Architecture News

RSS

Photo © Jason A. Knowles/Fentress Architects Curtis Fentress, FAIA Related Links: Seattle-Tacome International Airport Incheon International Airport Curtis Fentress, FAIA, has received this year’s AIA Thomas Jefferson Award, which recognizes architects who have made significant contributions to the public realm. Fentress, founding principal of the 30-year-old Fentress Architects, has designed more than a dozen airport projects, including the Denver International Airport in Colorado and the Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea. Most recently, he developed a modernization scheme for the Los Angeles International Airport—a $1.5-billion project that broke ground in February. In addition to his airport work, Fentress has

Photo courtesy W.S. Atkins Keith Clarke Photo courtesy PBSJ Corp Robert Paulsen U.K.—based designer W.S. Atkins plc will significantly boost its U.S. market stake with the Aug. 2 announcement of plans to acquire Orlando, Fla.-based transportation engineer and construction manager PBSJ Corp. in a $280-million cash transaction. The proposed deal also provides the U.S. firm with a needed capital infusion for growth and an ownership transition following several tough years financially and recent efforts to seek a buyer. The deal would link Atkins, the industry’s 11th largest global design firm with $2.2 billion in 2009 revenue, with an employee-owned engineer

Below is a roundup of news stories featured in the September 2010 print edition of RECORD. To stay on top of the news, be sure to check out our blogs, First Word and News Notebook, along with our daily news wire, which features stories from major media sources around the globe. Image © Alexander Gorlin Architects   Plan for Kahn Synagogue Stirs Controversy   A Modest Monument Revived   Calatrava Unveils Design of Major Addition to Denver Airport   On the Boards: Orlando Performing Arts Center   On the Boards: Signature Center   A Golden Anniversary for a Modern Landmark

Below is a roundup of news stories featured in the August 2010 print edition of RECORD.

Shovels, hammers or hard hats were nowhere in sight. Instead, hair curlers, buttons and paper clips were used to construct future train stations for California’s new proposed high-speed rail. Held in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, July 17, the “groundbreaking” was part of an interactive community design forum to engage the public on high-speed rail. The event was hosted by railLA, an organization comprised of the Los Angeles Chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIA/LA) and the American Planning Association (APA-LA), created to raise public awareness about the future of high-speed rail. “We are doing these workshops to get

A former business partner of acclaimed architect Philip Johnson recently unveiled an archive of nearly 25,000 sketches, tracings, and renderings from between 1968 and 1992, a sparsely documented period of Johnson’s prolific career.

Photo © Vincent Starr Alain de Botton “Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design,” writes pop philosopher Alain de Botton in his heartfelt case for good building, 2006’s The Architecture of Happiness. Having grown up amid Switzerland’s clean modernism and luxuries such as underfloor heating, the now London-based author observes that in the United Kingdom, most people associate modern building with hastily constructed postwar tower blocks. By contrast, the crumbling country cottage—loaded with both history and suspect plumbing—enjoys a powerful grip on the British psyche, a condition that, he argues, has led

Photo courtesy ELS Barry Elbasani Barry Elbasani, FAIA, an architect whose master plans and buildings were frameworks for revitalizing downtowns throughout the country, died on June 29, 2010, at his home in Berkeley, California. He was 69.The cause of death was brain cancer. Elbasani, one of the founding principals of ELS Architecture and Urban Design in Berkeley, was responsible for major buildings and plans in Milwaukee, Portland, Oregon, Phoenix, Summerlin, Nevada, Los Angeles, Austin, and Coral Gables. Grounded in a belief that architecture and urban design were interdependent, his designs drew on the principles of thriving urban streets. Elbasani and