AIBC eNews
March 16, 2016
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February 17, 2016
by Akil Wingate
Crave, Feb 11, 2016
(Image: Smiljan Radić’s Serpentine Pavilion, a temporary installation at Kensington Gardens in London. Courtesy of Crave)
The creations of Smiljan Radić, LAND Arquitectos, and Alejandro Aravena have made Chile the new hub of forward thinking architecture.
If you’ve ever needed an excuse to hop on a plane and jaunt to Chile for a wild, eye-popping excursion, now is the time. Chile is rich in tastes and sounds, flavors and colors, sensations that pop and a spicy sense of détente fit for anyone wanting to take the edge off a getaway vacation. But vacations aside, Chile is no mere tourist trap. The country is home to some of the most innovative and daring urban designs, and is being hailed as the new hub of forward thinking architecture. This year promises to only cement that public opinion with a new push in design projects from a host of veterans and rising Chilean stars. Read more…
February 17, 2016
by Heidi Ulrichsen
Sudbury Northern Life, Feb 11, 2016
(Image: A group of six second- and third-year Laurentian University School of Architecture students have been hard at work, preparing their entry for the Winter Stations Design Competition: a sculpture representing the northern lights. Courtesy of Sudbury Northern Life)
For the last few months, a group of six second- and third-year Laurentian University School of Architecture students have been hard at work, preparing their entry for the Winter Stations Design Competition.
The international exhibition, which runs Feb. 15 to March 20, invites participants to transform lifeguard stations along Toronto’s waterfront into art installations. This year’s theme is “freeze-thaw.”
Laurentian Architecture was one of four post-secondary institutions invited to participate in the competition. Read more…
February 17, 2016
by Bob Taylor
Communities Digital News, Feb 13, 2016
(Image: The Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC. Courtesy of Communities Digital News, Wikipedia)
When Canada completed its first transcontinental railway in 1885, connecting Eastern Canada with British Columbia, the country did something else that has become an elegant reminder of the past for travelers from around the world. It constructed a series of grand hotels across the country, each with its own personality and character.
Every one of Canada’s railway hotels is a national landmark that has become a symbol of the country’s history and architecture.
At one time or another, we have all seen pictures of these magnificent “château style” structures but probably are unaware of the story behind them. Read more…
February 10, 2016
By Associated Press
Global News, Feb 9, 2016
(Image: A woman stands in the old doorway of the Lyric Theatre, in Birmingham, Ala. Courtesy of Global News and AP, photo by Brynn Anderson)
Growing up in the 1950s, William Bell had to enter Birmingham’s segregated Lyric Theatre though a side entrance, marked “COLORED,” that was walled-off from the elegant lobby. He climbed a dimly lit stairwell to watch movies from the steep balcony where black patrons had to sit for generations.
Now the city’s mayor, he recalls the Lyric’s beauty, but also the way it isolated black people.
The inequity built into The Lyric Theatre’s very architecture is a painful reminder of the city’s ugly past as one of the most segregated places in America. But it also serves as a living history lesson, a symbol of how the Deep South has changed since the courts ended discriminatory Jim Crow laws. Read more…
February 10, 2016
by Melissa Locker
Wallpaper, Jan 21, 2016
(Image: Egypt has announced plans for an ambitious underwater museum. Courtesy of Wallpaper, photo by Jacques Rougerie Architecte)
The Lighthouse of Pharos has been at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea for centuries, but soon tourists might be able to see it when they visit Egypt—no diving equipment required.
The Egyptian ministry of antiquities recently announced plans to build an underwater museum in the harbor off of Alexandria’s shore. It would be the first museum of its kind (although others are considering similar moves) and would give visitors a chance to see some of the ancient treasures, like Cleopatra’s Palace, that have been under feet of water for ages. Read more…
February 10, 2016
by Lev Bratishenko
Maclean’s, Jan 30, 2016
“Most of us now understand that architecture is the least suitable instrument with which to achieve social justice,” Museum of Modern Art curator Arthur Drexler said in 1975. That quote could be the antithesis of this book, which looks at the 1960s and 1970s as a period when governments were brave enough to experiment and architecture could claim to improve social and spatial organization.
A few traces of this hopeful time appear today, rather depressingly: tensile structures drape like high-tech skins over expensive corporate buildings while the enormous free spaces imagined by Buckminster Fuller and Konrad Wachsmann are best realized in highly reconfigurable supermarkets and airports. Instead of a three-day work week, space colonies, and green tech, we got Starbucks at gate C43. Read more…
February 3, 2016
By Shawn O’Hara
Vancity Buzz, Feb 2, 2016
(Image: Vancouver Chinatown Market Alley circa 1940s. Courtesy of SFU David See-Chai Lam Centre for International Communication and Vancity Buzz)
Since before the city’s founding, Vancouver has been home to a significant Chinese population. As the people behind much of the city’s industry, trades and economic activity, the early days of Vancouver were defined in large part by its Chinese residents.
So to celebrate Chinese New Year, which takes place on February 8, we decided to take a brief look back at the 130-year history of one of Vancouver’s most culturally significant neighbourhoods. Read more…
February 3, 2016
by Lloyd Alter
Treehugger, Jan 21, 2016
(Image: Ninja House designed by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects. Courtesy of Hiroyasu Sakaguchi, ArchDaily and Treehugger)
A few years ago I asked “Why are Japanese houses so weird?” and you don’t want to read the comments; I am evidently a xenophobic American. But the fact is, many of them are.
