Monday, Monday

This week's update:





School of Botany expansion at the University of Melbourne Lyons Architects.



The updated book feature is Anything, edited by Cynthia C. Davidson.



Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Alinari

The Italian photography company contributes to "Tuscany: Images from the Alinari Archives", on display until December 15 at Chicago's Instituto Italiano di Cultura at 500 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1450.



slowLab

slowLab serves as a laboratory for 'slow design', a holistic approach to design thinking, process and outcomes; it "describes the designer's elevated state of awareness in the process of creation, the quality of its tangible outcomes and a richer experience for the end-user." See also Slow Food.



Guide to Danish Architecture

" A dynamic guide, which will be further developed and enlarged on an ongoing basis so as to encompass after a number of years guided tours, photos and factual information about the most essential architecture in some of the country's major cities."

Book of the Moment

Architecture for Art: American Art Museums, 1938-2008, edited by Scott Tilden.







Surveying 39 U.S. art museums, this photograph-saturated book features well known designs by Frank Lloyd Wright, Santiago Calatrava, Louis Kahn, and so forth, responding to the "exciting new buildings currently under way in New York, Denver, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Boston."

No Surprises Here

As reported on this page eons ago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation recently created its very own architecture prize, Patron of the Year. Announced last night, the winners in the Commercial, Institutional and Governmental categories, respectively, are:

CMK Development Corp. for the Contemporaine by Perkins & Will,



Illinois Institute of Technology for the McCormick Tribune Campus Center and State Street Village,



and the City of Chicago for Millennium Park.

Since it's the first year for the awards, the appearance that they are rewarding buildings more than patrons is excusable. Basically the list contains the most notable designs in the last year (minus Soldier Field). But that is also excusable in Chicago's still rather conservative architectural climate.



I think eventually the award should recognize prolonged service by clients towards good design rather than singular buildings, much like RIBA's Client of the Year award, which it bestowed on Lord's Cricket in 1999 - not for one but a group of buildings over time. But all this begs the question, how could the City of Chicago ever not win the award in the Governmental category?



(via Chicagoist)

Olympic (Bid) Festivities

The five finalists for the 2012 Summer Olympics (London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris) submitted their bids this week, each posting for the public their respective 600-page, 3-volume books in PDF form.



The books cover everything from a concept for the Games in each locale to economics, legal concerns, customs, environment, venues, Olympic village, medical, transport, security, and on and on.







Well, at least the four non-winning countries will have something for their bookshelves.



(Links via Archinect)

Somebody's Watching

Kegz.net posts a link to open-loop.org, a Chicago Surveillance Camera Mapping Project.

Open-Loop.org is a collective that documents the video surveillance in Chicago?s downtown area, commonly known as the Loop. Our efforts reveal that an enormous percentage of public space in downtown Chicago is continuously monitored by surveillance devices. Whether operated by government or private entities, these devices establish a constant watch on the activities taking place in much of the Loop.

This site reminds me of a graphic I clipped from The New York Times many years ago that showed security cameras in a section of midtown Manhattan. What separates the NYT graphic from open-loop's is that the former showed a "cone of surveillance" for each camera. Looking at it, one realized that unwatched ground was less than watched ground, a fact open-loop is corroborating, but with less visual success, as their text-based maps only locate the cameras and indicate what type (private, traffic/police, city, government). What open-loop lacks in 2d illustration it makes up for with photographs of the cameras themselves - in street and close-up views - and in it's slightly humorous "meet the cameras" section.



Update 11.19: Here's a page with many relevant links at Archinect, including coverage of Chicago's emergency center covering an estimate 2,000 cameras eventually.

Wallpaper* 12.04

Flipping through the December edition of Wallpaper* on the way to work this morning, I came across these quite interesting buildings and structures:





UN Studio's La Defense offices in Almere, Netherlands, incorporating specially-designed panels by 3m.





Nieto Sobejano Architects' Auditorium and Conference Center in Merida, Spain, whose facade is a stone relief pattern of the city's old Roman walls.





Kuramure, a ryokan (traditional inn) on the island of Hokkaido, designed by Makoto Nakayama. Each suite has its own hot spring bath, living room, bedroom, and private garden or terrace. Very tranquil.





Norman Foster's Millau Viaduct nearing completion in southern France, a 2.6km roadway linking Paris and Barcelona.





Klaus Stattmann's Kinsky House near Vienna, a house addition that sits precariously on two steel columns.

Parachute Pavilion

The Van Alen Institute has just announced their latest competition, The Parachute Pavilion, an open design competition for Coney Island.







The program involves inserting a restaurant, store, multi-purpose exhibition/event space, and office space, in a site adjacent to the Parachute Jump, out of operation since 1968. Visit the competition web page for detailed information. Sounds like a fun competition.



Early registration deadline is December 15.



Update 11.18: Although Van Alen's web page indicates an early registration deadline of December 1, the actual deadline has been extended until December 15. Registration before that date is discounted to $30 for everybody. After that date, students still pay $30 but professionals pay $60.