Top Design and Urbanism Blog Posts for Week of June 3, 2013

An Olin restorative landscape. Array on Tech's influence on healthcare. Perfect shot from Stantec. Treehugger gets inspired by nature.

Restorative landscape for Stamford. OLIN Studio looks at the history and restoration of Mill River Park in Stamford, Connecticut, a 14-acre park and river restoration by Army Corps of Engineers and park design by OLIN that took nearly a decade.

The plan aimed to achieve three primary goals: create a park that meets the recreational and civic needs of a diverse population, provide a natural habitat for native flora and fauna to flourish, and offer a vision that is economically viable, maintainable, and implementable in phases over time.

Via OLIN Studio

Technology’s influence on healthcare. Kristen Lambert, interior designer at Array Architects, recounts a panel discussion on technological innovation in healthcare at the Design Considerations for Technological Innovation in Healthcare Design in New York City.

The future of healthcare will be centered less around a hospital, and will become more integrated into daily life with the delivery of healthcare services reflecting the mobility that technology now offers us. “Our role as healthcare architects and designers now is to design clinical environments which support the new ways that people will give and receive care.” –Kristen Lambert

Via Array Architects Blog

Getting the perfect shot. Joe DiGiorgio, senior engineer at Stantec who has been taking photographs for 45 years, chronicles his day of taking the perfect photo at the grand opening of a wastewater treatment plant solids handling facility in Merced, California.

 “Photographers work to get the perfect picture… being there, scouting the right vantage point, and then watching and learning and seeing what matters and what works (and what doesn’t). The same approach serves me well as an engineer and I enjoy the times I can step back from the pure engineering calculations and appreciate the beauty of the bigger picture through these photo assignments.” – Joe DiGiorgio

Via Stantec Blog

Inspired by nature. Lloyd Alter, managing editor of Treehugger, tells you why you don’t want miss out on Biomimicry’s Education Summit and first Global Conference in Boston from June 21-23, 2013.

“We're seeing more examples of biomimicry every day. Over the years, we at TreeHugger have been watching the merging of those two ideas in our culture, as we learn from nature.

Day 1 is about Resilient Cities.

Day 2 is about the future of 3D Printing.

Day 3 will cover Biomimicry as an Emerging Discipline and Economic Development Framework.

Via Treehugger

Social Media

Grappling with viral photo. A picture recently surfaced on Facebook of a Taco Bell employee licking a bunch of tacos. While the circumstances surrounding the public display of taco shell affection are unclear, the photo went viral.  The company responded by saying the tacos were for training purposes and not intended to be served to customers. The employee and the photographer were both fired.

Via Huffington Post

Top Four Architecture and Urbanism Blog Posts for Week of May 27, 2013

Gensler, building for speed. Finding insight outside. School news by HMC. Lake|Flato on reinvigorating a coastline. Video contest for a free conference on biomimicry.

Built for speed. Arlyn Vogelmann, Principal and Director of Gensler Boston’s Consulting and Workplace practices, discusses how the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, the world’s fastest racing car, is similar to Staples’ new Velocity Lab, an e-commerce innovation center located in the tech hub of Kendall Square in Boston.

The Velocity Lab’s singular purpose is to move at the speed of innovation. With its street-level exposure, bold graphics, and startup feel, the Velocity Lab acts a brand beacon, capturing the energy and excitement of the area while leveraging local amenities to attract top talent. An open work environment at the Velocity Lab is punctuated with collaborative meeting spaces and writeable walls throughout, fostering communication among diverse groups and supporting breakthrough ideas.

Via Gensleron Cities

Finding insights outside. Erin Leitch writes that going outside and spending time in nature triggers a cognitive shift that transitions people from distracted and linear know-it-alls to focused and inquisitive systems thinkers.

Dayna Baumeister, cofounder of Biomimicry 3.8, has been bringing clients out into wild places for the last 15 years as part of the bio-inspired design methodology. Check out some ideas from the biomimicry design methodology for planning a team meeting outside.

Via Metropolis Magazine POV

Related: Biomimicry Education Summit and Global Conference

News on school. HMC Architects has published the latest trends in K–12 education, which includes information on how to provide the best learning environments for your students, market trends and how local GO bonds make a difference.

The School News discusses workshops that were created to help schools and building team members understand one another.  A client outreach “Market Survey” was conducted to better comprehend the trends affecting the K–12 market in California.  Lastly, school districts need to be aware of the importance for districts to realize that successful campaigns do not just happen on their own.

