The Downturn of the McMansion?
<bobs>/flickr
Amid the anxiety, speculation, and real hardship caused by the ongoing economic downturn, the provocative thesis of this Washington Post article stands out, which, if correct, could hold a silver lining for architects. Reporter Elizabeth Razzi interviews housing historian Virginia McAlester about how previous periods of economic declines shaped consumer demand for housing. The answer is simple and somewhat obvious: the demand for small houses rises. Her predictions for this cycle are less so. Read More
Not So Fast, Seaport Edition
SHoP's Seaport plans far from sunk. (Courtesy GGP)
The news that General Growth Properties–which is on the verge of bankruptcy due to a massive debt-load related to its acquisition of the Rouse Company in 2004–put three historic properties up for sale has led some observers to speculate that development plans for one of them–New York’s South Street Seaport–have hit the dustbin. Not so, AN has learned.
London Sees Red
Lord Foster's Bus.
Two blue chippers Aston Martin and Foster + Partners raked in a not-much-needed $38,000 (£25,000) and a first-prize award along with Capoco Design for re-jiggering London’s famous double decker bus, the Routemaster. Read More
Strike Two? Not So Fast
The Vanderbilt Yards await transformation. (Courtesy threecee/Flickr)
First Laurie Olin, now Frank Gehry. That was the news earlier this week when the Wall Street Journal reported that the Santa Monica-based architect had laid off “more than two dozen” staffers involved with Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project. What followed was a string of cheers predicting the troubled Brooklyn mega-development’s demise. After all, how could it go on without its signature architect?
While considering this question, I kept thinking of a comment made by Kermit Baker yesterday, during an interview about the abysmal November billings index. Given what’s going on elsewhere in the industry, the termination of a handful of architects may not signal the doomsday scenario the project’s critics would like, and instead may be one more credit-related payroll pause like many others around the nation: Read More
Green ’70s Flashback with Smiles and Shades of Blue
Craig Hodgetts’ 1978 vision for the cult novel “Ecotopia” includes balloon generators over San Francisco Bay, with a maintenance gondola in the foreground.
A recent New York Times article piqued not only a literary memory of the cult classic Ecotopia, but also a visual memory from an early work by the exemplary West Coast practitioner Craig Hodgetts.
Writing from what used to be called “Berserkley,” California, Scott Timberg begins his article with these observations:
“Sometimes a book, or an idea, can be obscure and widely influential at the same time. That’s the case with Ecotopia, a 1970s cult novel, originally self-published by its author, Ernest Callenbach, that has seeped into the American groundwater without becoming well known. Read More
The Scarlet Letter
Voluntary Prisoners of Downtown Miami
CIFO's urban jungle mosaic facade, garden, and entry patio.
Contemporary art curator and AN colleague Leanne Mella has organized a potent and compelling exhibition entitled The Prisoner’s Dilemma for the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, known as CIFO, in downtown Miami.
With noble intentions, given the socio-political climate of the recent past, the work in Mella’s exhibition showcases the ways in which artists respond to the exercise of power in contemporary life. The politics of the show are highly nuanced, visually stunning, and often quite poetic. Read More
Miami Vices
The trading floor.
Designer and AN friend Ken Saylor, of saylor+sirola, reports from Art|Basel|Miami Beach:
For the seventh year in a row, the international art world descended upon Miami Beach to instantly transform the city into a galaxy of cultural production, salesmanship, and hopefully, with this year’s delicate economy, elite consumption. If you add cars, champagne, mojitos, and cigars, provided by the current corporate sponsors, one’s experience of Art|Basel|Miami Beach was a decadently over-the-top trip to the beach.
With 24 auxiliary fairs attaching themselves to the main event, it is impossible to see everything, although everyone runs around the city in frantic abandon—entourages in tow—to openings, parties, parties, and, yes, more parties. Read More
The Long Arrivederci
The Venice biennale will just not end! It opened in the warmth of September with mobs of well-known architects in attendance and officially closed on a cold November Sunday with scores of Italian schoolchildren roaming the pavilion grounds. I locked the doors of the U.S. Pavilion, put models and drawings into shipping containers (the show will be reprised at Parsons School of Design in February), and floated our Kartell-donated furniture down the Grand Canal on a barge—just in time for the highest floods in La Serenissima’s post–global warming history. Read More
How Much Is That Building Really Worth To You?
Shigeru Ban sketch on the block for SCI-Arc
If you’ve got some extra cash this year—and really, who doesn’t?—why not invest in architecture? Not the pricey, unlikely-to-be-built, brick-and-mortar kind. We’re talking about 2D architecture, the kind you can hang on your wall. Shigeru Ban, Daly Genik, Hodgetts + Fung and Michael Maltzan are just a few of the architects you could have in your home by Christmas, thanks to this auction where you can bid on their drawings and renderings, with all the proceeds going to SCI-Arc.
Heath Ceramics Finally Out of the Kiln
Pottery people, by Eric Nakamura
The Los Angeles branch of mid-century institution Heath Ceramics materialized last Friday night in a sweet corner location on Beverly that will serve as a studio, gallery and first retail store outside of its Sausalito headquarters. The space designed by local firm Commune was clean and bright, wine served in teeny sake cups and a keg on the patio made for a festive feel, and all anyone talked about was the economy. But Heath Ceramics owners Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey were especially buoyant, telling Frances Anderton that a downturn would actually inspire more people to seek out lovingly handcrafted items. New partner Adam Silverman (of Atwater Pottery) was also all smiles, his wild hair providing its own interpretation of uplifting, as he called his new relationship with his longtime crush “a perfect match.”
Advertise on The Architect's Newspaper.
Archives
Categories
Architecture
Design
East Coast
Midwest
National
Planning
Shft+Alt+Del
Sustainability
Transportation
West Coast
