Get to the Center!

Four great exhibitions are now on display at the Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place, with one of them ending on Saturday. Their shared focus is on public space, which clearly expresses AIANY President Lance Jay Brown's theme of "Civic Sprit: Civic Vision" for 2014.


Polis: 7 Lessons from the European Prize for Urban Public Space [2000-2012]
Until June 21



The Swiss Touch in Landscape Architecture
Until July 19



Barcelona Glòries: Dialogues and Transformation
Until June 28

This exhibition, on Agence Ter's and Ana Coello de Llobet's competition-winning CANOPY proposal is part of BCN-NYC Urban Bridge 2014: A Year of Catalan Architecture in New York.


Open to the Public: Civic Space Now
Until September 6

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Today's archidose #759

Here are some photos of BUS:STOP Krumbach (2014) in Krumbach, Austria, photographed by Frank Kuebler.

Amateur Architecture Studio:



Sou Fujimoto:



Ensamble Studio:



dvvt:



Smiljan Radic:


Rintala Eggertsson Architects:


Alexander Brodsky:


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Design Hunting Highlights

The Summer 2014 issue of New York magazine's Design Hunting is on newsstands now. Below are some of the highlights from the 176-page issue. About 2/3 of the issue is made up of features in 9 sections ("Who Did That?", "Ask the Experts," "My Favorite Things," etc.), from which the below is taken, and 1/3 is devoted to handy listings of retailers, services, interior designers and architects – who said the yellow pages are dead?



Gracing the cover of the issue is the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, house of photographers Jeremy Floto and Cassandra Warner, who tackled the renovation themselves. I especially like the polka dots upstairs:


But the downstairs is less playful, yet the diverse furnishings work together through their color palette – black. Warner says: "We treated the upstairs the way we dress the kids—clashing patterns, lots of color. We wanted the downstairs to be classic, meditative, and serene."


Probably the biggest designer name in the issue is Winka Dubbeldam of Archi-Tectonics. Her design for the three-story Chelsea home for fashion designer Tia Cibani (a bigger name than Dubbeldam, I reckon) and her family features an all-glass rear facade:


From inside this situation seems justified:


The interior design is all Cibani, but the vanity definitely looks like a Dubbeldam:


The "I Just..." section features a few very New York scenarios, including "I Just ... redid my apartment as if I owned the place," in which Shane Ruth gives some relief to just about every surface of his Hell's Kitchen apartment, such as the kitchen cabinets:

[Photo: Annie Schlechter]

Studio KCA's light-filled loft in Chelsea (not pictured) has an amazing skylit staircase with white perforated steel guardrails, wood treads and risers, and blackened steel underside to the steps. The rest of the apartment is pretty straightforward modern, but each living space looks onto the staircase, for good reason.


[Laura Cattano. Photo: Bobby Doherty/New York Magazine]

The "Ask an Expert" section appropriately runs the gamut (gardening, painting, textiles), though I'm drawn to the Professional Organizer. While I'm not so sure about Laura Cattano's enthusiasm for trays ("an easy way to look neat"), I'm all for using Ikea kitchen cabinets in atypical ways. I use a couple base cabinets as a bench with storage in the dining room, and Ms. Cattano recommends using the uppers for storing shoes.

The "Eat, Sweat, Sleep, Lounge" section has four "inspired takes on ... essential spaces," including Anthony Baratta's Upper East Side kitchen. While I'm not a fan of the choice of furniture or hardware, I'll give kudos on the way paint colors are used to create an abstract composition out of the refrigerator and cabinets:

[Photo: Annie Schlechter]

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Today's archidose #758

Here are some photos of the Playground in Belleville Park (2008) in Paris by BASE, photographed by victortsu.









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Book Review: Rural Studio at Twenty

Rural Studio at Twenty: Designing and Building in Hale County, Alabama by Andrew Freear and Elena Barthel, with Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and photography by Timothy Hursley
Princeton Architectural Press, 2014
Paperback, 288 pages



In 2002 the first book by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean on Auburn University's Rural Studio was released, and its name – Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and and Architecture of Decency – made the Rural Studio's co-founder as important as the design-build program in Hale County, Alabama. By the time the book hit stores Mockbee had died at the age of 57, a couple days before the calendar switched over to 2002. The importance of "Sambo" on the program he founded with D. K. Ruth in 1994 is indicated by Dean's first book but also the second one that followed in 2005: Proceed and Be Bold: Rural Studio After Samuel Mockbee. With or without him, the Rural Studio is defined by Samuel Mockbee.



