urban planning – Page 2 – DesignApplause

2015 chicago architecture biennial events 1>7 november.

Nov 1, 2015

[ 1 > 7 november calendar ] The Chicago Architecture Biennial is free and open to the general public at the Chicago Cultural Center and sites across the city. The event is supported by the City of Chicago and the Graham Foundation, with additional support from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the Chicago Park District. All funding for the event is privately raised, with significant investments from BP and SC Johnson.

‘the end of sitting – cut out’ by raaaf (rietveld architecture-art-affordances) offered a fun alternative to chairs at the entrance of the culture centre. photography: tom harris, copyright hedrich blessing. courtesy chicago architecture biennial

rothschild tower. photo by diana carta courtesy richard meier & partners architects

Richard Meier & Partners is pleased to announce Richard Meier: Process and Vision at Mana Contemporary Chicago in partnership with the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Richard Meier’s international body of work is acclaimed for its timeless, classic design from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona to the Getty Center in Los Angeles to Rome’s Jubilee Church. Each project throughout Richard Meier’s decades of architectural practice has posed its own set of inherent challenges, whether social, environmental, technological, or economical.

Architectural drawings, sketches, and study models are consequently used as a means for exploring various design strategies, arriving at a solution that is both beautiful and pragmatic. Richard Meier: Process and Vision provides examples of this process for four iconic projects — the Getty Center, High Museum of Art, Canal+ Headquarters, and the Arp Museum — as well as four of the firm’s most recent projects in the United States, Latin America, and the Middle East.

For a complete list of exhibitions, public programs, supporters, media partners and program partners, visit [ Chicago Architecture Biennial ] which launched 3 October 2015, and will run through 3 January 3 2016. @chicagobiennial @GrahamFound @ChiCulturCenter

lessons from the eiffel tower.

Oct 30, 2015

This week there’s serendipity in the air in Chicago and Paris. That’s because this week we received a shout from [ Maison & Objet ] [ Chicago Architecture biennial ] and we were sent Lessons from the Eiffel Tower (below). It’s because we’re reminded the M&O event occurs in Paris in January 2016. The Biennial reminds us weekly through 3 January 2016. Architect Daniel Burnham reminds us of big plans as does engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel.

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.
~ daniel burnham, architect

Lessons from the Eiffel Tower
> It was designed at home, on the kitchen table by someone who didn’t get their name on it
> Never been done before, not guaranteed to get built or to work
> It was criticized by hundreds of leading intellectuals and cultural experts
> It wasn’t supposed to last very long
> It’s designed to be an icon, it’s not an accident
> People flock to it because it’s famous
> You can sketch a recognizable version of it on a napkin

above > built in 1887 and opened in ’89, the eiffel tower is an iron lattice tower. it was named after the engineer alexandre gustave eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower | click on image to activate lightbox – six images [ eiffel tower history ] [ 10 things you may not know about the eiffel tower ][ seth godin ]

above> image from the 1909 publication ”Plan of Chicago” by Daniel Burnham. Burnham was famous for the dictum “Make no little plans,” and Jules Guerin’s alluring watercolor renderings in the published “Plan of Chicago” gave this vision an ethereal cast. [ 100 years. Daniel Burnham’s Chicago Plan ]

2015 chicago architecture biennial events 25>31 october.

Oct 26, 2015

[ 25 > 31 october calendar ] The Chicago Architecture Biennial is free and open to the general public at the Chicago Cultural Center and sites across the city. The event is supported by the City of Chicago and the Graham Foundation, with additional support from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the Chicago Park District. All funding for the event is privately raised, with significant investments from BP and SC Johnson.

above> ‘passage’ by so-il was a site specific installation, spanning one of the centre’s main passageways. photography: tom harris, copyright hedrich blessing. courtesy chicago architecture biennial

Kicking off the Chicago Architecture Biennial Interviews! First, a frank conversation with Amanda Williams.

landscape architecture firm swa completes buffalo bayou park.

Oct 13, 2015

October 2015 will mark the conclusion of construction on the $58 million Buffalo Bayou Park project, master planned and designed by the Houston studio of SWA, the international landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm. This thoroughly renovated, 160-acre, 2.3-mile public space, sometimes described as “Houston’s Central Park,” not only features beloved destinations old and new, but also deploys a vigorous agenda of urban ecological services and improved pedestrian accessibility. The more extensive Buffalo Bayou remediation project, of which Buffalo Bayou Park is a part, has transformed a polluted urban eyesore into a nationally significant, naturalized amenity for central Houston.

