Architects: Grzywinski + Pons Location: Millerton, NY, USA Design Team: Matthew Grzywinski, Amador Pons Project Year: 2012 Photographs: Floto + Warner/OTTO

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The 2012–13 season at the Yale School of Architecture Gallery opened on August 20 with Palladio Virtuel. The exhibition, which is on view until October 27, presents a groundbreaking new analysis of the work of Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio by Peter Eisenman, renowned New York architect and Charles Gwathmey, Professor in Practice at Yale. It represents the culmination of ten years of study of Palladio’s villas by Eisenman, adding an important contribution to the sixteenth-century master’s already robust legacy. The exhibition proposes a reading of the buildings that undermines the traditional view of Palladio’s architecture as founded on ideal forms. For more information, please visit here. More images and information on the exhibition after the break.

Russia’s leading creative think tank, Strelka Institute, is hosting a series of discussions with preeminent voices in architecture and urban design in the pre-opening days of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. Inspired by the Biennale’s theme of Common Ground, the conversations will focus on how architecture and design can drive the physical, social and economic regeneration of urban environments. Using Russian cities as a starting point, the talks will explore wider issues in urban design around global metropoles. Featured speakers include OMA’s Reinier de Graaf, Teddy Cruz, Stefano Boeri, and more.

The discussions will take place on August 27 and 28 at the Strelka Palazzo. All events are free to attend, but space is limited. Please email venice@strelka.com to reserve a seat.

Strelka Palazzo Program:

For the first time ever, Design Onscreen – the Initiative for Architecture and Design on Film – will present the Design Onscreen Film Festival at the Venice Architecture Biennale, August 27 through the 29th at the Arsenale’s Teatro Piccolo. All sixteen screenings are free and open to the public and most will be followed by dynamic in-person discussions and audience Q&As, featuring top architects and design experts from around the globe, including Lord Norman Foster, Peter Eisenman, Rick Joy, Steven Holl, Vittorio Garatti, Deyan Sudjic (Director, Design Museum London), Barry Bergdoll (Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art); Moshen Mostafavi (Dean, Harvard Graduate School of Design), Mark Wigley (Dean, Columbia Univ. School of Architecture), and David Chipperfield (Curator and Director of the 13th Annual International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale).

Continue after the break for trailers and more information.

Join the authors and editors of Lars Müller Publishers for a rare book signing opportunity with architects Wang Shu, Sou Fujimoto, and Steven Holl on August 28th at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale! This event will kick off the exhibition Lars Müller Publishers – Book Fever, which will feature sixty publications – new releases, bestsellers, milestones from the past, and rare treasures – for the public to explore.

Founded thirty years ago, Lars Müller Publishers’ carefully edited and designed publications on architecture, design, and contemporary art has lead them to become a renowned international publisher. One milestone you may remember was their release of Peter Zumthor’s Works (1998), which was the first survey of the oeuvre of the architect now known worldwide that set new standards for the monograph as a book genre.

Continue after the break for more details on the book signing and exhibition.

Last week, thanks to the courtesy of Cicada Books, we gave you the chance to win three copies of: ‘Draw Me a House‘. To participate, we asked you to answer the following question:

As reported by David W Dunlap for the NYTimes, the safety-restoration applied to Philip Johnson and Richard Foster’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library on the NYU campus near Washington Square is close to completion. While the library, which was constructed in the early 1970s, remains intact, the tremendous atrium space – a soaring 150 ft void – is proving to be more of a safety hazard than the magnificent architectural experience the architects intended. Since 2003, the library has been marred by claiming the lives of three students who leaped to their deaths (even after the university installed 8ft polycarbonate barriers). Charged with the task of eliminating the possibility for such a future occurrence, Joel Sanders Architect responded with a perforated alumium screen that completely walls off the atrium from the library’s levels.

More after the break.  

Architects: Askim/Lantto Architects Location: The Edøy Island, Smøla, Norway Project Leader: Niels Marius Askim Project Year: 2008 Photographs: Courtesy of Kvernberget Print og Reklame AS, Niels Marius Askim, Bjarne Ytrøy

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I spent much of the nineties living in Tokyo, but it wasn’t until I had left that Ryuichi Sakamoto’s(1) music began to inform me about its complex environments.

His album, somewhat ironically (I think) titled BTTB, or, Back to the Basics, came out way back in 1999. Though post-dating my Tokyo Period, it sonically completed my memories of that city. Having leapt through time, it resolved my incomplete Tokyo soundtrack.

BTTB tries to be minimal, but, like the city it came from, struggles with complexity(2). Its opulent density made it seem like the piano had been miked on the inside, my ear forced down to the machinery of strings. The tension between richness and absence I perceived reminded me of trying to find my way in and around all of Tokyo’s jumbled systems.

Taking place October 6, Woodbury University in Burbank, CA is hosting the Advancing Sustainability 2012 Business + Design Symposium that focuses on the “cardiovascular system” of a city—its infrastructure. The discussion will investigate how various infrastructures—providers of core operational supply (transportation systems, energy and water supply, communications, built environment)—perform, exchange, and are incorporated into the natural environment. The discussion will address the extent of their influence on lifestyle and the overall dynamics of the city, as well as their management and opportunities for advancement. The event will curate a conversation amongst the most innovative minds within the fields of architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, engineering, and design to investigate the potential of sustainability within lifestyles and soft infrastructures. For more information, please visit here.