On the 20th anniversary of the Rural Studio and the publication of a third book (this time by the program's current director Andrew Freear and his wife and Rural Studio professor Elena Barthel, alongside Dean and photographer Timothy Hursley, who has been the "visual author" of each book), Mockbee is still a presence, but not necessarily as strong as the place where the studio lives and works, hence the subtitle of Rural Studio at Twenty: Designing and Building in Hale County, Alabama. What's most important are the people of the county, of towns that are now known beyond western Alabama because of the efforts of Rural Studio: Newbern (their headquarters), Mason's Bend, Greensboro. Or as described in the essay "Learning in West Alabama" at the beginning of the book: "Since we live here, if we screw up, we hear about it. If we do well, we also hear about it (but less often)." This sentiment has its roots in Sambo's approach to designing and building in Hale County, hence his everlasting presence.


[Photograph courtesy of Timothy Hursley. For more on the silo, watch "SoLost: The Beauty of a Broken Silo."]

The first book presented the Rural Studio's projects like an architectural monograph, with plenty of photos and with projects structured by the towns where the students built. This book is similar, but it's structured by typology – client houses, community projects, "into the future" – and it also includes a lengthy first section that describes in detail how the program works. This section might be the most valuable for people buying this book, for it gives them a good grasp on how the program works and how it has evolved in its two decades. In other words the book gives the recipe for how other design-build programs may work. Yes, the program is tied to its place and its people, but the ambition and ethics of the Rural Studio can still be exported, evident in the growing number of design-build programs, such as Virginia Tech's design/buildLAB, started by former Rural Studio students Keith Zawistowski and Marie Zawistowski.

Even with the rise of design-build programs Rural Studio remains something of an anomaly in the world of architecture, because it is basically free from criticism. Perhaps some outsiders pine for the creative sustainability of Sambo-era projects like the Yancy Tire Chapel and the Glass Chapel, but the continued synthesis of ethical responsibility and architectural creativity in the Freear era, particularly in the community projects, makes it one of the most highly respected endeavors in architecture. This pride is evident in the last chapter, "Voices," where alumni, advisors, consultants and others involved with the program speak about their experiences and how they have carried them through to other aspects of their lives. Mockbee wanted the students' experiences in making a place for somebody to influence how they designed later in their careers, and it's clear that this desire continues long after he's gone.

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Call for Entries: Pamphlet Architecture 35

The 2014 competition for Pamphlet Architecture 35 is now open. Registration deadline is August 1 and submission deadline is September 1. Details are below and at the Pamphlet Architecture website.

"To promote and foster the development and circulation of architectural ideas, Pamphlet Architecture is again offering an opportunity for architects, designers, theorists, urbanists, and landscape architects to publish their projects, manifestos, ideas, theories, ruminations, insights, and hopes for the future of the designed and built world. With far-ranging topics including the alphabet, algorithms, machines, and music, each Pamphlet is unique to the individual or group who authors it. This call for ideas seeks projects that possess the rigor and excitement found throughout the rich history of Pamphlet Architecture.

"The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2014. The winning entry will engage important issues facing architecture, landscape architecture, and/or urban design today in a way that is as visually provocative as it is intellectually compelling. The winner will be given a grant of $2,500 to develop the proposal into an 80-page, black and white, 7-by-8½-inch book, which will be published by Pamphlet Architecture, Ltd. / Princeton Architectural Press as Pamphlet Architecture 35. The outcome of the competition will be announced here on September 12, 2014, and entrants will be notified by email."

Visit the Pamphlet Architecture website for more rules and information.

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Today's archidose #757

Here are some photos of the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais (2013) in Dunkerque, France, by Lacaton & Vassal, photographed by Frank Stahl.













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