GESAMTKUNSTWERK – A Curated Exhibition on Vancouver Architecture and City-Building

BY Angie Holubowich
Vancity Buzz, March 21, 2014

You may not be able to say it, but Gesamtkunstwerk (pronounced ‘guess-amt-kunst-verk’) is best defined as the world through “total design” or  ”life as a total work of art”.

The integration of all the creative arts and scales of design. The German word was coined in the 1820′s and popularized by composer Richard Wagner.

The exhibit opens Saturday March 22 and will stay open until May 18, 2014. Admission is free-of-charge and will offer patrons an opportunity to explore the detailed plans for the site surrounding the Granville Street Bridge. Along with sketches and textile samples, the exhibit features scale models, videos, and guided, audio tours. Read more…

 

Hope through architecture

The Economist
Mar 25, 2014

Jewish and Arab architects might one day share their heritage and skills.

NOT only in 2013 did the building of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the core of a would-be Palestinian state, grow at twice the rate of 2012; its uniform architecture is increasingly attracting Palestinians. In place of their distinctive rough-hewn stone houses, Palestinian builders now tend to prefer the uniform style of red-roofed houses that mark out Israeli settlements. “People always look up to the colonial power, even if they resent it,” says Renad Shqeirat, a Palestinian architect and conservationist. “They see their architecture as a sign of modernisation.”

It is increasingly hard to tell settler and new Palestinian housing estates apart by their style. Fuelled by high Jewish and Palestinian population growth and a facts-on-the-ground struggle to control as much territory as possible, the Jewish settlement of Har Homa on Jerusalem’s southern edge merges with the new estates of the once pastoral Palestinian village of Beit Sahour. Read more…

Shigeru Ban Wins the 2014 Pritzker Prize

By Carolina A. Miranda
ARCHITECT 2014, March 24, 2014

The Japanese architect, known for his paper structures, is the 36th architect to win the industry’s highest honor.

In 1994, 2 million Rwandan refugees streamed into neighboring countries as they fled the ethnic conflict in their homeland. They set up crude camps, living in a stew of mud and plastic tarps. Like much of the rest of the world, Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, Hon. FAIA, was watching. Unlike much of the rest of the world, he did something. Ban got on a plane to Geneva, where he talked his way into the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He could do better, he told them. A simple, paper-tube frame he had devised would allow the refugees to turn the plastic tarps into functioning, walk-in tents. The UN agreed. Since then, Ban has devoted himself to considering the ways architecture can function in crisis—even as he has maintained a bustling practice designing private homes, office buildings, and museums. Read more…

Member Advisory: InterCoast Building Solutions Inc.

The AIBC Registered Educational Provider Program allows the institute to extend a wide variety of valuable professional development opportunities to Continuing Education System (CES) participants throughout the province. Providers pay an annual fee to take part in the program. In turn, they enjoy the benefit of connecting directly with the architectural community. AIBC attendees benefit from knowing each associated learning activity has been pre-approved for AIBC learning units, with the assurance that their AIBC transcripts will be automatically updated upon successful completion of each provider activity and submission of attendance lists.

AIBC CES participants are advised that InterCoast Building Solutions Inc. is not a current AIBC Registered Educational Provider. The company’s web site currently states that attending InterCoast learning presentations will allow CES participants to gain AIBC Core Learning Units.

Please be advised that as InterCoast is not a current provider, attendance records have not been submitted to the AIBC for review. All CES participants who have taken part in InterCoast learning activities over the current CES reporting cycle are requested to self-report these learning activities directly to the AIBC prior to the CES reporting deadline of June 30, 2014. As with all self-reported activities, the institute will review each learning activity and assess the claimed learning units as appropriate.

Women in Architecture: Party for Architects

Join colleagues and friends for a special evening of celebration and networking. The evening features guest speaker Stephanie Robb Architect AIBC, who will discuss the evolution of Vancouver Special houses over the past 25 years. There will also be a cash bar, as well as music spun by DJ Looped before and after the presentation. It takes place Thursday, March 27 from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. at Vancouver Special (3612 Main Street, Vancouver). No advance RSVP is necessary.

Heritage Vancouver Society

Heritage Talks: Top Ten Endangered Sites 2014 and Update Creating a future for our heritage as a Community

Since 2001, Heritage Vancouver has issued an annual Top Ten Endangered Sites List. The position papers accompanying each of the sites includes why the site is threatened, why it is important and Heritage Vancouver’s position including ideas on what the community can do to preserve each site. For the first time this year, Heritage Vancouver is issuing a Top Ten list from previous years of sites at the top of the list that is continually monitored. Heritage Vancouver welcomes guest speaker, Donald Luxton, Past President, to an evening of conversation taking place at the Arts & Culture Alliance, (#100 – 938 Howe Street, Vancouver) on Tuesday, April 29th, 2014, at 7:00pm to 9:00pm. Admission is free, but pre-registration is required. Please visit www.heritagevancouver.org for more details and the registration page.

