Curated by Charles Waldheim, Ruettgers Consulting Curator of Landscape, the 'Composite Landscapes: Photomontage and Landscape Architecture' exhibition opens this Thursday, June 27th, at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Examining the montage view, one of landscape architecture's most recognizable representational forms, the exhibit gathers work from a select group of influential contemporary artists and a dozen of the world's leading landscape architects. These composite views reveal practices of photomontage depicting the conceptual, experiential, and temporal dimensions of landscape. The exhibit runs until September 2nd. For more information, please visit here.
Los Angeles River: The Latest Architecture and News
'Composite Landscapes: Photomontage and Landscape Architecture' Exhibition
'Reprogramming the City: Opportunities for Urban Infrastructure' Exhibition
Opening tomorrow, June 25th through September 29th at BSA Space, the 'Reprogramming the City: Opportunities for Urban Infrastructure' exhibition celebrates more than 40 examples of imaginative reuse, repurposing and reimagining of urban infrastructure, from physical objects to the city’s most functional systems and surfaces. Curated by Scott Burnham, the new exhibition presents a global overview to serve alternate and expanded functions for urban dwellers and visitors. Featured exhibits will include numerous videos, photos, media stations, renderings, and models. For more information, please visit here. More images after the break.
AIA 2013: Top Ten Lessons of Leadership by General Colin Powell
"It's not where you start in life, it's where you end up and all the places you went in between." - United States General Colin L. Powell
For the closing keynote speaker of the stimulating, three-day “Building Leaders” convention in Colorado, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) selected one of America’s most admired public figures to share wisdom and insight to becoming a great leader.
General Colin L. Powell, a first-generation American born from Jamaican immigrants in 1937, is the epitome of the American dream. Starting life in the South Bronx, Powell paved his way to becoming a highly respected, four-star general in the United States Army and the first African American to serve as Secretary of State. A natural storyteller, Powell effortlessly captivated the audience of architects with a series of experiences and lessons he had learned throughout his lifetime of service.
General Colin Powell’s top ten lessons of leadership after the break...
'Densify' Discussion at the Center for Architecture
Presented by AIA New York, the Densify discussion is set to take place June 26th from 6:45pm-8:30pm EST at the Center for Architecture. The event looks at proposals for Manhattan’s Midtown East, that could significantly increase land use intensity at Manhattan’s densest urban core, and Micro-housing that will significantly decrease the allowable dwelling size in New York City. The program will also include interviews with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop on high-rise mix-use development in London, focusing on the Shard, and comparisons between Micro-housing in NYC and Asian precedents. For more information, please visit here.
'Renzo Piano Building Workshop: Fragments' Exhibition
Taking place June 27 - August 2, Gagosian Gallery, in collaboration with Renzo Piano Foundation and generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, 'Fragments' is an exhibition of more than thirty years of architectural projects by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Equal parts library reading room, school classroom, and natural history gallery, the exhibition consists of twenty-four tabletop displays of scale models, drawings, photographs, and video. Each tells the involved, inspiring story of the design process of a single building, from museums, libraries, and airports to private residences. More information on the exhibition after the break.
Linda Farrow + BOFFO Building Fashion 2013 Competition
BOFFO, with eyewear brand Linda Farrow, just launched their latest Building Fashion competition which asks participants to design and build a temporary store in New York City for the iconic eyewear brand. Exploring the intersection of architecture and fashion through integrated store and exhibition design, a shipping container, near New York City's Meatpacking district, will be redesigned inside and out providing a unique glimpse into the work of vibrant and acclaimed designers. This third annual installation series aims to once again push the limits of temporary architecture and the language of retail design.
BOFFO Building Fashion will also showcase design installations that push the limits of temporary architecture and retail spaces through fashion and architecture collaborations. The installations will be open to the public December 4-24. The deadline for project submissions is July 14. For more information, please visit here. Check out their video after the break.
Shortlist Announced for U.S. Embassy in Beirut
The Department of State’s Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has shortlisted six design teams for the new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The project is part of OBO’s Excellence in Diplomatic Facilities initiative in which seeks to provide safe and functional facilities that represent the best in American architecture.
Facades+ Performance Workshop
Presented by The Architect's Newspaper and enclos, Mode Lab recently announced their upcoming Facades+ Performance Symposium in San Francisco taking place July11-12. The event consists of hands-on instruction by industry experts in a small, one-on-one, classroom setting. These workshops will provide professionals and academics with the skills and knowledge to work with cutting edge technologies in a fast-paced and intensive environment. The workshop will explore the use of Grasshopper, Firefly and Arduino as creative and technical tools in the design, simulation and prototyping of intelligent building skins. For more information, please visit here.
