We are sharing with you an interview of architect Tony Fretton of Tony Fretton Architects conducted by Hugo Oliveira, as seen in Jornal Arquitectos. Prior to founding his firm in 1982, Fretton was Principal Designer at Arup Associates. He is deeply committed to architectural education and has experience teaching worldwide, from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London to Harvard University in Cambridge. He currently serves as a Professor of Architectural Design and Interiors at TU Delft in the Netherlands.
The Economist featured an interview with Michael Pawlyn discussing sustainable architecture inspired by nature. Michael Pawlyn is known for his passionate investigations of the unique, efficient structures of natural organisms and how they may translate through design. Biomimicry has been an important topic amongst the innovators and educators who are learning from the 3.8 billion years invested into the design of our natural world.
The shell of an abalone is “twice as strong as the toughest man-made ceramic.”
We recently had the opportunity to interviewgmp architekten founding partner, Meinhard von Gerkan. Born in 1935 in Riga/Latvia, Gerkan completed his architectural studies in 1964 at the Carolo Wilhelmina Technical University in Braunschweig. In 1965 he co-founded with Volkwin Marg, von Gerkan, Marg and partners. They have completed together over 260 buildings, among them the Berlin-Tegel Airport (competition, 1st place 1965, built in 1970-75), the Berlin Central Station, Villa Guna, Christ Pavilion, and the Lingang New City, been recognized nationally and internationally for their designs and competition proposals.
We are sharing with you an interview of british architect Jonathan Sergison of Sergison Bates architects conducted by Hugo Oliveir, as seen in Jornal Arquitectos. Sergison, prior to the founding of his firm in 1996 with partner Stephen Bates, gained professional experience working for David Chipperfield and Tony Fretton. Currently he serves as a Professor of Architectural Design at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland.
A few months ago I had the chance to meet Steven Holl, whose work I admire. I think that he has been able to innovate and challenge programs as we used to know them, and experiment with materials and structures, while sticking to what really matters in architecture: space, context and light.
Ten years ago the world was jarred at seeing a financial institution of a high urban city destroyed. Maybe at that moment we found ourselves second-guessing the security of our society and our government, of the stability of our ever-expanding cities, of the soundness of our buildings. But a decade later cities are still thriving: growing and rebuilding. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan predicted that our attitudes toward the value of urban development would remain unchanged, and he may have been right. So have we, as law-makers, designers and inhabitants of the urban environment learned from what ten years ago was considered a failure in our cities and government agencies? ArchDaily had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Patrick Phillips, CEO of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), an international organization devoted to the responsible use of land and in creating sustainable thriving communities worldwide.
I first learned about Preston Scott Cohen’s work when I read about the Goodman House, a simple and elegant operation of a concrete shell housing an ancient Dutch barn frame. But after further investigation, I was surprised to see a constant spatial and formal research of his work, that we have witnessed in the latest three public buildings from his office and featured on ArchDaily.
Our profession is very particular. We react very fast to current issues with our ideas, yet our buildings can take quite some time to be erected. For example, the project of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange building by OMA in China was the physical image of the new Chinese economy back in 2006. Five years later this new economy has taken the world by storm yet the building is still under construction.
During the 2011 AIA Convention in New Orleans we had the chance to sit down and talk with Steve McDowell, Principal and Director of Design of BNIM, the 2011 Architecture Firm of the Year. BNIM was founded over 40 years ago with a commitment to design excellence. Currently at the top of their game the Kansas City, Missouri headquartered firm has worked with high profile architects such as Steven Holl to produce the multi-award winning Block Building expansion for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, they have contributed to advancing education of building sustainability with their innovative design of the Omega Center for Sustainable Living, which is the first project in the world to achieve both ‘Living’ Status and LEED Platinum, and BNIM’s scope of work also includes more rural projects such as the Midwest Retreat.
5 (student) Projects: is a group of projects completed at Yale University’s School of Architecture by 5 young architects during their graduate education. Each of the 5 projects are sited in New Haven on or adjacent to Yale’s campus. Each project focused on an institutional building, loosely defined by program, type and context. These commonalities became a framework for discussion that illuminated individual polemics and debate about experimentation in today’s architectural landscape. Despite the initial appearance of diversity within the set, each architect sought to address a common set of ideas emerging at Yale and perhaps within the discourse of architecture at large.
Primarily addressing the legacy of Postmodernism (in its various guises and forms), each sought an architecture that engaged historical memory, local context and an renewed concern for communication and legibility. Each was interested in an operable or speculative way to use history and its associated culturally established values, meanings and forms to produce new bodies of work. In that sense, each sought a contemporary way to learn from the past that would have particular resonance in today’s social, political, and cultural milieu.
The identity of the group of 5 is meant as a provocation towards two related issues: the desire for individuality and expression by today’s younger generation of architects inculcated by media and secondly, the desire for consensus within discourse on what counts today as critical & theoretical concerns for architecture. The aspiration behind the interviews and feature is to reveal an internal discussion which demonstrates an effort to clarify and identify a set of ideas that underpin contemporary architectural production. The feature and interviews were organized and conducted by Alexander Maymind.
Founded by Eugene Kohn, William Pedersen, and Sheldon Fox, on July 4th 1976, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) has a reputation as one of the world’s preeminent architecture practices. Focusing on design excellence coupled with collaboration and dialogue, KPF encourages an open exchange of ideas throughout the creative process both within the firm and between clients.
A while ago we visited Stephan Jaklitsch and Mark Gardner in New York. Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects, formerly Stephan Jaklitsch Architects, have made a name for themselves by designing buildings that engage their users and respond to their cultures. The conceptual framework of each project derives from the context, time and place of each project.
Richard Meier, the architect who landed ‘the commission of the century’ and one of the New York Five, has a portfolio of pristine structures that range in scale from the Douglas House on Lake Michigan to the sprawling Getty Center in Los Angeles.
Recently, we visited Thomas Phifer’s office in New York – a working floor that embodies the same spirit as his architecture with its pristine furnishings and axial organization. Phifer (who is also an avid Arch Daily reader) began his firm back in the 1990s and, as his office has grown and developed, his projects have been honored with several AIA Honor Awards and American Architecture Awards.
Some time ago we visited New York City based Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, to interview founding principals Marion Wesis and Michael Manfredi. The multidisciplinary firm has distinguished themselves with their holistic design approach, successfully integrating the disciplines of architecture, art, infrastructure, and landscape design.
During the AIA Convention we had the opportunity to talk with Peter Bohlin (FAIA), founding principal of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and one of the most renowned architects in the US.
