Articles by Laura Raskin

Microsoft Technology Center

Corporate branding gets an illuminating twist in two projects where light is as essential as environmental graphics to convey company philosophy in satellite offices—one urban, the other suburban.
Laura Raskin
November 15, 2011
No Comments

Smithgroup had completed four Microsoft Technology Centers (MTC) for the software giant by the time the multidisciplinary firm was asked to design a fifth, in Southfield, Michigan.


Read More

29 Projects Win at World Architecture Festival

Laura Raskin
November 8, 2011
No Comments
World Building of the Year (and Office): Media-TIC, Barcelona, Cloud 9, Spain The fourth annual World Architecture Festival (WAF) wrapped up in Barcelona on November 4. More than 1,300 people attended this year’s awards ceremony, which capped the three-day event, and got a peek at the 700-plus international projects entered. Seminars and keynote speakers touched on issues of “disaster” and “difference,” including David van der Leer, assistant curator of Architecture and Urban Studies at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, who also led the museum’s team in executing the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a touring project that wrapped up its New York City
Read More

A Permanent Home for Peace

Moshe Safdie's United States Institute of Peace opens on the National Mall's last buildable lot.
Laura Raskin
October 25, 2011
No Comments

Moshe Safdie was nibbling crab cakes in the recently completed, 150,000-square-foot glass-and-concrete headquarters he designed for the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.


Read More

8 Spruce Street

Making waves in the skyline: Frank Gehry drapes his first skyscraper in rippling stainless steel, bringing luxury living to lower Manhattan
Laura Raskin
September 16, 2011
No Comments
Frank Gehry drapes his first skyscraper in rippling stainless steel, bringing luxury living to lower Manhattan.
Read More

On the Boards: Shanghai Natural History Museum by Perkins + Will

Laura Raskin
August 5, 2011
No Comments
Image courtesy Perkins + Will Shanghai Natural History Museum, Shanghai, China, Perkins + Will When it is completed at the end of 2012, Perkins + Will’s nautilus-shell-shaped Shanghai Natural History Museum will emerge from a proposed sculpture park and provide views of the surrounding city. Perkins + Will won the international competition in 2007 to design the museum, which will replace an existing natural history museum. The architects were inspired by the classical gardens in Suzhou with their water features, rock formations, and screened walls, which they abstracted in their design. “It’s important that the museum is in the old
Read More

Guggenheim and BMW Launch First Pop-Up 'Lab' in New York City

Laura Raskin
August 2, 2011
No Comments
Photo by Paul Warchol © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Click on the slideshow button to see more images. Amidst a cacophony of truck brakes, street sweepers, and ambulance sirens in Manhattan’s East Village, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and BMW launched the first BMW Guggenheim Lab on Tuesday, which will open to the public on Wednesday, August 3rd. The minimalist open-air structure designed by Tokyo-based Atelier Bow-Wow is a pop-up think tank, event space, and pavilion that will offer free movie screenings, lectures, and workshops relating to the theme of “Confronting Comfort” through October 16. Constructed on a 25-by-100-foot site
Read More

NY Historical Society Gets $65 Million Makeover

Laura Raskin
June 16, 2011
No Comments
The organization will open the doors to its renovated facility this fall, marking the end of a long, troubled saga. Image courtesy of Platt Byard Dovell White Architects Click on the slide show button to view more images of New-York Historical Society Renovation. Related Links: NY Historical Society Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture Completed in 1908 by York and Sawyer, the New-York Historical Society’s classical, Roman Eclectic style building, on Central Park West, has long been known as a “bunker”—its elegant yet severe granite façade fails to extend a warm welcome to visitors and passersby.
Read More

Center for Global Conservation

An office building in the Bronx Zoo seems as natural to the site as the surrounding parkland and accommodates multiple programs with minimal resources. Staring out the window is part of the job description.
Laura Raskin
June 16, 2011
No Comments

Employees on their lunch break at the Center for Global Conservation (CGC) recently paused to observe wild turkeys roaming in front of the building.


Read More