At the peak of the modern era, a meshing of car culture and the Space Age brought about the gaudy and garnished Googie architecture. The signatures Googie style lie in sweeping arches and hard angles, cantilevered roofs and bold colors, and, its most relative homage to the Space Age, the starburst. The first of the Googie style, and its namesake, was a coffee shop designed by architect John Lautner by the name of “Googies”. With its place on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles the new style caught the eye of many passersby who began to associate the style with the glamour of Hollywood. The spread of this movement from Southern California went most notably north and south along the shore to become a symbol of west coast futurism.

UPDATE: New renderings of the project have been released as the building approaches completion. They can be viewed here.

The design for the new Taipei Nangang High-tech District Office Tower, by Aedas, draws inspiration from the shape of the river pebbles, developing a unique aesthetic that conveys the idea of softness and elegance as well as strength and character.

Located in close proximity to the Jilong River and a major overpass highway in Taipei, the surrounding environment provided the opportunity to propose a building that will redefine the skyline of this rapidly developing area of Taipei. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architecture + Art merging via photography, by Paul Clemence, are a collection of photographs at the exhibit, “BOOM (Design) Contemporaneo” taking place from August 29th to October 10th in Sao Paulo, Brazil and is free to the public.

Zaha Hadid, Paul Clemence, Milano, Design, Massimiliano Fuksas, Frankfurt, Shopping, New York and Art are all converging in this one place via Paul Clemence’s photography at BOOMSPDESIGN 2011. More information on the exhibit after the break.

AA (Architectural Association) Visiting School Paris, currently led by Jorge Ayala, Principal of A Studio, will be held from October 31st to November 10th.

The Visiting School Paris has started to acquire some recognition among emerging units at the AA due to its novel agenda aiming to bridge the spectrum of Architecture to the realm of Fashion.

AA School Paris has been established based on a series of partnerships that have been of a great value and support for the AA School London. Among them we currently have printed magazines, venues and institutions supporting us like : L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, La Mairie de Paris, Musées des Arts Décoratis, among others. More information on the event after the break.

Nest is an unbuilt project by Randy Brown Architects. The space is a collaboration with another design office. It is a place to both experience and create digital media.

The design for the Busan Opera House by OODA engages itself with the natural topography, articulating a multi leveled building and seamlessly integrating the different cultural activities and programs. The dominant flow circulation, flexibility and concept strategy enables full accessibility as it creates spaces that blur the difference between building and landscape, intensifying the fluidity between interior and exterior spaces, indoor and outdoor venues. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Gardens by the Bay will be Singapore’s largest garden project and is central to the country’s continued development of Marina Bay. Managed by the Singapore‘s National Park Board, the gardens were designed by a team of two firms: landscape architects, Grant Associates and architects, Wilkinson Eyre Architects. The gardens will feature two cooled conservatories – the Flower Dome (cool dry biome) and Cloud Forest (cool moist biome), as well as themed horticulture gardens, heritage gardens, and hundreds of thousands of plants from around the world.

More on this after the break.

Next week we will be taking our Architecture City Guide to Shanghai and we need your help. To make the City Guides more engaging we are asking for your input on which designs should comprise our weekly list of 12. In order for this to work we will need you, our readers, to suggest a few of your favorite modern/contemporary buildings for the upcoming city guide in the comment section below. Along with your suggestions we ask that you provide a link to an image you took of the building that we can use, the address of the building, and the architect. (The image must be from a site that has a Creative Common License cache like Flickr or Wikimedia. We cannot use images that are copyrighted unless they are yours and you give us permission.) From that we will select the top 12 most recommended buildings. Hopefully this method will help bring to our attention smaller well done projects that only locals truly know. With that in mind we do not showcase private single-family residences for obvious reasons. Additionally, we try to only show completed projects.

In this earnest and insightful video, NAi director Ole Bouman lectures on our shared need to “celebrate architecture’s glory.” The lecture was recorded in June 2011 at the International Architecture Festival (“FESTARCH“).

Recent years have seen an influx of skyscrapers completed, nearing construction, or proposed in Asia. Stimulated by an exponentially growing population and, therefore, thriving economy, Asia has contributed more soaring buildings to the world’s Supertall list than any other continents combined. With the completion of the world’s tallest building at 828 meters tall, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, comes the proposition of progressively more structures which aim to surpass the prior and ascend to the number one status.

More on skyscraper-mania in Asia after the break.

Competition participants, Sasa Djak and Milica Vujovic recently won the community’s vote as best Rapidly-Deployable Shade Structure in the DesignByMany competition. The challenge asked professionals and students in the AEC community to submit proposals for a rapidly-deployable shade structure that could just as easily be deployed during a day at the beach or park, or in a desert environment. More images and project description after the break.

RVA

Rafael Viñoly Architects have just announced the official groundbreaking of their Math Institute at the University of Oxford. Prior to the project, Oxford’s mathematics department was scattered across the University in different locations. RVA was commissioned to provide a design solution that provided a centralized building for the entire department, to create a balanced environment for academics’ need for privacy with the increasing importance of interdisciplinary collaboration.

More about the design after the break.

For the passing fan or the honorary Jedi that knows ever detail of the series, Star Wars: The Blueprints offers an amazing (in fact never before seen!) opportunity to discover how an entire galaxy was engineered.

