New Orleans Post-Katrina: Making It Right?
“When I visited New Orleans last fall, there was no way to prepare myself for the despair I felt when walking through the Lower 9th Ward, even 6 years after the storm. What was most dismaying was seeing ‘celebrity architecture’ masquerading as sustainable housing. A vacuum of leadership at every level has left the task of ‘salvation’ to celebrities … with projects that are an exercise of vanity over practicality.
What place does LEED certification have in a disaster recovery if it makes construction so costly that only a handful of homes get built? Whose intentions are really more important?”
– Mark English, AIA
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Ask an Architect at Miele’s San Francisco Showroom
You’ve been dreaming about expanding your home for years now, but haven’t committed yourself to working with an architect to explore what could happen. Or maybe you’re just curious about what architects actually do. Now’s your chance to ask all the questions you want, with no obligation – and take a cooking class on Miele’s state-of-the-art equipment at the same time.
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Chris Downey on Tactile Architecture
“The idea of simplicity for the sake of mental clarity can actually be created even within a complex space by having an orthogonal way of moving through that space. Even a Frank Gehry design can have an orthogonal footprint within it. I’d love to visit his museum in Bilbao. It could be a fascinating building to hear or to sense… virtual reality is all about being “somewhere else,” but architecture is about being where you are – that’s what I’m really interested in doing.”
– Chris Downey, Architect
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Chris Downey on Architecture for the Blind
“When I lost my vision, the first thing I had to learn was non-visual coping skills. Rehabilitation teaches you about things like how to travel on mass transit, but there was no training on how to be a blind architect. But why not? After all, Beethoven wrote some of his best music after going deaf. We’re not shut out of architecture.”
– Chris Downey, Architect
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Squinting at the Light at the End of the Tunnel
This is the time of year when wealthy individuals begin to consult with their accountants and financial advisers to assess how their investments have performed in the past 12 months. Although financial advisers are rarely advocates for spending, this year may reveal a modest exception.
A few potential clients with recovered investment capital are ready to allocate a bit of their money to re-boot dormant or deferred projects. These individuals are, just now, receiving news from their advisers. And these individuals may, in turn, begin to call you to revive dormant projects, or to discuss new projects that might begin in 2011.
by Jeff Lambert
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Anne Fougeron’s City of the Future Starts Now…
With 80% of the world’s arable land already in use, we are running out of land to feed ourselves. Land and water are fixed, finite resources; their scarcity could become a greater crisis than global warming, terrorism, or species extinction. One way to address that is by expanding the notion of what “land” is to include urban settings, to make regions like the Bay Area self-sustaining. Architect Anne Fougeron answers a few questions about her vision for a San Francisco 100 years in the future by saying, “People shouldn’t be allowed to come into this world only to starve.”
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Design Alert: Potential China Scam
It sounded too good to be true – an invitation to build a large office tower and sustainable housing project in China. But when several architects discovered that they’d signed on for the same identical piece of work, everyone smelled a rat. No one has lost much money, yet. So the mystery is, why?
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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LA Modern House Tour in Los Altos Celebrates Richard Neutra
Coming up on Saturday, October 16 from 10-3pm is a special event for fans of Modernism – the 2010 “LA Modern” homes tour sponsored by the Los Altos Community Foundation. The upcoming tour includes several California Modern homes besides the Neutra house designed in the same spirit: light, airy, rigorous and clean, with an acceptance of natural materials as well as modern industrial techniques.
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
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Re-structuring Your Design Firm During a Recession
“In this prolonged recession, we have two choices, it seems: We can hibernate for a number of years, like Rip Van Winkle, waking conveniently to a new world. Or we can make the time to consider new business development strategies that highlight our firm’s value and that put us closer to new projects. Concurrently, we can consider ways to improve our ability to stay abreast of trends in technology and practice.
The reality of global outsourcing is likely to change the nature of firms of every size. Our day-to-day tasks may shift from directing in-house staff to one where we review outsourced documents for design and code compliance. Can you fit in, and if so, how?”
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
