Chicago’s Mayor Launches Transformative Urban Farming Plan
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Growing Power, a Chicago-based urban agriculture organization, announced recently the formation of Farmers for Chicago, a program that will transform vacant south-side Chicago lots into productive urban farms. The program will make available up to five acres of city-owned vacant lots for urban farming activity and “help expand the supply chain for local neighborhood-level food production and wholesale,” “improve community access to healthy food, help participants to supplement their incomes, and to foster workforce training.”
Read more about Farmers for Chicago after the break.
Integrated School of Building: ‘Submit a 10′
The Integrated School of Building, the not-for-profit institute in the city of Chicago, recently launched ‘Submit a 10′, a new lean course proposal system open to anyone, worldwide, interested in delivering courses through InSB. A 10 is either a 10 slide presentation (slideshare.net), or (up to) 10 minute video (youtube.com), or both, delivering an opportunity for quick and efficient learning to the public. In order to retain the best faculty, develop and deliver the best courses, and to meet current and ever-changing market demands in our industry globally, these speed sessions will fall under the broad categories that are Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Project Delivery, Urbanism, Real Estate, Interior Design, or Trades. For more information, please visit here.
Construction Begins on NYC’s First Prefab Steel and Concrete Residential Development
Prefabrication has long been heralded as a possible way to infill New York’s vacant sites; however, it has only recently become a solid practical solution rather than an experimental concept. Riding the crest of the wave of new prefabricated housing is GLUCK+ (formerly Peter Gluck & Partners), in collaboration with developers Jeffrey Brown and Kimberly Frank. Together they have begun construction on one of New York’s first prefabricated steel and concrete residential buildings.
Read more about this and New York’s recent wave of prefabricated buildings after the break…
Assess: Who Cares for Chilean Cities?
“Assess: Chile at Columbia” is an initiative led by the Latin Lab at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation’s (GSAPP) of Columbia University that discusses, in several formats, the state of contemporary cities in the southern country by addressing the question: who cares for Chilean cities?
This project aims to raise questions and skip external, often patronizing understandings of Chilean practices. To do so, “Assess: Chile at Columbia” invites Chilean scholars who— closely in touch with both national practices and international debates in the fields of architecture, public space, and urban projects—are uniquely positioned to initiate a critical conversation.
Distinguished Chilean scholars Luis Eduardo Bresciani, Romy Hecht, and Rodrigo Pérez de Arce selected three projects to represent each of the aforementioned categories in the exhibition Answers form Architecture, Public Space and Urban Projects, to be held on the 100 Level of Avery Hall. This show will inform the Conference “Who cares for Chilean cities?,” at which renowned US-based scholars Saskia Sassen, Stan Allen, and Iñaki Ábalos will assess the topics and works presented by their Chilean peers, opening up a further discussion moderated by GSAPP faculty Clara Irazábal, Galia Solomonoff, and Enrique Walker.
Report Suggests Demolishing Unsustainable Mid-Century Skyscrapers in New York
Mayor Bloomberg’s controversial plans to rezone midtown New York, allowing for bigger and bolder skyscrapers, has found an unlikely ally in the form of environmentalists.
Re-zoning midtown would ultimately lead to the demolition of the corporate steel and glass skyscrapers, which preservationists argue are emblematic of the cutting edge modernism that swept 1950′s America. However, landlords contest that – for the most part – they are poorly built copycats of seminal landmarks such as the Seagram and Lever buildings and are not particularly significant or suited for modern needs.
More information after the break..
Denise Scott Brown Demands Recognition from Pritzker
During a speech at the AJ Women in Architecture luncheon in London last week, postmodern icon Denise Scott Brown requested to be acknowledged retrospectively for her role in Robert Venturi’s 1991 Pritzker Prize, describing Pritzker’s inability to acknowledge her involvement as “very sad”.
Although at the time of the award Brown had co-partnered their practice Venturi Scott Brown and Associates for over 22 years and played a critical role in the evolution of architectural theory and design alongside Venturi for the over 30 years, as well as co-authored the transformative 1970’s book Learning from Las Vegas, her role as “wife” seemed to have trumped her role as an equal partner when the Pritzker jury chose to only honor her husband, Venturi.
More information and an online petition after the break…
Can You Recap 30 Years of Architecture?
Are you an architect, architecture critic, historian of architecture or otherwise involved with architecture and design? Have you always wanted to give a TED Talk? Can you recap 30 years of architecture?
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of TED, the 2014 conference will include several talks that look back on three decades of advances in a handful of fields. Until June 30, 2013, we are seeking proposals for an 18-minute, multimedia presentation that will take the TED audience through the most important developments in the past 30 years of architecture and suggest where the field is going – or needs to go – in the future.