Buffalo Bayou Park lies just west of downtown Houston, on either side of Buffalo Bayou and between two busy arterials, Memorial Drive and Allen Parkway. The completed park transforms an overlooked space into a city centerpiece. Existing destinations such as Eleanor Tinsley Park and the Wortham Foundation Grove have been re-envisioned, while new features were added, including the Johnny Steele Dog Park, Lost Lake and The Dunlavy event space, The Water Works and Wortham Insurance Visitor Center, and the Barbara Fish Daniel Nature Play Area.

Before the renovation, “Hardcore users found their way in, but it was relatively unsafe and mostly underutilized because the area is flanked by big roadways,” said SWA principal Scott McCready. “Our client, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, wanted to broaden the opportunity for the park’s enjoyment. Now anyone can just drop into the park. You might have a child with you, or be elderly; it’s not just for the young and athletic.”

Connectivity within the park and to surrounding neighborhoods is enhanced with two new pedestrian bridges designed by SWA. These new bridges join the existing pedestrian network, including the Rosemont and Shepherd Drive bridges, to increase connectivity and offer greater mobility within the park to a larger population.

The landscape strategies developed by SWA in concert with the Harris County Flood Control District provide critical environmental services both within the park and downstream. The design utilizes channel stabilization techniques through enhancement of the bayou’s natural meanders, offering increased resiliency against floodwaters. This method represents a sharp break from the midcentury style of straightening and channelizing the bayou. Landscape-based flood control also preserves the beauty of this culturally significant waterway. Additionally, SWA’s planting strategy reduced mowed turf by half, replacing it with riparian woodlands and naturalized meadows featuring native species. This further stabilizes the landscape, provides habitat, and uses characteristic Texan species to return a sense of place to the city.

[ buffalo bayou partnership ] created in 1986, is the 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization transforming and revitalizing Buffalo Bayou, Houston’s most significant natural resource.

The Buffalo Bayou Park project is a public-private partnership led by Buffalo Bayou Partnership, the City of Houston through the Houston Parks and Recreation Department, the Harris County Flood Control District, and the Kinder Foundation. The Kinder Foundation provided catalyst funding of $30 million in 2010, an unprecedented gift to Houston’s park system. Buffalo Bayou Partnership will maintain and operate the park with funding of $2 million per year provided by the Downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) #3.

[ harris county flood control district ] provides flood damage reduction projects that work, with appropriate regard for community and natural values. With more than 1,500 bayous and creeks totaling approximately 2,500 miles in length, the Flood Control District accomplishes its mission by devising and implementing flood damage reduction plans and maintaining the infrastructure.

[ swa ] is an international landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm established in 1957. SWA has studios in Sausalito, Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Shanghai, and the United Arab Emirates. Since its inception, SWA has worked in over 60 countries, and its design-driven projects have garnered more than 800 awards.

bjarke ingels’ nyc dry line.

Feb 26, 2015

a masterpiece in visual storytelling. engaging, informative, aspirational. [ big ] [ video by squint/opera ]

design contest winner: fleurt chair by andrew jones.

Oct 26, 2014

Despite its name, the Battery Conservancy is not an organization about electrical devices, but a public policy and park administrator in Manhattan. The Battery is the extreme southern point of Manhattan, long defended by a battery of cannons and now site of parks.

That is why there is a battery chair, chosen after a publicly judged design competition. Its winner—top among five finalists—is the Fleurt chair by Andrew Jones, a Canadian designer. The chair takes its form from a flower, drilled with multiple lacey like holes to dry quickly after rain and painted several tones of blue: a merger of practical function and poetic form. Jones wins a $10,000 prize and the chance to see some 300 copies of the chair scattered across the open space not far from the Staten Island Ferry dock. [ andrew jones design ]

about phil patton

MAD architects + studio gang win chicago’s george lucas museum.

Jul 28, 2014

above> rendering of northerly island is from the framework plan | 2009 | courtesy of studio gang architects | click > enlarge

Four days after announcing that Chicago would be the home of The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (LMNA), today George Lucas announces the architects: Ma Yansong, founder of Beijing based MAD architects and Jeanne Gang, founder of Chicago’s Studio Gang Architects. VOA Associates, based in Chicago, will serve as the executive architect and lead the implementation of MAD’s design.

