To mark the 30th anniversary of Prince Charles' famous "Carbuncle Speech", last week the RIBA held a discussion focusing on the speech's impact on British architecture. The speech in which the prince protested the design of a proposed extension to the National Gallery has been seen by some as expanding the debate around architectural quality, but the panelists on the night disagreed with this view: Owen Hatherley said "The idea he broadened the debate is curious. He shut it down." Similarly, Charlie Luxton commented "He turned the debate from one of quality to one of style – and architecture suffered." You can read more of the panelists' views on BD Online.
During this year's Architecture Biennale in Venice, homes rented through AIRBnB (although not the company itself) will host an independently curated pavilion. AIRBnB is a six-year old platform through which home owners can rent out rooms, apartments, and entire houses, allowing "the fortress of the family and the individual" to be infiltrated. The pavilion will take advantage of this "infiltration" and how it reveals "the house, the home and today's life." To learn more, follow @airbnbpavilion on instagram and twitter.
A report uncovered by the Architects' Journal has revealed that an experimental housing project by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has developed major problems just seven years after construction. The low cost factory-built Oxley Woods scheme won the RIBA Manser Medal for housing in 2008 but a report commissioned by the scheme's developer has shown faults in the detailing are causing some parts of the construction to rot. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners have distanced themselves from the defects insisting that it was "Taylor Wimpey and Wood Newton responsible for the final detailed design". You can find out more about the controversy at the Architects' Journal and the Financial Times.
AA Greece Visiting School is a mobile workshop series which travels and reaches cities outside the country’s capital. It functions as a ‘satellite’ of education that promotes the Architectural Association’s exclusive, intensive form of teaching and learning around the country. AA Greece VS aims on visiting a different city each year and construct a single large-scale model which will act as an active nod of communication among the various locations. In 2014, the School will initiate its design agenda with an architectural approach that is focused on the aspect of connection. The city of Patras which is the starting node of AA Greece VS was chosen by the European Commission to be the European Capital of Culture for the year 2006. The concept of the event revolved around the main theme of "Bridges" and "Dialogues", drawing benefit from the city's rich history and its position as a "Gate to the West", to underline the essence of the productive interaction of culture and civilizations in Europe. The AA Greece Visiting School will investigate how well existing buildings with various sightlines and variant spatial grammars perform according to human perception. In sync with the flexible and adaptive concept of parasitical structures, the research focuses on the making of transformable large-scale creations that accentuate prominent architectural features of existing buildings. The research looks at how cultural factors, personal preferences, experiences, and expectations can lead to the transformation of architectural parasitical structures.
The largest private project New York City has seen in over 100 years may also be the smartest. In a recent article on Engadget, Joseph Volpe explores the resilience of high-tech ideas such as clean energy and power during Sandy-style storms. With construction on the platform started, the Culture Shed awaiting approval, and Thomas Heatherwick designing a 75-Million dollar art piece and park – the private project is making incredible headway. But with the technology rapidly evolving, how do investors know the technology won't become obsolete before its even built?
An abandoned twenty-two mile stretch of derelict railroad and industrial sites used to be a thorn in the Atlanta community's side. But with one student's thesis proposal to redevelop these areas into a sustainable network connecting 45 mixed-use neighborhoods, public concern has since turned into excitement. To learn more about the ambitious project, head over to The Atlantic Cities here.
Project Baltia magazine and Yarky Hostel & Space have just announced the Open International Competition for the Design of Summer Residential Unit. Five winning projects will be implemented on the territory of the Hostel by August 2, 2014. The units should enable temporary accommodation for one or two persons. Functions of these units are similar to those of a hotel room.
Over the last decade, the amount of bicycle commuters have increased 60 percent in the U.S. As the U.S. Census Bureau reports, this is the largest percentage increase of all commuting modes tracked by the 2000 Census and the 2008-2012 American Community Survey. Along with the study, the Bureau released a new interactive map that allows you to zoom-in and explore the commuting statistics for every neighborhood in the U.S. Find out how to access this map and read some highlights from the report, after the break...
Competing Utopias is a design collision that should never happen. But somehow, in Los Angeles, in 2014, twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it will.
Norman Foster has been selected alongside artist Hiroshi Sugimoto to receive the inaugural Isamu Noguchi Award. Presented by Motohide Yoshikawa, the ambassador of Japan to the United Nations, the award recognizes “individuals that share Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi’s commitment to innovation, global consciousness and Japanese/American exchange.” Watch an ArchDaily interview with Foster, after the break...
The City of Sydney has requested that 1.6 million square meters of empty commercial and residential space be made available to artists for “creative activities.” The proposed cultural policy offers over 120 ideas in which the space can be used to enhance Sydney’s reputation as a world renowned creative city. “The City is proud to spend more than $34 million each year to support the arts, culture and creative activity in Sydney – but we know it is equally important to create an environment where ideas and imagination can flourish.” More information on the new policy can be found here.
HR Giger, the Swiss artist and designer who inspired and helped craft the visuals for the Ridley Scott film Alien, has died at the age of 74, The Guardian reports. Although he studied architecture and industrial design in Zurich, Giger never entered the profession, but used his spatial know-how to help design dark interiors in both the real and cinematic worlds.
Joe Paxton of the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, was awarded the 2014 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship for his proposal “Buffer Landscapes 2060.” The £6,000 travel grant will enable him to study the impact of climate change in a number of locations, ultimately to propose some measures that might mitigate the threat of floods, droughts, melting glaciers and rising temperatures. A comment from Foster, after the break...
Not gonna happen. Image Courtesy of dbox/Foster + Partners
As we mentioned a few days ago, Norman Foster's controversial New York Public Library renovation was axed before the most current proposal was even revealed. While book worms rejoice over the victory, others are disappointed about the lost opportunity. To read about what could have been, head on over to New York Magazine and read Justin Davidson's thoughts here.
Rumor has it that Constructivist architect Konstantin Melnikov’s Bakhmetevsky bus garage may soon be transformed into Moscow’s prime modern art gallery. An “equivalent to London’s Tate Modern,” as the Calvert Journal describes, the historic 1927 structure has been said to be the most likely location for the new museum, dubbed “Pushkin Modern.”
