The State Dept.'s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) manages U.S. embassy construction around the world. Last year, OBO launched a Design Excellence initiative, modeled after the General Services Administration's long-established program. Over the past year, State Dept. working groups have studied OBO's programs and policies and came up with more than 60 recommendations for changes in how it does business. ENR's Washington bureau chief, Tom Ichniowski, spoke with OBO's acting director, Adam Namm, and its deputy director, Lydia Muniz, in late April during a meeting of the bureau's Industry Advisory Panel, and followed up with Muniz on May 4,
New York City’s American Folk Art Museum, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects and completed in 2001, has been sold to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) next door.
Blooming 'starchitect' Jeanne Gang thrives on sustainable design, craves construction, is mad for materials and builds community Gang is also like a landscape architect, combining design, culture, and natural and engineered systems to clean up the environment, attract wildlife and build community. She talks excitedly about the zoo's 20-acre restoration, which incorporates the pavilion, referring to rebuilt habitats for red-winged blackbirds, migratory geese and some of the city's 2,000 coyotes. Sightlines dominated architect Jeanne Gang’s thinking behind Aqua Tower’s cantilevered terraces, including views to Lake Michigan. “We hear buzzwords like sustainability,” says Sachin Anand, a principal with mechanical engineer dbHMS,
MAJ Gregory J. Taylor is a 43-year-old licensed architect from Dallas who is serving in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army Reserves. Architectural Record checked in with him this week to hear his perspective on Osama bin Laden’s death. Photo courtesy MAJ Gregory J. Taylor How did you hear that Osama bin Laden had been killed? I actually heard about bin Laden’s death when I was getting ready to eat breakfast on Monday morning at our dining facility on the base. I remember walking into the main seating area around 7:30 a.m. and seeing the headlines on the television that bin
MAJ Gregory J. Taylor is a 43-year-old licensed architect from Dallas who is serving in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army Reserves. Architectural Record checked in with him this week to hear his perspective on Osama bin Laden’s death. Photo courtesy MAJ Gregory J. Taylor How did you hear that Osama bin Laden had been killed? I actually heard about bin Laden’s death when I was getting ready to eat breakfast on Monday morning at our dining facility on the base. I remember walking into the main seating area around 7:30 a.m. and seeing the headlines on the television that bin
McGraw-Hill Construction announced to staff members today that Cathleen McGuigan, the longtime Newsweek architecture critic and arts editor, has been named editor in chief of Architectural Record, the nation’s leading architecture publication for more than a century. The announcement comes three months after Robert Ivy stepped down from the post in order to head the American Institute of Architects.
Fifteen months after an earthquake devastated Haiti's capital, the country's newly elected president, Michel Martelly, says he recognizes that he and his nation face a major rebuilding task. Related Links: Special Coverage: Rebuilding Haiti MARTELLY Speaking after an April 20 meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, D.C., Martelly said, through an interpreter, “Clearly, I have huge challenges in front of me, but I intend to meet them.” He added, “The reconstruction process is despairingly slow.” Martelly, a former entertainer, said that 1.7 million Haitians “still live under tents” and that, unless more people are vaccinated against cholera,
The department's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations intends to release a how-to handbook by July. The State Dept. is pushing ahead with plans to embrace “design excellence” in its embassy construction program, using some elements for a new U.S. embassy in London, now in design, and fleshing out details through a series of documents that will spell out specific Design Excellence program guidelines. Photo: U.S. Department of State / Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations / Timothy Hursley The Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations used some Design Excellence elements as it planned and built an embassy in Beijing that was completed
London's high-rise architecture has a culinary bent of late. First there was the “Gherkin” by architect Norman Foster; now there is the “Cheese Grater” by Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners, London. The city's next major high-rise, mothballed for three years during the foundation stage but about to spring to life, got its nickname thanks to its silvery leaning south facade.
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