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developers: The Latest Architecture and News

Open Call: INFILL PHOENIX - Highlight, Reveal & Define the Essence of Phoenix

INTRODUCTION
Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the United States by population and area, is very much a function of the 20th century technologies that enabled its rapid post WWII growth and inhabitation of an arid desert environment. While frequently cited for seemingly endless suburban sprawl, the metro area is in a state of transformation and is beginning to densify in line with other emergent urban centers. For decades, vacant land has made up a sizable portion of Phoenix’s land mass — up to 43 percent in the year 2000, according to a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. This is especially true of the Phoenix downtown area, a location which has enjoyed positive, if not game-changing, developments over the past decade including light rail, a new university campus, thousands of new housing units, and an increasingly attractive business environment. The area also features a celebrated and long-standing arts and culture core with an emerging live music scene.

PANEL: Designer As Developer: Building Your Vision, Building New Business

Should architects and designers take control of the development, financing and investment process to both achieve breakthrough designs and to take control of their futures?

This panel of distinguished experts says yes, and they discuss the steps required to develop properties and interiors with their own designs. The main benefits of this challenging dual approach is that the designer is able to "invest" in better designed results. Program includes case studies on new building projects.

The Evolving Symbiosis Between Architects & Developers in the UK

Although the design world has maintained a negative opinion of property developers for a very long time, the relationship between architect and developer has begun to evolve in the United Kingdom. In this article, first published in Blueprint issue #333 as "Why Architects Are Working for Property Developers," the cultural shift is explained and explored through case studies.

Developers have not, traditionally, enjoyed a very good reputation within the architectural fraternity - or with the general public, for that matter. At worst they are seen as sharp-suited pirates of urban space, stripping out centuries-old residential or commercial buildings to replace them with shoddy, design-by-numbers structures, thrown up with no driving objective other than maximising their cash before they move on.

But times have changed. Whether it's economic necessity - driven by the lack of buyers for bad housing or poor office space - or just good sense, there is a growing number of developers out there that appear to be cherry-picking some of the UK's better practices to transform our urban wastelands and unloved spaces. This new breed appears to enjoy and understand the value of architecture and design. Some of them even consider architects their natural collaborators - the creative yang to their commercial yin.