Via HMC Architects Blog

Reinvigorating our coastline. Corey Leaman of Lake|Flato discusses her visit to the Texas coastal town of Freeport, a hub for the chemical industry that lacks economic diversity and regionally appropriate architecture.

Leaman asks is “architecture irrelevant without an economy to support it, or can it instead be the instigator that helps promote development in a city?” “What part can architecture play in creating a more diverse economy and building regionally appropriate structures that withstand the increasingly dangerous force of nature?”

Via The Dogrun

Video Contest for Biomimicry Summit and Global Conference

Video contest. If you are interested in attending the Biomimicry Summit and Global Conference in Boston on June 21-23, you have a chance to win a free pass to the event. Simply make a 60-second video that answers the question: What challenge would you like to see biomimicry solve?

The Biomimicry Summit and Global Conference will explore how biomimicry will shape innovation and education, and highlight the new science in community resilience, 3D printing and economic development.

Via Biomimicry 3.8

Top Four Architecture and Urbanism Blog Posts for Week of May 20, 2013

Perkins+Will welcomes a new architect to the "real world". Integrated design by LMN. Cannon's community support. BUILD on incremental design. Social media fun with J-E-L-L-O.

Welcome to the real world. Danny Mui, a recent graduate of Illinois Institute of Technology who works as an architect out of Perkins + Will’s Chicago office, presents four tips to help graduates transition out of school and to a professional firm.

Mui talks about design approach, team culture, deadline management and vacation. “Working at a firm requires a high level of professionalism at all times, and everyone more consistently contributes to the project at hand. The fact that we are all part of a business means that, again, the constraints have been better clarified than they were in school. There is a sense that everyone is on the same side and happy to help each other out, which helps in creating even higher quality work. “ – Danny Mui

Via Perkins + Will Blog

Integrated design. Albert Lam, a project coordinator at LPA, examines how architecture melds building and landscape design together with the Bosco Verticale or "Vertical Forest” in Milan, which is a pair of high rise residential towers that doubles as a vertical forest.

Lam finds the amount of pre-planning and integration that must have occurred before any shovel hitting the ground fascinating. “Consider the very concept of the building—planting a forest upward through a skyscraper. This inherently requires the architecture and landscape disciplines to unite in a single gesture. Planting must be selected with care on its physical effects on the building, while the architecture must be able to support the infrastructure required by the greenery.” – Albert Lam

Via LPA Blog

Supporting community. Cannon Design’s annual Environmental Awareness Week marked a significant milestone in the event’s 11-year history, raising more than $22,000 that was donated to 12 local and national organizations.

Some of the organizations that will receive donations include the Urban Green Council, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Rebuilding Together San Francisco and Integrated Design Lab.

Via Cannon Design Blog

Incremental evolution of design. BUILD looks at two residential projects, examining how the work for each project was implemented incrementally and carefully instead of reinvented from scratch.

BUILD studied the work of Pacific Northwest modernist Ralph Anderson for guidance, observing that the concept of vertical and horizontal relief were so well-developed in his projects that they’ve become “textbook lessons in geometry.”

Via BUILD Blog

Innovative Social Media Campaign

Are we having fun? Jell-O launched a social media marketing campaign last week with the #FML hashtag, proclaiming that Jell-O wants to turn the profane acronym into the opposite with its “Fun My Life” campaign. Twitter users who tweet the #FML hashtag before June 14 will be entered in a drawing for “Fun My Life” prize packs.

Via Chicago Business Journal

Top 4 Architecture, Design Blog Posts for Week of May 13, 2013

HOK and University of Buffalo work virtually. Arup benefits from collaboration. Johnston Architects on shelter. CityLAB studies innovation-inducing issues in cities. What NOT to do in social media.

Working smarter virtually. HOK designers in New York, St. Louis and Atlanta are using virtual meetings with their University at Buffalo (UB) client team to improve the design process for the university’s new School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences  on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

The virtual meetings started following Hurricane Sandy when the principal-in-charge was stranded at home in Norwalk, Connecticut. There has been considerable savings in cost and travel time, and the virtual meetings have also enabled design team members to develop better design solutions because they can get the information and client input they need, when they need it.

