OMA Announces New Partners
Today OMA announced the appointment of Iyad Alsaka and David Gianotten as new partners in the company. Architectural and research projects in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia have been increasing for OMA and this recent appointment signifies their investment to grow and develop projects within these regions.
Be sure to take a look at some of our featured OMA projects in these regions: Taipei Performing Arts Center, Mahanakhon, Prada Transformer, The Interlace, Edouard Malingue Gallery
Mies van der Rohe Society
The Mies van der Rohe Society recently released their newly designed website. Some of the features we like are the detailed building biographies, sketches, models, 3D renderings, and photographs that showcase the buildings Mies designed.
In addition, when you visit the site you can:
- Browse the titles on Mies’ bookshelf and read his speeches
- Track progress on building restoration efforts and support the organization by becoming members
- Sign up for architectural tours at IIT
- Shop
- Register for events, such as Mies’ 125th birthday party scheduled for March 28, 2011
- Learn about exhibits, lectures, and performances at S.R. Crown Hall
To Become an Architect (a guide, mostly for women) Vol. 2
Back in March we told you about the WIA (Women in Architecture) fund, and how they support women to become professionals and leaders in Architecture in America. In that ocasion, they published “To Become an Architect”, a guide for new students and interns to help raise money for the fund.
Now, they are presenting an eBook in continuation to the original, with more insight from more women professionals, plus a few talented emerging ones. The eBook is in PDF and a portion of the sales will go to the fund. To find out more about the fund click here. You can find the eBook here.
Update: Satellite Whitney Museum / Renzo Piano
During the summer months, Renzo Piano’s satellite design for the Whitney was in the midst of juggling a touch combination of obstacles (as we reported earlier) – the economic downturn, pressure from the community and of course, the indecisiveness of the museum board. Piano had been redesigning his original vision – a stone clad museum which floated above a glass lobby – to lower construction costs. After selling property, including six brownstones on Madison Avenue and two on 74th Street, for an estimated $100 million, the Whitney has raised $475 million of its $680 million goal. Finally, the expansion – an idea which has been 25 years in the making – will breakground on the 24th of May.
More about the updated museum after the break. (more…)
MAXXI Joins Young Architects Program
The annual make-over of PS1′s courtyard is one of our favorite summertime events, as the competition brings fresh, crazy and creative proposals to the table. The NYTimes recently shared that the MoMA and PS1 have asked MAXXI – the National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome – to be the third partner in their Young Architects Program. MAXXI will take part in transforming the Long Island City site, but there will also be a separate installation displayed in Rome.
Logistically, a New York jury and a Rome jury will chose the winning architects in February. The short list for MAXXI includes Raffaella De Simone and Valentina Mandalari of Palermo, Ghigos Ideas of Lissone and stARTT of Rome, Asif Khan of London and Langarita Navarro Arquitectos of Madrid (we’ve covered several Langarita Navarro works previously on AD here).
As we featured several weeks ago, the MoMA/MoMA PS1 finalists include Interboro Partners of Brooklyn, Matter Architecture Practice of Brooklyn, and FormlessFinder also of Brooklyn, MASS Design Group in Boston and IJP Corporation Architects of London.
You can expect full coverage of this exciting new partnership, especially the new proposals for the summer. We are looking forward to seeing if these proposals top last summer’s ideas.
Update: ABI November
As we shared in September, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) reported an ever so slight increase with the index shifting from 47.9 to 48.2 in August. Now, the index shows a 52.0 – a 3 point increase from last month. This is great news for our profession as this billings marks the strongest point we’ve reached since December of 2007. As the New Year approaches, we’re hoping that this trend can steadily climb higher and bring prosperity for 2011; especially since firms across the country – from the Northeast to the West – reported increases. However, the New Year will bring mixed feelings to firms as Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, AIA Chief Economist stated in his report of the ABI. “Both residential and commercial/industrial firms are more optimistic about business conditions over the coming year. Half of the firms in each group are expecting revenue increases in 2011…In contrast, almost half of institutional firms are expecting revenue declines over the coming year, with only 38 percent expecting growth,” stated Baker.
More information about the recent ABI after the break. (more…)
Hortus Conclusus / Point Supreme Architects
Athens based Point Supreme Architects were recently awarded an honorary mention for their Theater Square proposal. The competition asked participants to rethink the idea of an urban square, as the site is surrounded by buildings which makes the small space seemingly negligible in the broad sense of the context. For their proposal, the architects dedicated the square to the magic of nature by making an urban room realized as a ‘secret garden’.
