During my trip to Croatia to participate in CIP Talks 2009, I had the chance to meet an interesting group of young architects with very good built works, which we have been featuring on ArchDaily during this days. I also interviewed some of them, and I will be presenting these interview in the following days along with their works.
We start with Davor Katušić, founder and principal at Produkcija 004, authors of the Esseker Center in Osijek and the Emergency Terminal in Zagreb.
One of the US practices I’ve been looking forward to meet has been Trahan Architects. Based in Louisiana, the firm has been very involved in institutional projects for the local community (such as the Holy Rosary Church Complex and the Baton Rouge Library), universities and also in Make It Right.
I find that their involvement with the community, the embracement of new technologies in architecture result in what I feel that “american architecture” is (or should be).
But since traveling to Louisiana wasn´t on my plans, at least in the near future, I had no chance to personally meet Victor “Trey” Trahan (FAIA), principal at Trahan Architects. But thanks to some coincidences, I was able to meet him briefly between connecting flights and do this interview.
Hope you like it as much as I did.
As usual, find the HD version of the interview at Vimeo.
The influential figure of Eric Owen Moss doesn´t require introduction… what an interesting conversation we had, Bob Dylan included. A bit long, but worth it.
On a side note, when I came by his office I saw a gigantic book called “Eric Owen Moss Construction Manual”… which I thought was like an internal book for new employees, but is actually a monograph covering design, engineering, fabrication, and construction of 40 projects over the past 20 years. Impressive. See a video after the break.
A few months ago I had the chance to interview Ila Berman, director of the Architecture program at the California College of the Arts. She holds a doctorate in architectural history, theory, and criticism from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Dr Berman created New Orleans: Urban Mappings for a Future City, an exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2006 International Architectural Biennale in Venice.
I visited the school by the end of the semester, and had the chance to see the final projects by the students and an exhibition on building technologies that was currently being assembled on the main hall. I really liked the atmosphere of the school, the students were very into it. I also meet a group of young teachers who are doing interesting work professionally, such as Douglas Burnham (envelope A+D), Mona El Khafif ( CCA URBANlab, IG Architecture), Craig Scott (Iwamoto Scott) and David Gissen.
My architect friends from San Francisco are always mentioning the lectures at CCA, as they have done a very good work inviting some of the best architects around the world to their lecture series: Alejandro Zaera Polo (FOA), Paul Lewis (LTL Architects), Bernard Tschumi, Winy Maas, Toyo Ito, etc (you can download some at iTunes U).
A school to keep an eye on…
During the AIA Convention 2009 we had the opportunity to interview the AIA President (2008-2009), Marvin Malecha.
Marvin is also the dean for the North Carolina State University College of Design, and has received the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education in 2003. His position as a highly recognized educator, and the voice of the industry as the AIA President was the reason we choose Marvin for this interview, specially during a time when the profession was heavily affected by the financial crisis.
The sound has a few glitches due to Bluetooth interference, not a big issue anyway.
At the beginning of the summer we visited SYNTHe, a urban rooftop garden designed and built by professor Alexis Rocha (I/O Platform founder) with SCI-Arc students.
The SYNTHe project is a 3,000sqf structure located on the top of The Flat, a mid rise residential building in downtown Los Angeles, and its the first green garden approved by city official. The idea of this “green blanket” over at the top of the building is to reduce the building heat gain, reduce storm water waste (80% is captured and used for irrigation) and to establish a sustainable plant ecosystem that collaborated with air pollutants filtering. It also reclaims the rooftop area from HVAC, ventilation and fire control systems, giving a new terrace for the users of the building.
Inside this blanket, 1,500sqf are dedicated to the production of edible plant species, and we had the chance to taste them at the restaurant during lunch, very good. The species planted include:
Another interview conducted live at the rooftop of The Standard during Postopolis! LA.
We invited Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee (principals at Johnston MarkLee), mostly because I wanted to know more about the practice behind some interesting projects we featured prior to the event: The Hill House, the Sale House, the Mameg + Maison Martin Margiela store and their Ordos 100 villa, along with the View House in Argentina we featured earlier today.
We asked the usual set of questions, while the sun was going down in LA, and Sharon/Mark answers turned into a interesting conversation. I like Mark’s answer to “What should be the role of architects in contemporary society”: “Architects should be superstars – and solve all problems of the world“. Part of the talk on Social Networking was about Ordos 100 and the network behind this “architectural orgy”.
Mark Lee will be a speaker at CIP Talks 2009.
