James Murdock

Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Silverstein Properties unveiled plans this week for New York City's tallest residential building: an 80-story, 912-foot-tall hotel and condominium tower at 99 Church Street, one block east of the World Trade Center site. A 175-room Four Seasons hotel will occupy the building’s lower 22 stories with 143 condos occupying the upper floors. Although the project joins more than 5,400 residential units and 3,700 hotel rooms already under construction downtown, according to a January 29 article in The Architect’s Newspaper, Stern’s choice of cladding his tower in limestone and cast stone will help it stand out

A ceremonial groundbreaking took place on Wednesday for Frank Gehry’s new home for the New World Symphony orchestra in Miami Beach. The $200 million building, featuring a 700-seat performance hall, will be part of a campus located behind the orchestra’s existing facility, Lincoln Theatre. “Though its simple, rectilinear design doesn’t offer the daring of the titanium-roofed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, or the audacious sail-like curves of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the yet-to-be-named facility will solve logistical problems faced by the New World Symphony,”The Miami Herald wrote on January 22. The orchestra’s current home has “acoustical

Frank Gehry will design the ninth annual summertime pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery in London this year. It will be Gehry’s first built structure in England and that’s exactly the idea—the gallery selects architects and artists “who, at the time of the Serpentine Gallery’s invitation, have not completed a building in England,” the U.K.’s Building magazine reported on January 17. No word yet on what Gehry’s design will look like, but his pavilion will include a café that doubles as an event venue. Previous efforts by Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, and Daniel Libeskind have attracted as many as 250,000 visitors

Marshall E. Purnell, FAIA, was appointed the 84th president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) at a ceremony in December, taking the helm from outgoing president RK Stewart, FAIA. Purnell is the design principal of Devrouax + Purnell Architects, a 35-person firm that he and his business partner Paul Devrouax started in 1978 in Washington, D.C. Its portfolio includes several large-scale sports and entertainment facilities such as the Washington Convention Center; the Verizon Center, formerly the MCI Center; and a new ballpark for the Washington Nationals, which it currently is designing with HOK Sport. The firm also specializes in

JM: Do enough architects give back these days? A couple of groups such as The 1% and Architecture for Humanity do pro bono work, but do you wish that there was more of that? Although Devrouax + Purnell Architects promoted four people to become partners in the firm last year, will it be difficult for Purnell to devote most of his attention to the AIA for a year? “You better plan all that out before you even declare a candidacy for AIA because you might win,” he says. (0:46) MP: Our firm has always done pro bono work and served

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download The owners of Liverpool’s soccer team are “in no rush” to make a decision about replacing HKS as the architect of their new stadium, according to a January 10 article in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph. The team’s owners, American businessmen Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr., originally selected HKS last year, as RECORD reported, but the Dallas-based architect overshot the budget for a

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Foster + Partners is designing a skyscraper in Moscow that will contain more floor space than any other building in the world, according to a December 23 article in the UK’s Times newspaper. Dubbed the “Crystal Island,” the 1,500-foot-tall tower will encompass some 29 million square feet in a structure that “spirals downwards from a sharp peak with a glass facade that resembles

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Columbia University’s proposal for rezoning portions of Manhattanville received a green light from the New York City Council this week, allowing the school to move forward with developing a controversial campus expansion designed by Renzo Piano and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. As RECORD has reported, the council’s approval seemed likely in November after the city’s planning department recommended a modified plan that gives

Tis the season for the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to unveil the winners of its awards for 2008, several more of whom were announced today: Richard Meier’s Atheneum, in New Harmony, Ind., will be honored with the Twenty-Five-Year Award; Norma Merrick Sklarek, FAIA, will be recognized with the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award; and Thomas L. McKittrick, FAIA, will receive the Edward C. Kemper Award. The Twenty-Five-Year Award goes to a work first recognized by the AIA at its completion and whose design has held up well after its silver anniversary. The Atheneum is a visitors center for the