The Swiss duo of Herzog & de Meuron is working on a new, 40-story tower to serve as the headquarters for the pharmaceutical company Roche, to be located along the banks of the Rhine River in the architects’ hometown of Basel, Switzerland. At 542-feet-tall, it will be Switzerland’s tallest building. Images ' F. Hoffmann-La Roche Herzog & de Meuron is designing a 40-story tower to serve as the headquarters for Roche, in Basel, Switzerland. At 542-feet-tall, it will be Switzerland’s tallest building. Herzog & de Meuron’s steel-and-glass tower takes the shape of a spiral of stepped cubic blocks that form
Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Foster + Partners is designing a skyscraper in Moscow that will contain more floor space than any other building in the world, according to a December 23 article in the UK’s Times newspaper. Dubbed the “Crystal Island,” the 1,500-foot-tall tower will encompass some 29 million square feet in a structure that “spirals downwards from a sharp peak with a glass facade that resembles
Wayne R. Williams, FAIA Photo courtesy Communi-k Inc. Wayne R. Williams, FAIA, an award-winning Southern California Modernist architect, died on November 27. He was 88 years old and had been in poor health for many months. Williams is best known for designing private residences, schools, community buildings, and recreational facilities with his business partner Whitney R. Smith. The two began working together in 1946 and, three years later, formed a partnership that lasted nearly three decades. A native of Los Angeles, Williams studied architecture at the University of Southern California before serving in World War II, during which he
Cities across North America are struggling to undo the mistakes of 20th-century public housing. Some are finding that a clean slate also presents opportunities. In Canada, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) is pushing the agenda on design and sustainability with a $1 billion effort to rebuild an inner city housing project. Images courtesy Diamond and Schmitt A team of architects including architectsAlliance and Diamond and Schmitt has prepared plans to redevelop Regent Park, a 1950s-era public housing complex in Toronto. Breaking apart superblocks, it will replace 2,000 townhouse and mid-rise apartments with more than 5,000 housing units in townhouses
The thicket of condo towers and abundant public spaces in Vancouver, British Columbia, make this Canadian city an urban planner’s dream. Over the past two decades, the downtown population has doubled to 80,000 residents. But as the city prepares for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the spotlight is turning to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which is located in Canada’s poorest zip code and suffers from chronic homelessness, drug abuse, and prostitution. Revitalization has the support of mayor Sam Sullivan, who wants cleaning up the area to be an Olympic legacy, but affordable housing advocates fear a new wave of displacement in a
The Azrieli Center’s sleek silver-and-blue towers, designed by Eli Atia and Yaski Sivan Architects and completed between 1999 and 2006, symbolize modern Tel Aviv, the commercial and cultural hub of Israel. But with the proliferation of these and other skyscrapers has come a new appreciation for the city’s historic buildings.
Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Columbia University’s proposal for rezoning portions of Manhattanville received a green light from the New York City Council this week, allowing the school to move forward with developing a controversial campus expansion designed by Renzo Piano and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. As RECORD has reported, the council’s approval seemed likely in November after the city’s planning department recommended a modified plan that gives
Until his death on November 23 at the age of 81, Robert Gutman, Hon. AIA, did more than any other individual to build a discourse between the disciplines of architecture and sociology, particularly with regard to housing, architectural education, and architectural practice. He avoided advocating the direct application of social fact to architectural form; rather, he initiated a conversation about the occupants of buildings and the forms, policies, plans, and theories that architects might shape. For the architects who met him, Gutman’s erudition was balanced by a contagious curiosity, which went a long way to assuage the pointed criticism he
A team led by the Dutch landscape architecture firm West 8 has been selected to design a new park and open space on Governors Island, a 172-acre landmass near the southern tip of Manhattan. The project will include a two-mile promenade along the water’s edge, a new 40-acre park on the southern half of the island, and improved park design on the northern half of the island, which is a National Historic District. “These spaces will be places where New Yorkers and others will experience a completely new set of captivating and unique recreational, cultural and educational opportunities,” West 8’s
A team of architects led by Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, Hargreaves Associates, TEN Arquitectos, and Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, will unveil the final design in February for revitalizing a stretch of the Mississippi River in New Orleans. The broad goal of the redesign is to reduce barriers that discourage people from enjoying the river and replace decaying sections with parks and public venues that will trigger private investment.
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