Gehry's First Vegas Building Breaks Ground Frank Gehry’s a hit in Vegas. Construction on his design for the 67,000-square-foot Lou Ruvo Brain Institute began in February. It is the 78-year-old architect’s first building in Sin City. Images courtesy Gehry Partners When it opens in late 2008, the new five-story institute will contain clinical, research, and outpatient exam rooms for brain-disease patients, plus offices and a 400-seat banquet hall. Additional elements include a Wolfgang Puck cafè as well as a two-story, 5,000-square-foot “Museum of the Mind” featuring interactive educational displays. The 1.9-acre complex, located at Bonneville Avenue and Grand Central Parkway,

Sustainable, Affordable Housing on Rise in New Orleans Talk to Chris Goad, a senior architect with Wayne Troyer Architect in New Orleans, and you begin to envision a future for this storm-battered city that includes electricity-generating wind turbines sprouting from the rooftops of former factory buildings. David Miller, a real estate developer, has a slightly different but equally compelling and sustainable future in mind: one that integrates affordable housing throughout all neighborhoods. Falstaff Brewery: Courtesy HMS Architects (top) Rice Mill Lofts: Courtesy Wayne Troyer Architect (bottom) The future may not be as far off as it seems. Working with developer

Koolhaas Raises Profile of Jersey City The skyline of Jersey City, New Jersey, which faces lower Manhattan from across the Hudson River, increasingly seems like a mirror image of its neighbor: a parade of gleaming high-rise buildings line its waterfront. For developers and city officials, that’s exactly the point. They hope to lure businesses by creating something that looks and feels like Manhattan, but with lower tax bills and cleaner streets. Images courtesy OMA Jersey City may have tipped the scales more in its favor with 111 First Street, a proposed 1.2-million-square-foot, 52-story tower designed by Rem Koolhaas—the first major

The American Institute of Architects’ Architectural Billings Index for February indicates that the return of colder, more seasonable weather impacted billing activity at many of the 300, mainly commercial, firms surveyed. The index posted gains in January due to warmer temperatures nationwide that month.

Zaha Hadid receives the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture at a ceremony held today at the University of Virginia. The honor is only the latest for the British architect, born in Iraq, who in 2004 became the first women to win architecture’s top prize, the Priztker. In winning the Jefferson, Hadid joins a distinguished group of architects, writers, and planners including Mies van der Rohe, Lewis Mumford, Ada Louise Huxtable, James Stirling, Frank O. Gehry, and Jane Jacobs. The Jefferson Foundation and the University of Virginia have jointly awarded the medal for architecture since 1966. Former Federal Reserve chairman

Italian officials have selected Tadao Ando’s design for a new art museum in Venice, to be operated by the French billionaire and art collector Francois Pinault, The New York Times wrote on April 7. They chose this scheme instead of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s plans for a new facility; the Guggenheim and Pinault were competing for the right to convert the 17th century Punta della Dogana building. Construction of Ando’s design, estimated to cost $26 million, will be finished in time for the 2009 biennale. Heavy snowfalls this winter, which continued even into this week, kept visitors away from

While camera-toting tourists are able to access much of the Grand Canyon, the West Rim, mostly occupied by the Hualapai Indian Reservation, remains desolate. Dirt roads are the primary transportation route here, and only a few structures dot the landscape. Images courtesy Destination Grand Canyon West The Hualapai, along with Las Vegas developer David Jin and architect Mark Johnson, are hoping to change this—and improve the tribe’s struggling economy—with the Grand Canyon Skywalk. This 70-foot-long, glass-bottomed walkway cantilevers over the ravine’s edge, giving visitors a clear view 4,000 feet down to the canyon floor. “It’s like nothing you could even

At the annual invitation-only Technology Entertainment Design Conference last month, Architecture for Humanity founder Cameron Sinclair took center stage to launch the Open Architecture Prize.

Now that snow has finally melted in the Mile High City, construction crews are preparing to start permanent repairs on the roof of the new Frederic C. Hamilton wing at the Denver Art Museum. The roof began leaking as a result of record-breaking snowfalls this winter. After unveiling the long-awaited 146,000-sqaure-foot addition last fall, trustees, staff, and patrons thought they’d seen the last of construction crews for a while. But only weeks after the Hamilton wing’s grand opening on October 7, a massive storm dumped nearly two feet of snow and gave the new structure its first real test of

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is getting a facelift and going green with its renovation of the Tom Bradley International Terminal. Boasting a price tag of $723.5 million, it is one of the largest individual building projects in Los Angeles’ history. Leo A. Daly is overseeing plans to rehab the 1-million-square-foot terminal, which has not been renovated since it opened in 1984. In addition to an extensive makeover of public spaces, the work includes installing an in-line, checked-baggage security system and constructing a second boarding gate for new large aircraft, which will add 45,000 square feet of new space. Daly’s