The Foster + Partner-designed Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport opened Friday, reported the Associated Press. Six airlines have started flying into the 14 million-square-foot terminal, with other airlines to follow in March. The glass-and-steel structure, touted as the world’s largest airport building, is the centerpiece of a massive development project for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which begin Aug. 8. The terminal was designed and constructed in four years and cost a reported $3.65 billion. “This new terminal is the largest and most advanced airport building in the world – a celebration of the thrill and poetry of flight,”

  Photo David M. Heald, © SRGF, New York   Thomas Krens The Guggenheim Foundation revealed on Wednesday that its director, Thomas Krens, would be stepping down, bringing to an end an almost two-decade-long tenure as one of the most celebrated and criticized museum directors in the world. Few museum heads are known outside the hallowed walls of their respective institutions, but perhaps it was the famously curved walls of Frank Lloyd Wright’s New York Guggenheim Museum building that inspired Krens to think outside the museum box. Part art historian, part businessman, Krens, 61, became director of the Guggenheim Foundation

It’s only natural for America’s ski community to embrace the environmental movement: a rise in average global temperatures could dwindle vital snowpack. Last year at least 61 ski resorts purchased wind and solar energy credits. Similarly, Jiminy Peak, in Massachusetts, became the first ski resort in the country to produce its own alternative energy, installing a 1.5-megawatt wind turbine that supplies one-third of its electricity. Images ' dbox An overview of the new Base Village in Snowmass Village, Colorado (top). The Little Nell Residences at the Base Village (above). Eco momentum has continued to build during the 2007–2008 ski season.

Esquire magazine hailed Edward A. Feiner, FAIA, as the “most powerful architect in America” when he was chief architect of the General Services Administration’s multibillion-dollar building program, and now he’s on the move—again.   Feiner left the GSA in January 2005 to manage the Washington, D.C., office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Now the cowboy-booted architect is in Las Vegas to work for one of SOM’s clients. On February 27th, Feiner begins his new job as senior vice president and chief architect for the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, an international casino and resort developer perhaps best known for its Italian-inspired casino,

Some three years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita swept through the Gulf of Mexico, temporary housing provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) remains in the news. Earlier this month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported dangerously high levels of formaldehyde in some of the thousands of FEMA trailers sent to the Gulf, adding urgency to the agency’s efforts to resettle victims. As the fallout continues, federal and state agencies are weighing new approaches to emergency shelter. FEMA’s Alternative Housing Pilot Program (AHPP), authorized by Congress in 2006, provides $400 million to Gulf states for the development

New Orleans’ 20th century architectural heritage is at risk due to the public’s desire to see the storm-damaged city rebuilt quickly and a general disregard for structures of the Modern era. That warning came earlier this month from a panel of architects, architecture critics, preservationists, and planners who gathered for a public forum titled “At Risk: 20th Century New Orleans Urban Design and Architecture.” Photo © Neil Alexander Held at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the forum drew an audience of roughly 150 people largely sympathetic to the premise that many 20th century structures—including storm-damaged schools, government offices, and

A little more than a year after its splashy debut, the new harbor-side home of Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is looking less than watertight. Museum-goers this winter have observed leaks along the ceiling of the building’s top level where it joins the glazing of the curtain wall, and buckling of stucco under an exterior stair adjacent to the main entrance. All buildings experience settling-in periods and require adjustments of one sort or another, and high profile buildings attract more scrutiny. But the ICA’s construction involved some bad luck, including the demise of

After a year has passed without a permanent replacement being named for the Architect of the Capitol position, the American Institute of Architects is stepping up its lobbying efforts to have the slot filled.

An engineering firm based in the U.K. says it is designing a tower that will rise nearly twice as high as the Burj Dubai, The Architects’ Journal reported on February 20. Speaking at a construction conference in the Middle East, sponsored by the Journal’s sister publication MEED, a representative of Hyder Consulting said that his firm is working on a structure some 1,200 meters (3,937 feet) tall. “Andy Davids, Hyder Consulting’s director of structures, confirmed that the tower would be located in the Middle East region, but would not give any further details,” MEED wrote on February 14. Hyder is