More about the proposal after the break. (more…)
Architecture of WikiLeaks
Thanks to the New York Post article we noticed that this project Pionen White Mountain, which we featured November 24, 2008, is indeed the WikiLeaks Headquarters. Pionen – White Mountain designed by Albert France-Lanord Architects is housed in a former 1,200 sqm Cold War bunker (originally built as a World War II bunker); an amazing location 30 meters down under the granite rocks of the Vita Berg Park in Stockholm.
One of the original founders of WikiLeaks is architect John Young. Sections and more photographs following the break.
Update: It seems that the New York Post article was misleading. The Pionen – White Mountain facilities, a Bahnhof computer center, hosts two Wikileaks servers at these facilities and provides power, cooling, and Internet access to the servers.
Architects: Albert France-Lanord Architects
Location:Stockholm, Sweden
Program: Datacenter
Collaborators: Frida Öster and Jonatan Blomgren
Geology Consultant: Geosigma AB
Construction: Albert France-Lanord Architects
Client: Bahnhof AB
Construction Area: 1,200 sqm
Project year: 2008
Photographs: Åke E:son Lindman
Cool Spaces for PBS
PBS has released their sixteen finalists under consideration for piloting. Making their short-list is Cool Spaces, a show focused on featuring modern architecture, hosted by architect Stephen Chung. The show is slated to be a 13-part series focused on buildings in North America. The public spaces Chung would visit include libraries, restaurants, hotels, etc. with approximately two or three buildings featured per half hour episode.
From now until December 15th PBS wants to hear from the public via emails expressing support for their favorite finalists. Email DIFundSubmission@pbs.org if you are interested in voicing your support for Cool Spaces.
For a video about Cool Spaces (with Stephen Chung) and further details click here.
Apple teams with Norman Foster
Recently reported in El Economista, Apple has chosen to team up with Norman Foster for its new Apple Campus in Cupertino, California. Steve Jobs and Norman Foster have been working together for months developing the design for the new campus. The future headquarters will seek to utilize Foster’s innovative vision for sustainability, ability to perfect a building for its users down to the finest detail, and ideas to maximize efficiency in the workplace.
Sustainability, is reported to be a large focus of the new campus. A network of submerged transportation tunnels is in the works and the campus will incorporate some of the Foster’s innovations already implemented in Masdar City, designed by Foster + Partners. Masdar City is considered the first city in the world without cars or carbon emissions (capacity 50,000). The R & D buildings will be multifunctional and will incorporate cutting-edge technology in materials and equipment as well as renewable energy resources.
Apple and architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson had previously teamed up to design Apple Stores worldwide. In August we featured the London Apple Store and in July we featured the Apple Store in Shanghai, China both designed Bohlin Cywinski Jackson.
In true Apple fashion, everything is hush hush, and it is all about the reveal. We will look forward to seeing the result of the collaboration between Jobs and Foster. Stay tuned to ArchDaily for the latest developments.
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund awards $800,000 to Architecture for Humanity
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund just awarded $816,472 to Architecture for Humanity for the Haiti Rebuilding Center to support reconstruction and livelihoods in Port-au-Prince, a town that was catastrophically affected by an earthquake at the beginning of the year. As a result, many large buildings were either severely damaged or destroyed. This fund will not only aid in the rebuilding process, but will benefit thousands of who were suffering since the natural disaster. Additionally, this grant will enable small and growing Haitin businesses to participate in post-earthquake reconstruction and ensure rebuilding incorporates better design and engineering. More information after the break. (more…)
Office dA coming to an end?
Office disputes happen all the time, it’s in our architect’s DNA.
You might have heard about office dA’s ongoing dispute. Sad, as office dA has done such great buildings, such as the awarded Macallan Building, the BanQ restaurant and Helios House, among a long list of projects of which innovation in terms of materials and fabrication are a common thread. I won’t get into much detail, as it’s all covered in the Boston Globe (and Monica Ponce de Leon´s reply on Archinect), and this is not a gossip blog. However, I wanted to share this quote from Nader Tehrani, which highlights the collaboration and fluidity a practice can have:
“Monica and I made presentations to the public that were like Sonny and Cher. When you are able to finish each other’s sentences, there is clearly a collaborative spirit there.”
I recommend you to watch our interview with Nader Tehrani (now head of the architecture department at MIT) to know more about the (soon to disappear?) firm.
