Photo courtesy Wikipedia Norval White Architect Norval White, a pioneer of New York City’s preservation movement who parlayed that passion for buildings into a widely read and frequently reprinted book, died on December 26 of a heart attack at his home in Roques, France. He was 83. Educated at M.I.T., Princeton, and the Fontainbleau Schools, White, a native New Yorker, fought unsuccessfully to save the original Pennsylvania Station, a Beaux-Arts creation from McKim, Mead & White that was razed in 1963. White had more luck, however, with the AIA Guide to New York City, a witty and scholarly block-by-block directory
Damage from landslides is common in Haiti. In Port-au-Prince, there is widespread destruction of nonductile concrete structures. Many rubble or unreinforced masonry walls failed. The E-in-plan Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince still has much of the first floor intact, with windows unbroken, but there is total collapse above the first floor. There is very light reinforcing evident in failed columns near the entry. At the port, there is a collapsed pier and cranes, and several buildings are under water. Extensive lateral spreading and liquefaction is evident. These and numerous other on-site observations on damage from Haiti’s magnitude 7 earthqauke are from
Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners, a Toronto-based, 80-employee practice established in 1945, has joined Perkins + Will. No layoffs were reported. Headquartered in Chicago, Perkins + Will now has 19 offices in North America, including two in Canada. In 2004, it acquired Vancouver-based Busby + Associates Architects. “Toronto is a place that has not only a great and big economy, but also a wellspring of architectural talent,” says Phil Harrison, AIA, CEO of Perkins + Will. “So it was a place where we wanted to have a permanent representative office.” Related Links: Perkins + Will Adds Guenther 5 Perkins +
Invited Architects to Brainstorm with Developers Pugh + Scarpa won the 2010 AIA Architecture Firm Award in part for its ability to deliver design excellence to low-income communities. Its affordable housing project Step Up on 5th, in Santa Monica, provides 46 studio apartments for mentally disabled and formerly homeless occupants above ground-floor commercial spaces; and the much-honored Colorado Court complex in the same city houses 44 low-income residents, sheltering them from the sun behind an extensive array of photovoltaic panels. Indeed, founding partner Lawrence Scarpa, AIA, says his firm’s work with community developers is the exception to the norm: “By
As rescuers in Haiti struggled to locate victims of a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck the island at 4:53 p.m. on Jan 12, the U.S. government and construction industry mobilized to assist. U.S. engineers familiar with the Caribbean also speculated that impoverished Haiti and its structures may have existed in a seismic safety time-warp with 1970s standards or worse. Photo courtesy Airports Council International Goods destined for Haiti being loaded at an airport in Costa Rica. Related Links: Can you help in Haiti? Let us know Groups Mobilize to Help Haiti Tragedy in Haiti The extent of the devastation
...search-and-rescue efforts, preventing spread of diseases and providing food and shelter, in my opinion, takes precedence over reconnaissance efforts.” Naeim says the situation on the ground needs to be stabilized first before a reconnaissance team can do its job. “I believe that although reconnaissance teams from the U.S. are and will be assembled, it will take considerable time before they will be dispatched,” he says. Degenkolb Engineers is assembling its own team. There are no specific plans yet but Chris D. Poland, chairman and CEO of the San Francisco-based firm, says he expects to deploy a team in a few
“The President is alive but has nowhere to live.” That was U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s stark assessment of Haitian President Rene Preval’s situation Thursday and it applied to hundreds of thousands of Haitians who had survived the quake but faced immediate problems of surviving. Government buildings in Haiti were severely damaged and the nation’s infrastructure, never solid, was in tatters. “There is no communications system,” said Clinton. “We are attempting to help set up a communications capability for the government." Corporacion Quiport S.A. Ecuadorian army personnel gather up items to ship to Haiti. Related Links: Assessing the Damage
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