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Citing the Chamber's alliance with the chemical industry against LEED, Skanska resigns in protest. This article first appeared on Building Green. International construction giant Skanska USA has terminated its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce due to what the firm views as attempts to “halt progress in sustainable building.” The move reportedly came after failed talks with the U.S. Chamber about its policies, and it follows on the heels of a pro-LEED op-ed in the Washington Post penned by Michael McNally, president and CEO of Skanska USA. Related links LEED v4 Approved by USGBC Members Energy Reforms Threatened by

The Harvard Graduate School of Design students behind the Denise Scott Brown petition are not taking no for an answer.

A screenshot of the Dynamo interface running inside Revit. Over the past few years developers of software for the architecture, engineering, and construction industries have called into question the role of the desktop computer in design. They have either produced software that exploits the desktop’s computational power or have abandoned it as a design tool entirely. This marks a significant change in focus—from software that facilitates the production of digital versions of traditional architectural documentation to the expansion of design capabilities through advanced computational modeling or desktop-free design production reliant on mobile devices and cloud computing. Recognizing this trend, Autodesk

Helsinki Library ALA Architects On June 14, a unanimous jury named ALA Architects the winner of the city of Helsinki’s open, international competition for the design of the new Helsinki Central Library. The announcement was made at a well-attended ceremony at the Helsinki Music Center, adjacent to the library building site in the Helsinki Töölö Bay cultural district. With the award of first prize and 50,000 Euros to ALA Architects, the jury also recommended that the building commission proceed with the Finnish partnership, known for the dramatic forms of their recently opened Kilden Performing Arts Center in Kristiansand, Norway. ("Käännös,"

Groan if you will at the punning title of Caroline O’Donnell’s Party Wall, but the name captures the designer’s dual intent. A giant plywood brise soleil made of scap material left over from the production of skateboards, the temporary work bisects the courtyard at MoMA PS1, the Museum of Modern Art’s contemporary art space in Queens, New York.

A model of Renzo Piano's Parco della Musica (2002) in Rome, on display at Manhattan's Gagosian gallery. The art and architecture worlds have come together of late for several exhibitions at some of the most prominent art galleries in New York. The Marlborough Gallery announced this spring that it was adding Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava to its roster of artists, just in time to feature his work during the all-important Armory Show. Often the subject of solo exhibitions at museums worldwide, Maya Lin’s Here and There at Pace Gallery just closed. The latest convergence of these sometimes disparate

Photo © Agnete Schlichtkrull Henning Larsen Renowned Danish architect Henning Larsen, long recognized as a master of light, died at his home in Copenhagen on June 22, 2013, at the age of 87. Poignantly, his death occurred on the summer solstice, a day of celebration of natural light in the Nordic countries. The partners of Henning Larsen Architects made the announcement via the firm’s website, with the declaration that “the funeral will take place in silence.” Photo © Rigmor Mydtskov Henning Larsen The silence left by the absence of the architect resounds, however, with the built, educational, and cultural accomplishments of

One of the world’s most ambitious civic projects, the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong gained momentum today. The District announced that Herzog & de Meuron, in partnership with TFP Farrells, won the job to design Hong Kong’s largest contemporary art museum called M+. Herzog & de Meuron and TFP Farrells beat out five other teams: Renzo Piano Building Workshop; Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizwas/SANAA; Toyo Ito & Associates and Benoy; Shigeru Ban Architects and Thomas Chow Architects; and Snøhetta. The M+ project, slated for completion in 2017, will join several other proposed cultural venues, including the Xiqu Centre designed

This summer may be the busiest of Andy Klemmer’s life. Two buildings for which his firm, the New York-based Paratus Group, serves as project director—the Pérez Miami Art Museum, by Herzog & de Meuron, and an addition to the Kimbell Museum, in Fort Worth, by Renzo Piano—are racing toward fall openings, turning the New Yorker into a Florida-Texas commuter. Photo courtesy Paratus Group Andy Klemmer He founded the company in 1997, the year Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao, for which he served as owner’s rep, debuted. Subsequent projects have included SANAA’s Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art as well

Designed by HWKN, Fire Island's New Pines Pavilion impresses. HWKN's Fire Island Pines Pavilion. In Fire Island Pines, the storied gay resort town 50 miles from Manhattan, the talk last weekend—somewhat surprisingly—was about architecture. At Whyte Hall, a community center designed by architect Scott Bromley (who got his start creating sets for Studio 54), Christopher Rawlins signed copies of his book about Horace Gifford, the designer of dozens of houses in the Pines in the 1960s and 70s. As Rawlins proves in his book, Fire Island Modernist, Gifford’s houses, though deferential to their natural surroundings, are based on serious architectural