Frank Gehry has one, so do Jean Nouvel and Norman Foster. Renzo Piano has two. But last month, when New York’s governor scrapped a convention center expansion project, Richard Rogers—who joined Piano in electrifying Paris with the Pompidou Center during the early 1970s—remained a Pritzker Prize winner who has worked in New York City without a finished project to show for it.
A design flaw and the use of the wrong type of steel in Rafael Viñoly’s David L. Lawrence Convention Center, in Pittsburgh, caused a partial collapse there last year, according to a report released this week, as detailed by the Associated Press in an article appearing February 5 on enr.com. A 30-by-60-foot slab of concrete in the loading dock collapsed and fell onto a walkway below in February 2007, as RECORD reported; no one was injured in the incident. “An engineering firm hired to investigate the collapse, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, said a slotted bolt connection used to attach a
Arthouse, an organization based in Austin, Texas, that supports and exhibits contemporary Texan art, has been confined, since 1995, to its single-story space that was most recently a department store. But a new design by the New York City-based architect Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis will turn what was once an improvisation into a flexible, contemporary, and permanent 23,800-square-foot home. Images courtesy Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis The Arthouse space currently looks much the same as the building does in this photo from the 1950s, when it was home to a Lerner department store (top). The Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis design keeps vestiges of historical elements, while propelling the building into
Correction appended February 14, 2008 Hong Kong is a jungle of high-rise buildings, so it may come as a surprise that architects and preservationists there are objecting to plans for a tall tower designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The Swiss firm was hired by a local nonprofit to transform the city’s old Central Police Station compound into an arts and culture complex—but after a backlash against the scheme the Hong Kong chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) stepped in and is holding a charrette next week to identify other viable designs. Images courtesy Herzog & de Meuron
Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch master of urban innovation and principal of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), has unveiled plans to cap the reinvention of a German waterfront with an aquarium and science center. The project in Hamburg’s new HafenCity district aims to elevate street life while addressing the prospect of rising sea levels. Images courtesy OMA OMA’s design for the Hamburg Science Center calls for a structure composed of 10 modular concrete blocks arranged on a slip to resemble a colossal but motionless wheel—or a life preserver (top). The 253,000-square-foot building will contain 91,500 square feet of aquarium and
As public opposition mounts against the Penang Global City Complex (PGCC), a massive redevelopment scheme in Malaysia, chief minister Dr. Koh Tsu Koon, head of the state of Penang, has requested revisions from the developer, Equine Capital subsidiary Abad Naluri. Image courtesy Anti-PGCC Campaign (top); Seraji Architects & Associates (middle); Asymptote'Hani Rashid + Lise Anne Couture (above). The Anti-PGCC campaign, a coalition of groups that opposes the Penang Global City Complex, has created a model that it claims depicts the excessive density of developer Equine Capital’s proposed 36 towers (top). Renderings by the PGCC’s master planner, Seraji Architects & Associates,
Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Silverstein Properties unveiled plans this week for New York City's tallest residential building: an 80-story, 912-foot-tall hotel and condominium tower at 99 Church Street, one block east of the World Trade Center site. A 175-room Four Seasons hotel will occupy the building’s lower 22 stories with 143 condos occupying the upper floors. Although the project joins more than 5,400 residential units and 3,700 hotel rooms already under construction downtown, according to a January 29 article in The Architect’s Newspaper, Stern’s choice of cladding his tower in limestone and cast stone will help it stand out
The French Market in New Orleans’ French Quarter can still stake a claim to being one of the country’s oldest marketplaces, but in recent years shops stocked with bottles of Louisiana hot sauce, boxes of beignet mix, and other food-oriented souvenirs out-numbered stalls where fresh food was sold. Images courtesy Billes Architecture Billes Architecture has designed improvements to the French Market in New Orleans (top). The complex two blocks along the Mississippi River between Barracks Street and Ursulines Avenue (middle). A farmer’s market section opens on February 1 while a flea market reopened last September (above). Tomorrow the French Market
In the not too distant future there could be two U.S. standards for green buildings. Later this spring, the American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), in conjunction with two other industry organizations, is planning to release for public comment a second draft of its standard for high-performance buildings. Meanwhile, the three-year-old non-profit Green Building Initiative (GBI) is also working toward establishing its Green Globes rating system for commercial buildings as an official standard. Both organizations are following the protocols of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and expect to release fully completed and approved documents by the
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