Zaha Hadid has teamed up with a Brazilian footwear company, Melissa, to design a limited-edition shoe. The plastic shoe with a wedge-like heel “takes on features of one of Hadid’s grand-scale designs, with cut-out holes for the toes and diagonally sloping straps,” describes The Times, a UK-based newspaper. The shoe will be launched in September at London Fashion Week, and will be sold at the city’s Dover Street Market. The cost: 200 pounds, or about $400. Hadid is quoted as saying that despite having 30 years of design experience, “this was a very challenging project, not only in design but on the technical side.” The Guardian newspaper published a tongue-in-cheek review of the shoe, saying its embodies the problem of choosing “style over any thought for practicality.” It’s not the first time the South American shoe company has teamed up with a famous designer: Karim Rashid and the Campana Brothers have both designed shoes for Melissa.
In mid-July, Frank Gehry pulled out of his first major venture in England: King Alfred Development, a seafront mixed-use project in Brighton that has been mired in controversy since it was unveiled. Now, the developer, Karis, says the Canadian-born architect is considering getting back on board, according to The Architects’ Journal. Karis managing director Josh Arghiros told the UK-based publication that he thinks Gehry would consider returning for the chance to “tweak it the way he would want it to be.” His statement came a day after Dutch Bank INC, the project’s main investor, pulled its support—an announcement that prompted World Architecture News to declare that the “King Alfred Project is dead.” The half-billion-dollar project has encountered fierce resistance from the get-go, much like Gehry’s Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn (RECORD, May 2008). It remains to be seen whether Karis will be able to secure the necessary funding before the King Alfred Development becomes a lost cause.
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