Now Dornob shows what they call the Ninja House, which is actually the T House, designed by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects and shown on ArchDaily a few years ago. It is both weird and a deathtrap all at once. Read more…
February 3, 2016
By Steve Hansen
Sourceable.net, Feb 4, 2016
(Image: Canary Wharf, London. Courtesy of Sourceable.net)
According to researchers at Warwick Business School in Coventry, UK, beautiful architecture has a positive impact on human health.
PhD student Chanuki Seresinhe, associate professor of Behavioural Science and Finance Tobias Preis, and associate professor of Behavioural Science Suzy Moat published their findings in a paper titled Quantifying the Impact of Scenic Environments on Health.
Their methodology involved showing study subjects photos from the web site “Scenic or Not,” a crowdsourced resource of more than 217,000 geotagged photos from across Great Britain. Participants were asked to rate each photo on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 indicating “very scenic,” and 1 indicating “not scenic.”
They then correlated the results with data on self-reported health from the 2011 Census. Read more…
January 27, 2016
by Dan Howarth
Dezeen, Jan 21, 2016
(Image: The paper-clip holder references Melnikov House by K.S. Melnikov. Courtesy of Dezeen)
The wooden desk accessories in this collection by Russian designers Nasya Kopteva and Sasha Braulov are based on architectural landmarks in their home country, including Melnikov House and the Red Banner Textile Factory.
Items in the Russian Avant-Garde Desktop Organiser collection are made from solid oak sourced as leftovers from a carpentry workshop.
They correspond with iconic structures from the influential Russian Avant-Garde period, which began as an art movement in the late 19th century and continued with architecture well into the 1930s. Read more…
January 27, 2016
by Kurt Watkins
Waterloo Region Record, Jan 18, 2016
(Image: Stephanie Boutari next to her most recent mural on the rear wall of 800 Franklin Blvd. in Cambridge. Courtesy of Waterloo Region Record, photo by Peter Lee)
A local artist has reignited her lifelong passion for art, after painting large murals on building exteriors in Cambridge.
“As long as I can remember, I’ve always been doing art,” says Stephanie Boutari. “But doing murals is relatively recent.”
After completing her master’s degree in architecture at the University of Waterloo, Boutari says she started noticing that many buildings across Waterloo Region were “bleak” and “lacked” any sort of character. She had her eye on a building across from Waterloo’s School of Architecture in Cambridge. Read more…
January 27, 2016
by Naoibh O’Connor
Vancouver Courier, Jan 20, 2016
(Image: Your Future Home: Creating the New Vancouver runs Jan 21 to May 15 at the Museum of Vancouver. Courtesy Vancouver Courier, photo by Dan Toulgoet)
Imagine a 2,500-foot-high tower downtown that takes a street grid 90 degrees so it points upward, or a series of elevated public parks on the upper levels of buildings, or parks on barges that could be moved around the city.
These are among ideas — some a bit tongue-in-cheek — dreamed up by architects and urban designers from around the region in the Future Scenarios portion of the new Museum of Vancouver exhibition Your Future Home: Creating the New Vancouver that opens Jan. 21.
Museum of Vancouver and the Vancouver Urbanarium Society are co-presenting the show, which tackles some of the most hotly debated topics in the city — affordability, density, transportation and public space. Read more…
January 20, 2016
By John Mackie
Vancouver Sun January 8, 2016
(Image: Jan Pidhirny and Jim Ferguson with the now famous front door of their Ron Thom designed home in West Vancouver. Courtesy of Vancouver Sun, photo by Ric Ernst)
A couple of years ago architectural writer Adele Weder was putting together an exhibition of work by the late, great West Coast modern architect Ron Thom.
One of Thom’s masterpieces, the Carmichael House, had recently been sold and restored. So Weder phoned up the new owners, Jan Pidhirny and Jim Ferguson, to see if she could take a look.
“I was going to exhibit photographs and plans of their house,” Weder recounts. “Then I saw this amazing (front) door, and was three-quarters joking when I said, ‘Can I have it for my exhibition?’”
It is quite a door. Made of oak, it’s large (114 cm wide, 203 cm tall), heavy (91 kg) and features an intricate design with a series of hexagons and parallelograms. Read more…
January 20, 2016
by Danny Sinopoli
Globe and Mail, Jan 15, 2016
(Image: Gandhi designed the Float house in Halifax to echo its rocky environment while taking advantage of airy views across Purcell’s Cove. Courtesy of Globe and Mail, photo by Omar Gandhi & Jeff Shaw)
For a budding starchitect, Omar Gandhi seems refreshingly devoid of ego. Or maybe he’s just pragmatic.
If the Ontario-born, Halifax-based designer flops, “I can always go back to Brampton and work in trucking like I did when I was a kid,” he jokes from Nova Scotia, where he has been living on and off since receiving his master’s degree at Dalhousie University in 2005.
Considering that, in 2014 alone, Gandhi nabbed both the Canada Council’s $50,000 Prix de Rome and a spot on Wallpaper magazine’s list of the world’s top 20 young architects, his Plan B likely won’t be necessary. In fact, Gandhi will be returning to Ontario this week – as a featured speaker, along with B.C.’s Omer Arbel, at the Interior Design Show in Toronto. Not long after, he’ll be back to open a satellite office in the city. Not bad for a 36-year-old whose projects to date have largely been private homes. Read more…
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