Wayne R. Williams, FAIA Photo courtesy Communi-k Inc. Wayne R. Williams, FAIA, an award-winning Southern California Modernist architect, died on November 27. He was 88 years old and had been in poor health for many months. Williams is best known for designing private residences, schools, community buildings, and recreational facilities with his business partner Whitney R. Smith. The two began working together in 1946 and, three years later, formed a partnership that lasted nearly three decades. A native of Los Angeles, Williams studied architecture at the University of Southern California before serving in World War II, during which he

Arquitectonica’s Las Vegas gamble is finally paying off big with two new projects on the Strip. The Miami-based firm’s $3 billion, 2,998-room Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino is currently under construction on Las Vegas Boulevard, next to the Bellagio. Developed by New York City-based Ian Bruce Eichner, it calls for two, 600-foot-tall twisting blue glass towers perched atop a four-level, 100-foot-tall podium. These 52-story, prism-shaped high-rises are wrapped in fretted balconies; they will contain hotel and condo-hotel units managed by Grand Hyatt. A glass-clad low-rise structure will contain 265,000 square feet of shops and restaurants topped by a five-acre sandy beach and pool.

Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a 921,832-square-foot speculative office and retail complex in Dubai for Omniyat Properties.

The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, also known as Taliesin, regained full accreditation last month from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). Its future had been in doubt since the HLC placed it on notice in 2005, following falling enrollment and turmoil within the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which runs the school. Maintaining HLC accreditation is a prerequisite for National Architectural Accrediting Board accreditation, which the school currently has for its master's program. Photo: Courtesy the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Arizona, is one of two campuses for the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. “The stakes

  Photo: Courtesy Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects Denis G. Kuhn, FAIA, a respected preservationist architect, passed away on May 10. He suffered a heart attack while touring a project site in the Dominican Republic. He was 65 years old. Kuhn, a principal partner in Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects (EE&K), based in New York City, practiced architecture for more than 35 years. He specialized in restoring abandoned historic buildings, including the Alexander Hamilton Custom House, an elegant Beaux-Arts structure in Manhattan designed by Cass Gilbert. The refurbished building reopened as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian