California: The Latest Architecture and News

Suprastudio Greg Lynn from UCLA Architecture & Urban De on Vimeo.

SCI-Arc‘s introduction of the Robot House (spring 2011) – a multifunctional robotics lab that enables the exploration of advanced fabrication techniques, manipulation of high tech materials, and numerous methods for simulation – has brought about a new and intriguing component to the school. Designed by faculty members Peter Testa and Devyn Weiser, its primary goal is the advancement of next generation platforms for the experimentation and future speculation of architecture.

On view until Marcg 25th and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the installation for California Design, 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way” Exhibition is created by the Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture Studio, which is also responsible for a number of Los Angeles landmarks, including the renovated Hollywood Bowl and Egyptian Theater. The design for the exhibition is inspired by California’s unique style, with lithe, sensuous lines carried throughout the installation, including the display cases and a helical construction that soars through the center of the space. Hodgetts + Fung also collaborated with curators Wendy Kaplan and Bobbye Tigerman to bring the re-creation of the Eames living room to life. More information on the design and exhibition after the break.

Highlight Gallery recently announced that they will be featuring two artists whose bodies of work are influenced by architecture, Filip Dujardin and Renato Nicolodi. Their work, which will be up from November 3rd to December 12th, reflects the passion and interest which Highlight Gallery founder and curator Amir Mortazavi cultivates for architecture. With these two artists, the answer to the eternal question, ‘Is architecture art?’ is easy to find. More information on the event and their work after the break.

Charles and Ray Eames inspired us to appreciate the world by honoring “the uncommon beauty of common things.”

Business and interior architecture students of Woodbury University present: 2011 ADVANCING SUSTAINABILITY – BUSINESS + DESIGN SYMPOSIUM Saturday, October 29, 2011, 10:30-5:30. This year’s symposium will focus on sustainability within the scope of business and design.

The metropolitan area of Los Angeles is facing many environmental, infrastructural and socio-economical challenges in the 21st century. In order to address these, different sustainable concepts and technologies are being developed and successfully implemented. Despite the existence of such solutions, the process of rethinking the world requires time and persistence. More information on the event after the break.

Gensler, architects of SanFrancisco International Airport’s Terminal2(SFO T2) and Virgin America, the terminal’s anchor tenant, announce the release of A Day in the Life of SFO T2, a video by filmmakers Spirit of Space. A Day in the Life of SFO T2 is a key element in Virgin America’s fall promotion “VX Deals on the Fly,” launching today via Loopt, the geo-social network. The promotion will offer travelers mobile check-in rewards at various locations throughout SFO T2. More information after the break.

This summer Coop Himmelb(l)au recieved two awards for two different buildings in Europe. The Dedalo Minosse International Prize was awarded for the firm’s design of BMW Welt in Munich on June 24, 2011 in Vicenza, Italy. According to the president of the Italian Association ALA, Bruno Gabbiani, who presented the award, the prize boosts “the quality of architecture looking at final result, analysing and focusing on project and constructive plan process and giving special attention to people who determine the success of the work: the architect and the client”. The awarded works, with Coop Himmelb(l)au among them, will be presented at the CISA, Cento Studi di Architecttura Palladio in Vicenza until September 18, 2011. Read more on this project here: BMW Welt / Coop Himmelb(l)au

Chris Burden’s massive kinetic sculpture, Metropolis II, will debut at at LACMA this fall. The project took Burden and his chief engineer Zak Cook four years to complete.

Architect Jennifer Bonner‘s installation at the Woodbury Hollywood Gallery.

“Bonner filled the gallery with water in order to provoke a discussion of crisis, flood, drought, and watershed geographies. This piece is not only timely, but critical. The question of flooded environments is not an abstraction but a reality. In an arid climate such as Los Angeles, the wet, hot, and humid installation heightens awareness of other environments and potential future scenarios.” -Mimi Zieger

For the first time, the words of Charles and Ray Eames will be the lens of an exhibit at the A+D Museum in Los Angeles from October 1st to January 16th, enveloping the visitor in a 21st century typographic ‘surround’. Their philosophy of design and life will be explored through Eames’ quotes, shown graphically (as well as live on film), and complemented by the display of unexpected everyday objects, ranging from food to a keg of nails, to an inter-active digital experience. Their appreciation of humble objects is a special gift to the world – during their lifetimes and continuing today. Generations of designers and the public have been affected by their appreciation of the joys of daily life. More information on the event after the break.

In 2009, the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District was created in an attempt to preserve the rich history of the buildings, neighborhoods and communities that lay north of San Francisco’s Market Street. It has not only kept developers from modifying or even eradicating key buildings that have shaped the city of San Francisco, but has also helped to prevent the process of gentrification, enabling middle and lower-class inhabitants to continue living in the city at reasonable rates. Although building projects north of Market Street are now heavily restricted, not all of San Francisco is off limits.

Sustainable housing comes in all shapes and sizes, and by 2020 California hopes that all of its new housing projects will benefit from net-zero energy consumption. But what exactly makes a home sustainable? Sustainability practices include materials, passive heating and cooling systems, energy harvesting, recycling, construction techniques and many other systems and technologies that are being developed everyday.

With so much continual innovation, California’s goal of making all new housing so energy efficient that it consumes no energy at all is foreseeable. While many agree that this, in fact, is the most responsible and intelligent approach to our increased energy consumption, developers and builders are divided over the potential financial hurdles that crop up from such a goal.

Follow us after the break for more information and images of sustainable housing projects.

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.

Joan Didion

Community pressure has swayed the owners of Richard Neutra‘s Kronish House to postpone plans for demolition, and has also prompted the city of Beverly Hills to draft legislation to preserve its architectural history. The house been spared until at least October 10 in order to give community activists time to devise a plan for its restoration. In a related, ground-breaking action the Beverly Hills City Council has asked the city’s Planning Commission to enact a first-ever historic-preservation ordinance.

The city of Long Beach, California recently asked firms WE-designs and XP& Architecture to design a landmark project to revitalize its downtown area using a low budget. The initial ideas are represented here as a series of re-configured old shipping containers, truncated and placed upright. The futuristic cluster of low rise buildings, called (RE) Configured-Ecologies, may eventually become multi-use space with an open playground feel. It will comprise of an education center, a café, retail space and 13 work/live loft spaces as well as an open roof terrace. Through proposing three types of innovatively reconstructed modular shipping containers, the overall construct leads to open courtyards, interlocking units, and playfully generated programs that introduce a new innovative topological creation that regenerates and reconnects the community.

More images after the break!

The American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter (AIA San Francisco) and Center for Architecture + Design present the eighth annual Architecture and the City festival, the nation’s largest architectural festival showcasing tours, films, exhibitions, lectures, family programs and more. Taking place every September 1-30, the month-long celebration offers individuals an unparalleled opportunity to engage with the local architectural community, explore the crossroads of planning and contemporary culture, and experience design in a myraid of ways throughout the city. More information about select events after the jump.

The ARTCUBE exhibition contains a novel interactive sculpture comprising photographs of the artistic processes and techniques captured by Brandon Shigeta. Stacked into random arrays forming a single cubic massing, the sculpture includes hidden signed cards and custom artwork on the surface of the postcards by artists. Perhaps qualifying the exhibit as the heaviest photographic exhibit ever, the sculpture consists of approximately 65,000 postcards of approximately 80 various images to be removed by visitors as souvenirs. More images and description of the exhibition after the break.

The San Diego Architectural Foundation (SDAF) wants to know what you think makes San Diego’s architecture and design blossom – or stink, and is again soliciting public nominations through August 31 for projects to be considered for this year’s Orchids & Onions Awards. All San Diegans are encouraged to take a few moments to have their say about what they view as the good, the bad and the ugly in categories including Architecture, Historic Preservation, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, and Miscellaneous; which covers just about everything in-between. By uploading a few photos on the SDAF’s Orchids and Onions website, along with your rationalization, you can be part of cultivating a more thoughtfully designed San Diego. More competition description after the break.