Favorite Architecture and Urbanism Blog Posts for Week of Nov. 12

 

Pop-up for Veteran’s Day. Peace and Quiet, a temporary pavilion built in New York City’s Times Square by Matter Architecture Practice, was created as a “dialogue station” where veterans and civilians can openly engage each other in conversation in commemoration of Veteran’s Day.

Matter’s principals, Sandra Wheeler and Alfred Zollinger, proposed the pavilion as part of the Times Square Alliance’s Public Art Program’s call for proposals. The project was selected from 400 entries and funded through Kickstarter. The pavilion was set up on Veteran’s Day to Nov. 16.

Via Architect’s Newspaper Blog

Modernists at play. Paul Makovsky talks to children of mid-century architects and designers on what it was like growing up in a world surrounded by design.

“My mom was an artist and a children’s book illustrator, and my dad, who was an artist, designer, and theoretician, got a job teaching visual design in the architecture department at MIT. They designed a playroom in the house for me that had all these different kinds of “manipulatives,” as they would be called today. For example, there was a clock with cork balls on it, and you could remove the balls and count them, so subliminally it taught you about time and counting, but it was also a beautiful object.” – Daughter Julie Kepes of designers György and Juliet Kepes

Via Metropolis Magazine POV

Diversity quilt.  Stephanie Spann, a structural engineer at HOK, blogs about Diversity Week in St. Louis, with a special focus on the diversity quilt being made in the office.

The quilt represents the “joining of small pieces of fabric as a whole allowing us to see how each individual square is integral to the completed quilt”.  The project started in July, when the drive for squares began and another group donated old fabric samples.

Via HOK Life

Places that make one happy. Hazel Borys, principal and managing director of PlaceMakers, reflects on the Urban Happiness series that examines how happiness and health are generated or depleted by the way neighborhoods, towns, cities, and rural landscapes are developed.

Borys talks about how places that generate the highest levels of mental and social well-being are the outcomes of creative placemaking, such as local farming, artisanal food production, field-to-fork dining, and local art making.

Urban Happiness Series

Via PlaceMakers

Blog Post Favorites for Week of September 4

Makeover for highway signage. Icon Magazine has offered up a new take on the ubiquitous green signs that line our interstates. Not only does the proposed refresh include a new color scheme and information layout, but it also makes the smartphone connection and may provide information about the current exit and the surrounding area to your handheld device as you approach. While this refresh is exciting to see, do drivers need another distraction on the road? Will the new hierarchy and information structure be confusing to drivers used to the old standard? Does the removal of recognizable symbols (those Interstate shields and icons) make the signs less graphically legible.

Via Cannon Design Blog

related: http://www.iconeye.com/

Gen Y transforming the workplace.  Leigh Stringer, a hardcore Gen-Xer who works at HOK, blogs about how Generation Y is changing the workplace.

After reading an article on Gen Y and office culture that pointed out generational differences such as how Gen Y rates the importance of having an "engaging workplace" highest and the "quality of meeting rooms" lowest, Stringer was inspired to learn what Gen Yers at the office had to say. She interviews six HOK employees who share their thoughts on what’s important for them in the workplace.

Via HOK Life

related: CNN article, "Generation Y Set to Transform Office Life"

Architectural toy collection. Stashed away in a room in the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., is the United States' largest public-trust collection of architectural toys containing household names that will be part of the museum's big toy exhibit in November.

Stephanie Hess, who is curating the November exhibition "PLAY WORK BUILD," is in the process of selecting and sometimes assembling these toys for the public that includes Erector Sets, Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs.

Via The Atlantic Cities

Waterfront for Corpus Christi. Schematic Design is nearly complete on a new 34-acre downtown waterfront redevelopment for Corpus Christi, Texas.  The city’s goal is to create a world-class urban park that will further ignite and enhance development in Corpus Christi’s downtown core.

Hargreaves Associates is leading the site master planning and landscape design effort, while Lake Flato is designing a fleet of park buildings and shade structures to be deployed along the waterfront’s new boardwalk promenade.  Buildings planned for the park will include a multilevel beach cafe, park arrival facilities, staff offices, a wine bar, event facilities, an outdoor concert stage, restrooms and changing areas, as well as a series of flexible vendor kiosks for food service, recreation equipment rental and retail.

Via The Dogrun

Innovative Social Media Campaign

Social Media Marketing for the AEC Industry from Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson of Markitect.me Consulting shares a presentation about a pioneering social media marketing initiative for Formica Group, a global brand  from the AEC industry. The case study will be featured in "Business to Business Marketing Management: A Global Perspective", a college textbook  by Jim Blythe and Alan Zimmerman,

to be released in early 2013.

The social media marketing initiative explores how social media networks, including Pinterest, Flickr, Paper.li, Twitter chat, Facebook, Google +, as well as live events and designer tools, were integrated to the web site and blog to create a content marketing message about their sustainable products.

