As the Milstein Hall at Cornell (designed by OMA, project lead by partner Shohei Shigematsu) was getting the finals approval´s by the City of Ithaca, a strong opposition coming from non-architectural faculty members (arguing a provocative and setting-discording design, high budget, and that the planned project has standard LEED rating instead of Gold) is not only putting the project in danger, but also their architectural program at the AAP.

Their B.Arch (ranked #1 during 2008 in the US for architectural programs) and their MArch (ranked #6) could see an end, as their accreditation depends on their facilities: The NAAB has warned us for over a decade, and have explicitly stated that the last accreditation we got is the FINAL one they will grant without compliant facilities. They have just denied us an accreditation review for our new M.Arch 1 program this spring because of delays to the final approval process. When they return next year, they plan to review both the M1 and B.Arch programs — if we don’t have a building in process at that point, the B.Arch will LOSE its accreditation, and the M1 will be denied the same.

The above statement was taken from an email circulating the Cornell community, posted at Archinect. Read the complete e-mail after the break:

UPDATE: The original author of the letter just added the original version on the comments.

We are back with our series of interviews. This time we had the chance to ask our usual set of questions to Joshua Prince-Ramus, founder of REX – Architecture PC. Previously, Prince-Ramus was the founding partner of OMA NY, where he was Partner in Charge of the Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas and the Seattle Central Library.

As of now, he has been developing one of the most interesting mix-use projects I have ever seen: The Museum Plaza in Luisville, Kentucky. He has also two ongoing projects, the Vakko headquarters in Turkey and the Wyly Theatre in Dallas.

This has been one of the most interesting interviews we have ever had. Joshua talked a lot on his approach to design and how to collaborate on a project.

But enough talk, just watch the interview – sorry for the audio, we are working to improve our interviews in the future.

After the break, some images of his practice.

This building reuses an existing structure to receive a new program, through the addition of a new complex core, that doesn´t end up like a parasite, rather than a whole.

The glass skin shows an innovative work, that results in a very light skin.

Architect´s description:

The Wyly Theatre in Dallas is almost finished. This project is very interesting, and REX/OMA show once again how designing a building goes way beyond that working on the volumes and the skin, but to rethink the program itself.

Anyone familiar with a theatre knows the program order hasn´t changed much, as it´s pretty much the same you find on Neufert. But REX/OMA take this a step further, by re-studying the program relations and adjacencies, resulting on a unique building. Perfect for the client, as the Dallas Theater Center (DTC) is recognized as one of the country’s few innovative theater companies located outside the triumvirate of New York, Chicago, and Seattle. On the top of that, an interesting aluminium skin adds to make this building unique.

The facade is being installed this days, opening expected during 2009.

Now, the architects description:

The Mandarin Hotel, adjacent to the CCTV building and part of the project, just got on fire today. The project, designed by OMA with facade studies by FRONT, looks to be completly affected as you can see on the above video. This supossedly started after fireworks during the last day of Chinese new year.

The hotel was used during the Olympics, but wasn´t officially opened yet, but was supossed to during 2009. This will definetely push dates back, as it seems like a complete loss to me.

Photos of the fire by Reuters here (very impressive, but can´t put them here because of copyright). More videos after the break.

UPDATE 5: Added 4 more videos

UPDATE 4: Statement from the Mandarin Hotel Group after the break

UPDATE 3: I replaced the first video with actual footage of the hotel starting to burn after the fireworks

UPDATE 2: Wonitata and other chinese blogs have impressive photos of the fire. See some more after the break.

UPDATE 1: Beijing police says the building could collapse

UPDATE: We just got the following statement from OMA:

AD Futures is a weekly section showcasing emerging practices from around the world. We are open for submissions.

I got to meet L.E.FT when we interviewed them at their office in New York back in September, 2008. This practice is lead by three partners, Makram el Kadi, Ziad Jamaleddine and Naji Moujaes. They all graduated in Beirut between 1995 and 1997, and then got their masters at Parsons, Harvard and SCI-Arc, respectively. After that, they worked on big practices such as Massimiliano Fuksas and Steven Holl Architects, and then founded L.E.FT in 2001.

They are still related to the academy (UPenn, Yale, Cornell, RPI), a constant on innovative practices. Also, they got invited to the Young Architects Program at P.S.1 2009, an annual competition that invites emerging architects to design a temporary structure.

You can hear their thoughts on several aspects of the architectural practice on the interview we conducted. Now, onto some of their featured works:

We got the chance to sit down with the tree partners at L.E.FT a few months ago, and chatted about their practice, ongoing projects and their thoughts on the state of architectural education, the role of architects in current society and more.

I found their work very interesting, and it was no surprise to see them invited to the P.S.1 competition for 2009 we featured earlier. I also selected them for our section AD Futures, as i think they have a promising future.

You can read more about them on the article AD Futures #2. Some pictures of their office after the break.

UPDATE: I´m currently uploading the video to Blip.tv in better quality

Postopolis! is an architecture blogging event that started in 2007, hosted by the Storefront for Art and Architecture, as a collaborative event by Inhabitat, Subtopia, City of Sound and BLDGBLOG.

Since year 2000, the MoMA and the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center present the Young Architects Program, an annual competition that invites emerging architects to design a temporary structure at the P.S.1 ’s facility in Long Island City, Queens. This has been a field for experimentation for digital manufacturing, new materials and new construction techniques -all under a tight budget-, as we saw in 2008 with the P.F.1 installation by WORKac.

A few days ago we featured this years winning proposal by MOS, a lightweight aluminum frame using recyclable parts, and saw how the economical crisis is present on the project´s conception.

But also, the other proposals by BSC Architecture, !ndie architecture, L.E.FT architects and PARA-project explore this and other social/cultural concepts on their proposals, so we decided to contact them and feature this projects so you can get the whole picture.