The museum will be designed by Yansong and Gang the surrounding landscape and a pedestrian bridge to Northerly Island, a peninsula east of the museum site. The proposed site is a parking lot located between Soldier Field and McCormick Place. In addition there are three adjacent Museums – the Adler Planetarium, the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, all comprising a 57-acre parcel on Lake Michigan known as Museum Campus.

Yansong is a precocious figure for Chinese architecture, having made a name for himself around the world as a business leader and innovative architect. Recently named 2014’s Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Fast Company‘s 100 Most Creative People in Business, Yansong founded MAD Architecture in 2004 in Beijing, and earlier this year announced the opening of another office in Los Angeles.

absolute towers aka marilyn monroe towers | 2011 | courtesy of mad architects

aqua tower | 2009 | courtesy of studio gang architects

Gang in 2009 designed the tallest building in the world to have a woman as lead architect, her first skyscraper, and in 2011 a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow and Genius grant winner, the same year named in Fast Company‘s ‘Masters of Design’. She was recently honored with the 2013 National Design Award for Architecture, from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. She found Studio Gang Architects in 1997.

The Lucas release said of the team, “We are bringing together some of the top architects in the world to ensure that our museum experience begins long before a visitor ever enters the building,” said George Lucas, founder of the LMNA. “I am thrilled with the architectural team’s vision for the building and the surrounding green space. I look forward to presenting our design to the Chicago community.”

The project requires the approval of the Chicago Plan Commission. There’s opposition from both the open-space advocates and Chicago Bears fans who use the parking lot to tailgate. In addition there’s a key legal issue. In 1970, after the 70-story Lake Point Tower and McCormick Place convention center was built, a law was passed to pay attention to the city’s 14 policies for the shoreline. One policy says no further private development east of Lake Shore Drive. To be determined – is the Lucas Museum classified as a private or public institution. The three museums of the Museum Campus all occupy buildings that they own, but the museums were built long before the law took effect.

Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel heavily lobbied for the Lucas Museum and made the studied decision to include Gang in the task force that selected the site. The open-span advocates also are aware, or should be, of Gang’s body of work, rich with the restoration of wildness to nature in urban settings. Her projects tackle social problems, notably how to create environmentally sustainable cities. Gang believes that the design of institutions such as museums or aquariums not only reflects human culture but can also shape it.

The museum will be home to more than 500,000 objects including ‘Star Wars’ and Norman Rockwell art. No price tag has been announced but figure on $1 billion – Lucas pledged $700M when talking to San Francisco about this project. Conceptual drawings are expected in September 2014 and the museum plans to open in 2018.

The runner-up was Amsterdam’s UNStudio who built a pavilion in 2009 in Millennium Park for the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago. Another on a short-list was London’s Zaha Hadid Architects who also built a pavilion for the anniversary.

courtesy of mad architects

[ MAD Architects ] is a global architecture firm committed to developing futuristic, organic designs that embody a contemporary interpretation of the Eastern spirit of nature. MAD’s works incorporate sustainable design and advanced architecture technology to achieve harmony with natural and urban environments. With its core design philosophy of the “Shanshui City,” which is a perfect combination of city density, functionality and the artistic conception of natural landscape that aims at composing a future city that takes human spirit and emotion at their cores, MAD endeavors to create a new balance among society, the city and the environment through new forms of architecture. More than 80 architects from all over the world work in MAD’s offices in Beijing and Los Angeles.

courtesy of studio gang architects | ©sally ryan photography

[ Studio Gang Architects ] is a collective of 50-plus architects, designers, and thinkers whose work engages pressing contemporary issues and their impact on human experience. Honored with the 2013 National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, the Studio acts as a laboratory—testing ideas on various scales, from cities and environments to material and physical properties. Cross-field research, collaboration, and iterative experimentation using both digital and analog technologies are integral to the Studio’s process. Each project is designed to resonate with its specific site and culture while addressing global themes such as reuse and sustainability. [ new yorker profile ]
[ VOA Architects ] is a 40-year-old nine-location global architectural design firm. VOA Associates, whose designs include Roosevelt University’s 32-story vertical campus in downtown Chicago and the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C., will implement Mr. Ma’s design. “We will take the concept design and create a digital sculpture that will serve as the blueprint for construction,” said Michael Toolis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, VOA Associates. “Each aspect of the museum will be digitally created using technology that enables us to test daylight, create interactive models and examine how the design performs in different environments.”

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trump tower chicago’s new provocative signage is now national news unfortunately.

