvation runs through a cul-de-sac...Turns out it wasn’t...A new report in the Journal of the American Planning Association [APA]...concludes that density doesn’t make a city sick; crowding and connectivity do. It’s important to disentangle those concepts...It’s not about how close your neighbors are; it’s about where you go and whom you see...density isn’t destiny...It’s the mutual interdependence of cities and suburbs that defines both our richness and our vulnerability. -- Shima Hamidi/Johns Hopkins; Sadegh Sabouri & Reid Ewing/University of Utah- New York Magazine |
Michael J. Crosbie: When It Comes to Covid-19, Density Doesn’t Kill - Sprawl Does: A new, landmark study challenges assumptions about urban design and pandemics: ...Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health challenges much of this “conventional wisdom"...led by Shima Hamidi...a planner, urban designer, and Smart Growth advocate...Q&A re: her research and the implications for community and urban design: "Crowded places are the source of transmission of the disease, not the density of a city...Our research wanted to distinguish between the two...findings suggest that architects’, planners’, and urban designers’ roles in addressing the pandemic crisis are not in changing the paradigm of compact community design...pandemics are deadlier in low-density and isolated areas...- Common Edge |
Mathias Agbo, Jr.: Letter From Nigeria: Covid and the African City: As an African, my perspective is both unique to our continent and universal to everyone: ...there’s much speculation about what our cities will look like in a post-Covid era. Many believe there will be a significant shift in the planning, design, and operation of cities...predicting the future...while in the middle of a pandemic, is problematic at best...it might be more helpful to look at how the pandemic has exposed and amplified longstanding urban problems...Solving the new problems created by Covid-19 will ultimately mean tackling the old ones...long-standing and well-documented. So many designers and planners and theorists have offered viable solutions. I believe now is the time for authorities to listen.- Common Edge |
Pandemic effect: How are architectural design and practice changing in the face of the pandemic? We spoke to Canadian architects about the sometimes worrisome, but often hopeful impacts of COVID-19 so far, in 11 different sectors. -- Michel Broz/Jodoin Lamarre Pratte; Darryl Condon & Melissa Higgs/HCMA; Robert Davies/Montgomery Sisam; Jason-Emery Groen/HDR; Susan Gushe & Kathy Wardle/Perkins and Will; Bruce Kuwabara, Mitchell Hal, Kael Opie & Geoff Turnbull/KPMB Architects; Matthew Lella/Diamond Schmitt; Caroline Robbie/Quadrangle; Graeme Stewart & Ya’el Santopinto/ERA; Vincent Van Den Brink/Breakhouse; Betsy Williamson/Williamson Williamson- Canadian Architect magazine |
Renovations could be hospitality’s stopgap for next few years: Modular and prefab construction are already more prominent: ...AEC firms serving this sector ...foresee mostly renovation and adaptive reuse, rather than new construction...girding for a spate of hotel foreclosures...Distressed and half-built assets will be in demand among private equity firms, and some of these properties will likely be converted to multifamily, mixed use, or student housing...Hotel survival is all about rebuilding guests’ confidence about their safety... HKS; CetraRuddy; SmithGroup; Cooper Carry- Building Design + Construction (BD+C) |
This is what coronavirus will do to our offices and homes: One day, the virus will subside. It could be eradicated. But even then, life will not simply return to the way it was before Covid-19...Architects envisage that creative thinking and new technology will help keep them relevant. -- David Burney; Hugh Pearman/Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA); Grace Choi; Dale Sinclair/AECOM; Ben Channon/Assael Architecture; Sadie Morgan/dRMM- BBC News |
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