Slideshow> A Promising Runner-Up for the Keelung Waterfront
Last week AN revealed Neil Denari’s winning scheme for the $140 million Keelung Harbor Service Project, a plan to redevelop the Taiwan city’s underexploited waterfront for arts, office, recreation, and industrial uses. Above and below is one of the impressive runners up, the scheme by P-A-R (Platform for Architecture + Research) and Sériès et Sériès along with local architect Ricky Liu Associates. The project consisted of a cargo building, a 20-story office complex, and a three-story cruise ship terminal, all connected via a sloping, faceted landscape.
PRODUCT> Cersaie 2012: Patricia Urquiola for Mutina
While it seemed as if almost every ceramic tile manufacturer at Cersaie was debuting a new line of faux wood grain textured panels, Patricia Urquiola, Creative Director of Mutina Ceramiche & Design, embraced the artisanal tradition of hand painted 20 by 20 cm decorative tile with her new collection, Azulej.
Event> OHNY Celebrates Ten Years with a Party in Times Square!
(Courtesy Sergio Lora & OHNY)
This weekend, October 6 and 7, Open House New York (OHNY) is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its popular weekend of tours, lectures, and open houses of many of the New York City’s most important buildings and spaces. In its ten years OHNY has hosted over two million guests and remains New York’s most important architectural outreach to the public. It will launch the weekend with a party at the Times Square Museum and Visitors Center and the city’s architecture community should be there to support the organization and its mission to serve as a bridge between great design and the public. The Architect’s Newspaper will be there with David Rockwell and we look forward to seeing you!
Videos> Three Proposals for LA’s Sixth Street Viaduct Animated
HNTB’S PROPOSAL FOR THE SIXTH STREET VIADUCT REPLACEMENT IN LOS ANGELES. (Courtesy HNTB)
In September, AN reported on the three proposals to replace Los Angeles’ iconic but crumbling Sixth Street Viaduct by HNTB, AECOM, and Parsons Brinckerhoff. The three teams have notably added pedestrian amenities and adjacent lush landscaping to the 3,500-foot-long cable-stayed span. While the renderings were compelling for each design, these video renderings fly the viewer in and around each proposal for a more detail view of what might soon be built in LA. Take a look.
Minnesota Taps HKS for New Vikings Stadium
An image from HKS Sports & Entertainment Group, submitted as part of its proposal for the new Vikings stadium contract. (Courtesy HKS Sports & Entertainment Group)
Twin Cities sports fans may be most excited about Sunday’s victory on the field, but a twinge of that satisfaction could be due to the team’s new stadium. Minnesota’s Sports Facilities Authority chose HKS architects to design a new home for the NFL’s Vikings.
HKS also designed Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and Cowboys Stadium in their home base of Dallas—two of the most high-profile NFL construction projects in recent memory. A decision on the lead contractor for the project has yet to come down, but news of the $975 million stadium’s designer is the latest announcement in a long and at-times contentious political process that subsidizes professional sports in Minneapolis.
Face-painted fans turned out to city council meetings as the deal cleared hurdles. With respected stadium architects on board, supporters may anticipate validation for their use of public funds. Those opposed maintain only time will tell, no matter the designer.
On View> “Layer: A Loose Horizon” at the Pasadena Museum of California Art
(Art Gray)
Layer: A Loose Horizon
Pasadena Museum of California Art
490 East Union Street
Pasadena, CA
Through October 14, 2012
While digital design and fabrication continue to transform architecture, architect/artists Lisa Little and Emily White have decided to challenge these trends. Although digital forms expand the horizons of design and create intricate patterns, these designs often boils down to mere eye candy. This idea sparked White and Little, the founders of the Los Angeles-based architecture practice Layer, to take the computational approach of digitized aesthetics combined with a perceptual method to create both a physically and intellectually engaging space. The result of this can be seen at their exhibit Layer: A Loose Horizon. Beginning on the exterior of the museums facade, visitors see a web-like structure that toys with depth and proportion while also bridging the exterior and interior space of the museums lobby. Upon entering, guests experience a continuous interaction with the exhibit and become enveloped by the surrounding shapes. To understand the artists’ process, sketches and early digital iterations of the project are also be on view.
