architecture

Staying on celebrities for a minute, Architectural Digest cover model, Brad Pitt, has released a slew of new house designs for his Make It Right project which builds houses to replace those damaged or destroyed by the flooding in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina debacle (you might recall our post from a few years ago about the first round). Each of the new designs were created by 14 different firms ranging from Gehry Partners to a collaborator of Make It Right's from the start, William McDonough + Partners. There's information about each of the plans available on the project's site (though most of the firms just provide their bios, a few of links have information about the actual plans you're looking at), as well as a handful of photos and downloadable renderings and plans, to give you a closer look. Here's a quick description of the new buildings from over at Architectural Record:

Most of the new designs feature pared-down geometries that harmonize with traditional regional expression. Exceptions, such as the schematics created by buildingstudio and Graft, another longtime friend of MIR, take on a sleeker appearance, while MVRDV's splayed houses and the angular asymmetry of Pugh + Scarpa's design are more exuberant. For the most part, the designs sport flexible floor plans, forge a close relationship with street life, and integrate outdoor and landscaped spaces with architecture.

Perhaps as a way of gloating in front of Prince Charles by essentially saying there's nothing he can do to touch the 2012 London Olympics' architecture plans, or maybe just to try and patch up some of the "Does the UK have an architectural future?" talk after all the bad blood from that same fiasco, a large group of architects, including the recently-angry Richard Rogers, took a tour of the ongoing construction on the Olympic grounds, resulting in this video and lots of comments about how great architecture in England is right now:

Lord Richard Rogers said: 'The new Olympic Park will be a fantastic place and will help to regenerate east London. The designs show exciting sculptural form and will enhance the landscape.'

Joanna Averley, Deputy Chief Executive of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment said: 'Seeing the project at this stage is an amazing celebration of British engineering, as well as British architecture -- particularly the Olympic Stadium, Aquatics Centre and Velodrome, which will provide a lasting legacy for London.'

Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffee chain who has struggled this past little while now that not as many people find spending five dollars every morning on coffee mixed with milk, have decided, along with their recent moves to make their offerings more healthy, to update their image a bit on the aesthetics and ethics fronts by heading in the LEED-certified direction. They'll be redoing many of their company-owned shops with all sorts of green initiatives and building new ones from here on out using these new approaches from the start. We think it's great that they're moving toward being more green and that local contractors will be getting new work, but is a massively expensive undertaking like this the thing for a company during a major financial crisis? We're not economists, so we don't know how to answer our own questions, of course, so while we sit back and try to do the math, here's a bit about the new shops:

While the new store designs are highly interpretive, they share several core characteristics, including use of local materials and craftsmanship, a focus on reused and recycled elements, exposure of structural integrity and authentic roots, a focus on coffee and removal of unnecessary distractions, customer engagement through all five senses, and flexibility to meet the needs of many customer types -- individual readers and computer users, as well as work, study and social groups.

(Photos: Prada)

If you were growing concerned that Rem Koolhaas' Prada Transformer would suffer at the hands of the economic collapse, resulting in it having to be renamed the Prada Just Sit There, you were foolish to worry. Following all the buzz from its opening back in April, the building has successfully undergone its first shift, moving from a place to exhibit Miuccia's skirts and into a screening hall where a two week film festival entitled "Flesh Mind and Spirit" started this past Saturday. Curated by director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and the NY Times' film critic, Elvis Mitchell, the festival will screen 14 wildly different films until July 9th, three times per day and all for free (if you're in Seoul right now, here's where you can get tickets). As for moving Koolhaas' structure, Wallpaper has some terrific photos of the big move, which required a couple of cranes and (we're hoping) some careful planning.

Still not a lot to stand up and cheer about with the American Institute of Architects' monthly release of their Architecture Billings Index. Following some slight ups and downs of late, the latest report (always showing the month prior) found everything staying relatively flat in May. The numbers had bumped up since April, but at a number hardly worth mentioning, moving from 42.8 to 42.9. And while it seems as though the major bloodletting that occurred this winter has finally stopped, the index is still below 50, which means the industry of building is still in decline. The Architect's Newspaper has this great, quick piece, breaking down all the data by region and on charts and graphs, if you're interested in seeing where we're at and what it all means from a few different perspectives.

Front-page headlines such as "All about survival" and "High-end stores suffer" are the order of the day at The Real Deal, New York's real estate bible, but the June issue ends on an up note, thanks to the charming Robert A.M. Stern. Interviewed by Candace Taylor for the magazine's back page, "The Closing" (get it?), the superenergized architect, teacher, writer, and dean of the Yale School of Architecture opines on everything from his inspirations (which include Paul Rudolph and Robert Venturi) and his love of limestone ("It takes the light very beautifully") to his favorite travel spots (London, Paris, Rome, and this summer, he's off to Vienna, which is "kind of on [his] B-list") and his thoughts on the Best Buy that occupies the ground floor of his buzzed-about 15 Central Park West. "I've never been in a Best Buy," notes Stern. "It looks nice to me. Every shop in New York cannot be Tiffany's." So, what does he think of the term "starchitect"? Read on!