2.0 Core LUs

Heritage Vancouver Society

The Top Ten Bus Tour plus Tour and Reception

Climb aboard for an exclusive guided tour of Heritage Vancouver’s 2014 Top Ten Endangered sites! Be prepared for a mystery tour around Vancouver and take in all of this year’s Endangered Sites. The bus will stop at two selected sites and you will have the opportunity to have a conversation with community members. Tour guide, Donald Luxton, past President  of Heritage Vancouver, will fascinate you with stories of this year’s Endangered Sites. After the tour, the bus will drop you off at 330 West Pender for a guided tour of one of Vancouver’s heritage gems, 1907 Permanent Building and a wine and cheese reception. Taking place on Saturday, April 12^th, 2014 at 1pm to 6pm. Participants are asked to meet in front of 330 West Pender, where the bus will be stationed. Please visit www.heritagevancouver.org for registration and more information.

4.0 Core LUs

Heritage Vancouver Society

The Traditional Top Ten Bus Tour

Climb aboard for an exclusive guided tour of Heritage Vancouver’s 2014 Top Ten Endangered sites! Be prepared for a mystery tour around Vancouver and take in all of this year’s Endangered Sites. The bus will stop at two selected sites and you will have the opportunity to have a conversation with community members. Tour guide, Anthony Norfolk, head of Heritage Vancouver’s Advocacy committee, will fascinate you with stories of this year’s Endangered Sites. Taking place on Saturday, April 12th, 2014. Tour A is 1-4 pm and Tour B is 1-6pm. Only Tour B  includes the reception. The tour will begin at the west side of Crescent Park in Shaughnessy, and participants are asked to meet at bus stationed at the juncture of the 1400 block of Angus Drive. Please visit www.heritagevancouver.org for registration and more information.

4.0 Core LUs

Canadian Society for Marketing Professional Services (CSMPS)

A/E/C RFP Tips – The Evaluators Speak

Join health care, transportation and academic infrastructure insiders for a discussion about proposals at all stages of the proponent selection process with an open Q&A format. Learn what works and what doesn’t directly from the people who help create the RFPs and evaluate your proposals. Taking place at the Four Seasons Hotel (791 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC) on Wednesday, April 16, 2014 at 8:00am to 9:30am, with registration and breakfast starting at 7:30am. Click here, for more details and registration.

1.5 Core LUs

Candidates for AIBC Council

The AIBC is pleased to announce that the following seven members have put their names forward as candidates in the upcoming AIBC Council election:

• Laurence W. (Chip) Barrett Architect AIBC
• Robert G. Chester Architect AIBC
• Danica Djurkovic Architect AIBC
• David Dove Architect AIBC
• John Etcher Architect AIBC
• Karl W. Gustavson Architect AIBC
• Gordon C. Richards Architect AIBC

The AIBC is pleased to announce that the following five Intern Architects AIBC have put their names forward as candidates in the upcoming AIBC Council election:

• Derek DeLand Intern Architect AIBC
• Eleonore Leclerc Intern Architect AIBC
• Julien Leger Intern Architect AIBC
• Wai Yan Leung Intern Architect AIBC
• Spencer Purdy Intern Architect AIBC

Additional information, including nomination forms and candidate statements, can be found on the AIBC Annual Meeting web page during the first week of April. Beginning April 9, 2014, a package including the annual meeting information and election materials will be mailed directly to all AIBC members and honorary members in keeping with act and bylaw requirements.

The election period will close shortly after the commencement of the 2014 Annual Meeting, taking place Saturday, May 3 2014, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. at the Segal Graduate School of Business, Simon Fraser University Downtown Campus, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver.

Ballots will be counted during the course of that meeting, with the five successful candidates for a two-year term on AIBC Council announced prior to adjournment. In addition, an election for the position of Intern Architect Liaison to AIBC Council, a non-voting position at the council table, will take place, with the election results announced at the 2014 Annual Meeting.

Electronic Voting for Council Elections and Bylaw Amendments – Member Feedback Survey Results

AIBC Members and honorary members were invited to participate in a survey designed to provide the institute with feedback on e-voting.  AIBC Council supports the principle of electronic voting for council elections and bylaw changes and asked the Bylaw Review Committee to inform and seek feedback from members.

The survey results are now available for viewing.

Based upon these results Council will decide whether to recommend bylaws for vote by the members to authorize e-voting as one option for council elections and bylaw votes.