Feedback and comments are welcome.
© David Schalliol
While working toward a PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago, David Schalliol has spent several years examining the built environment of his adopted city both as an academic and an artist. In photographic studies such as his Isolated Building Series, Schalliol highlights the relationships between architecture, history, and policy, focusing in particular on the city’s historically underprivileged South Side neighborhoods.
After the break, you can read an interview we made to David a few days ago.
During Postopolis! LA we invited a group of architects from Los Angeles to be interviewed by us, in front of a live audience. This turned out to be very interesting, as the attendants got the chance to do their own questions.
One of these architects was Whitney Sander, principal at Sander Architects. Why did I choose him? Well, just take a look at his projects recently featured at AD: Residence for a Briard, Residence for a Sculptor and the Tree House. These projects have one thing in common besides being good projects (personally, I love the Tree House), and that is the use of prefab components.
A big part of the conversation revolved around his Hybrid Houses “Part prefab, all custom™”, on which Whitney has proved that prefab is not just a fad, but a very good business… specially when clients see the final costs.
And remember, you need to know how to hold a Martini.
As usual, my words tend to stretch this… just go an watch the interview.
Soon, more interviews!
(HD version available at Vimeo)
Anyone who has taken an Architecture History class already knows SOM: Skidmore & Owings & Merrill. This practice played a key role during the so-called “International Style”, in a time where the modernism was being consolidated around the world. The practice, which opened in 1936, is behind the centers of the most important cities of the USA and now the rest of the world. One day I was walking by San Francisco´s Downtown with a friend, and he was pointing buildings: “SOM, SOM, SOM, SOM… and that one I think is also by SOM”.
Currently the practice has become one of the largest AEC firms in the world, with over 10,000 projects dealing with architecture, engineering and design. They have offices in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., London, Brussels, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
But what is interesting is how the firm grew over the years, becoming one of the largest AEC practices in the world with over 10,000 projects. But don´t think about this practice as a building generating machine… what is interesting is how they have managed to keep innovating over the years. A hard task, specially when becoming a large corporate practice with a complex structure. But SOM has been up to the challenge. The Burj Dubai will soon become a case study in terms of structural engineering, the Cathedral of Christ The Light in Oakland has an innovative design, materialized using digital tools to fasten the design/building process, and their award winning detailed model of San Francisco has become a strategic tool to work within the city. And that’s just to name a few.
Recently, Fast Company named SOM among the 50 Most Innovative Companies, and Architect Magazine recently awarded five SOM projects with their R+D Award: The San Francisco Digital Model, the Oasis Generator, the Pine-Fuse Joint system, the Active Phytoremediation Wall System, and the Sustainable Form-Inclusion System. After these projects you can see that SOM is not a typical corporate practice, always researching and pushing architecture forward.
And well, we wanted to know more about the ideas and the process behind a corporate practice always innovating, and we had the chance to sat down with Craig Hartman (FAIA), Design Partner at SOM working at the San Francisco office.
Craig has been behind the award winning Treasure Island Master Plan, the Cathedral of Christ the Light (where the interview was conducted), the SFO International Terminal… and more projects.
I hope you like this interview, specially the young architects that are starting their own firms.
During the past AIA Convention we sat down with John Bacus from Google Sketchup to discuss how this tool can help architects on their workflows, with a tool that is easy to use, fast and extensible.
We also had the chance to talk with Phil Bernstein, faculty at Yale and currently the Vice President of AEC Industry and Relations for Autodesk. Given his background and current position, I immediately scheduled an interview with him as I wanted an architect on the industry to tell us more on how BIM is helping out architects in several ways.
Phil was very clear and precise on this, and the idea of this interview is to help our readers to make a decision on adopting BIM solutions, and also to help architecture students to see how learning to use a BIM software can help them in their future job seek.
As an example on the importance of BIM, I asked early this morning on Twitter what our readers think on adopting BIM and if arch students feel like they need to learn this before graduating. Here are some answers:
Stewart Middle School, Sidwell Friends School © Halkin Photography LLC
Interview conducted, condensed + edited by Sarah Wesseler
What do research and development mean in today’s design field? To learn more about architectural R&D, I turned to KieranTimberlake, a Philadelphia-based firm that has earned wide acclaim for its innovative work in arenas such as prefabrication and sustainable design. Partner Stephen Kieran and research director Billie Faircloth spoke with me about the history and practice of the firm’s in-house research team.
First, don’t forget to check our first Round Up of interviews done by our team. And then, you can move on to our second part of some of our greatest interviews featured in ArchDaily.
