Legislative Update> Transit, Biking, Walkability, Preservation & the Environment at Risk
(Courtesy U.S. House of Representatives)
It’s becoming clear how Congress’ approval ratings keep dropping to new historic lows—the latest Gallup Poll released yesterday puts it at a squat ten percent—when the legislative body continues to threaten policies not just architects but also the general public hold near and dear. Now, as key transportation bills that set funding for all national infrastructure–including roads, transit, shipping, pipelines, and even sidewalks–prepare for a votes in the House of Representatives and Senate as soon as the coming week, we’re seeing transit, biking, walkability, the environment, and historic preservation all at risk.
Deborah Berke’s Yale Studio Exploring Urban Manufacturing (and Bourbon)
A stack of whiskey barrels. (Project 404 / Flickr)
American manufacturing may be on the rocks, but Deborah Berke, principal at Deborah Berke & Partners, believes that by adding a little bourbon, one Kentucky city can make an industrial comeback. Berke is leading a graduate studio at Yale exploring the future of boutique manufacturing in the United States and using an urban distillery in Louisville as a case study.
Mark Hough put it bluntly in his latest article from Landscape Architecture magazine reposted on the American Society of Landscape Architects’ blog, “Our preoccupation with Olmsted stems from a chronic, debilitating inferiority complex that plagues our profession. We lament that laypeople confuse us with landscape designers and horticulturists, and we envy the greater visibility that architects enjoy. All of this contributes to a feeling of inadequacy…The fear seems to be that if people stop talking about him, they stop talking about landscape architecture. I hate to say it, but there is some truth in that paranoia.” Read the rest of the article at the ASLA Dirt.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston announced today that architect Steven Holl was selected to build a new building on a two-acre parking lot in the city’s Museum District, besting Morphosis and Snøhetta. Situated among other structures by Mies van der Rohe, Raphael Moneo, and a sculpture garden by Isamu Noguchi, Holl’s building dedicated to art after 1900 will help unify the campus. According to MFAH Director Gary Tinterow, “Everyone on the committee was deeply impressed by the intelligence and beauty of their museum projects, and we feel certain that they will conceive a design that will match the clarity and elegance of our existing architectural landmarks.”
Eight Emerging Voices Honored by the Architectural League
Anemone, Taipei, TW. (Courtesy Oyler Wu Collaborative)
Eight up-and-coming architecture firms from across North America have been distinguished as Emerging Voices by the Architectural League. The prestigious award is bestowed annually on a group of firms that have established a distinct design voice in their work and have “the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design, and urbanism.” This year’s winners are INABA, 5468796 architecture, SCAPE Landscape Architecture, Studio NMinusOne, Oyler Wu Collaborative, SsD, Arquitectura 911sc, and Atelier TAG. A jury comprised of Henry Cobb, Geoff Manaugh, Paul Lewis, Jamie Maslyn Larson, Annabelle Selldorf, Claire Weisz, and Dan Wood selected the firms based on a review of their portfolios. Past Emerging Voices have included many of today’s top-name architects including Morphosis, Enrique Norten, Deborah Berke, Michael Maltzan, SHoP Architects, Jeanne Gang, and Steven Holl.
Each year, the winning firms present their work at a lecture series presented by the League in New York. Beginning on March 2, will take place at the Rose Auditorium in the new Morphosis-designed building at The Cooper Union. Also watch for an upcoming issue of The Architect’s Newspaper where we feature a profile of each Emerging Voices winner.
Go West, Solar Decathalon: DOE Selects New SoCal Venue for 2013
The North Lawn at the Orange County Great Park. (Courtesy Orange County Great Park)
We’ve known since early last year that the Solar Decathlon, the biennial event showcasing the best in energy producing, student-designed houses, was no longer welcome on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. due to concerns over wear and tear on the “nation’s front yard.” The 2011 Decathlon, won by the University of Maryland, was pushed to a far corner of the Mall between the Tidal Basin and the Potomac River midway through the design process, causing outcry from student teams who were finalizing their house designs. Officials later announced that future Decathlons might leave D.C. entirely, and today, Department of Energy Secretary Stephen Chu confirmed that it will be moving about as far away from the Mall as possible—to the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California between Los Angeles and San Diego.
AIANY Names Seven Young Firms among 2012 New Practices
Peaks & Valleys. (Courtesy Abruzzo Bodziak)
Seven young and creative architecture firms were named as recipients of AIANY’s New Practices New York awards for 2012. Now in its fourth iteration, the biennial award established in 2006 and sponsored by Hansgrohe ”honors firms that have utilized unique and innovative strategies, both for the projects they undertake and for the practices they have established.” This year’s New Practices honorees are SLO Architecture, Holler Architecture, Abruzzo Bodziak Architects, Marc Fornes and the Very Many, Formless, The Living, and Christian Wassmann. Winners will be featured in an exhibition opening June 14 at the Center for Architecture, participation in the AIA national convention, and, of course, a free subscription to The Architect’s Newspaper (the competion’s media sponsor).
BD Online is reporting that architect Zaha Hadid has been shortlisted for the $1 billion new home of the Iraqi parliament. The project will be built on a site of the former Al Muthana airport once slated for Saddam Hussein’s partially constructed super-mosque in central Baghdad. The finalists haven’t officially been made public, but Iraqi-born Hadid is on the list along with Buro Happold and AECOM. Designs are due in July and a winner will be announced at the end of the year.
While it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a white Christmas here in New York, we can still try to spread a little holiday cheer. Architect Jody Brown at the blog Coffee with an Architect has come up with a new carol, “The Twelve Days of Architecture.” Here’s a sample from day four: “On the Fourth day of Christmas,/ my Architect gave to me/ a four-sided building,/ Three French Curves,/ Two turtlenecks,/ And a study guide for the A.R.E.” Click on over to Coffee with an Architect to check out the entire song.
Video> Create a 3-D Model Out of a Series of Photographs
123D Catch preview. (Courtesy Autodesk)
Imagine snapping away at a favorite building, fountain, or desktop tchotchke, then uploading your photos to that super-computer in the sky we call the cloud, and after a just few short minutes being presented with a detailed three-dimensional digital model. That future, it appears, is finally here. Core 77 tipped us off that a new product by Autodesk called 123D Catch performs that basic photo-to-3D-model conversion, and the best part (if you’re running a PC) is that you can try out the beta version for free. We’re on Macs here at The Architect’s Newspaper HQ so we haven’t had a chance to test drive the software ourselves, but if it’s anything like Autodesk’s slick video demonstration (after the jump), we’ll be sending our photo archive cloud-side soon!
On View> Gwathmey Siegel at the Yale School of Architecture
deMenil Residence, west façade, 1983. (Norman McGrath)
Gwathmey Siegel:
Inspiration and Transformation
Yale School of Architecture Gallery
New Haven
Through January 2012
The first show to present the work of Gwathmey Siegel and Associates, Inspiration and Transformation at the Yale School of Architecture explores the connection between architecture and art over eight firm projects. Those selected are a diverse group, represented by a range of mediums that include sketches, blueprints, models, photographs (of the de Menil House, above), and drawings, and personal documents. But the emphasis falls on the firm’s institutional work: the renovations and additions to Yale School of Architecture’s Paul Rudolph Hall; the Guggenheim Museum annex and renovation, the renovation of Whig Hall at Princeton, and the Busch Reisinger addition to the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. Also on display are pieces of Gwathmey’s personal archive, Europe travel sketchbooks, and student work at Yale.
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