REX presents drawings, diagrams, 360° panorama image of Yongsan Tower, residential building in Seoul. Read More...
May 18, 2012
Las Boas, apartment in Marina Botafoch Ibiza, Spain by Jean Nouvel
LucasFox presents photos and a video of Las Boas, apartment in Marina Botafoch Ibiza, Spain designed by Jean Nouvel. Read More...
Work Is Work: Why Free Internships Are Immoral
Estimates put the number of unpaid interns every year between 500,000 and one million. So, in a country where working for free is mostly illegal, a student population somewhere between the size of Tucson and Dallas will be working for free, in plain view. Read More...
Peavey Plaza has fallen into disrepair
the plaza features include “a terraced amphitheaterlike space and a drainable reflecting pool that could be used as a stage in summer and a skating rink in winter. Waterfalls absorbed noise; garden rooms offered intimacy and softened concrete edges.” Kathryn Shattuck writes the battle over the fate of Peavey Plaza, a two-acre outdoor public space in downtown Minneapolis designed by M. Paul Friedberg. The American Society of Landscape Architects recognized the plaza as Read More...
Secret Soviet Cities
[Images: From ZATO: Secret Soviet Cities during the Cold War at Columbia's Harriman Institute; right three photographs by Richard Pare]. Speaking of Van Alen Books: earlier this week, they hosted a panel on the topic of “Secret Soviet Cities During the Cold War.” These were closed cities or ZATO, “sites of highly secretive military and scientific research and production in the Soviet Empire. Nameless and not shown on maps, these remote urban environments followed a unique Read More...
Perhaps it is not a city
[Image: Michael Maltzan's Inner City Arts building, Los Angeles; photo by Iwan Baan]. I’ll be speaking tonight, May 17th, at Van Alen Books with architect Michael Maltzan about his book No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond, edited by Jessica Varner, previously discussed on BLDGBLOG here. The book includes interviews with Matthew Coolidge of the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Charles Waldheim, Qingyun Ma, Catherine Opie, Edward Soja (who quips Read More...
May 17, 2012
Works, new monograph of Bouroullec Brothers (Amazon.com)
Phaidon has published Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec’s new monograph titled ‘Works,’ and Studio Bouroullec presents preview images of this book. © Studio Bouroullec Read More...
Bowl in a glass box: Landmarks Commission and PDC renew Coliseum renovation discussion
Memorial Coliseum (photo by Brian Libby) BY FRED LEESON Here’s question that might be novel in the history of architecture. Can a single building have two exteriors? The issue arose when the Portland Landmarks Commission on May 14 considered proposed renovations to the “exterior” of Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Under Portland’s zoning code, the commission cannot rule on changes to an interior space unless the interior space itself has been designated as a landmark. That distinction Read More...
Sheldon on Old Town: endangered species or sweet spot?
Old Town at First & Couch (photo by Brian Libby) BY FRED LEESON Perhaps no one in Portland knows the Old Town/Chinatown district better than George “Bing” Sheldon, the “S” in SERA Architects, one of the city’s most prominent partnerships. Sheldon has housed his office north of Burnside in the historic district since 1968. With almost 45 years under his belt, Sheldon makes his feelings clear these days: He doesn’t like what he sees. “To me it’s obvious the system Read More...
May 16, 2012
Weiss/Manfredi & HM White’s BBG visitor’s center in the WSJ
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, entering its second century, is hardly a novice at branding, but at the new Visitor Center it is exercised with comprehensive aplomb. … the green roof is no small engineering feat. With a pitch of up to 27 degrees, it requires complicated networks of special soils held in place with cleats and geo-nets involving drip irrigation systems woven into capillary fabrics, and other impressive techniques with specialized vocabularies known only to au courant Read More...
Heading to D.C.
I’m off to Washington, D.C. for the AIA Convention, so posts will resume early next week, and my weekly page will be on hiatus until the Tuesday after Memorial Day. Read More...
Six Days for sLAB Costa Rica
The deadline for NYIT’s sLAB Costa Rica Kickster campaign, a project I featured previously, is six days away (May 21). As I type this they are ~$7,500 short of their new goal of $24,000. Below is a video about the project, which will result in students from NYIT helping to build a recycling facility they designed for Nosara, Costa Rica. Read More...
May 15, 2012
Monday, Monday
A Weekly Dose of Architecture Updates: This week’s dose features Mini-Studio in Mexico City, Mexico by FRENTEarquitectura: The featured past dose is the Azteca Multimodal Transfer Station in Mexico City, Mexico by CC Arquitectos: This week’s book review includes three journals: Boundaries #3, City Limits #5, Log 24: **NOTE: The next weekly dose will be 2012.05.29.** american-architects.com Building of the Week: BSA Space in Boston, Massachusetts by Hӧweler + Yoon Read More...
33 Alternatives to University or Design School in Europe
To do things differently, it helps to connect with new people and contexts. Universities and design schools seldom make that easy… This handout contains the most interesting ones we’ve found so far. It includes [with their permission] the findings of a scoping study for Schumacher College in England. No quality judgment is implied by inclusion in (or omission from) this list. Read More...
Hefner/Beuys House by Jimenez Lai – FUNDED!
Congrats to Jimenez for getting his project funded, with minutes remaining. Can’t wait to see the results! Read More...
May 14, 2012
OMA + MAI
[Photos by John Hill, unless otherwise noted] Last week, a bunch of press folks squeezed into MoMA PS1‘s Performance Dome to listen to artist Marina Abramović, architect Shohei Shigematsu (of OMA‘s New York office), and others unveil the design for the Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art (MAI) in Hudson, New York. The unveiling kicks off a fundraising effort on the part of the artist, who aims for an optimistic completion of the project in Read More...


