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Ehrlich
REVEALING BITS
Stephen Ehrlich is known to be a mild-mannered LA architect. But it looks like that wasn’t always so. As part of his tribute at Julius Shulman’s memorial service in September, Ehrlich bared not only his praise for Shulman, but also his butt cheeks. He wasn’t at the event, but the Getty presented an image that Shulman took of him in his—shall we say—perkier days. He was obviously hitting the beach a lot then, because we saw some serious tan lines. Uncle Julius, maybe you had another career waiting in the centerfolds? Read More
LA Architects Learning To Promote Selves
…Or so hope the creators of Architects Reaching Out, a series of panels sponsored by the A+D Museum and the AIA Los Angeles, in which journalists, PR experts, photographers and web designers will give architects the tools to improve their self-presentation skills. Lessons will include getting good pictures, pitching to media outlets, creating monographs, composing press releases, and even putting together virtual building tours. The panels, moderated by architecture writer Michael Webb, will take place at the A+D’s new location at 6032 Wilshire Blvd in LA on November 14 and 21. Panelists will include KCRW’s Frances Anderton, AN’s California Editor Sam Lubell, architect Lorcan O’Herlihy, photographer Benny Chan, PR maven Christine Anderson, and web designer Shannon Vincent-Brown.
Bright Holiday Ideas
(all photos courtesy Object Design League)
The Object Design League, working with Pavilion Antiques, is opening a pop-up design store in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood. Opening the day after Thanksgiving, the shop, called Worth Your Salt, will feature pieces by 19 American designers, including lighting, accessories, jewelry, and household items. The designs explore themes of “industriousness and play” according to a statement from the league. Craighton Berman’s Coil Lamp, for examples, is made from a single electrical cord wrapped around a nearly invisible frame in the form of an everyday table-top light. Click through for a preview of a few of the objects that will be offered. Read More
Engine Company 201
Designed by RKT&B Architecture, the Engine Company 201 firehouse was commissioned under the DDC's Design and Construction Excellence program. (Courtesy Albert Vecerka/Esto)
Last week, the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) broke ground on a police station in Staten Island designed by Rafael Vinoly. This week, the agency announced the completion of another such project: a firehouse in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Both projects were commissioned under the DDC’s Design and Construction Excellence program, which has raised the bar on design in public architecture. The firehouse—Engine Company 201—was designed by RKT&B Architecture, a local firm that has been around since the 1960s and has completed its fair share of city work. The building’s red glazed brick and backlighted Maltese Cross telegraph its function to the neighborhood, while the glass apparatus doors—a first for a firehouse in the city—maintain a close connection with the community. Look after the jump for more pictures. Read More
Designer Halloween Costumes
We're looking to Rem Koolhaas for inspiration for this year
WIth Halloween just a day-and-a-half away, there’s not much time to come up with a costume if you haven’t already. Our pal Nate Berg over at Planetizen has a rather amusing listing of planning-themed costumes, including LEED certified—”don’t get your platinum certification mistaken for a silver”—and our personal favorite, FAR—”This costume illustrates the concept of floor area ratio over the course of the night. At first the ratio is low, as you’ll likely be standing and dispersing yourself over a relatively small land area. But by the end of the night when you’re passed out on the floor after the party, you’ll be taking up much more land area and will therefore represent a much higher FAR.” Still, everybody knows architects are more clever than planners, so we’ve come up with five of our own costumes, and we’d also love to hear yours, so leave suggestions in the comments. Read More
Smoke Clears from TVCC
The burned out TVCC tower, photographed earlier this month. (Anders V/Flickr)
Shortly after the dramatic fire consumed much of the TVCC tower in Beijing earlier this year, we speculated on the building’s fate. Well, it’s taken eight months, but Archinect directed us to an AP story in which OMA’s Ole Scheeren finally addresses the rampant concerns that have been plaguing the burned out building, and the prognosis is good. Scheeren said that the building is indeed intact and will be replaced—at what cost, who knows, though this being state-run television, does it even really matter? The AP adds that construction scaffolding is already up on the site, and Scheeren goes to great lengths to dispel apparently rampant and, as far as we can understand, ridiculous rumors that were the TVCC building to be dismantled, it would drag down the better known CCTV building because the two shared a structural system. Read More
Pratt Is Back
Pratt designer-alumni have furnished this Rogers Marvel-designed townhouse in Carroll Gardens.