'FitNation' Exhibition
From Brooklyn to the Bronx, from San Antonio to Cincinnati, communities and organizations across the United States are tackling heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases with a dose of powerful medicine: active design. Organized by AIA New York, with the Center for Architecture, their groundbreaking 'FitNation' exhibition. brings together for the first time 33 projects in 15 states and the District of Columbia that showcase the ways design, policy, and grassroots strategies are promoting physical activity as part of daily life. The event began this week and concludes on August 8. More images and information on the exhibition after the break.
'Reimagining Lincoln Center and the High Line' Film Screening
Taking place this Thursday, June 20th, at 7:00pm EST, Van Alen Books welcomes Diller Scofidio + Renfro for a film screening of 'Reimagining Lincoln Center and the High Line.' The 54-minute documentary offers insights into the firm’s history, completed projects, and unique process of re-imagining the public identities of two major New York urban spaces. The film includes commentary from the architects as well as interviews with New York City planning commissioner Amanda Burden, as well as several critics and theorists. Before the film, Liz Diller and Ric Scofidio will join directors Muffie Dunn and Tom Piper for a conversation about their work, moderated by VAI executive director David Van der Leer. More more information on the event, please visit here.
'POP: Protocols, Obsessions, Positions.' Exhibition
Taking place at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York from June 19 - July 20, the 'POP: Protocols, Obsessions, Positions.' exhibition will investigate what constitutes a position in architecture today and how that might be generated through the architect’s drawing. The exhibition presents 30 original drawings by 30 architects of the Storefront gallery space at 97 Kenmare Street that address both ends of the architectural drawing spectrum, understanding its codes and protocols and deploying the personal obsession of each architect in the articulation of a position now. For more information, please visit here.
Exhibiting in New York in the Air: Alberto Campo Baeza Exhibition
Exhibited at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York until this month, the work of Alberto Campo Baeza is on display to celebrate the awarding of the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture 2013. In a spare white quadrangular room in the main building and with only natural light from above, 24 white panels appear floating over the walls, without touching or marking them. It is an exhibition that is very sui generis, it is an Exhibition in the air; it is an exhibition that is very Campo Baeza. More information on the exhibition after the break.
2014 AIA National Convention Call for Educational Proposals
Change—both collectively as a profession and individually as architects—is essential in three critical areas: culture, community, and commitment. Architects have the power to influence a broader societal culture that appreciates architecture and understands the value of an architect. Reflecting the Institute’s repositioning to serve the needs of our diverse membership, education content is to be relevant and emphasize practical application to support the needs of all members of the profession, particularly our emerging professionals and small firm owners in the areas of leadership, management, project delivery, and technology.
With that being said, the AIA is inviting articulate subject matter experts who can engage and connect with the design community in support of the Institute’s repositioning to submit a proposal for an educational program at the AIA National Convention in Chicago. The convention will take place June 26-28, 2014 in Chicago. The Call for Submissions are due July 1. For more information, please visit here.
Monterey Design Conference 2013
Hosted by the American Institute of Architects, California Council (AIACC), the Monterey Design Conference 2013 will offer participants three days of talks by–and relaxed conversations with– internationally and nationally significant architects. Taking place September 27-29 in the Elysian setting of the Northern California coast, participants will find themselves strolling on the beach, wandering the Julia Morgan designed grounds or sitting on the deck of the main lodge engaging in conversation with a Pritzker Prize winner or many of the most innovative and catalytic thinkers in architecture, as if they were invited into their own backyard. This is truly a premier opportunity to be a participant in the dialog about design. For more information, please visit here.
'Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype' Exhibition & Installation
Opening October 11 until December 1, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) will present 'Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype', an exhibition and public art installation which highlights the well-known American architect's work, including several original, rarely seen Woods drawings from private collections. Complemented by a symposium and catalog, this exhibition in the SCI-Arc Gallery and related large-scale public art installation in the Arts District’s Bloom Square, aims to demonstrate the fearless nature with which the late visionary architect and draftsman created. More information on the exhibition after the break.
2013 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards Announced
Biennially, representatives from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Library Association (ALA) gather to celebrate the finest examples of library design by architects licensed in the U.S. This year, for the 2013 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards, they choose to honor six outstanding project. View them all after the break.
The Indicator: Pilgrimage, Experiencing the Eames House
I pass by the Eames House almost every day at about 35 mph on my way down to PCH, the sand, the waves, the subterranean tunnels, and the tsunami zone, where LA coughs up its junk on the urban beach, where the Westside comes to its logical conclusion. Sometimes traffic is backed up so far up the hill—this is Los Angeles, after all—that I sit motionless and adjacent where the house should be, but can’t actually see it. I listen to the engine, the radio, the sound of helicopters and leaf blowers. The house is silent somewhere behind a wall of dense tropical flora.
My first actual visit to the house was when I was barely thinking about architecture. In a way it was my introduction to the possibility that someone could do architecture, that it was something one could succeed at. It was optimism on real estate once considered solidly middle class. Improbably light-weight and even painterly, like a Mondrian composition, it sits in a perfectly mundane American yard, like the delicate skeleton of a bird perched over the Pacific.