Today is the opening of the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA. The major news agencies are all carrying the story and are depicting the whole emotional and nationalist side of this event. What interests me here is the architecture. The memorial consists of a field of trees with “light benches” folding out of the ground. These folded planes are each dedicated to a person who died in the pentagon and the plane that crashed there.
Sep 112008
Aug 302008
Its been over three years since I moved to Northern Virginia and said good bye to my friends and Alma Mater in New Orleans. How was I to know that 3 months later the world would end and everything New Orleans would be measured in relevance to Katrina. Now, as we welcome in year 3 PK, New Orleans is facing the possibility of another major disaster. It is my hope of hopes that Gustav does not undo all the rebuilding and planning that have happened in the past three years. If the worst happens and the city is deluged again, I worry that the country will not be as generous as last time; I can already hear them crying on the senate floor for abandonment and rebuilding elsewhere. I can see the talking heads blaming New Orleans for not “learning its lesson,” as if the city had not been flooded numerous times in its past. If the money does come again, I can just imagine the repressive building codes to and flood plane restrictions, all methods of preventing future loss of property. Yet the city would become one big concrete block raised 40 feet in the air. How can we [...]
As a former resident of New Orleans, Tulane School of Architecture alumni, a preservationist, and as a future architect I implore you to stop the destruction of modernist buildings in New Orleans. Ever since the Vieux Carré Commission stood up to Robert Moses and the original planned route for I-10, there has been an understanding in New Orleans that its buildings are the presents physical link with the city’s history, and that history and tourists desire to explore it and embrace it has been the economic engine that has allowed rebuilding to be a possibility. If there has been one place that preservation has failed in New Orleans, it is in regards to Modernist architecture. The city was done a historical and architectural disservice with the destruction of the Rivergate, a building that was unique in New Orleans’s architectural landscape. We now stand on a precipice, the bulk of the schools scheduled to be closed and demolished are some of the few examples of southern regional Modernism in New Orleans. With their destruction we stand to lose a huge part of our architectural and cultural history. In addition, by demolishing the schools we are only contributing more waste to the [...]
Aug 192008
SCOTT BURNHAM has a realy good post about the Beijing Stadium. He contends that the now ubiquitous “Bird’s Nest” shows a striking similarities to the improvised safety screening that Chinese migrant workers erect in buildings. This woven mesh of slates IS eerily similar to the form of the outer skin on Herzog & de Meuron’s Stadium.
Aug 192008
Here are some links to articles that have peaked my interest in the last few days: ‘Can of ham’ to rival Foster’s Gherkin – Building What is it with Londoners and buildings that look like food? I am waiting for the Yorkshire pudding building, or the spotted dick building. FreshWater House by Chenchow Little Architects | CoolBoomThis is a nice little piece of critical regionalism. The shutter walls are really genius way of bringing operable shutters to a contemporary design style. In addition the bundle of sticks element of the architecture thoroughly responds to the beach setting. 19th century Western town layout: myth vs reality | Cyburbia – urban planning communityCyburbia has an interesting discussion on the depiction of frontier/western towns in cinema and in real life. I find the discussion of early planning and zoning and false fronts very interesting. AIA Deconstructs Green-Building Standards| News | Architectural RecordArchitectural Record has an article about the AIA’s analysis of three different green building standards: LEED 2.2, Green Globes, and SBTool 07.
Aug 102008
Newsweek has an interview with William McDonough, Q&A: The Future of Green Buildings | Newsweek Future Of Energy | Newsweek.com, which focuses on his ideas about the green building movement and the direction architecture is taking. For those versed in Green Architecture, there really is nothing new in this article, but for the general public this can serve as a nice introduction to some of the standard green concepts such as “cradle to cradle design”, densification, green roofs and renewable energy.
Aug 092008
As anyone who has been even remotely cognizant of the news can tell you, the US is facing some bad times. We are having credit failures, banking collapses, increased food costs, increased energy costs, a craptacular housing market, and a general retail slump. The last one is worrisome to me, the incessant purchasing of the American middle class has been the economic engine keeping this boat afloat and paddling upstream. With the recent closing of national chains such as Steve and Barry and the downsizing of Starbucks I have to wonder how this is affecting the independent merchant, and then I stop and realize that except for the high-end boutiques and artists and artisans there really are no more mom and pop shops in this country. But that chilling thought aside, the area most visibly harmed in this country has been the housing market.
Jul 292008
[Image via Life Without Buildings via io9.] In his blog Life Without Buildings, my fellow Tulane Alum, Jimmy Stamp, discusses the latest proposed moon habitat from NASA. Like most of the other articles I’ve seen he discusses the igloo-like shape and inflatable (gas-itechture) structure, yet this discourse is really lacking. What we are seeing here is not just another exploratory vehicle that will double as a place for astronauts to sleep. Consider Voyager for a second Ann Druyan recorded all sorts of sounds emblematic of the human race, to act as a time capsule, a display of who we are; this is the first piece of human architecture to be built on another celestial body, and I have to ask, where’s the outrage? Of all the structures in all of human history, this is what we build, an inflatable breast? It looks like something Greg Lynn would create, but instead it was designed by engineers? In addition, since when do we allow engineers to create the first lunar human dwelling? Where is the discussion of the space it makes, the space within and the views out? Are there views out? How does it interact with its environment? All of these [...]
Jun 232008
The Washington Post ran an article by Philip Kennicott in this Sunday’s Style & Arts section about the massive building boom and its affect on the culture of architecture in china. The article goes into depth about how the western concept of permanency and a national architectural identity is in direct contrast to the Chinese (and very eastern) concept of impermanence and intellectual assimilation. This article paints a very interesting picture of how the “Star-chitect” designed buildings fit into the context of the awakening Beijing and compares them to the temporary workers housing. What intrigued me about this article is how it describes architectural education and the path of current and recent architecture students. The author describes that many students and recent graduates have portfolio’s filled with built projects, whereas here it may be years before a young architect (such as myself) can see any of their work built. This is all too true of an observation, and just like our falling math and language test scores this is an indication of our inability to keep up with world markets. It is common here to reserve “design” work for those who are already licensed and who have a thorough understanding [...]
So this past week there were a number of fires and closings of stations within the DC Metro system. While the fires and the maintenance issues that caused them (and many more during the previous years) are one issue, the greater issue at hand is that these incidents completely incapacitated the Red and Orange lines. On a system with three major corridors downtown serviced by 5 lines, the loss of two (one of which runs alone on its corridor) is tantamount to a 50% loss of service. This is unacceptable in the 21st century, and especially in the Nation’s Capitol, where a 30 mile commute can take 2 hours by car. On Sunday, The Washington Post ran an article identifying the double track system as the achilles heel in the Washington Metro. I have to agree with them. One of the greatest strengths of the NYC subway is that it can divert around stations and segments of tracks which are under repair or out of service. With the current system if a single track is out of service all trains must share a single track to bypass the problem. If both tracks are incapacitated by jumper or a fire than [...]