Correction appended March 31, 2009 Years ago, the Garrett-Dunn House, a 19th century Italianate structure in Philadelphia credited to the architect Thomas Ustick Walter, who also designed the dome on the U.S. Capitol, was slated for demolition. Despite its dilapidated condition, preservationists succeeded in getting the house listed on the city’s historic register and convinced a developer to incorporate the house into a luxury condominium project. While it wouldn’t be preserved in a technical sense, the landmark would live on.  Photo courtesy National Trust for Historic Preservation (top). Image courtesy Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners (above). The fate of

For the reopening of the BMW Museum in Munich this past June, the upscale auto manufacturer’s designers dusted off GINA Light Visionary Model, a concept they had begun toying with in 1999. Although the last iteration of the idea was completed in 2001, the vision is no less futuristic today. GINA’s signature element is its namesake skin, a polyurethane-covered Lycra that replaces sheet metal by stretching over the aluminum frame. “The fascinating thing is that it produces a formal vocabulary of folding, which is something we don’t know in cars,” BMW’s director of group design Christopher Bangle says of the

Correction appended on March 31, 2009 Whether it’s word of mouth or official government statistics, architecture employment news remains bleak. Average monthly paid employment for architects dropped from 209,000 in 2007 to 199,000 in 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Also according to federal statistics, January’s payroll at architecture firms was down 18,400 jobs, or 8 percent from the recent monthly high of 224,500 in July 2008, notes Kermit Baker, AIA chief economist. And it’s gone downhill since. “We’re still four or five quarters away from a significant design recovery,” he says.   While architects commiserate, brainstorm, look

UNStudio, the Amsterdam-based architecture firm headed by Ben van Berkel, is embarking on its second project in New York City. In late January, the Battery Conservancy announced that the firm will design a new public square and pavilion for Battery Park, located in the southern tip of Manhattan. Named the New Amsterdam Plein & Pavilion, the project is scheduled to be completed this fall. Images courtesy Battery Conservancy UNStudio is designing a new public square and pavilion for Battery Park, located in the southern tip of Manhattan. During a recent interview, van Berkel described the recent announcement as “special news”

Graphs courtesy AIA The Architectural Billings Index (ABI) rose slightly in February, to 35.3, after dipping to all-time low score of 33.3 in January. A score above 50 indicates an increase in billings, and below 50, a decrease. The index, one of the profession’s leading economic indicators, reflects a nine- to 12-month lag time between architectural billings and construction spending. The American Institute of Architects produces the index based on surveys sent to architecture firms. Kermit Baker, the AIA’s chief economist, says that despite the small uptick in February, architects are likely to see a “light demand for new construction

Amanda Levete Correction appended March 31, 2009 Amanda Levete, the former wife and business partner of the late Czech architect Jan Kaplicky, has announced the formation of a new firm that will carry on the exploratory spirit of their celebrated Future Systems office. Kaplicky, 71, died of a heart attack on January 14.   Amanda Levete Architects, based in London, has 35 employees, nearly all from Future Systems, and commissions ranging from a bridge in Dublin to the new London headquarters for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and a mammoth luxury hotel and shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand. The March 12 announcement

Lenore Lucey, FAIA Image courtesy NCARB The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards will be under new executive leadership in 2011. Lenore Lucey, FAIA, has announced that she will leave her post as executive vice president of NCARB on July 1, 2011. NCARB represents the architectural registration boards of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and three U.S. territories, with 105,000 registered architects. It oversees the Architect Registration Examination and the Intern Development Program, and certifies credentials. Lucey has most notably led the organization through a complex transformation from a paper-based system to a computer-based one. In recent years,

Gail Lindsey, FAIA Greg Franta, FAIA Image courtesy Mike Cox (top); Rocky Mountain Institute (above). Members of the green-building community are mourning the deaths of two influential and trailblazing architects. Gail Lindsey, FAIA, founder of the Wake Forest, North Carolina-environmental consulting firm Design Harmony, died February 2 of complications from liver cancer. She was 54. Greg Franta FAIA, principal architect and senior vice president of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Built Environment Team, based in Boulder, Colorado, died in a single-car accident on a highway south of Boulder. Franta, 58, had been missing since February 9. His car and body were

The organizations responsible for the world’s three leading environmental assessment systems for buildings have agreed to establish consistent methods for measuring and reporting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The U.K.-based Building Research Establishment (BRE) Trust, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and the Green Building Council of Australia, plan to "map and develop common metrics to measure emissions of CO2 equivalents from new homes and buildings.” Along with the UK Green Building Council, the three groups, which administer the BREEAM, LEED, and Green Star rating systems respectively, signed a memorandum of understanding at the Ecobuild conference held in London earlier this