As I had previously mentioned we visited Work AC in New York a few months ago, where we interviewed Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. This turned out to be a great interview, where they shared their thoughts on the current state of architectural practice, the role of architects in current society, humor, networking, media and something that really interested me: the importance of knowing how to manage the growth of your office.

On their office we saw the amazing model for their Cadavre Exquis Lebanese, a proposal based on a series of interventions to re-create Downtown Beirut presented at the 2007 Rotterdam Biennale. We also got to see their on on going projects and a 1:1 prototype of their Public Farm 1 structure soon to be opened at the PS1. You can check the construction progress at the PF1 website.

Pictures of Work AC after the jump.

read more »

TU Delft Architecture School was devastated by fire today. The fire, belived to have been started by a short circuit in a coffee machine caused by a faulty water pipe, was so poweful that the fire brigade couldn’t get close to it and decided to stand back and let the fire burn itself out.

No injuries were reported, but several collections and student/faculty works were lost, including their historic chair collection.

Hopefully, this disaster will open an opportunity for the brilliant dutch architects out there to design a new building.

via BD Online

Gage / Clemenceau Architects is a NY based architectural firm that deals with a wide scale of projects, from product design, commercial & residential projects to exhibition design. Also runners for the Young Architects Program @ PS1 in 2007, Gage Clemenceau´s work is motivated by the premise that architecture transcends the practice of mere building- in favor of a new and vibrant alliance between progressive technologies, new materials, context and program.

We interviewed Mark Foster Gage (G/C partner, assistant professor at Yale), and discussed about education, media, networking role of architects in contemporary society, among other topics regarding the current state of architectural practice in our second issue of AD Interviews, in a very interesting and fluid talk.

More interviews each Sunday. Please leave your feedback at the comments for future issues.

Pictures of the Gage Clemenceau Studio after the break.

read more »

Well, not exactly on TED Talks but on the DLD (Digital Design Life) Conference in Munich which is being presented at the TED site. Norman Foster discusses his work to show how computers can help architects design buildings that are green, beautiful and “basically pollution-free.”

A few weeks ago we started conducting a series of video interviews with some of the most promising young architects. In times when “[...] architect may no longer mean architect“, they were asked to talk about key aspects of their role as an architect in modern society, among other topics to discuss about the direction of architecture.

Our first guest is Shohei Shigematsu (1973). He graduated from the Department of Architecture at Kyushu University in 1996, and then went to the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam. He started working at OMA in 1998, becoming an associate in 2004. He´s now the director of OMA*AMO NY, working on projects such as the CCTV Headquartes in Beijing, the design of the Whitney Museum extension in NY, the Millestain Hall at Cornell, the Stock Exchange at Shenzhen, the Torre Bicentenario in Mexico and a mixed use building in Jersey City.

Photos of OMA NY after the break.

read more »

The april issue of Icon features 20 essential young architects. According to Icon ““young actually means young, but architect may no longer mean architect”. Architecture for Humanity (Cameron Sinclair) and Alejandro Aravena (Elemental) are good examples - also architects doing blogs…

On the list, there´s some known names such as MAD, BIG, REX and JDS (what´s with the acronyms/identity?). We are going to publish works by some of this architects during this month. In the meanwhile, enjoy the full list:

• REX
• Alejandro Aravena
• Estudio Barozzi Veiga
• FAT
• Jesko Fezer
• BIG
• Architecture For Humanity
• Serie
• Philippe Rahm
• 6a
• MAD
• Work Architecture Company
• Junya Ishigami
• JDS Architects
• Information Based Architecture
• Limited Design
• Carmody Groarke
• Dorell Ghotmeh Tane
• Sou Fujimoto
• Feld 72

Image via anArchitecture