Lorcan O’Herlihy
A few weeks ago we had the chance to visit L.O.H.A. and interview Lorcan O’Herlihy in Los Angeles. We visited Lorcan because we were very interested on his recent housing projects, which offer rich public spaces bringing back the “neighborhood” to central areas of Los Angeles, away from the suburbs. It was interesting to hear his answer on the role of architects on contemporary society (read more…)
Standard
While in LA we had the chance to visit Standard, a small firm doing residential and retail projects. We visited their Tree House, featured earlier on AD, where i was able to see for myself the minimalism found in their works. A simple work, but with lots of well executed details and spaces designed to benefit from the views and the shadow of the tree. The practice was founded in 1996 by Jeffrey Allsbrook and Silvia Kuhle (read more…)
John Bacus, Google Sketchup
During the AIA Convention 2009 we had the chance to talk to different AEC software companies, to learn how they are helping architects. We decided to keep the conversation on the same interview format we have been using, so you can hear it straight from the developers. Our first interview was with John Bacus, Product Manager for Google Sketchup. We focused our interview on how SketchUp is helping architects (read more…)
Cameron Sinclair, Architecture for Humanity
During the AIA Convention we had the chance to visit Architecture for Humanity (now on their 10th anniversary) and talk with Cameron Sinclair, the Co-founder and Eternal Optimist of AFH. Architecture for Humanity is a a charitable organization that seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crises and brings professional design services to communities in need (read more…)
whY Architecture
This is the first interview recorded live at Postopolis! LA at the rooftop of The Standard. This time we present Yo-ichiro Hakomori from whY Architecture. whY Architecture (Workshop Hakomori Yantrasast) is a LA based architecture practice, directed by partners Kulapat Yantrasast, Yo-ichiro Hakomori and Richard Stoner. Kulapat received his Master of Architecture degree and Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo (read more…)
Since my first trip to San Francisco I was intrigued by the local architecture scene. The empowered citizens and city regulations have been able to keep the traditional architectural style of the city, and apart from a few buildings by international practices (de Young Museum by Herzog & de Meuron, California Acadmy of Science by Renzo Piano and the Federal Building by Morphosis) I couldn´t find any local works that stand out from the rest of homogeneous fabric.
But when I started to meet local architects, they all pointed me to Stanley Saitowitz, design principal at Natoma Architects. Teacher at UC Berkeley for 30 years, he influenced over many of the local architects that went to that school and that´s why I got all the recommendations. He has also taught at Harvard GSD, UCLA, Rice, Cornell, SCIARC, U Texas at Austin, and more.
When we visited his office for the interview, we could see an incredible amount of works over the years, more than a hundred on the greater Bay Area and in other locations of the US (such as the Tampa Museum of Art, currently under construction).
There is something on the simplicity of the details and the material use that give a continuity to his works, as you can see on his previous projects that we have featured on ArchDaily.
Back to his office, it took my attention that the models used for the projects were always in a small scale (1:200 or similar), almost as crafted objects, related to the detail importance I mentioned previously.
His expertise on the residential area is not only recognized by the vast amount of publications that have featured his work, but also by inhabitants of his buildings and by his peers, who I heard this from.
But enough of my talk, just watch the interview and stay tuned for more projects to be featured in AD in the next days.
Some photos from our visit after the break.
For those of you that already following @archdaily on Twitter, this is no news: During April, at Postopolis! LA, we interviewed Joseph Grima, current director of the Storefront for Art and Architecture.
The Storefront Gallery is a nonprofit exhibition and events space in New York City committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design. The SFG has organized interesting architecture related events lately, such as the White House Redux Competition (2008), Postopolis! (2007), Postopolis! LA (2009), Spacebuster (2009), among others. The SFG also published the book “49 Cities” by Work AC (review will be posted shortly on AD, great book!).
Back to Joseph, he is a graduate from the Architectural Association and former editor and advisor for Domus Magazine. Currently, he is a PhD candidate at Goldsmith College, London. He recently published the book “Instant Asia: Fast Forward through the Architecture of a Changing Continent” with Skira, a guide to emerging asian architects in collaboration with photographer Gaia Cambiaggi. You can see other publications in which Joseph participated at Amazon.
I think this is one of the interviews with the best background: downtown LA from the rooftop of The Standard Hotel.
A few weeks ago we were in LA for Postopolis!, and we toured around the city visiting interesting practices. One of our biggest surprises was Yazdani Studio. We started to see this firm because of their buildings for the Ordos project, so we decided to visit their offices and interview the principal, Mehrdad Yazdani.
