We'd heard stirrings about Tiger Woods joining his celebrity brethren in getting involved in Dubai and designing homes, hotels and a new golf course (his first ever design) since ground was broken for the project back in February, but nothing had been released yet until, thanks to Archinect, we found the first renders (maybe real photographs?) of the whole layout for Tiger Woods Dubai. As a part-time, horrible golfer, this writer thinks the course looks great (even though they will never ever let him play there, and with good reason), and even the private homes and the hotel looks good. Maybe a little too much like a slightly gaudy, high-end strip mall in Southern California, but hey, Dubai has never been known for its moderation. And if you're still hungry for more, the International Herald Tribune has additional info on where they're at in the building process.

For those who read this here blog and have had the rare but glorious opportunity to bask in our glow in person, when we say "Stark" out loud, most people would guess that we're back to talking about one of our favorite subjects, Philippe Starck. But no, his name has a "c" in it (for some reason). Instead, if you listen closely, we're actually talking about David Stark, the "event designer extraordinaire," who the good people over at Design*Sponge recently got to hang out with the guy and watch him create some of his temporary grandeur at this year's Robin Hood Foundation fundraiser in New York. If you're not familiar with Stark's work, you really should get on the ball. It's somewhere in between the Technicolor sheen of The Wizard of Oz and the bizarrely amazing House on the Rock in Wisconsin. And seeing how he does it from start to finish is just plain great. Highly recommended.

Beyond reading our reports of its commission and construction, you saw it here on UnBeige being built in a hurry by way of time-lapse. And maybe you've even stopped by Public Farm One over there at P.S. 1 in New York. But for those who couldn't make it, haven't made the trip yet, or simply didn't have a camera, Dezeen has a great feature up with a million photos highlighting the Young Architects Program-winning work by the firm Work. Beyond the pictures, there are also a few tidbits, some from Dezeen and some from Work's press materials, like in this big statement about the public space's purpose:

This summer of 2008, exactly 40 years after '68, it is time for a new leisure revolution! One that creates a symbol of liberation, knowledge, power and fun for today's cities. Leaving behind the Urban Beach, our project becomes the 'Urban Farm' -- a magical plot of rural delights inserted within the city grid that resonates with our generations' preoccupations and hopes for a better and different future.

An interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal about an alteration of career plans for famous theatrical/building designer, David Rockwell. Known for his work building backdrops for big name Broadway shows and even serving as the lead architect for the theaters themselves (he designed and built the Kodak Theater in LA), he's recently decided that he's still very into the playground designing market (for kids, specifically), the first of which should be completed sometime within the next year in NY. All this in the name of making urban life a little more kid-friendly and kid-encouraging. Here's a bit:

Next month, he and his firm will break ground on the Imagination Playground at South Street Seaport's Burling Slip. Funded by private donations and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, it will forswear slides and jungle gyms and instead employ an open multilevel space with large sand and water features, dams, cables, pulleys and an array of "loose parts" -- toys and tools that kids can use to alter the environment. And on July 9 the architect and KaBOOM! -- a not-for-profit playground builder -- unveiled, in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, his first playground-in-a-box -- a collection of large toys and playthings crafted from molded foam and plastic.

For further reading, here's an older, but lengthy profile on Rockwell from Fast Company, and here's another take on his playground move from the NY Times.

Some possibly good news for the September 11th Memorial project in NY this weekend. It's been announced that the actor Billy Crystal has agreed to join the board of the project, helping to raise more money which will hopefully keep things moving along more smoothly in a space plagued with setbacks and pushback on what year the memorials and the surrounding new buildings will be finished. And hey, now the Memorial group has a permanent MC for any and all fundraisers. So that has to help everyone's mood about the project, too. Here's a bit from the BBC:

Crystal said he was "honoured" to join the organisation and have the opportunity to "contribute to the creation of a permanent national memorial".

The star, who was born in New York, added that the project was "an opportunity to demonstrate New York's strength and resolve, whilst ensuring that the memories of the lives lost are never forgotten".

So far the foundation has raised more than $350m from private funds towards the memorial.

After all this talk about former Olympic cities not faring well after the dust settles and the huge crowds leave once the events end and the stands empty out, all in relation to speculation for what will happen when this occurs in Beijing in just a couple of months, it's good to see that the post-Olympic-depression doesn't affect all cities. Such is the case with Turin, who hosted the Winter Olympics two years ago, which is profiled by Architectural Record in a piece that shows how the city worked with its sudden adoption of a bunch of new parks, venues, and miscellaneous expensive buildings. Turns out, the city's government was smart both before and after, laying the ground work to re-commission all of the structures into things that would benefit Turin, not just sit there collecting dust and eating up tax dollars. Here's a bit about one of the largest buildings:

Indeed, the centrally located, 13,000-seat Palasport Olimpico has been a hot venue. In 2007, it was booked 200-plus days for corporate functions, concerts, sporting games, and other events; the foundation hopes to boost that activity by 50 percent this year. Moreover, the city is building on that momentum by constructing a swimming pavilion on an adjacent site. Also designed by Isozaki and Maggiora, the new pavilion will serve as a visual counterpoint to the Palasport Olimpico, taking its straightforward rectilinear volume, tilting it upward on one side, and topping the structure with a folded roof. The 20-million-euro project should be finished by 2009.

