Top 4 Architecture and Urbanism Blog Posts for Week of June 24, 2013

062413 Design is a research project. Pattern of blooms receives recognition. Renaissance in the Windy City. Women in engineering. National Zoo uses social media to find missing red panda. Design is a research project.

Peter Hourihan, an architect at Cannon Design, discusses how research opportunities are everywhere in a firm’s design work.

“There are a number of ways that project or design goals can be generated: overall client specific outcomes; design team design strategies; pressing or ongoing research topics; or novel, untested design innovations. Any of these categories can spawn specific large and small scale design goals. They can each become a hypothesis when the designer or team collects data and draws conclusions about the intended or possible outcomes of the design idea.” – Peter Hourihan

Via Cannon Design Blog

Pattern of blooms. OLIN Studio’s Lines in Four Directions in Flowers on the west lawn of the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been recognized by the Public Art Network as part of the group’s Year in Review Program, which honors outstanding, exceptionally creative, or innovative public art works.

OLIN Partner Susan Weiler, who led the design team for Lines in Four Directions in Flowers,  said the team “spent months researching the color and flowering cycles of dozens of species and were able to design a system of plantings which ensures that there will always be an even pattern of blooms throughout the spring, summer, and fall.”

Via OLIN Studio Blog

http://www.theolinstudio.com/blog/lines-in-four-directions-in-flowers-recognized-by-the-public-art-network/

Renaissance in the Windy City. David Broz of Gensler talks about how downtown Chicago is going through an urban renaissance as companies are returning, apartment construction is booming, and hotel stays are increasing.

These new urban inhabitants are digital native residents who expect a hybrid urban environment, different than what was previously in downtown Chicago. They expect pedestrian friendly streets, bicycle accommodating traffic lanes, a place to sit in parks and plazas, temporary pop-up-galleries and food trucks.

Via Gensleron Cities

Women in engineering. Emily Jones, architectural technician at Stantec, talks about Techsploration, a program that aims to increase the number of women working in science, trades and technology by promoting careers in these fields to young women in grades nine to twelve throughout Nova Scotia.

Jones, who became involved in the Techsploration program in 2011 while attending school, discusses events she was involved with and how girls are being encouraged to do anything they want to do in the fields of science and technology.

Via Stantec Blog

Innovative Social Media Campaign

Zoo social media swoop. The National Zoo in Washington, D.C., turned to social media to find missing red panda named Rusty. The zoo announced Rusty’s disappearance to its thousands of Twitter followers in a tweet at 11:51 a.m, which was retweeted nearly 3,000 times in an hour. Politicians and journalists, including Newt Gingrich, joined the online search. Around 1:15 p.m., a Washingtonian posted a picture on Twitter of Rusty in a patch of weeds in the Adams Morgan district, not far from the 163-acre zoo.

Via The New York Times