Karen Duckett, AIA, has attended pre-proposal meetings for public projects such as libraries and schools for years, usually encountering representatives of the same 15 or 20 Atlanta-area firms. Not anymore. At a recent meeting, 90 firms showed up, most seeking work to make up for the dearth of private sector projects. “The private sector is way, way down. Those firms that do development—residential, multifamily, commercial—they’re really hurting,” says Duckett, president of Atlanta-based, 20-person Duckett Design Group. Image courtesy Lake-Flato One of Lake-Flato’s projects that is still moving forward is the Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children, in San Antonio. Related
Designed by architect Gottfried Norman, a Swede-turned-Atlantan who designed expensive homes for wealthy Southerners during the post-Civil War “New South” period, the Queen Anne-style house was built for Edward Peters, financier and president of the Atlanta Railway Company. It stayed in the family until the death of Peters’ daughter-in-law, Lucille, in 1970.
The Van Alen Institute plans to announce today that its executive director, Adi Shamir, is stepping down. Shamir cites an interest in focusing on her family and finishing several book projects as the reason for her resignation. She came to the organization in the summer of 2006, following the departure of Ray Gastil, who was there for nearly ten years. Joan Ockman, a VAI trustee and associate professor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, will serve as interim director during an international search for Shamir’s replacement, which begins immediately. While the New York-based organization has a 100-year
Prepare your portfolios—entries are now being accepted for a competition to identify the best new buildings around the globe. Organizers of the World Architecture Festival, held for the first time last fall, have announced that this year’s event will take place in Barcelona, from November 4 to 6. The main component of the festival is an international awards program judged by notable architects, writers, and editors. Among the big-name jurors this year are Kengo Kuma, Peter Cook, Will Alsop, Rafael Viñoly, and Lee Polisano. Photo ' Jens Lindhe/courtesy World Architecture Festival The 2008 winner in the housing category was Mountain
Correction appended May 27, 2009 To preserve the prehistoric bones at Waco Mammoth Site, Cotera+Reed Architects has strived to intertwine the firm’s creative vision with the immutable realities of sunlight, Central Texas heat, and the rigors of scientific preservation. The Austin-based firm has designed an 8,400-square-foot shelter for the dig site that will be open to the public. It will be one of fewer than a dozen buildings in the United States that enclose prehistoric remains in situ—that is, located where they were first discovered. Portions of at least 25 Columbian mammoth skeletons, dating back some 68,000 years, have been
When the industry is slow—and even when it isn’t—the best work happens in the classroom, a safe space for architectural experimentation since at least the École des Beaux Arts.
Correction appended July 13, 2009 Construction of a new, $107-million U.S. District Courthouse on a long-dormant block in rapidly redeveloping downtown Austin will soon get under way thanks to federal stimulus funds. Funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act also allowed the project’s original construction timetable to be moved up. Image courtesy White Construction Company The building was designed by Atlanta-based Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, with Paige Southerland Paige serving as a local consultant. Related Links: Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Designs Courthouse Austin's Tallest Building Halfway There How Architects Can Land a Government Contract The Final Stimulus Bill,
Architects from eight firms, ranging from a young New Orleans collective to world-renowned Gehry Partners, currently are racing to finish schematic designs for Make It Right. In mid-March the organization, founded by actor Brad Pitt to rebuild 150 houses in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina, tapped the firms to contribute additional designs to the effort. Their visions will be released June 20. In addition to Gehry Partners, the firms include William McDonough + Partners, Atelier Hitoshi Abe, Los Angeles–based Kappe Architects/Planners, the Chilean studio Elemental, and three New Orleans firms—Bild Design, buildingstudio, and Waggoner & Ball Architects.
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