Of note, if you're on an Olympic building kick that you don't want to let go of, here's an interesting piece from NPR's Lisa Chow about how things are shaping up, modern architecture-wise, in China these days. Some good quotes by Rem Koolhaas therein, if that helps perk your interest.

The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, either just made one of the biggest mistakes in the city's history or something beneficial to help push the city along into the 21st century. It's being reported that Delanoe has helped the city council tear up the rule that no building can be higher than 122 feet inside the city, thus opening up a world of multi-story building possibilities, much to the chagrin of most of the residents of Paris. But the mayor does have one person championing the decision, Jean Nouvel, who of course is pro-skyscraper, considering he's busy building the Signal Tower just outside the city walls. Here's a bit from him:

"This is not about undermining our heritage. But we have to stop thinking that Paris is a museum-city," Nouvel told Le Parisian newspaper. "Paris is not finished... If vertical buildings can enrich the heart of the capital, why deprive ourselves?"

Zaragoza isn't just a lot of fun to say, it's also the Spanish host town of the world's largest water festival, Expo Zaragoza, which through September 14 immerses visitors in an astounding number of water-themed events with the help of "Fluvi" (at left), a hydrophilic mascot who looks like a cross between E.T. and a loquacious blue hammer. As part of the festival, Zaragoza has acquired a new architectural landmark, the pedestrian bridge pavilion (pictured above) designed by Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher. Organized around four "pods" that both distribute the bridge's weight and enclose separate exhibition spaces, Hadid's Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion is her firm's first completed bridge project.

While leaders of Expo Zaragoza describe the 853-foot-long and 98-foot-wide bridge as "gladiolus-shaped," Hadid emphasizes the project's structural ambition, fluidity, and dynamic nature. The pavilion houses an interactive exhibition "Water, A Unique Resource" designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, and the structure was created with an eye to the sustainability issues the show and the broader Expo address. "We designed an envelope for the Bridge Pavilion that encloses the exhibition spaces yet can be permeated by natural elements. The internal micro-environment varies with the external climate and requires minimal cooling or heating infrastructure," says Hadid. "In particular, we considered the local Cierzo wind when designing the Bridge Pavilion's skin. A variety of openings convey and direct air into the building's interior—cooling visitors in the heat of the summer."

Apart from chocolate rivers (particularly those with an appetite for chubby, evocatively named German youths), waterfalls are surely the most mesmerizing of nature's wonders, even if they are not so much natural as the spirited creations of a Danish/Icelandic artist and stop running at the stroke of 10 p.m. every night. Today saw the launch of Olafur Eliasson's monumental, multi-site public art project, "The New York City Waterfalls," four cascades rising as high as 120 feet out of New York Harbor. Announced in January, the Public Art Fund project was realized in eco-friendly collaboration with Tishman Construction Corporation and a team of nearly 200 designers, engineers, and construction workers.

In the press release issued today from his office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the waterfalls "a beautiful symbol of the energy and vitality that we are bringing back to our waterfront." Meanwhile, Eliasson says, "they will give people the possibility to reconsider their relationship to the spectacular surroundings...and evoke experiences that are both individual and enhance a sense of collectivity." But our favorite description comes from New York Times art critic Roberta Smith. "They could almost fool King Kong into thinking he is back home," she writes in her review published today. "They are the remnants of a primordial Eden, beautiful, uncanny signs of a natural nonurban past that the city never had." The watery paradise lasts through October 13.

Like we saw in this post just yesterday, it seems like we've all been talking about if famous architects should be working in China, what's being said when they take these commissions, and how it will later effect their careers. But it seems that rare is the day we read about how the Chinese people are responding to all of these Westerners coming in, razing their houses, and building insane things in their (former) backyards. Granted, some of this is the whole unfree media, but some of it must also be a little bias on our behalf. So it's nice to see a piece like Paul Goldberger's in the New Yorker, "Forbidden Cities," which talks to Beijing natives and reports on their thoughts about the whole thing, all of which was a refreshing change from the usual. Our favorite part was learning what they call Koolhaas' new CCTV headquarters:

The novelty of the form -- some Beijingers have taken to calling it Big Shorts -- takes time to comprehend; the building seems to change as you pass it. "It comes across sometimes as big and sometimes as small, and from some angles it is strong and from others weak," [Ole Scheeren] said. "It no longer portrays a single image."