In Palm Springs, California, it’s 1956 again: Real estate developer Maxx Livingstone is replicating the decades-old residential designs of William Krisel, AIA. During the 1950s, the architect and his former partner Dan Palmer worked with Alexander Construction to build 2,500 post-and-beam tract houses. That collaboration doubled the city’s size and produced weekend-getaway residences that helped define its accessible, Modernist identity. Robert Parker, director of Prudential Palm Springs’s architectural division, says that a growing number of purchasers are restoring these so-called “Alexander homes” to their original look—and that authentic examples are withstanding downward-facing sales trends. “The real estate market obviously has
Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, the recipients of the sixth annual Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture, plan to take their $200,000 honorarium and invest it—not in stocks or bonds, but in the future of urbanism and the environment. At their acceptance speeches made during the awards ceremony in Chicago on March 29, 2008, the husband and wife team pledged to donate their winnings to a nonprofit research center for the publication of books related to New Urbanism and classical architecture. Richard Driehaus, the Chicago-based investor and philanthropist who sponsors the prize, said he would match their gift, for
At the Museum of Modern Art in New York City through May 12, 2008. The birth of Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic, revolutionized design in the 20th century. For the first time in human history, things could be created as if from nothing, rather than carved from wood or stone, or fashioned from metal. Within two decades of its 1907 advent, plastic was being used in radios, cars, and telephones; by the century’s end it was in the fabric of the city (in buildings), in the human body (pacemakers), and in outer space (satellites). When Mr. McGuire advised Ben in
Beacon of Affordable Housing Shines on Danish Waterfront Containers and cranes are being shipped out to make way for residents and workers in the Light*house district, a $361 million waterfront redevelopment in Århus, Denmark. The Dutch practice UNStudio and the Danish firm 3XN have designed a 15-acre, bicycle-friendly neighborhood that is transforming industrial port land into apartments, single-family residences, offices, and shops. Image courtesy UNStudio The development is based on a 1990s master plan for the site, which encompasses Århus’s Pier 4 in Container Terminal North, by the Danish architect Knud Fladeland. The design team also includes the Jan Gehl,
High Line Hosts a First for Neil Denari When the first phase of New York City’s elevated High Line park opens in early spring 2009, so will one of its most spectacular neighbors. In early March, architect Neil Denari officially announced the start of construction of HL23, his design for a 14-story, 11-unit condominium that abuts the railroad-turned-greenway at 23rd Street. Although HL23 is Denari’s first freestanding building, it is just another feather in the cap of local developer Alf Naman, who has already broken ground on the Jean Nouvel–designed tower 100 11th nearby. Naman says he chose
Common sense says a laboratory should cost more to design than a dormitory because its piping, ventilation, and special-use areas would require more hours of work, more drawings, and more consultants than a dorm of equal size. Since 1866, when the American Institute of Architects first published professional guidance, designers considered it wise to charge higher fees for more complicated projects. But a new study by university researchers and facility planners throws at least part of this logic into question and shows several possible reasons why design fees vary. Published in January in the Journal of Management in Engineering, a
Daniel Libeskind is accused of “hypocrisy of the first order” after it was learned that he is working in Hong Kong—despite having recently called for architects to boycott jobs in what he called the “totalitarian regime” of China. The UK’s Building Design magazine reported on April 4 that construction has begun on the 269,000-square-foot Creative Media Center at the City University of Hong Kong. But back in February, as RECORD reported, Libeskind urged architects to “take a more ethical stance” by avoiding work in China and other countries that have a poor record on human rights. His apparent about face