Architecture News: The Latest Architecture and News

The 590ft (180m) proposed Herzog de Meuron design labeled ‘Triangle Tower’, has been in the spotlight over recent weeks after the cross-party council approved the tower’s protocol agreement. Opposing the recent approval, Green party members are eager to share their thoughts commenting that the “colossal” project is “yet another office block” according to party member Yves Contassot.

The controversy over the 40-story steel and glass building surely was anticipated; the French capital has had a 30+ year drought of buildings over 121ft. In 1977 a ban was put into place, shortly after the completion of the 689ft Tour Montparnasse, because Parisians feared that the city center would lose its existing urban fabric to skyscrapers similar to the Montparnasse.

To most Parisians the Montparnasse’s over exaggerated proportions and lack of character have left an uneasy feeling for future skyscraper development. Many citizens are not opposed to high-rise development, such as Olivier de Rohan Chabot member of Safeguard of French Art, however he has concerns, “Look at the Montparnasse Tower; it has crushed the hotel des Invalides (housing Napoleon’s tomb). The monument was built to be grandiose. But what has it become? A dwarf. The tower ridicules it. In this sense, it’s a veritable attack on the beauty of the capital” (as stated Le Figaro newspaper).

More following the break.

Pritzker Prize winning architect Peter Zumthor’s design for the 11th Serpentine Gallery Pavilion was revealed today. A design that ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again – maybe not’, the materials are significant in aiding the design which emphasizes the role the senses and emotions play in our experience of architecture. The Pavilion will be Zumthor’s first completed building in the UK

Zumthor shared that ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’

Stay tuned to ArchDaily for more images and news on Zumthor’s design for the Pavilion. Our previous coverage of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion can be found here, including Jean Nouvel’s Serpentine Gallery of 2010, and SANAA’s 2009 Serpentine Gallery.

Ai Weiwei was arrested today on unspecified charges by Chinese security police while he and his family were about to board a plane to Hong Kong, as reported by the NY Times.

The New York Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects [NYCOBA]has planned a Portfolio + Resume review day for graduating college seniors and young professionals seeking feedback on their portfolio as well as some advice about the interview/job hunting process.

Today the architecture world is celebrating Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s 125th birthday. To mark this day, the Mies van der Rohe Society is celebrating with cocktails, student exhibits and a brief presentation on collecting the master’s work. If you are in or around Chicago you might to check it out. For all our articles that involve this architectural giant click here.

Continuing our reporting on the Architecture Billings Index, the ABI score slighly increased from 50.0 in January to 50.6 this past month. Although only a small jump, regional average for the Midwest and South remained over 50 (55.3 and 50.1 respectively), and the West and Northeast reported scores of 49.1 and 46.4. ”Overall demand for design services seems to be treading water over the last two months,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “We’ve been preaching patience and cautious optimism for a full recovery because there continues to be a wide range of business conditions for architecture firms that are also influenced by firm size, practice specialties and regional location. We still expect the road to recovery to move at a slow, but steady pace.”

Plans for the new Glasgow School of Art building, designed by Steven Holl Architects in association with JM Architects, received approval from the Glasgow City Council’s planning committee this week. Site preparations are scheduled for this summer, and work on the new building will immediately follow with construction scheduled to take around two years. The five story building will reside directly opposite of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterful Glasgow School of Art building.

As we had previously reported over 130 artists recently issued a call to action to boycott the new Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum that has just begun construction on Saadiyat Island. Despite the recent intervention by the Guggenheim Foundation and Museum and changes from the Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC), the artists backed by the Human Rights Watch are continuing to threaten to withhold their work as well as refusing participation in museum events. Our previous coverage can be found here.

Yesterday the Guggenheim Museum and Foundation Director Richard Armstrong and Deputy Director and Chief Curator Nancy Spector responded to the proposed artist boycott of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum. The letter highlights the changes that have been, the Guggenheim’s own concern with the works rights, the importance of this museum to the region, and notably the inaccurate picture that is being painted by the Human Rights Watch most recent statements.

The full letter issued from Armstrong and Spector following the break.

When Dale Morgan and Norman Silk spotted a “For Sale” sign in front of a contemporary home in the Palmer Woods neighborhood of Detroit it was just what they were looking for, so they snatched it up. Little did they know that they had just stumbled into buying a true Frank Lloyd Wright designed home, known as the Turkel House.

To answer the question you are all asking yourselves, how could they not have known, it turns out that 25 years of disrepair, long periods of vacancy and changing owners hands combined with years of deferred maintenance and overgrown vegetation can hide a FLW design quite well.

More following the break.

Immediately, the plan was criticized for its monotony and, in particular, the 90 degree angles of the street intersections – which were designed in an economical fashion as right-angled houses were the most affordable to build.   While cities such as Washington DC had grand diagonal cross streets, Manhattan’s plan divided the island into repetitious compressed parcels with no attention paid to changing topography or location.  However, opinions of the system seem to be changing, as, over the course of decades, the grid’s logistical framework has proven beneficial and has allowed a magnificent modern city to rise.

