Videos: The Latest Architecture and News

This is a short video giving a brief history of JDS Architects, founded by Julien De Smedt, co-founder of PLOT with Bjarke Ingels. Julien takes us down memory lane and explains the past and present of his career from Skateboarding to Architecture and the issues that interest his office today. More videos can be found on their vimeo site.

Tulane University’s School of Architecture program has joined forces with IBM Intelligent Buildings Management and Johnson Controls to develop a Smarter Building pilot program.  Tulane’s first project aims to transform Richardson Memorial Hall, home of the School of Architecture, into a living laboratory.  The retrofit of this historic building will not just create a more efficiently adapted building but will also provide an opportunity for architecture students to gain a unique skill set coupled with practical experience.

Network_LA Transit is a conceptual design response by Gensler Los Angeles to an open invitation by Sci-Arc, The Architect’s Newspaper and LA Metro to shift people from their cars to public transit.

More after the break.

A while ago I had the chance to meet one of the architects whose work I highly admire: Sou Fujimoto.

Located just outside of the Connaught Hotel in London’s Mayfair district is Tadao Ando’s latest work. The iconic Japanese architect’s water installation is best described as ‘liquid sliding over glass lenses’. The pool surface is covered with a series of glass lenses that sit just below the water, and on intervals steam arises nearly masking the mature trees that sit within the installation. Ando’s piece is one of the most recent additions to Mayfair which has experienced numerous refurbishment projects creating a resurgence in this part of the city.

Phaidon Press recently made us aware of a video they posted on what makes a successful city. It is part of a series by Ricky Burdett that promotes the book Living in the Endless City. This video features Ricky Burdett, Richard Sennett and Saskia Sassen. This is an important topic as three quarters of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050.

We invite you to watch an intriguing lecture Rem Koolhaas recently gave at the Berlage Institute. The lecture covers three interrelated topics: the growth of Preservation, and its blind spots; architecture and democracy; and the ongoing development of the office itself. The video has become extremely popular since it was posted 3 days ago on OMA’s vimeo channel (more views in the first 24 hours than any other of their videos). Check it out.

West 57th, BIG’s design of a New York apartment building for client Durst Fetner Residential, takes shape in model form in this video. On display at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the model is part of Living: Frontiers of Architecture III-IV exhibition. The exhibition which opened the first of this month and will run through October 2nd ‘is full of impressions and insights into the multiple ways we live in the world today’.

Justin Davidson, architecture critic for New York Magazine, tours the recently opened section 2 of the High Line and describes the city views you can see from there.

Eduardo Souto de Moura was awarded the Pritzker Prize just last week (our coverage of the ceremony here). This video takes a look inside Souto de Moura’s office in Porto and the surrounding city including his Burgo Tower which has become a landmark. Also taking a look at scale the video displays a wide variety of his work throughout Portugal in varying scales from a single family home to the Braga Stadium.

Atelier Raum Architects shared this video of one of their recent projects, an installation for a contemporary art exhibition in France. Accompanied by original music from the french band Mansfield Tya, La Ville Molle was co-produced by the Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Art de Bourges, the FRAC Centre and implemented with the collaboration of the city of Bourges and the Council district downtown. Follow the break for drawings, photographs, and a video showing the installation of the exhibition.

Architecture for Humanity’s Kimisagra Football for Hope Center in Kigali, Rwanda has broken ground. This video by Killian Doherty and music by Sophie Nzayisenga features the site location, renderings, and most importantly the communities excitement for the new center.

Points of View (POV) is a Herman Miller series sharing architects’ perspective on design. Directed by Hello Design, POV provides five different California architects’ step by step process from approach and design development to materials choices. Architects include Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner of Marmol Radziner, Kim Coleman of Cigolle X Coleman, James Meyer of LeanArch, Jim Jennings of Jennings Architecture, and John Friedman of JFAK Architects.

I first learned about Preston Scott Cohen’s work when I read about the Goodman House, a simple and elegant operation of a concrete shell housing an ancient Dutch barn frame. But after further investigation, I was surprised to see a constant spatial and formal research of his work, that we have witnessed in the latest three public buildings from his office and featured on ArchDaily.

Scheduled for demolition in Summer 2011, the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School is a treasured piece of regional modernism in New Orleans. Designed by Charles Colbert, the school has served the historic African-American neighborhood of Tremé since it opened in 1955. It is just one of over thirty public schools that were constructed at that time. These schools were designed by architects who practiced a regional modernism, incorporating innovative design for circulation, ventilation and lighting. Of the thirty schools only four are still standing, three of which are threatened with demolition (including Phillis Wheatley). DOCOMOMO Louisiana is advocating for the restoration through adaptive reuse for the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School. “A Plea For Modernism” was created by Evan Mather and is narrated by actor Wendell Pierce.

The Brooklyn-based design and fabrication studio, FLATCUT_, in conjunction with the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (“ACADIA”), are pleased to announce this year’s award-winning jurors for The ACADIA 2011 Design + Fabrication Competition. The international competition asks designers to “push the boundaries of materials, minds, and machine” by exploring emergent modes of computational design. The competition focuses on unique material combinations and new fabrication techniques in creating forms in three categories: Furniture, Lighting and Partition. Winners will get the opportunity to actually fabricate their proposals this summer at FLATCUT_’s incredible 100,000sf warehouse.

Our profession is very particular. We react very fast to current issues with our ideas, yet our buildings can take quite some time to be erected. For example, the project of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange building by OMA in China was the physical image of the new Chinese economy back in 2006. Five years later this new economy has taken the world by storm yet the building is still under construction.

During the 2011 AIA Convention in New Orleans we had the chance to sit down and talk with Steve McDowell, Principal and Director of Design of BNIM, the 2011 Architecture Firm of the Year. BNIM was founded over 40 years ago with a commitment to design excellence. Currently at the top of their game the Kansas City, Missouri headquartered firm has worked with high profile architects such as Steven Holl to produce the multi-award winning Block Building expansion for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, they have contributed to advancing education of building sustainability with their innovative design of the Omega Center for Sustainable Living, which is the first project in the world to achieve both ‘Living’ Status and LEED Platinum, and BNIM’s scope of work also includes more rural projects such as the Midwest Retreat.