StructureHub

I’m not so sure I totally agree with it all, but the Dallas Morning News recently posted an interesting list of common mistakes/flubs that people make when transforming spaces from awful to less so.
My favorite mistake:  ”fake country and fake Victorian (and possibly real country and real Victorian).”

How is that the Russians, prolific reconnoiters in beastly public architecture that they are, allowed themselves to be outdone by Americans when it comes to diplomatic facilities?  Their embassy in Havana, Cuba (above), to take just one, is practically radiant compared to many American embassies, which attempt sharing the message of freedom in the form [...]

When Julius Shulman died a couple weeks ago, the world lost one of architecture’s foremost evangelizers, if not having known him by name than certainly by the aspirational views of modern life that were his stock and trade.  His images of architecture - most notably of life in Southern California and particularly the Case Study [...]

All the hullabaloo about New York’s latest, trendiest attraction has spurned, besides the predictable backlash, the efforts of other motivated individuals who think their city should get in on the fun.  Among them is Seattle, which apparently has a few candidates for a makeover; Chicago also has a 3-mile stretched of abandoned elevated railways that [...]

Recently, I wrote a post about SANAA’s latest creation, an elegant slab of metal and plywood with a porcupine underbelly that rests beside London’s Serpentine Gallery; you may now apply my praise for that pavilion to the inventive bundle of energy you see above.
Driftwood, as it is called, was crafted by Unit 2 (based on [...]

…or so the eminently capable New York architecture firm, Peter L. Gluck & Partners Architects, would have us believe.  Even better, I am comfortable saying that the feat of finishing the project with $500,000 leftover was not simply a cynical effect of knowingly over-estimating the project’s cost early on so that savings could be declared at the [...]

At least I hope not.  Design competitions are always fascinating, if for no other reason than for the chance to see absurdist solutions to future crises or pure wastes of time in the name of corporate underwriting (entries which, when they win, give hope to every amateur photoshopper with access to Kinkos).
But guess what?  The [...]

Brooklyners take heart!  Floridians have discovered that replacing Frank Gehry with another designer need not inexorably result in ugly warehouses and vapid atmospheres.
Mr. Gehry’s firm was just replaced by West 8 as the lead designer for Miami Beach’s Lincoln Park project, which consists of landscaping a 2.5 acre urban space.  As expected, an unfortunate inability to [...]

Edward Durell Stone, Jr. has died.  Following his famous father’s footsteps in the design world, Mr. Stone rose to prominence himself, as an award-winning landscape architect in Florida.   His large office is responsible for many high-profile commissions, including Fort Lauderdale’s Riverwalk.
Image courtesy of jeffadair

What’s the deal with Chicago these days?  For months, it has constantly hogged the architecture headlines, with project after project, exhibition after exhibition, as if once again, the Second City was at the forefront of design.  And maybe it is.
Anyway, yet another landmark tower is nearing completion downtown, which the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) recently toured [...]