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Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Awards 2008
Ali Kriscenski in Inhabitat
California Academy of Sciences green roof. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has just announced the Awards for Excellence 2008 honoring projects that exemplify the aesthetic and environmental benefits of green roofs and living walls. The winning installations are a showcase of innovation and awareness-raising ideas that standout among the growing field of building integrated green space. Honorees were recognized for several important aspects including design, research and policy development in seven award categories. The distinguished designs among this year’s winners are engaging examples that successfully deploy economic, ecological, aesthetic and functional considerations in gorgeous green form.

The Genius of Harry Weese
Lee Bey: The Urban Observer
I was walking out of the Daley Bicentennial Plaza parking garage on Randolph Street when I noticed Harry Weese's shiny and perfect Swissotel, visible in the gap just east of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building. The Swissotel is 20 years old, but it looks as fresh and vital as the new buildings popping up around it. And it reminded me, once again, of what a brilliant architect and civic presense Weese was. In addition to designing works such as the Time Life Building; the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist; the Washington Metro, Metropolitan Correctional Center and scores of iconic buildings, Weese also led the charge to save Auditorium Theater and helped create Printers Row.

 Cloepfil-Gragg Discussion, and A Visit To Allied Works' Macleay View House
Brian Libby in Portland Architecture
On Monday night, in the second installment of Portland Spaces magazine's Bright Lights Discussion Series, editor Randy Gragg will be interviewing architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works. Not only has Cloepfil's firm finally going to be working on a major Portland project again with PNCA's 511 Broadway building renovation, as well as a more modest rehab of the school's existing Pearl District space, but Allied Works also saw completion of a West Hills home with another on the way. Then there's the projects Allied has going in Denver, Dallas, New York and beyond.

Enóvo House, Modular and At One With Nature
Preston D K in Jetson Green
I pulled out the April issue of Dwell this weekend and noticed an ad for the Énóvo House.  My interest was piqued by reading the copy, so I went online to research more.  There's a website for the Énóvo House, which is currently being built just north of Montreal.  But from my research, the Énóvo name seems to represent something bigger -- the idea that a green, modular home can evolve with the needs of the owner.  According to the website, Énóvo can be adapted to most any terrain, and because it's configured by modules, the design can morph according to the various particularities an owner's life and needs. The minimalist design here is clean and features an abundance of glass in the right places.

Wouldn't it be easier to build it on a mountain?
Michelle Linden in Atelier A+D
Admittedly, I don't know anything about skiing, much less about ski jumps... but it just seems like Christensen Arkitekter would have had an easier time designing the ski jump if it was actually on the side of a mountain... Then again, it didn't stop Zaha.

May 10th and 11th, 2008

0751 Suburban House - third scheme
lavardera in LamiDesign Modern House Plan Blog
Time to look at another schematic scheme from the suburban house project. This scheme was centered around an interesting idea about how to organize the house, but also departed from the previous schemes because of this. Here the living+dining+kitchen space is imagined as a glazed rectangular volume set atop a plinth containing the rest of the functions of the house. This may be a little bit harder to imagine because the schematic model really does not give a good representation of how this would be integrated into the landscape. The plinth would be masonry, sunk into the earth, the stairs at the front looking like a bit of a ruin, emerging out of the landscape (which with fill needed for the site would not be as long as shown in the illustrations). The bar atop is lighter, framed, with many windows, cantilevering off the base on both sides.

Shane de Blacam to lecture on his recent work in New York
Archiseek IRELAND Architecture News
Following the success of Shane O Toole’s lecture Import+Export and Anchor and Animation by Grafton Architects, Shane de Blacam’s lecture, Recent Buildings by de Blacam and Meagher will take place on Tuesday the 27th of May in the American Irish Historical Society. Shane de Blacam who worked exclusively on the Mellon Centre in Yale and a former protégé of celebrated American architect Louis Kahn, will give a lecture on the Recent Buildings by de Blacam and Meagher. This lecture will be introduced by Nathaniel Kahn, Academy nominated filmmaker and son of Louis Kahn.

Literary Dose #27
John in A Daily Dose of Architecture
"I think designers today are responding to several really significant shifts or pressures. There may be more, but the two that stand out are the redefinition or dissolution of what's public and private; that becomes very interesting for thinking through issues of program, spatial effects, and the tension between landscape and architecture. The other is ecology. We have an obligation to think through in novel ways as designers, not to be glib or presume that if you simply introduce recycled buildings into a building you will be more ecological. What's really interesting about ecological concerns is that they demand thinking in terms of process and the interrelationship of different processes. That sense of process has entered into a lot of what we and our contemporaries are trying to reconcile spatially as designers -- how to think about ecological concerns inventively and freshly."

From Manure to Books
John in A Daily Dose of Architecture
On today's CBS Sunday Morning, reporter Bill Geist visited a farm in Wisconsin where a husband and wife have turned 12 farm buildings into depositories for approximately one million books; a very atypical bookstore, to say the least. The main shop is housed in an old manure tank, a large cylindrical structure that was removed of its former contents (thankfully), covered in a roof framed of wood trusses, and clad to resemble a castle. This last piece is not my cup of tea, but the interior is rather well done, with a central column, perimeter balcony, and detailed ceiling, all of wood. And, of course, lots and lots of books.

Lighting Installation Cannes
Frame Magazine
Design crew Architecture Lumière threw colourful light upon the renowed boulevard in Cannes.