I´d like to thank Michel (MOS), Martin (BSC Architecture), Paul (!ndie architecture), Ziad (L.E.FT architects), Jon (PARA-project), April (P.S.1) and Meg (MoMA) for helping us out on this article.

And now, onto the proposals:

The design for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center at the Faliron Delta area in Athens, Greece. The building is being designed by -in my opinion- the master of sustainable architecture: Renzo Piano.

The SNFCC is not an ordinary building, as it will house a very important program: the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera.

This 187,800 sqm project – a private-public endeavor – will have a cost of € $450m, financed entirely by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and once completed in 2015 it will be turned over the Greek State.

There´s only a few images available at the moment, but from the model and sections we can see how the building integrates into the slope of the park, and it´s connected to the sea through a canal parallel to the existing explanade. On this, Piano says: “The Cultural Center’s proximity to water, and the natural warm breezes and light of Athens were particularly inspiring during the design process.  It was immediately clear that we must take advantage of all these elements to ultimately design a zero emissions building that expresses movement and energy”.

The roof consists in a series of interconnected photovoltaic cell panels which will cover the structure’s needs, taking advantage of the pure “green” solar and wind energy, in a similar way to the California Academy of Science.

We´ll keep you posted on the future development of this project. More images -courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop- after the break.

During our interviews, we have noticed that most practices have a milestone on their careers, that marks their “jump” on the scene: a competition, one of their first buildings, an innovative project…

While searching for new works and offices to feature on AD for our beloved readers, we have found several practices that are about to take that jump, and that we are sure will put them on the spotlight.

So, we decided to start a new series of articles featuring this practices, so you get to know them before you start seeing them on the traditional magazines/websites. Every Monday, you will find one of this practices featured on AD. And yes, we are open for suggestions (specially if you can show us something exclusive).

Our first chosen practice is ICE, an international practice based in Hong Kong.

Carbon Neutral master plans are being adopted in several countries, in times when energy and emissions are becoming very important.

And that´s exactly what Azerbaijan will do to develop Zira Island on the Caspian Sea, located in the bay of the capital city Baku. The master plan was developed with danish BIG Architects and Ramboll engineers, with an architectural proposal based upon the country’s dramatic natural setting.

In the words of Bjarke Ingels, the proposal for Zira Island is an architectural landscape based on the natural landscape of Azerbaijan. This new architecture not only recreates the iconic silhouettes of the seven peaks, but more importantly creates an autonomous ecosystem where the flow of air, water, heat and energy are channeled in almost natural ways. A mountain creates biotopes and eco-niches, it channels water and stores heat, it provides viewpoints and valleys, access and shelter. The Seven Peaks of Azerbaijan are not only metaphors, but actual living models of the mountainous ecosystems of Azerbaijan.

This mountain concept may sound strange, but BIG has developed this in the past as you can see on Mountain Dwellings.

As you can see on the images (and on a video below), this urbanized peaks that Bjarke describes are derived from the geometry of famous mountains in the country, and each peak becomes a unit of private and public mixed uses. The result is an organic skyline that merges buildings with the natural topography of the island. Among the peaks, there´s a public central valley that connects a series of private resort villages and the beaches. Also, a public trekking path connects the mountains and allows the visitors to scale up to the top.  It also includes  300 private villas that take advantage of their setting with panoramic views out over the Caspian Sea.

But the main highlight of this masterplan was to make the Zira Island completly independent of external resources, achieved through the mix of traditional Azerbaijani building tradition and new technologies. The aim is to provide a high-end living wiht a minimum usage of the resources.

This strategy includes several aspects:

We just got the news that MOS Architects won the competition to build a temporary installation at MoMA´s P.S.1 during this summer.

For this competition the P.S.1 invites each year a group of emerging architects to experiment with new shapes and materials, as Work AC did last year with their PF1 project.

MOS project is entitled Afterparty, a design that Micheal Meredith and Hilary Sample (MOS partners) say is meant  to honor and reflect current economic realities, by using basic materials. The main structure is a lightweight aluminum frame using recyclable parts which require minimal assembly, which will become a landmark for the neigborhood – all this on a USD$70,000 budget.

I spoke with Michael a few minutes ago and he refered to the name of the project: One thing about the “Afterparty,” as we’re calling it, is the need to look for new promiscuities after the party of a sort of high-formalism which has dominated academic discourse, and in our case it’s with the basic structural arch geometries, rough almost singular materiality and the production and interaction of “environment,” (literally cooling down the courtyard through stack effect) looking towards a more primitive state of architecture. – (See afterparty definition on Wikipedia).

The project is still under development, and we´ll keep you posted on further updates. We´ll try to do a good coverage on this as we did last year.

You can see other works from MOS previously featured on AD: Floating House and their ORDOS 100 villa.

More images of Afterparty after the break.

The workshop will be based around lectures, tutorials and other activities on topics such as tensile, textile and membrane structures, including software, scripting and CNC techniques.

After a two-phase international competition (with offices such as Morphosis, Abalos+Sentkiewicz, MVRDV and Zaha Hadid), OMA has been awarded the first prize in the design competition to build the new Taipei Performing Arts Centre.

The project, led by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, is based on 3 theaters (1 x 1,500 seats – the round one, 2 x 800 seats – cubes) which are plugged into a central cube cladded with corrugated glass. This scheme puts all the stage accommodations of the 3 theaters into the central cube, allowing for more flexibility as theaters can be used independently or combined, expanding the possibilities for experimental performances – an art which is very strong on the country. This new arrangement of stage and seatings includes a public circulation that exposes parts of the backstage to the public.

And now, my comments on the form.

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