New Orleans Rebuilding: Could Topography Make It Right?
A Tulane University geographer reframes the debate about the fate of below-sea-level New Orleans. “The city still has over 2,000 open lots all above sea level – a precious natural resource whose use we should prioritize for human occupancy. Filling in these pockets would also help mend the urban fabric that was torn by the population exodus ongoing since the 1960s. And we can do this without marginalizing low-lying neighborhoods.”
(Map courtesy Prof. Richard Campanella)
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
read more »
Craig Steely: Steel and Light
“My own work now, it’s all one house, just done over and over. I see a connection between one idea to the next – I’m always exploring contrasts along similar lines: opacity-transparency, heaviness-lightness, action-reaction. The ideas can morph to suit the circumstances, and they get refined from one project to the next.”
– Craig Steely, Architect
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
read more »
Craig Steely Part 2 – Inside Track
“To me, a good client is someone who’s really interested in the process. Someone who really WANTS to be involved. I demand it, actually… I only work with people that I like and respect. The point of taking only good work is that you’re more invested in it. I love what I do and don’t want to get burned out.”
– Craig Steely, Architect
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
read more »
Sculpting the Land: Arterra’s Landscape Architecture
“If we are successful in our design, the site is essentially preserved or restored to a naturally sustainable state. The building will be aligned for solar aspects, and will be so well-sited that it appears to emerge from the land.
We provide a sense of magic and well as a workable landscape in which water is conveyed, plants grow naturally, the soil is healthy, and wildlife can thrive. Through good design we link home to site and provide a sensory feast for our clients with all the sights, sounds, fragrances, and perceptions of being in a deeply meaningful landscape. The landscape is living, breathing, and ever-changing. From this, a unique sense of place emerges and begins to tell its own story.”
– Vera Gates and Kate Stickley, Arterra LLP
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
read more »
Jeffrey Day (MIN|DAY) on Artistry and Utility
“Art has conventionally been distinguished from architecture based on utility – architecture must do something, while art is free from functional requirements. However, art can lead us to approach architecture as something more than just rote problem-solving. Injecting an element of “uselessness” into a building allows the artistic elements to form an intellectual background against which the building’s functional aspects can be fulfilled in innovative ways.
Ironically, contemporary artists are much more engaged with the actual world through activist agendas that directly address social and environmental problems. Art helps us innovate how we deal with the world, beyond purely normative solutions.”
Jeffrey L. Day
Min|Day Architecture
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
read more »
KA Connect 2011
Mark English recently spoke about the use of Social Media in a small architectural practice during the KA Connect 2011 conference held in San Francisco. KA Connect is a community of AEC professionals driven to transform the way the industry creates, captures, and shares knowledge.
read more »
Modern Pied-a-Terre
A project from Mark English Architects was recently picked up on both The Contemporist and Houzz.com. Over a year and a half, Mark English and associates Greg Corbett and Sloan Kelly, transformed this upper storey apartment from a humdrum 1960s shoebox into an oval-shaped theatrical experience – sexy and elegant. Interior designer Gary Hutton chose the furnishings that perfectly complemented the architecture.
(Photo by Matthew Millman)
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
read more »
Conversations with Gary Hutton, Part 2
Continuation of last week’s conversation with Gary Hutton, one of San Francisco’s premier interior designers
(Photo: David Wilson)
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
read more »
Gary Hutton: San Francisco Master of Interior Design
Fashions come and go, but then they come back around again. Wayne Thiebaud once said, “There’s nothing uglier than a 20-year-old car, but there’s nothing groovier than a 50-year-old car.” It’s our own thought process that has changed, not the object itself…
When something is completely made by hand, like a custom home, there’s a Zen to that. Your body recognizes it almost on a cellular level. It’s really about knowing how to make things. That’s what you learn at a good art school. My furniture is made by people who do the finest work in this country. People in the know, people who work with metal, they see my tables and they say, “Oh… my… God…”
– Gary Hutton
(Photo: Steve Hodge)
by Rebecca Firestone with Mark English AIA