2011 United States Best Architecture Schools
And this years rankings are in…
In it’s 12th year of publication in DesignIntelligence, James Cramer and the Greenway Group have compiled the 2011 America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools ranking. Cornell University repeated as the No.1 Undergraduate Architecture program. The most significant switch among the universities this year, the University of Michigan Graduate program grabbing the No.1 spot, nudging out Harvard (No.2) who had consecutively held the top position for the last six years.
James Cramer answered the ever popular question, why rank schools, “At university, students’ experiences can significantly enhance or diminish their interests as well as their likelihood for future success. This gives schools both tremendous opportunity and huge responsibility, since what happens in them has the potential to change the careers of individuals as well as the architecture profession as a whole.”
Cramer continues, “Another answer is given by the architecture firms that employ recent graduates. If the purpose of a professional degree is to prepare students for professional practice, then how well are degree-granting institutions performing the task? Ongoing research by the Design Futures Council and Greenway Group shows that architecture firms and related professional practice careers are being deconstructed and reinvented at an accelerated pace. Beyond the economy, for example, the profession is being shaped by profound changes in technology, such as building information modeling. Can educational institutions keep pace with the changing needs of 21st-century practices? And so we ask in our survey, “In your firm’s hiring experience in the past five years, which schools are best preparing students for success in the architecture profession?”
After the break you can find the complete rankings divided into the following categories: analysis and planning, communication, computer applications, construction methods and materials, design, research and theory and sustainable design practices and principles as seen at Architectural Record.
(more…)
Masdar Institute / Foster + Partners
Today marks the offical opening of the first solar powered building at Masdar City. The Masdar Institute (MI) campus is entirely powered by renewable solar energy, with a 10 megawatt solar field providing the Institues energy. This solar field by the way is also producing 60% more energy than what MI consumes and its left overs will be fed back into the Abu Dhabi grid. The post graduate students will be the city’s first residents, and the data from the sustainable technologies at MI will be surveyed assisting in the implementation of these practices in future Masdar City buildings.
Foster said:
“Many have dreamed of a utopian project that would be solar powered. Today’s official opening of the initial stage of the Masdar Institute campus at Masdar City is a first realisation of that quest. Its student community is already active, living and working in their quarters. This community, independent of any power grid, develops a surplus of 60 percent of its own energy needs, processes its waste water on-site which is recycled and pioneers many energy saving concepts. It is a bold experiment which will change and evolve over time – already it houses twelve separate research projects with potential world-wide applications.”
Norman Foster participated in the inauguration and was joined by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs.
More about the Masdar Institute campus following the break.
Architects: Foster + Partners
Location: Masdar City, United Arab Emerits
Consultants: Adams Kara Taylor, PHA Consult, Gillespies, Claude Engle Lighting Design, Acentech, Arup, decarbon8, Lerch Bates, Mott MacDonald, RFD, RW Armstrong, RWDI, Sandy Brown, Systematica, WS Atkins
Client: Mubadala Development Company
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Foster + Partners
P.S.1 2011 shortlist
Since 2000, the MoMA and the P.S.1 have been running a competition under their Young Architects Program, each year inviting a group of emerging architects to experiment with new shapes and materials, resulting in a summer installation at the P.S.1. Past winners include WORK ac (P.F.1. Public Farm 1), MOS (Afterparty) and SO-IL (Pole Dance). Architects Newspaper recently announced the short list for the 2011 summer installation, which includes Interboro Partners (NY), FormlessFinder (NY), Matter Architecture Practice (NY) MASS Design Group (Boston) and IJP Corporation Architects (London). Matter Architecture practice was already invited to the 2008 competition, which also happened to MOS back in 2007, then winners in 2009. As usual expect a complete coverage here at ArchDaily, we look forward to see all the projects!
Z-Top / C-Lab
C-Lab and Jeffrey Inaba recently collaborated with One Pot, with support from LIMN Architects and Design Compendium, to design a dinner table for 60 guests. This charity fund raising event was hosted in New York’s Park Avenue Armory, a rare Louis Comfort Tiffany interior.
The design required sixty linear feet of table surface in a slim thirty-five feet of available floor space. C-Lab creatively designed the Z-Top, not just fitting with in the spatial constraints, but also developing an immediate interaction among guests, prompting more informal discussion areas between courses, and cutting down the overall distance between diners.
We interviewed Jeffrey Inaba, and discussed C-Lab as an experimental research unit at Columbia University, his book “World of Giving” and research on altruism.
More following the break.
