Six million Americans are already affected with age-related macular degeneration, the primary cause of vision loss in the U.S, and as many as 15 million more are pre-symptomatic. Low vision, coupled with Baby Boomers’ propensity toward independent living, suggests a different set of easy design solutions from complete blindness.
The Cranbrook Art Academy has appointed Reed Kroloff, the current dean of Tulane University’s architecture school, as its director. Kroloff will assume his new post at the school in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on July 1. He was selected after a seven-month-long search and review of 150 candidates nationwide. Kroloff’s time at Tulane, which began in the fall of 2004, was marked by tumult. After shepherding the school through its dislocation and resettlement during the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he played an integral role in helping it to retain nearly all students and faculty after the storm. In addition, the school’s
Michael A. Fitts, FAIA Photo: Courtesy the State of Tennessee Michael A. Fitts, FAIA, didn’t think he would receive the Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture when he helped launch the prize in 1991. Back then, the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on Public Architecture had a threefold objective: to recognize advocacy and achievement in public architecture; to raise the stature of public architects; and to promote architecture in the mainstream and in the profession. But fittingly, after 36 years pursuing exactly these goals as the state architect of Tennessee, Fitts is being lauded with one of two
Photo: courtesy KPF Colleagues of Kohn Pedersen Fox managing partner Gregory Clement III, FAIA, were hit hard when they learned of his death on April 11. “Toward the last year he was traveling a lot,” says senior associate principal Nick Dunn, AIA, “so not to see him for a while wasn’t out of the ordinary.” But in addition to snagging new business or navigating a bureaucratic minefield, Clement, a naturally charismatic 56-year-old, was fighting a two-year battle against melanoma. Clement joined KPF from I.M. Pei & Partners in 1984, and Dunn recalls that the two immediately clicked as a
Less than two months after issuing a request for qualifications, as ArchRecord.com reported on March 19, the Barnes Foundation today revealed its shortlist of architects for a new museum and educational facility on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.
The complexion of America’s architects has been a subject of introspection and discussion since at least 1968, when Whitney Young, Jr., president of the National Urban League, chastised attendees at the AIA’s national convention for the scarcity of African-American and women practitioners.
It is difficult to differentiate one of Laurie Baker’s designs from vernacular construction in India, where the British-born architect spent most of his life. Even so, many contemporary practitioners owe him a debt as the creator of a regionally sensitive, socially responsible architecture whose principles are now in vogue. Baker died earlier this month at his house in Thiruvananthapuram, in the Indian state of Kerala. He was 90 years old. Baker’s house, known as the Hamlet, reflects his approach to architecture. Built into a steep hillside, the brick-and-salvaged-timber dwelling integrates the natural landscape with manmade forms. It is also one
At the annual invitation-only Technology Entertainment Design Conference last month, Architecture for Humanity founder Cameron Sinclair took center stage to launch the Open Architecture Prize.