ARCHRECORD.COM -
Desert buildings that produce more energy than they consume may no longer be the stuff of mirages. Chicago-based Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture recently won a competition to design Masdar Headquarters, a 1.6-million-square-foot, zero-waste, zero-carbon facility that it predicts will generate not only enough power to run itself, but also surplus energy to help fuel buildings surrounding it. Masdar is Abu Dhabi’s multi-billion dollar initiative to further the development and commercialization of sustainable energy. The headquarters building will be the heart of Masdar City, a 2.3-square-mile city masterplanned by Foster + Partners just outside Abu Dhabi. Read Story
BOSTON GLOBE – Mohsen Mostafavi, the new dean at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, is much more than a man who understands lines, brick, and mortar. He is a philosopher of sorts. Since arriving from Cornell, where he served as dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, Mostafavi has been thinking about how his students can be futurists, meaning how they can use their tools today to plan for the cities we will inhabit in the years ahead. Mostafavi, who was born in Iran, recently chatted about his research, and his plans for the future of the school. — CARLENE HEMPEL Read Story
ARCHINECT.COM – Architecture for Humanity is raising funds to support reconstruction efforts after this weekend’s devastating cyclone in Myanmar. Please help communities rebuild! Read Story
CBC NEWS -
British architect Norman Foster has been approached to lead the redesign and restoration project for the museum, which is expected to handle more than five million visitors annually.
Foster, known for his high-tech style, also designed the three-sided Russia Tower in Moscow’s new business district, the New Holland architectural ensemble in St. Petersburg and the site of the former Rossiya hotel. Read Story
JOURNAL OF COMMERCE – In a world that has accepted the concept of globalization, it is now necessary to consider whether the notion of authentic architecture continues to be valid.
The world has adapted many of what have become the archetypes of design, the tall glass office building, shopping malls, franchise stores, residential developments, low end motels and high end hotels to the point that it is difficult to tell by architecture alone the regional context a project may have. Read Story
CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS – Urban environments – and their potential for redevelopment – are a reason for celebration in America.
“There is nothing wrong with poor people that good food, sunlight, celebration and architecture can’t fix,” said Strickland, a developer and author. Read Story
THE ARCHITECT’S JOURNAL – The news comes just two months after the AF decided to scrap its plans for a new headquarters building designed by Zaha Hadid in Southwark, south London after they spent four years on the drawing board. Read Story
LONELY PLANET – On the list of must-see residential structures in the United States — a list that includes Fallingwater, Monticello, the Winchester House, Hearst Castle and even the ranch and cape prefabs of Levittown — Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Conn., is perhaps the most iconic, and the one that should be at the top of the list for devotees of modern architecture. Built in 1948, this serene 56-foot-by-32-foot rectangle of glass and steel is widely considered one of the most influential and elegantly designed buildings of the 20th century. Like fellow architect Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill., from whose template Johnson borrowed, the Glass House revolutionized ideas of the sanctity of home, hearth and privacy and validated Le Corbusier’s notion of the house as a “machine for living.” Read Story
(Philip Johnson’s iconic Glass House in New Canaan, Conn., ushered the International Style into residential American architecture. Eirik Johnson)
THE NEW YORK TIMES – Optimism is in the air again at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has just released a preliminary design by the Italian architect Renzo Piano for its proposed satellite museum downtown. Read Story
(Photo: Courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Cooper, Robertson & Partners)
THE NEW YORK TIMES – Richard Neutra’s residence in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles was given to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, by the Neutra family in 1990. But recently the university, which is financially pressed, announced that unless private financing is found to sustain the house, it may have to be sold. Read Story
(Photo Credits: Left, Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Getty Research Institute; Right, Stephanie Diani for The New York Times)