Note that any decisions about e-voting will not impact the current council election.  E-voting would become another voting option and would not eliminate council’s ability to direct mail ballots or bylaw votes at annual meetings.

Bjarke Ingels: mastering the rules before breaking or bending them

The Vancouver Sun
March 20, 2014

For years, the unusual shape of the building site in the 1400-block Howe in the shadow of the Granville Street bridge stymied developer Westbank. Site restrictions, including a 30-metre setback from the bridge, left only a triangular chunk of land of 6,000 square feet.

And that, as architect Bjarke Ingels said, was prohibitively tall for a condominium tower.

Ingels, a Danish architect whose firm Bjarke Ingels Group has offices in New York and Copenhagen, approached the problem differently. If the intent of the city’s regulation was to provide a minimum distance from the bridge for residents of a tower, what would happen once you rose 100 feet above the bridge? Residents would be well above the bridge sightlines.

If that was the case, then a design solution would be to start the building on a triangular base and slowly change the form into a rectangular as it climbed higher.

The simple and elegant design freed up the upper building envelope for development. In essence, it found unused developable space in thin air.

“Behind any rule or regulation, there is intent,” Ingels said in an interview. “There is the letter and the spirit. If you understand the spirit, then there might be ways of addressing those concerns that are the underlying reasons why the code is the way it is. Read More…

TED Vancouver Stage Has Entirely B.C. Design, Materials

The Huffington Post B.C.
March 19, 2014

When speakers take the stage at the TED Conference in Vancouver, they’re standing on an innovative and proudly B.C. piece of craftsmanship.

The stage for the sold-out conference, being held in Vancouver until March 21, was built by local architect Michael Green with donated B.C. wood from Interfor mills.

The 16-foot high wall was made with 400 linking planter boxes made of Hem-Fir (a mix of the hemlock and fir species) and cedar lumber from mills in Castlegar and Maple Ridge, B.C., according to a press release Tuesday.

“An idea I certainly would like to spread is that wood is an amazing material full of unexplored potential,” said Green, who gave a TED talk in 2013 called “Why We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers.”

“Wood sequesters carbon, which means we can meet the challenge of building the new affordable homes needed by so much of the world’s population while limiting our impact on the environment,” he explained in a news release.

The stage was designed and built with a group of architecture students from UBC, BCIT, Kwantlen, and Emily Carr. Read More…

AIA Wunderkind Courtney Brett Bridges Architectural Worlds

By Lamar Anderson
Curbed National, March 18, 2014

This week, Curbed National is examining what it’s like to be a woman working in architecture. Today, writer Lamar Anderson profiles Courtney Brett, who, at 24, became the youngest architect ever licensed by the American Institute of Architects in 2012.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014, by Lamar Anderson

This week, Curbed National is examining what it’s like to be a woman working in architecture. Today, writer Lamar Anderson profiles Courtney Brett, who, at 24, became the youngest architect ever licensed by the American Institute of Architects in 2012.

If you know Courtney Brett’s name, you probably remember her as the lovely but mysteriously grayscaled millennial who, at 24, became the youngest architect ever licensed by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In 2012 Brett made headlines as the architectural wunderkind who began college at 14, transferred to Auburn University’s architecture program at 16, and, at 20, reported for duty at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in New York. By 21, she was working on Qatar Petroleum, an unbuilt complex for Doha that, at the time, was shaping up to be the largest construction project in the world.

In the slow-moving universe of architecture, 24 is the equivalent of a child star. And, as befalls anyone celebrated for her youth, Brett was quickly supplanted: in 2013, her former Auburn classmate Rosannah Sandoval, just 23 at the time, unseated her as AIA’s reigning ingenue. Read more…

2014 CACB Conference Call for Position Papers

The Canadian Architectural Certification Board (CACB) is planning a conference in September 2014 to review the holistic education of an architect. The theme of this conference, Educating Future Architects, will focus on the education of future practicing architects from a student beginning a pre-architecture program to licensure and registration. At this conference, the CACB and its collateral organizations (CALA, CASA, CCUSA, RAIC) will be concerned with the future education and internship process for architectural professionals. The last such conference was in September 2001.

The CACB notes that, “the roles of architects and the face of the profession are changing. Current practice does now, and future practice will, require new knowledge and skills. How we prepare graduates for success in this evolving and expanding discipline is critical to our collective futures. It is time to take a collective fresh look at how the delivery of architectural education and the requirements of post-graduate internship can be better integrated and how the partnership between educators and those in professional practice can support a shared outcome.”

In order to develop more meaningful sessions, the Conference Organizing Committee is issuing an open call for position papers relevant to topics of current and future architectural education. Once collated and summarized, the resulting position papers will be used to shape discussion sessions by the delegates (invited representatives of the various collateral organizations) at the September 2014 conference. Learn more…