Compiling over 200 of the original production, highly detailed architectural drawings created for all six films of the STAR WARS Saga, the book provides an in-depth look into the universe that was painstakingly pieced together down to the most minute detail. Complimenting the blueprints are over 500 photographs (which even highlight the construction process) and illustrations.

You can pre-order at Amazon.

Stay tuned as ArchDaily will have an exclusive surprise about Star Wars: The Blueprints in the coming days. Take note that only a total of 5,000 English language collector’s volumes will be printed.  For more about this exciting new book follow the break.

This short video features the projects of six firms, all of which are the winners of the 2011 Design Is… Awards, a design award program from Shaw Contract Group.

Steven Holl Architects recently received an American Architecture Award for 2011 for the Horizontal Skyscraper-Vanke Center in Shenzhen, China.The awards, administered annually by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies honor ‘new and cutting-edge design’ and aim to promote ‘the best of new architecture and urban design.’ More on the project after the break.

Miami University Department of Architecture and Interior Design recently announced their Fall 2011 Architecture and Interior Design Lecture Series, which began on the 24th of August and runs through the 14th of November.

More event information after the break.

In 1956, preparations had begun for the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels. This was to be the first World’s Fair held since the end of World War II, the concept behind the Expo was to celebrate the rejuvenation of civilization from the destruction of war through the use of technology. This World Fair is best known for the musical advances that was combined with architecture, creating a gestalt through an experiential encounter where body meets sound and space.

+ 63

Local New York architect Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects recently gave a speech at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’s Teachers Seminar 2011. He addresses numerous issues that are currently being debated within the profession where the theme of the three-day seminar was “Performative Practices.” The roles of the architect and builder, the architect and engineer, etc. The roles of architects as instruction makers who outsource to specialists in façade or fabrication may not be as clear as in previous generations. His own firm is prime example of the shifting of roles. SHoP has branched off with its own SHoP Construction subsidiary that is managing the fabrication of their design for the new Barclays Center rusted steel skin. More details after the break.

Global events such as the Olympic Games have the potential to enrich the city in which they are held, both economically and socially. The Olympics in particular promote cultural and social development. However, the effort and economics that the city invests is only advantageous when the event leaves a lasting trace. It is a delicate balance, warns Richard Sennett. The balance rests in the sustainability of the economic and social development of the city at the conclusion of the global event. The investment and design and planning strategies should be thought of in regards to long-term development and flexibility for twenty years down the road when the grounds can be acquired for other uses by the city. In 2012, London will be hosting the Olympic Games and it seems promising that the development of the grounds will bring continued social and economic profit to the area at the end of the games.

More on this discussion after the break.

To visit the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a 30-kilometer ring that surrounds the Chernobyl nuclear plant, is a haunting, sobering experience. Located north of Kiev, on the border between the Ukraine and Belarus, Chernobyl is the site of the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history. The disaster occurred in 1986, and since then the power plant and Exclusion Zone surrounding it have been off-limits for human inhabitants. But earlier this year, Ukraine opened the Exclusion Zone to tourists, highlighting the interest in this area and the possibilities it provides for rebuilding. More on the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone after the break.

The existing airport in Baku currently serves both international and domestic flights. The local airport authority is currently in the process of building a new international terminal building. RSA Design Group was asked to submit a proposal for the renovation of the existing building. The renovated structure would be repurposed as a domestic terminal, with all international flights passing through the new terminal building. More about the Heydar Aliyev International Airport after the break.

We just left off with Budget Is What Budget Does… well this posting will help with any clarifications.

I ran into a colleague of mine recently and he shared with me a story about a client that I was interviewed by 6 months earlier.  Let’s call her Alma. At the time of our initial meetings, I knew that I wanted the job because of its style demands, yet I knew that I really didn’t want the job.  Sometimes you just know.  For one, and one reason only, she was going to be very difficult.  Like the sign at the auto mechanics shop for hourly rates:

Price for labor

Price for labor if you watch

Price for labor if you help

She had remodeled her own home, and it looked like it. An eclectic combination of eras, worldly styles, and personal touches that was all placed into an original stucco box at the beach. Not one room had any rhyme or reason nor any relation to any other room in the entire house. The outside had fresh paint over facia that was held together by termite snot. Pretty picture, huh. But her perceived knowledge of construction was the one thing that would ultimately isolate her from ever being able to achieve her goal. She thought she knew more than me.  Sometimes you just know.  And this was one of them.

Ajman University of Science and Technology announced that there will be an architectural workshop by the renowned architect Will Alsop to be held at the university itself (AUST), UAE, during the period of September 20-24, 2011.

Tune into the Discovery Channel tonight at 8 E/P for executive producer Steven Spielberg’s Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero. This two part 6-hour documentary (the second installation will run September 1st) will take viewers on the journey of the process and struggles behind constructing One World Trade Center. As George Pataki, former New York governor, explains, the construction site is vastly different from any other site as it is hallowed land. Working to keep the memory of those fallen alive, and provide a symbol of strength, the rebuilding process continually faces challenges as the complex’s four skyscrapers, transportation hub, museum and memorial are “all being constructed at the same time and on the same location.” Watching this short clip we spotted on The Hollywood Reporter gave me chills – especially the part about “Big Red” and its fallen ones. Let us know what you think of the documentary this evening; we are sure it won’t disappoint!