Obit> Melvin Charney, 1935-2012
Melvin Charney.
The 77-year-old Montreal architect and artist Mel Charney died on September 17th in his home. Trained at McGill University and Yale as an architect, he was better known as a sculptor, architectural thinker, and academic. Charney represented Canada at the Venice Biennale twice—once for art in 1986 and once for architecture in 2000, created large-scale installations in Montreal including A Chicago Construction (1982) and Skyscraper, Waterfall, Brooks—A Construction at Place Émilie-Gamelin. Finally, he famously designed a block-long montage of photographs of buildings along Montreal’s Sherbrooke Street that had been destroyed to make way for development, which in turn was also destroyed by the city. The next print edition of AN will feature a full obituary and appreciation of Charney by David Grahame Shane.
Empire Stores in DUMBO Might Finally Get a Make-Over
Empire Stores (Photo: Julienne Schaer via Crain’s)
The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation issued an RFP last week seeking qualified developers to revamp the post-Civil War Empire Stores warehouse in DUMBO, according to Crain’s. The adaptive reuse project, originally drafted in 2002, has been postponed several times over the last decade due to a lack of developers willing to address the building’s “scary structural issues.” Proposals, which are due on December 10th, could add up to 70,000 square feet and two additional stories to the existing buildings. Projects must be community friendly and address design challenges at the intersection of preservation and sustainability.
On View> Objects of Architects
Nervous System Orbicule Lamp (Courtesy of Irina Chernyakova)
Objects by Architects opens tonight in The Keller Gallery at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. The exhibition features a collection of design objects “smaller than a breadbox,” by various working architects/designers.
The massive development planned at the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA) was unanimously upheld by the New York City Council Land Use Committee on Thursday, and the Lower East Side might be getting a new school. Or not. City officials won’t decide whether to build the project—part the 1.65 million square foot development at SPURA—for at least another five years, claiming initially that the community did not need a new school. According to City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, the city will set aside 15,000 square feet in the new mixed-use buildings in case a school becomes necessary in the future. The city will also reevaluate the funding available to build it and will keep the potential space available until 2023.
LA Council Approves Farmers Field Stadium
Farmers Field’s North Facade (Gensler)
Almost two years after the idea was first floated, AEG and Gensler’s 72,000 seat, $1.2 billion stadium proposal was approved by LA City Council on Friday. The vote in favor of the project’s environmental impact report (EIR) clears the way for the developer to seek an NFL team and for Gensler’s steel-winged Farmers Field to move ahead. The stadium had experienced some controversy lately as news spread that AEG was putting itself up for sale. But that didn’t deter the council, which voted 12-0 to move ahead with the plan.
The stadium, and an adjacent convention center that was recently panned by an architectural commission, is being paid for privately, although funds are coming from $275 million in tax-exempt bonds. Another proposal by developer Ed Roski and architect Dan Meis, located in the City of Industry, is also trying to lure a team. Let the games begin.
Arc de Jeggings: Some Say Chinese Skyscraper Resembles Pants
(Courtesy RMJM)
You know low-rise skinny jeans are over when someone builds a monument to them. Oh wait, that’s the RMJM’s Gate of the East! Located in Suzhou, a city west of Shanghai, the building is six times taller than the Arch de Triomphe and intended to commemorate China’s entrance into the global economic market. But as the skeletal structure began to be erected, some Suzhou citizens asked, “Um, doesn’t that look like a pair of pants?” Indeed, the almost-pointed arch evokes a cross-section of a gothic cathedral, or, to the modern eye, a pair of really tight trousers. But these aren’t just any pants. In a response published on Dezeen.com, RMJM pointed out the building’s many “feats,” including the highest swimming pool in China and the most use of steel per unit volume. “While some critics view the unfinished skeleton as a laughable pair of low-rise jeans, the gateway is a far cry from a joking matter,” said RMJM. (Hey, quit smirking!)
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