It is difficult to differentiate one of Laurie Baker’s designs from vernacular construction in India, where the British-born architect spent most of his life. Even so, many contemporary practitioners owe him a debt as the creator of a regionally sensitive, socially responsible architecture whose principles are now in vogue. Baker died earlier this month at his house in Thiruvananthapuram, in the Indian state of Kerala. He was 90 years old. Baker’s house, known as the Hamlet, reflects his approach to architecture. Built into a steep hillside, the brick-and-salvaged-timber dwelling integrates the natural landscape with manmade forms. It is also one
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.
Image Courtesy Horton Lees Brogden Jules Horton, a member of an exclusive circle of designers who established architectural lighting as a profession, died at his home in New York this winter at the age of 87. A series of small strokes had confined him to a wheelchair since 2001. Although he passed away on February 23, his death was made public last week. After earning degrees in structural engineering from Warsaw Polytechnic Institute and Columbia University, Horton opened Jules G. Horton Lighting Design in 1968, applying an auto-didactic nature to an embryonic field. For the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport,
Success has been bittersweet for Stephen Kanner, FAIA. Expanding Kanner Architects meant that Kanner, the third-generation principal of the firm, would have to move out of the Los Angeles office where he had worked since joining his father, Charles, in 1982.
Brooklyn’s Julian Lwin takes a full-spectrum approach to lighting Photography courtesy While the Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Williamsburg is now the picture of urban cool, walking toward Marta and Julian Lwin’s loft offers a glimpse of the area’s seedier, not-so-distant past.
The High Line, the Manhattan elevated railway that’s undergoing conversion from industrial artifact to public green space, is the work of a trifecta of design-world giants, including architect Diller Scofidio + Renfro, landscape studio Field Operations, and the lighting design firm L’Observatoire.