More details after the break…
Zappos to Build Intentionally Inconvenient Office in Las Vegas
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has recently invested $350 million dollars of his own money into downtown Las Vegas, where the new Zappos’ headquarters will soon call its home. Working in the vein of companies like Google and Apple, Hsieh and the head developer of the new campus, Zach Ware, have worked together on making a workspace environment in which creativity – and, consequently, inconvenience – is built into the design itself:
“‘Our goal is not to create an office space that you take photos of and you say ‘Wow, that’s beautiful,” says Ware. ‘We’re incredibly function-oriented.’ Zappos’ core focus is on company culture and the relationships between employees. To enhance that, as odd as it sounds, parts of the office are deliberately inconvenient.”
Read Max Nisen’s article on Zappos’ “inconvenient,” new headquarters after the break…
Zaha Hadid Architects’ First Built Tower: CMA CGM Headquarters
Zaha Hadid Architects’ first built tower, the CMA CGM Headquarters in Marseille, France, is most immediately notable for its vertical form.
As the stunning images from Hufton + Crow show, the tower’s disparate volumes (generated from gradual centripetal vectors) gently converge towards each other and then bend apart to create an elegant “metallic curving arc that slowly lifts and accelerates skywards into [...a] dramatic vertical geometry.”
Read More about CMA CGM Headquarters, after the break…
Venice Biennale 2014: Lateral Office to Represent Canada with Nunavut Exhibition
The Canada Council for the Arts and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has announced “Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15″ as winner of a national juried competition to represent Canada at the 2014 Venice Biennale in Architecture. Lateral Office of Toronto will organize and curate an exhibition designed to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Canada’s largest but least populated northern territories, known for its pristine arctic wilderness and Inuit lifestyle.
Read more about Canada’s contribution to the Biennale after the break.
MVRDV’s Book Mountain Wins Prestigious Red Dot Design Award
MVRDV’s “mountain of books” in the center of Spijkenisse’s town market square has just been announced as winner of the internationally acclaimed red dot design award for “high quality design” in the Architecture and Urban Design category. The jury selected MVRDV’s Book Mountain from 4,662 entries submitted from 54 countries, lauding the project for its “exceptional quality and refined detail solutions”.
More information on the building after the break…
UK’s Young Architect of the Year Awards Invites European Entries
European architects can now compete in the UK’s prestigious Young Architect of the Year Award (YAYA). Now in its 16th year, YAYA is the only prize that recognizes the UK’s most promising new architectural practice and is a crucial means of allowing new practices to emerge.
Speaking at MIPIM, the international property fair in Cannes last week, BD Editor-in-Chief Amanda Baillieu said: “Over time, YAYA has proved itself as a consistently strong means of identifying the most promising young architects of each generation. But, since the prize was launched, the world has changed and the best architects in the UK now have to compete with their counterparts abroad. More than any other, this is a global profession so it makes sense to extend YAYA’s helping hand to the rest of Europe.”
Happy 127th Birthday Mies Van der Rohe!
A big happy birthday goes out to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), who would have turned 127 years old today. Mies, who studied under Peter Behrens and was influenced by figures such as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, helped to develop the most enduring architectural style of the 20th Century: modernism.
Among his most famous accomplishments are his seminal Barcelona Pavilion; his work as the head of The Bauhaus school; and, after the Nazi ascension in Germany forced him to emigrate, his leadership at the Illinois Institute of Technology. During his 20 years at IIT, Mies developed what became known as ‘the second Chicago school of architecture’, a style of simplified, rectilinear high-rise buildings exemplified by projects such as 860-880 Lakeshore Drive and the Seagram Building. Mies’s minimalist style proved very popular; his famous aphorism ‘less is more’ is still widely used, even by those who are unaware of its origins.
To celebrate him we have changed our logo to a Mies doodle (above) and have rounded up our great Mies coverage of the past, including…
- For the visually-inclined - Infographic: Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
- For the pop-culture fans - From Mad Men To Mies: Why Modernism Holds Sway
- For the Bauhaus enthusiasts - Infographic: The Bauhaus
- For those looking to buff up their Mies bookshelf - Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies
And, for the architecture purists, all of Mies’ works published on ArchDaily:
- AD Classics: Chicago Federal Center / Mies Van der Rohe
- Villa Tugendhat / Mies van der Rohe
- The Museum of Fine Arts Houston / Mies Van der Rohe
- Landhaus Lemke / Mies van der Rohe
- IBM Building / Mies van der Rohe
- Barcelona Pavilion / Mies van der Rohe
- IIT Master Plan and Buildings / Mies van der Rohe
- The Farnsworth House / Mies van der Rohe
- 860-880 Lake Shore Drive / Mies van der Rohe
- Restoration of Lake Shore Drive by Krueck + Sexton
- Seagram Building / Mies van der Rohe
- Neue National Gallery in Berlin / Mies van der Rohe
William McDonough to be Stanford University’s First Living Archive
William McDonough of William McDonough + Partners has decided to become Stanford University‘s first “living archive” in an effort to change the way we as humans remember and record our daily lives. Although technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vimeo have made verbal and visual documentation a much larger part of our lives, McDonough has decided to record nearly every moment of his day – every day – for the greater, intellectual good.
