Interviews: The Latest Architecture and News

Another interview conducted live at the rooftop of The Standard during Postopolis! LA.

Interview conducted, condensed + edited by Sarah Wesseler

What do research and development mean in today’s design field? To learn more about architectural R&D, I turned to KieranTimberlake, a Philadelphia-based firm that has earned wide acclaim for its innovative work in arenas such as prefabrication and sustainable design. Partner Stephen Kieran and research director Billie Faircloth spoke with me about the history and practice of the firm’s in-house research team.

First, don’t forget to check our first Round Up of interviews done by our team. And then, you can move on to our second part of some of our greatest interviews featured in ArchDaily.

A few weeks ago we were in LA for Postopolis!, and we toured around the city visiting interesting practices. One of our biggest surprises was Yazdani Studio. We started to see this firm because of their buildings for the Ordos project, so we decided to visit their offices and interview the principal, Mehrdad Yazdani.

Mehrdad Yazdani (BA Arch U Texas at Austin, M Arch at Harvard GSD) is a principal at Cannon Design, an international firm with several offices in the US and abroad. A big corporate office, with all the pros and cons it has. Given this, Mehrdad started Yazdani Studio as a small laboratory that benefits from the reach and resources of a large international practice, with the flexibility of a smaller design studio. This in-between position has allowed Yazdani Studio to work on several scales. Something I really liked when i visited their office was the large amount of test models I saw laying around for every project, a proof of the amount of experimentation at the practice.

Some of Yazdani Studio projects include the recent renovation of the Museum of Tolerance (and a 2nd phase that will be completed next), the UCSD Price Center, a new campus for Tata Motors and several institutional buildings. Yazdani Studio was also one of the first practices to start working in Ordos -before the Ordos 100 project- with a Villa currently under construction. Also, Yazdani Studio is developing a restaurant and a concert hall, as supporting programs for the cultural district envisioned for this emerging city on the Mongolian desert.

Well, enough with my intro. Just watch the interview.

Some pictures of our visit to the practice after the break.

This is the first interview recorded live at Postopolis! LA at the rooftop of The Standard. This time we present Yo-ichiro Hakomori from whY Architecture.

As promised, the second part of the interview with Cameron Sinclair, Founder and Eternal Optimist of Architecture for Humanity.

During the AIA Convention 2009 we had the chance to talk to different AEC software companies, to learn how they are helping architects. We decided to keep the conversation on the same interview format we have been using, so you can hear it straight from the developers.

While in LA we had the chance to visit Standard, a small firm doing residential and retail projects. We visited their Tree House, featured earlier on AD, where i was able to see for myself the minimalism found in their works. A simple work, but with lots of well executed details and spaces designed to benefit from the views and the shadow of the tree.

The practice was founded in 1996 by Jeffrey Allsbrook (M Arch USC, studies at the at the Städelschule in Frankurt, Germany and at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam) and Silvia Kuhle (Architect Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, M Arch Columbia University).

Completed projects include residential, retail, educational, office and manufacturing spaces for a diverse clientele of artists, writers, filmmakers, clothing designers, educators and entrepreneurs in California, New York, Las Vegas, Paris and Mexico. While Standard continues to grow, its partners insist upon maintaining a practice that is rigorous and attentive. Direct accessibility and sustained dialogue between clients and the firm’s partners are viewed as essential to project success.

It was a very good talk, and i really liked their point of view on an central aspect of the profession: the clients.

A few weeks ago we had the chance to visit L.O.H.A. and interview Lorcan O’Herlihy in Los Angeles.

Postopolis! LA has come to an end (at least for 2009). Postopolis! was discussion, debate and reflection around Architecture and a great variety of related topics: Art, City, Technology, Geography, Visualization, etc., which merged into a multidisciplinary conversation broadcasted live by seven different blogs. It’s impossible to resume in a couple of paragraphs what this days in LA were without thinking we suffered a big overdose of information that we need to take the proper time to digest.

Trying to sort out some ideas, I think at least five topics defined these days for us.

The event for itself, that concentrated expositions and discussions about some very interesting and diverse topics. From talks about the city and security with people from the LA Police Department to understand how some cities are reformulating the relation between cities and their citizens through technology, thanks to Ben Cerveny’s exposition. Complete list of everyone who participated can be found here.

In these five days we had the opportunity to interview some of the best exposers of Contemporary Architecture based in LA. Yo-Ichiro Hakomori (wHY Architecture), Dwayne Oyler & Jenny Wu (Oyler Wu Collaborative), Whitney Sander (Sander Architects), Sarah Johnston & Mark Lee (Johnston MarkLee) and Austin Kelly (XTEN Architecture), Eric Oweb Moss (Eric Owen Moss Architects), and some others we will introduce soon.