Jun 24, 2014

above> alex garcia tribune photo

Donald Trump is a lightning rod. Now Trump has made Adrian Smith‘s, architect at Chicago’s SOM, emblematic Trump Tower Chicago a lighting rod. The issue went public three weeks ago when Chicago Tribune architecture critic, Blair Kamin, architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune, jumped all over evidence of new signage in-the-making. Trump responds and it went back and forth prompting mayor, Rahm Emanuel to weigh in, “a tastelss sign”. Trump finds a need to say, ‘I love chicago…and my sign ‘. These happenings now national news, Jon Stewart can’t contain his get-real sentiment either.

above> about the time kamin went public

Let me weigh in from my own experience with this building and two others regarding signage. In 2002, when Trump was looking for marketing proposals I was asked to create a concept for @Properties. The concept: Create two books, a graphic coffee table piece and one with strategies and numbers. @Properties was wildly successful though a very new company. A humongous building in their portfolio would not be a bad thing. The thrust of the concept was jumping into the future, as if @Properties had already won the Trump Tower job. @Properties deftly pitched it but didn’t get the job. Solace was achieved by Trump’s marketing team loving the creativity and boldness of the pitch, it was one of the best. We walked feeling we won and thinking Trump hired a great architect and they would not mess up.

above> trump tower from river walk | image courtesy som / click to enlarge all images on this post

An uh oh moment occurred at the time Santiago Calatrava‘s brilliant and ambitious Spire was looking like it might happen. Under construction at this time, Trump’s building was looking good too. Also at this time, The Spire began placing beautiful marketing signs along both north and south Michigan Avenue. Really understated, as elegant as the building. But then, more signs popped up, freshly mounted in the sidewalks. 10 large bullet-points… Trump Tower is coming.

above> trump tower sw/nw elevations | image courtesy som

above> trump tower ground plan | image courtesy som

above> trump tower abstract rendering | image courtesy som

Trump Tower’s new signage comes as no surprise, though very disappointing that someone, didn’t feel the collaboration between Trump and Smith created a magnum opus capable of saying all the right things on its own. The building’s design calls out for more than all cap fatso letters that seem slapped on the facade. Recently faced with the dilemma of marketing their new State Street store and respect Louis Sullivan‘s building Target figured it out by placing all messaging inside the structure and not on it.

Not many know this story about the John Hancock Center. In 1969, three years prior to my arrival as a designer at The Design Partnership‘s signage partner Mabrey/Kaiser, Bud Mabrey with the help of SOM’s Bruce Graham, the designer of JHC, persuaded John Hancock Insurance to eschew any signage, that a brightly lit observation deck would be all the identity that this building needed. [ interesting jhc tidbits ]

above> bruce graham’s john hancock center | 1969

In 1973, again Bud Mabrey and again with the help of the architect, Graham Anderson Probst and White, enticed CNA Financial Corporation to paint their building red. The concept, the red design was used to depict the sun setting over the ocean as illustrated by the red imagery to the west of Lake Michigan. And again, no building identification signage except on the plaza. A sign was eventually added more than 20 years later.

Now the CNA building really has no business being in this conversation, too short, a non-existent brand image, but it does belong with the Hancock Center in the big concept arena. Big concepts don’t mean success and huge concepts go so unnoticed because they may be very open to interpretation. It may take someone next to you to set you straight. But you gotta love their conception, the pitch and execution. I would have praised Trump if he had topped the building with a ‘big concept’ oversized toupée instead.

above> developer’s proposal for 300 north michigan avenue

Times Square. The above image surfaced late last year for 300 north Michigan avenue, which is SOUTH of the river and not the Mag Mile. This stretch is becoming known as the Millennium Mile. Yes, a Times Square style will make its way to Chicago. Only if it’s very profitable for the city though. Guessing State Street not Mag Mile suits this format best. Mag Mile is our Madison Avenue. Confident Rahm Emanuel will support the right thing [ Chicago places ads on really public spaces ]

Michael Bierut, Pentagram partner and DesignObserver co-founder said this, “What’s interesting about Times Square is that there are special signage regulations that ensure that every new building has to have big signs on it. They were put in place in the late 80s when there were proposals to replace the older buildings with new (and boring) corporate buildings. Now there are a lot of new skyscrapers there but they are covered with flashing signs. Trivia point: Tibor Kalman helped develop the standards, working with architect Robert A.M. Stern.”

about ron kovach

new york’s metro show 2014.