Read more on McDonough’s archiving process…
Britain’s New Baseline School Design Sacrifices Style for Savings
Britain’s Education Secretary Michael Gove and the Department for Education have released blueprints for the baseline design for schools that they believe “demonstrate good practice that can be achieved within [a] set cost and area allowances.” The government’s goal is to reduce the cost of new school buildings from the previous £21m to less than £14m each for the replacement of 261 of the most run-down schools in the country.
These new schools, however, will be 15% smaller than the ones designed originally under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) program, potentially compromising important spaces such as corridors, assembly halls, canteens and atriums. Many teachers have expressed concern for these changes, as they could lead to congestion, bad behavior among students and would “undermine attempts to maximize the value for money of school buildings by making them available for community functions after hours.”
Architects and the architecture community at large are also worried about the design implications of such a standardized school building prototype – how will it interact with the existing school buildings and how could restricted design affect Britain’s educational system?
More after the break…
A Glimpse of Hope for Johannesburg’s Forgotten Ponte Tower
The Ponte Tower is a residential high-rise in Johannesburg, South Africa with a unique history and now a promising future. It was designed by architect Manfred Hermer in the 1970′s to be one of the most desirable places to live in the city, with an iconic, hollowed out interior, three-story apartments and rooftop jacuzzis. Over time, however, the building fell into disrepair and instead of serving as an icon of extreme wealth and prosperity, it became an icon of poverty and indifference. In still racially-divided South Africa, this was marked by the moving out of whites and the moving in of a primarily black population as property values plummeted. It has been associated with high levels of crime, a lack of sanitariness and even suicides, thanks to the building’s hollow core.
Recently, however, the derelict Ponte Tower has received more attention from investors and the architect himself, who doesn’t necessarily want to restore the building to its former glory but wishes to at least make it a decent place to live. The introduction of stringent security has encouraged more open-minded, middle-class citizens to move in, hoping for a profitable return as the Ponte Tower continues to grow in terms of value. Watch this featured video for more on the building’s comeback and what it will mean for its current and future residents. (more…)
Harvey B. Gantt, FAIA, Honored with the 2013 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected Harvey B. Gantt, FAIA, as the 2013 recipient of the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award. Established in 1972, the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award honors architects and organizations that champion a range of social issues, including affordable housing, minority inclusion and access for persons with disabilities. Gantt is being recognized for his efforts as a noted civil rights pioneer, public servant and award-winning architect.
More about Gantt after the break… (more…)
Fountainhead Quad City: East Moline’s Future Development Along the Mississippi River
East Moline, Illinois, will soon have an all new, highly developed waterfront mixed use area that will include park space, retail and commercial areas and luxury apartments along its Mississippi River front. The $150 million development will be a host to 300 apartment units, senior citizen housing, condominiums, storage facilities, a sports recreational center, medical facilities along with a variety of amenities that includes neighborhood retail shops, food courts, banks, pharmacies and restaurants, hotels and a central park with a band shell. At over 3.5 million square feet, Fountainhead Quad Cities - developed by Beitler Real Estate Services with James DeStefano of LVD Architecture as the master planner – will bring new residents to the area while attracting the thousands of motorists that pass through the region today.
More after the break.
Cathedral Announces Competition to Design Tomb for King Richard III
Since the remains of Richard III were discovered beneath a car-park near Leicester Cathedral last year, the local church has been left with a perplexing question: what to do with him now? The King’s remains are an important part of English history, and an important tourist attraction, but how should they mark his final resting place?
In response to this issue, Cathedral authorities have launched a design competition asking selected architects to submit ideas for a new tomb for King Richard that will be located in the Gothic Cathedral. The brief is an unusually delicate one; the architects submissions will have to consider appropriate symbolism and practicality in their design, not to mention the challenge of designing, in a modern age, the grave of someone who lived centuries ago. They also need to be mindful of the controversy surrounding the King, as the brief states: “Richard demonstrated both the honorable and dishonorable characteristics of human beings.” Some consider him a great English King, while others, a bloodthirsty tyrant.
Read more about the brief and see an early submission after break…
Video: Vito Acconci, Is Architecture Art?
Following on from their previous ‘videopolemic’ tribute to Lebbeus Woods, 32BNY has released their second video featuring artist and designer Vito Acconci’s response to the question, “Is architecture art?”. Having straddled both architecture and art throughout his carrer, Acconci is cleary comfortable in discussing their relationship, as he talks passionately about the importance of putting people at the center of both. “Because architecture is used… it can possibly be misused, and once it is misused, I think, the user goes one step further…than the architect”.
More about Acconci after the break…
World Water Day: 10 Projects that Exemplify Water Conservation
In celebration of World Water Day, we have complied a list of ten environmentally conscious designs that epitomize the importance of water conservation. See what they have to offer, after the break.