Via HOK Life

Benefits of collaboration.  Andrew Pettifer, a principal and building services engineer at Arup, writes about how sports are competitive, and while business is competitive too, collaboration is what makes a project successful.

Collaborative processes require firms to adopt a more emotionally intelligent approach involving generosity, support, mutual respect, even being prepared to expose weaknesses and vulnerabilities in pursuit of a better experience and result for all.

Via Arup Blog

Providing shelter.  Johnston Architects examines the idea of shelter, and how human habitat has evolved over the centuries as once caves, stockades and mud and grass enclosures would provide a protected space.

“From found shelter to assemble, manipulated materials, our habitats evolved.  Today, they are complex and incorporate a variety of materials far more sophisticated than stone. But, our shelters are basically the same thing that they were centuries ago, responding to the same needs.”

Via Johnston Architects

Urban strategies. cityLAB , which was created through UCLA’s School of Architecture and Urban Design and explores issues that provide innovative, cost-effective strategies for cities, will be initiating a three-year study that will investigate the meaning of the Urban Turn as it applies to the Pacific Rim.

One of the projects, Backyard Homes, addresses housing costs and availability without imposing a large footprint. These goals are achieved by using smarter components in structures with a light footprint and will not change the visual landscape of single-family neighborhoods.

Via Metropolis Magazine POV

Social Media Campaign

Social media meltdown. Amy’s Baking Company was featured on Gordon Ramsay’s Fox reality show Kitchen Nightmares in which Ramsay offers guidance to help struggling restaurants, but in this situation the owners of Amy’s Baking Company proved to be too difficult for him so he walked out. The response social media networks appears to be one of the fastest and most intense brand meltdowns social media has ever seen. The PR melt-down of Amy's Baking Company  ]started on Yelp, spread to Facebook and Twitter  as the owners responded vehemently to critical customers and Internet naysayers.

Via ZDNet

Via BuzzFeed

Favorite Design and Urbanism Blog Posts for Week of May 6, 2013

An HDR engineer on the AEC's Gender Gap. Gensler's campaign to reimagine cities.  A focus on specific tools by Olin. BNIM on generous pragmatism.

Gender gap in the AEC industry. Claire Shigekawa, an engineer at HDR Architecture, explores women in the engineering workforce, citing a Congressional Joint Economic Committee report that announced that women make up 14% of the engineering workforce.

Shigekawa cites the advantages to being female in a male dominated field, especially in hiring and professional programs, and some tips to help you have a successful career as a female.

Via Blink Perspectives

Reimagining cities. Mischa Ickstadt of Gensler discusses how the firm is launching the Reimagining Cities campaign as nearly 70 percent of the world’s population—some 6.29 billion people—will live in cities by 2050. This increases pressure to create urban centers that facilitate healthy human social interaction.

“Cities are growing into megalopolises, generating an entirely new set of challenges. Even in the established urban centers across Europe and North America, shifting economies are beginning to grow and merge into significantly larger hubs of social and business activity.” – Mischa Ickstadt

Via Gensleron Cities

Focus on specific tools. The OLIN Studio blog explores the benefit of focusing on select tools, mediums and methods-- if you spread your effort among too many interests it will be nearly impossible to find the time and attention to get traction in anything.

Landscape architects must know a multitude of things such as construction codes, human behavior, soils, plant species, sustainability, history, the arts. The tools are getting more complex and varied, and designers have very nearly reached a point where they must decide what tools they will spend their time on, and what their signature way of communicating will be.

Via The OLIN Studio Blog

Generous pragmatism. Steve McDowell of BNIM looks at how the real estate market is changing, and how meaningful innovation is key to how buildings and the building industry will transform to elevate human potential and greatly reduce environmental impact.

What a building does matters as much as how it looks. “Over the last decade, our design approach has moved from what had been mainly an intuitive process to one that is now described as intuitive — scientific — experiential.” – Steve McDowell

Via BNIM Blog

Innovative Social Media

More shoppers in Target stores. Target is rolling out Cartwheel, a service that combines social networking and discounts, to lure shoppers into its stores. The program relies on shoppers to use their Facebook accounts, but shoppers can only redeem the offers they choose in Target's stores, not online. With Cartwheel, shoppers select the deals they want online and then bring a barcode - either on paper or on a mobile phone - to a Target store to get the discounts. Shoppers can see what offers their Facebook friends have chosen, and earn more offers by having their Facebook friends sign up.

Via Huffington Post