Jan 25, 2014

Project for a Knife Plate | Jules-Auguste Habert-Dys | Chicago’s Armstrong Fine Art | 1888>89

[ New York’s Metro Show ] running through Jan 26, mingles folk and decorative arts in an eclectic mix to inspire designers. With touches of outsider and found art, it includes such items presents working drawings for a ceramic table service by decorative arts master Jules-Auguste Habert-Dys. The drawings were transformed into actual ceramic plates, and presented at the 1889 Parisian Exposition.

Spew | Martina Nehrling | Kathryn Markel Fine Arts |2014

Iron Rooster | American Primitive | C. 1920s

about phil patton

Formlessfinder. Design miami 2013.

Nov 9, 2013

tent pile | formlessfinder | 2013 / click > enlarge

Since 2008, Design Miami/ has commissioned emerging architecture practices to design unique architectural experiences at the fair. For Design Miami/ 2013, formlessfinder fabricated a pavilion using a material near and dear to the residents and visitors of Miami: sand.
NYC-based formlessfinder is composed of Garrett Ricciardi and Julian Rose. An experimental laboratory and theory studio, their practice is described as “formless,” where materials, construction, and user and landscape interactions take precedent over the formal shape of a building or structure. Though they produce manifestos and missives (and have a forthcoming book), the studio employs heady concepts in very real ways.
“Form is often the default lens for thinking about architecture. Even when people think they’re talking about something else, like function or structure, there’s often some kind of formal idea underlying the discussion. We’re trying to shift away from form so that we can explore other qualities of architecture, such as new ways of experiencing space or innovative ways of using materials,” explains Rose.

Their pavilion for this year’s fair, TENT PILE, will have a foundation of 500 tons of sand supporting a custom-milled aluminum cantilevered roof. After researching the unique geology and geography of Miami, formlessfinder found it intriguing that much of the city’s architecture sits on this ever shifting material. Inspired by the fluidity required of local building techniques and the city’s unique tropical-modern architecture, formlessfinder designed a tribute that displays the unexpected possibilities of materials.
Sand, which is so often a problem of great concern, is turned into an advantage. It will be used to support the aluminum roof in lieu of an excavated foundation, and will also be completely re-usable after the fair is over.
To design the roof and subsequent seating, the architects enlisted the support of Alcoa, a major producer of materials and industrial design, and third-generation aluminum fabricator Neal Feay. Both were integral in the realization of the ambitious truss design of the roof, executed in raw aluminum.

The pavilion will be a refuge for the more than 50,000 visitors who come to Miami for the fairs each year. It is intended as a public installation that marries the practical requirements of shelter and seating to spectacular creative architectural ideas. “We’re hoping to create something that people would want to participate in,” says Ricciardi, and the result is a structure designed to be occupied and explored, as much as it is to be admired. [ designmiami log ] [ design miami/ ] [ formlessfinder ] [ @designmiami #designmiami ]

[ design gtalleries ] Antonella Villanova/ Florence
Carpenters Workshop Gallery/ London & Paris
Casati Gallery/ Chicago
Cristina Grajales Gallery/ New York
Demisch Danant/ New York
Didier Ltd/ London
Erastudio Apartment-Gallery/ Milan
Fine Art Silver/ Brussels
Gabrielle Ammann // Gallery/ Cologne
Galerie BSL/ Paris
Galerie Downtown – François Laffanour/ Paris
Galerie Jacques Lacoste/ Paris
Galerie Maria Wettergren
Galerie kreo/ Paris
Galerie Patrick Seguin/ Paris
Gallery SEOMI/ Seoul & Los Angeles
ostler Burrows/ New York
Jason Jacques Inc/ New York
Jousse Entreprise/ Paris
Louisa Guinness Gallery/ London
Magen H Gallery/ New York
Mark McDonald/ Hudson
Moderne Gallery/ Philadelphia
Ornamentum/ Hudson
Pierre Marie Giraud/ Brussels
Priveekollektie Contemporary Art + Design/ Heusden aan de Maas
R 20th Century/ New York
Sebastian + Barquet/ New York
Victor Hunt Designart Dealer/ Brussels

[ design on/site galleries ] ArtFactum Gallery/ Beirut presenting Marc Baroud & Marc Dibeh
Caroline Van Hoek/ Brussels presenting Gijs Bakker
Elisabetta Cipriani/ London presenting Carlos Cruz-Diez
Industry Gallery/ Washington presenting Benjamin Rollins Caldwell
Volume Gallery/ Chicago presenting Jonathan Muecke
Wonderglass/ London presenting Nao Tamura

4 > 8 december | 3 december preview day