Architects: C-Lab
Location: New York City, New York, United States
Director: Jeffrey Inaba
Project Designer: Simon Battisti
Project Team: Justin Fowler, Nathalie Janson, Amanda Shin, Leah Whitman-Salkin, Jeffrey Yip
Photography: Naho Kubota
Five Architects: A North American Anthology
If you are in the New York area, Columbia University is organizing a celebration for architect and critic Kenneth Frampton’s 80th birthday. This event, entitled Five Architects: A North American Anthology , is a conference curated by Frampton on Saturday, November 13 running from 10 am – 6 pm. The five architects will include Steven Holl of New York, Rick Joy of Tucson, John + Patricia Patkau of Vancouver, Stanley Saitowitz of San Francisco and Brigitte Shim + Howard Sutcliffe of Toronto. The diverse group represents a varied body of work which, although quite distinct and different, share certain values, such as a particularly sensitive feeling for the impact of both craftsmanship and climate on the generation of form and a seemingly, equally shared concern for the expressive tactility of material and the articulation of structure under the impact of light.
For more information about the event, visit here.
Update: Kristiansund Opera and Culture Center / C. F. Møller Architects
This summer, C.F. Møller Architects informed us of their shared first prize for a competition to design a new Opera and Culture Center in Norway. The firm just shared with us that the jury has recently selected C. F. Møller Architects as the final winner (Norwegian firm Space Group in collaboration with the London firm Brisac Gonzales was the other first place contestant). As we’ve previously featured, the new center will create a vibrate cultural community for opera, dance, plus educational and mixed programs. The winning proposal, entitled Kulturkvartalet, forms an entire cultural district where the “light and lively facades create an ever-changing play of light and shadow.” Set to be inaugurated in 2014, the center will connect the various activities with a network of pedestrian streets, squares, and a nearby park. The project will abide by the environmental standard BREEAM.
More images after the break. (more…)
Pushing La Sagrada Família Forward
Our newest addition to the site, our AD Classics, highlight impressive and innovative buildings spanning the course of history. While we are continually fascinated by Kahn’s National Assembly Building of Bangladesh (1982) or SOM’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (1963), what about works that date even farther back….before Corbusier’s Unite d’ Habitation (1952) and Mies’ Farnsworth House (1951); before the Eames House (1945) and Wright’s Unity Temple (1905). Dating back to the 1880s, Antoni Gaudí devoted over a decade of his life to one of Barcelona’s, and the architecture world’s, most prized structures, la Sagrada Família. The cathedral has remained under construction for hundreds of years as debates concerning whether or not its current state is too far from the original vision continually spark controversy. Yet, this Sunday, as the NY Times reported, Pope Benedict XVI visited the cathedral to consecrate the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. The visit spurred hundreds of workers to prepare the church in an effort to highlight the newest “ latest architectural and artistic features”.
More after the break. (more…)
The ballots are in… How will the midterm elections impact architects
This past Tuesday marked the much anticipated 2010 midterm elections in the United States. In a switch of power the Republic party gained control of the U.S. House of Representatives while the Democrats maintained control of the U.S. Senate. You may be asking yourself what do the results of these recent political changes have to do with me? Well here is the scoop:
For the most part lawmakers who have previous backed design-related policies survived. This includes the Congressional High Performance Building Caucus chairpersons, Judy Biggert (R-IL and Russ Carnahan (D-MO).
A supporter for the tax incentive of green buildings, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) was re-elected. Previously assisting the AIA to expand access to credit, Reps. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) and Mike Coffman (R-CO) won their races. Livability champion Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Hon. AIA (D-OR) and Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) – author of the GREEN Act for green affordable housing and the Livable Communities Act – and Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), a leader on green buildings and historic preservation, all won re-election.
Follow the break for more results.
Stephen H Kanner Exhibit / Architecture + Design Museum
If you’re in the Los Angeles area, the Architecture + Design Museum is launching its latest exhibition – a retrospective honoring Stephen Kanner. Kanner, in addition to being the founder and president of the A+D, was also a third generation architect and principal of Kanner Architects. Some of his most notable projects include PUMA retail stores worldwide, in addition to his contributions to his native LA environment. The exhibit, which will run from November 4th through January 16th, will display sketches and models of his work. As Sam Lubell reported for the AN Blog, “Many will be surprised by the depth of Kanner’s talents—he could sketch almost any building or neighborhood with exact precision, his cartoons were artful and hilarious, and he excelled at painting, model-making, and even carpet design— or even the breadth of his architecture, so this show is a must-see.” The museum is set to establish a Stephen Kanner Memorial Fund to ensure the future of the museum. A+D explained, “Kanner envisioned a museum dedicated to progressive architecture and design, celebrating not only the design breakthroughs of the city but also the accomplishments of the national and international design scenes.”