Of course, being in LA, we were forced to travel through the city and it’s renowned highways. We realized how hard it is to move without owning a vehicle. But we also got to know a friendly side of the city, with many interesting and different central places to visit.

Finally, a special mention for the place where Postopolis! was carried out: The Standard Hotel in Downtown LA, a great renovation of a 13 floor building by Konig Eizenberg Architecture, where it seems that everything was specially design for the hotel which has one of the most interesting rooftops of LA.

At the same time, Postopolis! was part of the LA Art Week, organized by the For Your Art foundation, so we were immersed in a great cultural environment. Finally, our most sincere thanks to everyone who made Postopolis! possible, specially to everyone who works at The Storefront for Art and Architecture (Joseph, Gaia, Cesar, José, Faris), For Your Art (Bettina, Devin, Julia, Melissa), to the folks at the Standard Hotel, each one of the curators: BLDGBLOG (Geoff), City of Sound (Dan), SubTopia (Bryan), Mudd Up! (Jayce a.k.a. dj/Rupture), We Make Money Not Art (Regina) and of course, every guest who gave life to the event. Thanks to all!

Images that try to resume these 5 days in LA, after the break.

Since we started with ArchDaily, we’ve tried to interview some of the most important and influential architects of the world. It’s really interesting to see what’s on the mind of the architects behind the amazing projects we’ve all seen. So now, we bring you our first Round Up of previously featured interviews. Enjoy!

A few months ago we interviewed Mark Wigley, Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

In recent years, the art world has played host to a number of lively explorations of architecture and the built environment. (In 2006, The New Yorker went so far as to snipe, “Painting about architecture has become popular to the point of excess, much the way seventies artists went overboard on the cube.”) By looking at architecture through the lenses of politics, psychology, humor, and more, artists have been helping to enrich the conversation about the field.

Last week I sat down with painter Sarah McKenzie, who was in New York for the opening of her new show, Building Code, to discuss her thoughts on art and architecture. McKenzie, who first came to public attention for her aerial views of suburban developments, currently uses images of construction sites as her source material.

The interview after the break.

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

Alejandro Aravena is a chilean architect, recently awarded with the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale (Promising Young Architect) and selected as a one of the 20 most promising young architects by Icon Magazine, magazine which also features him on the cover of the january issue.

SHoP Architects PC is a New York based practice we meet a few months ago. We knew a little about them, because of the PS1 Competition they won back in 2000, the Porter House condos in NY -a great example of urban renovation- and the East River Waterfront Renovation, currently in progress.

Something that interested me before getting to know them in person, was the fact that they stated “we believe in both ideas and profitability”, as a middle point between academia and service firms – something that some architects escape from.

During our conversation, they told us something very important for current practices: how to manage the growth of your office, how to work in a multidisciplinary environment and how to get the most out of computer aided design technologies, not just in terms of design, but in streamlining the construction process and create new efficiencies and cost-savings.

After the break, the office profile and some selected works from SHoP.

As I had previously mentioned we visited Work AC in New York a few months ago, where we interviewed Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. This turned out to be a great interview, where they shared their thoughts on the current state of architectural practice, the role of architects in current society, humor, networking, media and something that really interested me: the importance of knowing how to manage the growth of your office.

On their office we saw the amazing model for their Cadavre Exquis Lebanese, a proposal based on a series of interventions to re-create Downtown Beirut presented at the 2007 Rotterdam Biennale. We also got to see their on on going projects and a 1:1 prototype of their Public Farm 1 structure soon to be opened at the PS1. You can check the construction progress at the PF1 website.

Pictures of Work AC after the jump.

A few weeks ago we started conducting a series of video interviews with some of the most promising young architects. In times when “ architect may no longer mean architect“, they were asked to talk about key aspects of their role as an architect in modern society, among other topics to discuss about the direction of architecture.

Our first guest is Shohei Shigematsu (1973). He graduated from the Department of Architecture at Kyushu University in 1996, and then went to the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam. He started working at OMA in 1998, becoming an associate in 2004. He´s now the director of OMA*AMO NY, working on projects such as the CCTV Headquartes in Beijing, the design of the Whitney Museum extension in NY, the Millestain Hall at Cornell, the Stock Exchange at Shenzhen, the Torre Bicentenario in Mexico and a mixed use building in Jersey City.

Photos of OMA NY after the break.