More after the break.

“I was privileged to collaborate with Bucky for the last 12 years of his life and this had a profound influence on my own work and thinking. Inevitably, I also gained an insight into his philosophy and achievements,” shared Lord Norman Foster.

Recreating the legendary futuristic Dymaxion Car, Foster’s No. 4 version was a lengthy and expensive two year project, but was obviously a labor of love. Buckminster Fuller’s futuristic three wheeled car was brief, with a mere three actually built. Incredibly efficient the streamlined body with long tail-fin averaged 35 miles to the gallon and could achieve 120 mph. The Zeppelin inspired design with a V8 Ford engine was intended to fly as well, Fuller’s vision of revolutionizing how people traveled.

More following the break.

Currently under construction Future Towers, a vertical city proposed by MVRDV, is part of the first phase of Amanora Apartment City. The design of 1,068 apartments & public amenities, as a part of a large scale housing development with a total of 400,000 sqm comprising 3,500 apartments is a response to the demand for housing in the rapidly growing city of Pune, India. The competition for the Future Towers design was won by MVRDV in November 2009. This is MVRDV’s first project in India presented to the public, who are currently also working on a range of projects in Mumbai and Bangalore.

Architects: MVRDV Project Management: Northcroft MEP: Neilsoft Structural Design: J+W

Designer of UK Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo, Thomas Heatherwick was one of the speakers featured at the recent 2011 TED conference. Heatherwick and his design team won the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) commission to create the Pavilion following a competition that attracted a shortlist of ambitious architectural proposals. Exploring the relationship between nature and cities Heatherwick Studio sought an approach that would engage meaningfully with Shanghai Expo’s theme, Better City, Better Life, and stand out from the anticipated trend for technology driven pavilions, filled with audio-visual content on screens, projections and speakers.

The Huffington Post sat down with Thomas Heatherwick following his TED talk. Discussing China’s building boom and his creative process the full interview is featured following the break.

Awarded by the Interior Design Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), the prestigious Lawrence Israel Prize for 2011 has been awarded to David Rockwell. Given annually to an individual or firm whose ideas and work enrich FIT Interior Design students’ course of study. Past winners include Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis, Billie Tsien, and Charles Gwathmey.

Debate continues on the design for the Glasgow School of Art by Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with Glasgow based JM Architects. Last month William J.R. Curtis shared his critical thoughts on the new extension, referencing the diagrams by Holl as ‘cartoonlike’, the surface choices of glass ‘monotonous’, and the external volumes as ‘clumsy’. As we all know architecture is subjective and debate should be welcomed, hopefully resulting in a smart discussion focused on providing the best design solutions for a project. A critique of an extension to a building with such importance as Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, a design that masterfully manipulates light into spaces and skillfully the nature of different materials, is expected. However, this review almost seemed personal and a bit uninformed. Curtis, during his critical rant even asks “where was the client during these intervening months?” referring to the initial announcement and presentation of Holl’s winning design and then later released drawings.

Continuing, “The unsatisfactory state of Holl’s proposal perhaps reveals what may happen when a star architect drops in from another planet and blinds a building committee with the “smoke and mirrors” of popularized phenomenology. Some good old Scottish common sense would have been in order to insist on greater rigor and a more appropriate response to the context.”

Holl took time to respond to Curtis’ article stating, “We welcome criticism as long as it’s based on an accurate understanding of our design. Unfortunately William Curtis’ article is not knowledgeable about our design,” and Holl also shares specifics about both the design material choices for the new extension (his full response following the break).

Already mobilizing teams in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, Architecture for Humanity has begun to initiate an immediate response to the Sendai earthquake and tsunami. Currently AFH is searching for individuals to join a coalition to update foreign nationals in Japan with the latest information regarding unfolding events (currently being done via twitter #honyaquake).

Foster + Partners’ City Park proposal has recently been selected for the 40-hectare masterplan for West Kowloon Cultural District. Since this past August, we have been sharing the three competing shortlisted projects – OMA’s Three Villages, Rocco Design Architects’ Cultural Connect, and Foster’s City Park – and your comments have sparked great discussion concerning the advantages and disadvantages of each. The selection process for the cultural district was quite unique as the three projects, that were selected from 12 proposals, then entered a public consultation exercise. For three months, the people of the West Kowloon district had the opportunity to review and comment on the projects, which then had a strong impact on the panel’s final decision.

Imagine a vibrant, connected and green Kansas City region. Highlighting local communities, Imagine KC discuses how members of the community are working together to provide a more sustainable and vibrant place to live, work and play. Episode 2: Energy Efficiency and Conservation aired in January and is the latest of the 12 part series from Kansas City Public Television.

Tune in March 24th at 7:30 p.m. for Episode Three: Quality Places and Vibrant Centers. More information about Imagine KC following the break.