Top of the Glass: Students Design Shimmering Pavilion At USC
(Roland Wahlroos-Ritter)
Once again the courtyards at the USC School of Architecture are bubbling with installations as part of the second-year 2b studio, in which several teams of undergraduate students design and build structures in a very short period of time. Perhaps the most striking is the shimmering pavilion created by the 14-student class of professor Roland Wahlroos-Ritter. The studio focused on glass’ structural, reflective, and refractive qualities.
Cleveland Leads U.S. Cities in Bus Rapid Transit
Cleveland’s Health Line BRT System. (Roger DuPuis / Flickr)
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Cleveland was the only U.S. city to earn a “Silver Standard” ranking from the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP) in its second annual bus rapid transit corridor rankings. Cleveland’s HealthLine, formerly The Euclid Corridor, is a 9.2 mile transit corridor connecting Downtown, University Circle, and East Cleveland with 40 stops along the way. Hybrid articulated buses ferry passengers 24-7, and have brought billions of dollars of investment to the city’s key economic centers.
Guangzhou, China topped the “Gold Standard” list, with Latin American cities (Bogotá, Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Guadalajara, and Medellin) monopolizing the rest of those rankings. Some North American cities made the “Bronze Standard” list: Los Angeles; Eugene, OR; Pittsburgh; Las Vegas; and Ottawa.
Miami’s Development Booming: Top 11 Starchitect-Designs Remaking the Magic City
The Grove at Grand Bay by Bjarke Ingels Group. (Courtesy BIG)
After a tumultuous few years, Miami’s real estate market is on the rise once again. When the recession hit the city in 2007, new developments came to a dramatic halt and abandoned construction sites became ubiquitous. But now, a surge of new projects—running the gamut from residential and retail to hotels and cultural institutions—are cropping up around Miami with many more slated for construction in the next few years. And some heavy hitters, such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog and de Meuron, and Bjarke Ingels, have signed up to lend their design sensibility to Miami’s changing landscape. The Miami Herald reported that the city now boasts 20 new condo towers with an additional five towers in the works for neighborhoods just north and south of downtown Miami. AN has compiled a list of the most significant projects taking shape in the Magic City.
LACMA Makes Move For MOCA Los Angeles
MOCA’s Grand Avenue location in Los Angeles. (CTG/SF / Flickr)
As confirmed on its blog yesterday, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has made a proposal to acquire the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA). ”Our chief desire is to see MOCA’s program continue and to serve the many artists and other Angelenos, for whom MOCA means so much,” said LACMA director Michael Govan in an online letter. Reportedly LACMA would preserve MOCA’s two buildings, located on Grand Avenue and in Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles. According to the LA Times, the offer was made back on February 24. As part of the arrangement, LACMA would raise $100 million for the combined museums as a condition for completing the deal, according to their story.
Another suitor for struggling MOCA is the University of Southern California (USC), which has been reported to have been in talks to merge with MOCA as well. That arrangement has a model in UCLA, which is partnered with the Hammer Museum in Westwood. Either way, it looks like something has to be done about financially-troubled MOCA: “If not us, who?” Mr. Govan said in an interview with the New York Times yesterday.
Van on Van: Guggenheim Curator to Lead Van Alen Institute
David van der Leer. (David Heald / Courtesy BMW Guggenheim Lab)
David van der Leer, an associate curator of architecture and urban studies at the Guggenheim, has been appointed executive director of New York’s Van Alen Institute. He will take over in May. The Institute, which has existed for more than 100 years in various forms, is dedicated to improving the public realm through exhibitions, competitions, and programming initiatives in New York and beyond. Reached by email, van der Leer declined to elaborate on his plans for the Institute.
New York City to Match Sandy-Damaged Buildings With Design Professionals
Houses in Rockaways after Hurricane Sandy. (Anique/Ma Neek/Flickr)
For property owners of Hurricane Sandy-ravaged buildings, the road to recovery just got easier. Starting on Monday, the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) will offer a new program that provides design consultations to property owners and design professionals who want to reconstruct their buildings. Department officials and technical experts will explain the building code and zoning requirements for properties in special flood hazard areas, as indicated on insurance rate maps or on updated Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps.
According to the announcement from the DOB: “This program is designed to accelerate the approval process for these projects, assist homeowners with their decisions on reconstruction and better ensure that new flood recommendations and standards are incorporated into the design and construction of these affected buildings.”
The consultations will be held at the Department’s NYC Development Hub at 80 Centre Street in Manhattan. Property owners will sit down with officials and compile a list of recommendations to apply to the construction plans that they intend on submitting to the DOB.
Frank Gehry Unveils Mixed-Use Tower For Santa Monica
Frank Gehry’s 22-story tower for Santa Monica. (Courtesy Gehry Partners)
OMA and Robert A.M. Stern are not the only starchitects zeroing in on Santa Monica. Frank Gehry is designing a 22-story, 244-foot-tall tower on a 1.9 acre site on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. Plans for the project were submitted to the city yesterday, according to the Santa Monica Planning Department. The tower, located just a block from the beach and around the corner from the 3rd Street Promenade, would house a 125-room hotel, 22 condos, and two stories of retail and restaurants. A 36,000-square-foot art museum, incorporating two landmarked structures, would also be built just north of the tower.
Smithsonian Taps Bjarke Ingels For DC Campus Master Plan
In the courtyard at the Hirshhorn Museum with Bjarke Ingels. (Holley St. Germain / Flickr; Montage by AN)
Since announcing his first North American project in New York and opening an office in the Big Apple, BIG-founder Bjarke Ingels has been moving fast. His meteoric ascent into a Danish-American icon is happening so quickly, that the starchitect has landed himself in the Smithsonian, in a manner of speaking. The venerable institution has just hired Ingels to prepare a master plan for the museum’s Washington, D.C. campus, and we’re left wondering if that might mean a new mountain range rising off the National Mall.
NYCHA’s Green Thumb: New Affordable Housing Complex Opens With Rooftop Farm
(Courtesy NYC Housing Development Corporation)
It has been a rocky few months for the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), but the battered agency finally has some good news to report. State officials announced the opening of the Arbor House, a 124-unit affordable housing complex, located in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, that is not only LEED Platinum certified, but also features a hydroponic farm on the roof that supplies residents and the surrounding community with fresh produce. Built from local and recycled materials, the 8-story building was designed by New York-based ABS Architecture and includes a living green wall installation in the lobby, air-filtration systems, and indoor and outdoor exercise areas.
3Doodle Pen Combines Napkin Brainstorming with 3D Printing
It’s as much a part of the architect’s image as a drafting desk or a T-square: sitting around a table with a client when the moment of inspiration hits and the first image of a new building is hastily scrawled on a napkin. But why limit yourself to two dimensions in hatching your new idea? In the age of 3D printing, the napkin sketch could be completely transformed by a new instant-prototyper: the 3Doodler pen, which would allow you to draw your idea in real time rising up from the tabletop. And the public seems eager to give it a try, already contributing over $1.8 million to the 3D-printing pen on Kickstarter with nearly a month left to go.
AIA Awards 2013 Latrobe Prize to Research Study on Global Urbanization
AIA College of Fellows Awards 2013 Latrobe Prize for “The City of 7 Billion.” (Courtesy Plan B Architecture & Urbanism)
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) College of Fellows announced today that it will award the 2013 Latrobe Prize of $100,000 to the proposal, “The City of 7 Billion.” This ambitious research study will explore how population growth and resource consumption, on a global scale, affects the built and natural environment looking “at the world as a single urban entity.”
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