Pratt Institute was founded in 1886 by Charles Pratt, who had sold his family’s Astral Oil works to Standard Oil in 1874. It was Pratt’s original intention that the school train industrial workers for the changing economy of the 19th century, and this it did for many years before growing into one of the leading art and design schools in the country. Read More
Beyond the Quotidian Landscape
The naturalistic landscape at Sea Ranch is the work of the late Lawrence Halprin. (Image courtesy of the Cultural Landscape Foundation)
The Cultural Landscape Foundation has just launched What’s Out There,a database of landscapes with some sort of historical significance: parks big and small, and various important modern landscapes. Because these public spaces are often part of our quotidian routines, it’s easy to be completely oblivious to the designer or how the space participates in the history of landscape design. Have a look at ”What’s Out There”–a wonderful title that positively invites browsing–and learn more about what is just around the corner from where you are. Read More
The City of Benchly Love
Three of the new Corian seats, deployed across the city by C.H. Briggs in honor of Design Philadelphia 09.
It would seem Philadelphia has a bit of a seating fixation going on with this year’s Design Philadelphia event. First there was the new Veyko subway chairs, and now—as you’ve noticed if you’ve been out wandering the streets of town during October—more than a dozen seats/sculptures scattered about, all cut from DuPont Corian, all created by prominent local designers. Reading-based C.H. Briggs, the interiors supplier, decided it wanted to celebrate Philly’s top designers and the city’s popular public spaces by commissioning them to create site-specific seating from that most ubiquitous of building materials. The results will only officially be up through the end of the month, though Briggs is currently negotiating with the city and certain institutions to donate the pieces so that they might find a permanent home—not unlike those damn cow parades that were so popular earlier in the decade, though at least these seats have a far greater purpose. You can see a slideshow of all 14 here.
SCI-Arc Moving?
The LA Downtown News and Curbed LA report that SCI-Arc (the Southern California Institute of Architecture) is having some serious issues with its current location in LA’s Arts District, and may be considering a move to Hollywood, the Wilshire Corridor, or the Westside. The school rents its massive train-depot-turned-school building from developer Meruelo Maddux, which apparently charges a pretty penny (and recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy). Their lease is up in one year. According to Jamie Bennett, SCI-Arc’s COO, the school has not yet decided on whether it will renew the lease, and wants a building of its own. “We will be operating in our own self-interest. We haven’t been unhappy down here in the Arts District. We’ve got flexibility in terms of our future and we have optimism about our future, but our future will include owning where we are,” he told the Downtown News. Stay tuned, because we know downtown doesn’t want to lose one the Arts District’s driving forces…
Ritchie Engineering
On Friday, Matthew Ritchie opened his new solo show, Line Shot, at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in Chelsea. While the work is impressive as always, most notable is the installation of the newest piece of “The Morning Line,” a work unveiled at the Biennale last year (we saw it first hand!) that has begun to trek around the world in different forms, popping up earlier this summer in London, which is where the above video was shot. Inspired by the Big Bang, The Morning Line is notable not only for Ritchie’s typically uncanny sense of and attention to detail but also its intricacy and precision, aided in part through a partnership with ARUP’s Advanced Geometry Unit, led by Daniel Bosia, and the architects Aranda/Lasch, whose Ben Aranda walks us through the project in the video below. The piece is on view through December 2, as well as after the jump. Read More
Yankees Do Over Dandy
Watch your step. (shihic0518/Flickr)
This weekend, a lot of New Yorkers were fixated on Yankee Stadium, though for far different reasons than the Times, which paid the House That Ruth Didn’t Build some overdue (or undue, if you’re a Steinbrenner) attention. The biggest and most alarming story was that the vaunted stadium—the most expensive ever built in the U.S., in part thanks to questionable public financing—was cracking, particularly in the ramps, a troubling spot given all the foot traffic. It was revealed over a year ago that a faulty concrete tester was employed on the project, along with hundreds of others in the city, though it also turns out the mob was involved in pouring all that concrete. The Times‘ description is so matter of fact as to be breathtaking: Read More
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