Columbia University GSAPP Presents their fourth conference on architecture, engineering and materials March 30 to April 1 at Wood Auditorium in Avery Hall. Permanent Change: Plastics in Architecture and Engineering explores the boundaries between architecture, engineering and materials science by mobilizing symposia, studios, exhibitions, books and films in an intensely focused investigation.
When Dale Morgan and Norman Silk spotted a “For Sale” sign in front of a contemporary home in the Palmer Woods neighborhood of Detroit it was just what they were looking for, so they snatched it up. Little did they know that they had just stumbled into buying a true Frank Lloyd Wright designed home, known as the Turkel House.
To answer the question you are all asking yourselves, how could they not have known, it turns out that 25 years of disrepair, long periods of vacancy and changing owners hands combined with years of deferred maintenance and overgrown vegetation can hide a FLW design quite well.
More following the break.
Over 130 artists are continuing to call attention to the working conditions at the site of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, despite the recent intervention by the Guggenheim Foundation and Museum and changes from the Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC). The $800 million museum designed by Frank Gehry is just beginning construction on Saadiyat Island.
The group of artists talking boycott, including key figures within the Middle Eastern art world, are threatening to withhold their work as well as refusing participation in museum events, which could be detrimental to the museum as they are essentially building a collection from the ground up. In response to the artists proposed boycott, Foundation Director Richard Armstrong issued the following statement, ”While we share the artists’ concern for the workers, we believe that, in light of the steady progress that has been made with respect to recruitment fees, the prompt payment of wages, the ability to retain passports, the provision of health insurance, good living accommodations, and the imminent appointment of an independent monitor in May, their statement is misinformed. We believe that the Guggenheim Foundation’s work with TDIC has been instrumental in bringing about this progress. We will continue to remain focused on this critical priority.”
More on this story following the break.
Scaffoldage is a collection of scaffolding photographs highlighting construction throughout the world. Maintained by Shaun Usher, each image links to its corresponding project, location and photographer.
The University of Washington College of Built Environments presents Next Eco-City, a symposium on Emergent Urbanism April 7th and 8th. Next Eco-City will critically explore the relationships between environment, equity, economy and design in our rapidly urbanizing world; investigate the dynamics and implications of rapid urban growth in the emerging mega-cities of the global south; and examine emerging tactics and approaches that recognize the urban landscape as network of interconnected and spontaneous possibilities.
“I was privileged to collaborate with Bucky for the last 12 years of his life and this had a profound influence on my own work and thinking. Inevitably, I also gained an insight into his philosophy and achievements,” shared Lord Norman Foster.
Recreating the legendary futuristic Dymaxion Car, Foster’s No. 4 version was a lengthy and expensive two year project, but was obviously a labor of love. Buckminster Fuller’s futuristic three wheeled car was brief, with a mere three actually built. Incredibly efficient the streamlined body with long tail-fin averaged 35 miles to the gallon and could achieve 120 mph. The Zeppelin inspired design with a V8 Ford engine was intended to fly as well, Fuller’s vision of revolutionizing how people traveled.
More following the break.
The formal opening of the 76-story 870 foot skyscraper New York by Gehry (previously Beekman Tower) was held this past Saturday. In celebration with hundreds of guests, the occasion also marked the Pritzker Prize winning architects 82nd birthday.
New York by Gehry, located within the Lower Manhattan skyline, has a recognizable facade of stainless steel cladding appearing as draped fabric. Now the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere the building boasts 903 luxury rental units and 22,000 sqf of amenity space. A building under a lot of scrutiny during its design and construction phase, the completed New York by Gehry received remarks of praise from architecture critics stating that it is “the finest skyscraper to rise in New York since Eero Saarinen’s CBS building went up 46 years ago,” (NY Times) and from the New Yorker, “one of the most beautiful towers downtown”.
Our previous coverage of New York by Gehry including a short video about the design can be found here.
When Facebook announced it was relocating its headquarters to the Sun Microsystems campus in the Menlo Park area there were many mixed emotions. With bright eyed optimism Facebook has approached the move as not just gaining much needed space for the growing company, but also as an opportunity to have a vested interest in the adjacent Belle Haven neighborhood. Sun Microsystems is a 57-acre campus with 11 interconnected buildings complete with marshlands and the Bayshore Expressway as its borders; a clearly introverted campus and typical Silicon Valley image of a stale tinted window office park. Facebook however has set out to provide a more inspiring place for their employees (their former Palo Alto campus was nicknamed the Bunker).
Whether you call it a design charrette or in Facebook terms a hackathon, recently the AIA San Mateo and the city of Menlo Park gathered by the busloads over 150 architects, urban planners, and students along with local citizens for a 12-hour fast-paced collaborative design session to re-imagine the Menlo Park’s Belle Haven community. Red, Yellow, Blue and Green teams of 20-40 people were given free rain to let their imaginations run wild, designers first toured the campus and surrounding community and then hunkered down to discuss how the local amenities could be improved, the fortress feel of the campus could be overcome, and how to thoughtfully connect the new headquarters with the outside world.