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkJohnsonFAIA/social-media-marketing-for-the-aec-industry

Blog Favorites for Week of Aug. 20

Is working from home effective? | Architecture is woven, not built | London Olympics landscape | Spreading Cokes – and Happiness – Via Mobile.

Is working from home effective? HOK’s Leigh Stringer blogs about the benefits and drawbacks of working from home.

With more and more people working outside the office, large portions of office buildings can sit empty for long periods and there can be less of a reason to be there. Stringer talks to two HOK workplace experts who work at home full-time and two employees who work in the office.

Via Life at HOK Blog

Architecture is woven, not built. Robert Goodwin of Perkins + Will blogs on how his first-year architecture professor presented him with a powerful sense of what architecture was all about.

“He had what many architects lack today: heart.  While he fully understood the intellectual premises behind the great movements we students revered, he had a way of also making us understand the human impact of architecture: how people use space; how they would feel in it; how the light might come in to a place where children could play.” –Robert Goodwin

Via Perkins + Will Blog

London Olympics landscape. While the architecture of the London Olympic games won the U.K. a lot of press, the coverage on the Games’ highly successful landscape architecture was also in the spotlight as nearly 250 acres were turned into a spectacular setting.

According to John King, architecture critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, that success was due to a team of landscape architecture firms , including U.K.-based LDA Design and U.S.-based landscape architecture firm, Hargreaves Associates, who came in at the proverbial last minute to update the master plan in key spots.

Via The Dirt

Innovative Social Media Campaign [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8PEZz-IOtI?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Spreading Cokes – and Happiness – Via Mobile. Coca-Cola and Google joined forces in Coca-Cola’s mobile ad campaign that used a digital interpretation of the classic 1971 “Hilltop” ad with today’s technology. The ad says consumers will be able to buy the world a Coke, and using the mobile app, a consumer in New York could buy a Coke for a stranger in Buenos Aires. That consumer could watch a video using Google Maps and Street View to see the Coke can traveling across the globe. After the recipient gets the Coke from one of the custom vending machines, the sender can watch a video of the person’s surprised reaction and perhaps get a thank-you note, if the recipient chooses to do so. Later, the sender can pass on the video to friends on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. The goal: Prompt real-life moments that underpin Coke’s current “Open Happiness” positioning.

Via Mashable

Weekly Roundup for Week of May 14

China’s TV Headquarters Complete. The futuristic building — with two leaning towers linked with a 90-degree twist at the top — has attracted much controversy since the day its design debuted a decade ago.

The 54-story, 772-foot headquarters for China Central Television has two leg-like structures that lean toward each other, meeting in mid-air with a right-angled deck-like connecting body that hangs 528 feet above the ground. Its bold design has drawn praise and detractions and earned the nickname of "big boxer shorts" from local residents.

Via Architectural Record

HOK to Design Medical School. Helmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK) has been selected to design the $375 million University at Buffalo (UB) School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on its downtown campus in New York.

Located at the center of the region’s emerging bio-sciences corridor, this new transit-orientated medical school development will anchor a lively, urban mixed-use district on campus and bring 1,200 students, faculty and staff downtown.

NY Tech Sector Booming. A report released by the Center for an Urban Future has positioned New York City as the fastest growing tech sector in the country, outpacing Boston to become second to Silicon Valley.

The study indicates a remarkable turnaround for a city that was considered a second-rate tech center half a decade ago. Today, New York boasts thousands of tech startups across the five boroughs, drawing investment from venture capital firms across the globe and bringing high-paying jobs to the city—not to mention some of the best and brightest minds.

Via ArchDaily.com

Changes to Eisenhower Memorial Design. Architect Frank Gehry publicly unveiled changes to the contentious design for the Eisenhower Memorial this week at a session in Washington.

Gehry made the adjustments following complaints by members of the Eisenhower family that the design put too much emphasis on the former president's upbringing in Kansas and not enough on his accomplishments as a military and political leader.

Via Los Angeles Times

Redesign of Modernist Landscape in Minneapolis. Peavey Plaza – one of the country’s most significant modernist landscapes located in downtown Minneapolis – will soon be demolished. Originally designed by M. Paul Friedberg, the two-acre public space consisting of a terraced amphitheater-like space, fountains and reflecting pools was heralded as an “urban oasis” when it was unveiled in 1975 but in recent years, the plaza has fallen into disrepair.

Much controversy surrounds the redesign. Preservationists are urging the City Council to save Peavey Plaza by making ADA and other upgrades. Donors to the project, and the Minnesota Orchestra – which owns 25 percent of the project – support new construction over rehabilitation. The city’s public works department is set to appeal the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission’s recent denial of a demolition permit. If the permit is approved, the issue will be voted on by the City Council on May 25.

Via New York Times