Mehrdad Yazdani (BA Arch U Texas at Austin, M Arch at Harvard GSD) is a principal at Cannon Design, an international firm with several offices in the US and abroad. A big corporate office, with all the pros and cons it has. Given this, Mehrdad started Yazdani Studio as a small laboratory that benefits from the reach and resources of a large international practice, with the flexibility of a smaller design studio. This in-between position has allowed Yazdani Studio to work on several scales. Something I really liked when i visited their office was the large amount of test models I saw laying around for every project, a proof of the amount of experimentation at the practice.
Some of Yazdani Studio projects include the recent renovation of the Museum of Tolerance (and a 2nd phase that will be completed next), the UCSD Price Center, a new campus for Tata Motors and several institutional buildings. Yazdani Studio was also one of the first practices to start working in Ordos -before the Ordos 100 project- with a Villa currently under construction. Also, Yazdani Studio is developing a restaurant and a concert hall, as supporting programs for the cultural district envisioned for this emerging city on the Mongolian desert.
Well, enough with my intro. Just watch the interview.
Some pictures of our visit to the practice after the break.
read more »
This is the first interview recorded live at Postopolis! LA at the rooftop of The Standard. This time we present Yo-ichiro Hakomori from whY Architecture.
whY Architecture (Workshop Hakomori Yantrasast) is a LA based architecture practice, directed by partners Kulapat Yantrasast, Yo-ichiro Hakomori and Richard Stoner. Kulapat received his Master of Architecture degree and Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo. Yo-ichiro received his Master of Architecture degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Doctorate from the University of Tokyo. Richard received his Bachelor of Arts from Rhode Island School of Design and Master of Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles.
On ArchDaily we have featured some of their recent works, such as the Grand Rapids Art Museum (first new art museum in the world to receive LEED certification), the Royal/T project (an art gallery/cafe/retail shop in Culver City, highly recommended), Casa Wasaka (concrete patio house in Osaka, Japan) and their project for Hollywood House (a folded strip generating different open/enclosed spaces).
As of now, they are also working on the design for the new Tyler Museum of Art, Texas, and in the process of renovating the galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago (Kulapat has also served on the Artist Committee for American for the Arts, the nation’s oldest organization for the support of art in society). Community projects include the renovation of the historic Venice Jail into the Social & Public Art Resource Center in Venice, California and the Art Bridge at the Los Angeles River. Recent projects also include Private residences, Art Galleries, Boutique retail, and Day Spas.
whY Architecture was also selected as one of the 13 young practices that presented their work at the closing session (Focus on Contemporary Architecture: Critical and New Opinions) at the AIA Convention 2009.
As promised, the second part of the interview with Cameron Sinclair, Founder and Eternal Optimist of Architecture for Humanity.
During the AIA Convention we had the chance to visit Architecture for Humanity (now on their 10th anniversary) and talk with Cameron Sinclair, the Co-founder and Eternal Optimist of AFH.
Architecture for Humanity is a a charitable organization that seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crises and brings professional design services to communities in need. A few years ago they adopted an open source model to let architects share designs with a Creative Commons license, resulting on Open Architecture Network, an open collaborative tool that allows people around the world to implement these architectural solutions.
AFH also edited the book Design Like You Give a Damn, a compendium of innovative projects from around the world that demonstrate the power of design to improve people’s lives. A second part is currently on the works.
Cameron was included on the list of the 13 young architects that presented their work on the closing session at the AIA Convention this year. He is also a Green Giant and a World Changing contributor, and has presented the work of AFH on TED (in my opinion, a highly motivational presentation).
I have decided to split this interview in two, leaving the regular set of questions in one part, and other specific questions on the other. This part focuses on how AFH works, delivering architectural solutions to the ones who can’t afford it in an innovative way, and also on the current economical crisis as an opportunity and Katrina.
During the AIA Convention 2009 we had the chance to talk to different AEC software companies, to learn how they are helping architects. We decided to keep the conversation on the same interview format we have been using, so you can hear it straight from the developers.
Our first interview was with John Bacus, Product Manager for Google Sketchup. We focused our interview on how SketchUp is helping architects by providing a cost efficient tool, both in price and time, that is also extendable via powerful plugins.
Also, we talked on how this product is being used by communities around the world to populate Google Earth with 3D models of their cities. You can see examples of these communities here and here.
Stay tuned for more interviews.
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