Currently under construction Future Towers, a vertical city proposed by MVRDV, is part of the first phase of Amanora Apartment City. The design of 1,068 apartments & public amenities, as a part of a large scale housing development with a total of 400,000 sqm comprising 3,500 apartments is a response to the demand for housing in the rapidly growing city of Pune, India. The competition for the Future Towers design was won by MVRDV in November 2009. This is MVRDV’s first project in India presented to the public, who are currently also working on a range of projects in Mumbai and Bangalore.
Architects: MVRDV Project Management: Northcroft MEP: Neilsoft Structural Design: J+W
The FAST Light festival of art, science and technology celebrates MIT’s culture of creativity and invention. Beginning in February installations, pavilions and artwork have transformed the campus continuing thru May. Installations demonstrate how the tools of ‘technology, invention and fantasy can transform the physical environment in thought-provoking, breathtaking ways.’
Architecture in the Americas will be the discussion for the upcoming two day symposium at the Univeristy of Texas at Austin School of Architecture.
This year the AIA Housing Awards have been assembled into four categories, a reflection of the AIA’s commitment to acknowledge ‘the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit and a valuable national resource’. The categories are as follows:
One and Two Family Custom Residences One and Two Family Production Homes Multifamily Housing Specialized Housing
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Olson Kundig Architects, and David Baker & Partners were double award winners. Many of these projects along with their firms have been featured on ArchDaily. Follow the break for a complete list of the 2011 AIA Housing Award winners.
Exploring modern design and a technological future, the 1930s World Fair’s held in Chicago, San Diego, Cleveland, Dallas, and New York featured architects and industrial designers such as Raymond Loewy, Norman Bel Geddes, Henry Dreyfuss, and Walter Dorwin Teague. A modern, technological tomorrow unlike anything seen before, the World Fair’s presented visions of the future including designs for the cities and houses of tomorrow with a lifestyle of modern furnishings which were viewed by tens of million of visitors.
Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s exhibition is currently on display at the National Building Museum in Washington DC thru July 10, 2011. Building models, architectural remnants, drawings, paintings, prints, furniture, along with period film footage are all included within the exhibit.
Inspired by Up from Disney/Pixar, National Geographic’s “How Hard Can It Be?” television series transformed fiction into reality when they constructed and flew a 16×16 ft house with 300 balloons.
Taking two weeks from initial assignment to actual flight a team of scientist, engineers, and balloon pilots flew the small house with people on board for one hour at 10,000 feet.
A video and more photographs following the break.
This paper partition system was first implemented in 2004 after an earthquake in Niigata, Japan. Utilizing white cloth for partitions, joints were made of plywood, and ropes were used for braces. Simple cardboard sheets were offered for insulation and to create a border between families who craved privacy from their neighbors. Initially the cardboard was only used to cover the floor, however after the number of evacuees decreased, the cardboard was used to create partitions for night time privacy.
Shigeru Ban Architects adapted and tweaked the initial honeycomb board design changing it out for a strut beam structure using paper tubes. The change in material provides a quicker response and convenience at any site.
More photographs and information about Shigeru Ban Architects paper partition system following the break.
Today at 1pm SCI-Arc will feature Mohamed Sharif: Recent Work. Sharif, principal of Sharif Studio is also a faculty member of SCI-Arc. Prior to joining SCI-Arc, he was Assistant Chair of the Architecture/Landscape/Interiors department at Otis for two years and has taught at schools including his alma mater and RISD since 1994.
Lectures and discussions are held at W.M. Keck Lecture Hall and are broadcast live online. Parking and admission are free, no reservations are required.
Designer of UK Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo, Thomas Heatherwick was one of the speakers featured at the recent 2011 TED conference. Heatherwick and his design team won the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) commission to create the Pavilion following a competition that attracted a shortlist of ambitious architectural proposals. Exploring the relationship between nature and cities Heatherwick Studio sought an approach that would engage meaningfully with Shanghai Expo’s theme, Better City, Better Life, and stand out from the anticipated trend for technology driven pavilions, filled with audio-visual content on screens, projections and speakers.
The Huffington Post sat down with Thomas Heatherwick following his TED talk. Discussing China’s building boom and his creative process the full interview is featured following the break.
The Luzern Stadtarchive is conceived as a marker in the landscape. XTEN Architecture‘s entry for a library competition in Switzerland the design was driven by orienting the public areas to the landscape, the site topography and adjacent mountains.
Architects: XTEN Architecture Location: Luzern, Switzerland Principals: Monika Haefelfinger & Austin Kelly Project Team: Scott Utterstrom, Jae Rodriguez, Tina Rothermund, Annie Ritz, Qichen Cao Project Area: 4,750 sqm Renderings: Courtesy of XTEN Architecture