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As we struggle to keep abreast of the flood of Frank Lloyd Wright-related news, contests, vintage game show clips, and egregious puns that have accompanied the outstanding Guggenheim exhibition of the architect's globe-spanning projects, we had to make sure that you had heard the glad tidings that LEGO, too, has caught the FLW fever. In a licensing coup, LEGO's Brickstructures partner (helmed by architectural artist Adam Reed Tucker) has struck a deal with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to produce Frank Lloyd Wright Collection LEGO Architecture sets, which allow kids of all ages to build their own Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Fallingwater. Accompanying the sets are booklets that feature traditional LEGO building instructions as well as "exclusive archival historical material" and photographs of each building. It's DIY FLW!

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Earlier this month we checked in on the progress with SANAA's much-anticipated Serpentine Pavilion in London, which is set to open in less than a month in it usual location at Kensington Gardens, on July 12th. And now, because it's too cool to resist, we make the jump across the pond once again and visit the Times' architecture critic Tom Dyckhoff who files this great report, complete with a great slideshow interview, about the pavilion. Although clearly still feeling angry about the recent Prince Charles debacle and starting his first few paragraphs with things like "It says something about the state of British architecture when the highlight of every year is a small pavilion in a park," Dyckhoff quickly moves on from there and gets into a great discussion with the SANAA team, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, largely (and refreshingly) focusing on their relationship and how they've been able to work together for so long.

"When I first saw Sejima-san [they use each other's surnames despite sitting beside one another and sipping each other's glass of water], I thought, there's someone interesting," he says. "She'd come in to the office wearing this green golden dress with an Arabian Nights hat in rainbow colours. Totally crazy. I thought, she looks kind of nice. I felt she must become very great."

Despite having read a couple of very negative things about how it is to work for SANAA, this piece at least comes across as very incredibly sweet and makes us even more eager to check out the finished pavilion. In the interim, we'll have to settle for this small new batch of construction photos posted by Olll.

Just in time for the release of Gloria Vanderbilt's steamy novel about the widow of a Frank Lloyd Wright-like architect (warning: it involves a discovered cache of letters wrapped with a magenta ribbon), the Guggenheim today launched an online forum that will address the subject of how design can enhance or detract from everyday life. "Between the Over- and Underdesigned," which runs through July 2 on the museum's website, is the first in a series of moderated online discussions on the arts, architecture, and design. Leading the inaugural forum is journalist and critic Aric Chen, who is virtually joined by panelists Sarah Herda, executive director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; Arjo Klamer, professor of the economics of art and culture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam; Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; and David van der Leer, assistant curator of architecture and design at the Guggenheim. The forum encourages visitors from around the world to submit comments and questions for consideration by the panelists and to participate in two live chat sessions scheduled for this Thursday (with Chen) and next Tuesday (with van der Leer). Lupton has already gotten things off to a rousing start:

Imagine walking into a brand-new public building—let's say it's a museum, a campus student center, or a mental-health clinic. Every detail has been designed, from the drop ceiling to the polished floors. But taped to the security desk is a paper sign, printed out in all-caps Times Roman, that says Restrooms Are Downstairs in the Basement Behind the Boiler Room or Don't Even Think About Asking Me Where the Elevator Is. These homemade signs boil over with irritation, directed at a clueless public who don't know how the building works. What's happening here is not a failure of the public, however, but a failure of design.

After all the cries of "You're making Brooklyn bland!" after the Atlantic Yards project recently switched from Frank Gehry to Ellerbe Becket, the developers and designers for the new New Jersey Nets stadium have started moving on the PR front. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be doing themselves any justice. Thanks to a tip from our friend Kristen Richards over at ArchNewsNow, we found our way over to this extended piece where Brett Yormark, CEO of the Nets and Bill Crockett, Ellerbe's principle on the project, were busy defending the decision and the new plans, explaining how great this all will be for Brooklyn in the end and Yorkmark saying things like "We're going to brand Brooklyn in a big-time way." Though outside of naming the two levels in the building "Brownstones" and "Lofts" (ugh), moving the entrances to street level, and building a practice facility next door, there's not a lot of explanation as to why this is going to be so great for the area -- it seems like just coasting on enthusiasm and hoping no one catches on. Ooh, maybe they could paint a couple of quick murals showing Brooklyn's famous moments in history? Or have "authentic New York hot dogs"? That stuff always works in every single other city in the world. Here's a little more Brett Yorkmark:

"The biggest change is that the building is now going to evoke Brooklyn like never before," he said. "There's such a legacy there. Wherever I travel, it is an international brand. They wear it on their hats and on their chests. We're going...to brand Brooklyn in a big-time way, and it will start with the look and feel of the building."

Of note: this writer remains completely impartial to this whole thing with Ellerbe Becket vs. Frank Gehry and whether or not Brooklyn will be bland or not. We just dislike empty PR.