Blake Hughes, a longtime publisher at McGraw-Hill—most notably of Architectural Record magazine, which he headed from 1968 to 1981—died in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 11. He was 94. Hughes was known in international planning circles for his particular concern with the housing and infrastructure problems of developing countries. During his years at RECORD, he founded the International Architectural Foundation, which he led from 1973 to 1978. The organization was dedicated to alleviating living conditions in Third World slums, as addressed in an ambitious design competition it sponsored for Greater Manila, which won admiration among specialists but was never implemented
John Ullman While there are numerous nonprofits that aim to realize buildings for those in need, a fledgling Brooklyn-based organization wants to offer architectural assistance to a group of people it feels is underserved—the Tibetan exile community living in northeast India. Named Architecture for Tibet, American designer John Ullman founded the registered nonprofit after visiting the small town of Tawang in the Himalayas. The initial motivation for his trip didn’t come from any grand ambitions: he needed to fulfill community service requirements as part of NCARB’s Intern Development Program, he explains. However, while teaching basic engineering and working on a
With summer break fast approaching, some key federal design posts remain unfilled, including commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the General Services Administration.
Though green-building experts and construction lawyers laud the good intentions of the U.S. Green Building Council’s popular Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green-building rating system, many have serious concerns about at least one new requirement in the latest version of LEED, which went into effect on July 1. The requirement, a “precondition” of certification for all buildings under LEED Version 3, says owners must commit to sharing building energy and water-usage data for at least five years after a new building is occupied or an existing building is certified. Another change sending a chill down the spine of construction
Through the lens of Julius Shulman—that’s how many of us have experienced the iconic mid-century Modernist houses of Southern California. Most famous for his portrayal of Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22, in 1960, and Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House, in 1947, Shulman’s prodigious body of work is quintessential: luminous and memorably composed images, highly evocative of time and place. “He had an incredible eye,” recalls photographer Juergen Nogai, who worked closely with Shulman in recent years, “a vision for telling a story, sometimes in a single photo.”
Images courtesy SNFCC Renzo Piano Building Workshop has been hired to design the Stavros Niarchos Foundational Cultural Center, which will be located in a seaside district in south Athens. The Olympic Flame has not sparkled in Athens since 2004, yet the city continues to transform itself as a result of the international sporting event. Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) has been hired to design the Stavros Niarchos Foundational Cultural Center (SNFCC), which will be located in the Faliron Delta, the seaside district in south Athens where many Olympic facilities were constructed. SNFCC, a 13-year-old organization that underwrites charitable activities supporting
Dutch architectural firm MVRDV and real estate developer TEDA Vantone have teamed up to build a large residential development in the center of Tianjin, a city of 11.7 million people in China. Image courtesy MVRDV TEDA will offer a total of 6,000 residences. Called TEDA, the 240,000-square-meter development (approximately 2.5 million square feet) will comprise 10 towers, with nearly 6,000 residences. Located on the banks of the Haihe River, it will sit adjacent to the new Yongle Bridge and the Tianjin Eye, a 110-meter-high Ferris wheel. The entire project is slated for completion later this year; as of February, four
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) released renderings today of their forthcoming MahaNakhon tower and plaza in Bangkok, Thailand, with design led by OMA partner Ole Scheeren, head of the firm’s Beijing office. The 1.6 million-square-foot, $515 million complex plans to include 200 apartments, a 150-room “Bangkok Edition” hotel operated by Marriott Group International with hotelier Ian Schrager, and mixed-use public and commercial space. Construction begins later this year with an intended completion in late 2012.
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