Architects: Ishimoto Architectural & Engineering Firm, Inc Location: Yawata city, Kyoto, Japan Architect In Charge: Kou Ohashi Project Team: Tsutomu Kobayashi, Yoshihiko Taniguchi, Kou Ohashi, Hiroyuki Nagaoka, Hiroki Tanaka, Toshihiko Sawamura, Mitsuo Ichikawa Project Year: 2012 Project Area: 3,069.88 sqm Photographs: Daici Ano

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Architects: Ignacio Correa
Location: San Vicente de Tagua Tagua, Chile
Structure Engineering: Alberto Ramirez
Project Year: 2012
Photographs: Alfredo Gildemeister

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The Greek pavilion for the 2012 Venice Biennale will focus on the particular dynamics of Athens during a period of economic meltdown by addressing the deterioration of Athenian urban space, plummeting standards of living, and the need to redefine the priorities of architectural design. Architects and creative groups have already begun to shape a new “common ground” within Athens. With the exhibition “Made in Athens”, the Greek pavilion aims highlight these positive forces emerging during this crucial present moment in an effort to foreshadow a better future for the city and its architecture.

Continue after the break to learn more about “Made in Athens”.

Architects: Mancini Location: South India Project Year: 2009 Project Area: 1,000 sqm Photographs: mancini enterprises

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By invitation of Director David Chipperfield, MVRDV and The Why Factory will participate in the 2012 Venice Biennale. The main contribution consists of the collaborative project ‘Freeland’ forming part of the single exhibition in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini. Further contribution is made by Winy Maas and The Why Factory with ‘Porous City’ to the EU CITY Program, initiated by the European Forum for Architectural Policies (EFAP) representing Europe for the first time at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

More details on the two exhibitions after the break.

99% Invisible is, by far, our favorite radio show on architecture and design. Although, granted, there aren’t that many. As Roman Mars, the show’s host and producer, admits: ”since these are disciplines usually appreciated through the eye, you might be thinking: well, that’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. Fair enough. It turns out , I don’t need pictures to talk about design, I like making stories that tell us about who we are through the lens of the things we build.”

Despite being an auditory medium (and a low-budget project, sponsored by KALW and AIA San Francisco, but produced in Mars’ garage), the show works because it gets to the heart of any design project: its story.

Well, it turns out we’re not the only ones into Mars’ quirky approach (Aside: if you are too, stay tuned, we’ll be interviewing him for our Disruptive Minds series next week). After launching a modest Kickstarter campaign to help offset costs, a goal promptly smashed in 24 hours, Mars upped the ante. But not to a price tag. Rather, he wanted a show of support. 5,000 backers.

The results for this little-show-that-could were nothing short of extraordinary.

Read More about 99% Invisible’s Kickstarter Campaign, including the very cool design prizes that went with it, after the break…

In celebration of the Nordic Pavilion’s fiftieth anniversary, thirty-two architects born after the year 1962 have been invited to present a model of a conceptual “house” that reflects their personal philosophy of architecture at the 2012 Venice Biennale exhibition “Light Houses: On the Nordic Common Ground”. Eleven architects from Finland and Sweden, along with ten architects from Norway will each respond to the sobering economic constraints and diminishing environmental resources that challenge architects today.

Contemporary Nordic architectural culture offers both exemplary approaches and significant constructed works addressing these challenging circumstances. The classic hallmarks of Nordic architecture – simplified form, frugal use of materials and sensitive treatment of daylight and the natural setting – embody the basic principles of responsible, sustainable architecture.

Continue after the break to learn more.

Located adjacent to the Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport near Springboro, Ohio, the new headquarters for The Connor Group, a real estate investment firm, The Connor Group, will serve as an iconic statement for their brand. The firm came to Moody Nolan to design a world-class headquarters facility which capitalizes on the newest technologies and environmental planning ideas for the progressive company. The nine-acre site will accommodate the new headquarters and is mastered planned for a future 10,000 square feet aircraft hanger. The two-story building will enclose approximately 39,000 square feet in its initial development with a planning addition of another. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Everyday, Americans all over the country go to work. They get in their cars, arrive at the office, and sit inside. Then, they go home, maybe watch some TV, and go to bed. 5 days a week. About 50 weeks a year.

Our built environment is where we now spend about 90% of our time. Unluckily for us, however, a recent Forbes article suggests that, most of the time, indoor air quality is actually worse than outdoor, to the point where it’s potentially hazardous: “paint, carpet, countertops, dry wall, you name it and chances are it’s got some sort of toxic ingredient.”

And yet we have little way of knowing just how bad our building’s “ingredients” are for us. Until now.

Perkins+Will has been busy making lists of harmful substances, and their side effects, found in commonly used building materials. Just last week, they released a report tackling one such “toxin”: asthmagens, affecting over 23 million Americans (including 7.1. million children).

The forward-thinking firm is on the cutting-edge of a movement, instigated by clients and fast taking over the architecture world – towards “healthy” buildings (inside and out).

Read more about Perkins+Will’s revolutionary Transparency Project, after the break…

In continuing our coverage of the Architecture Billings Index, we share this past month’s score of 48.7 While such a mark still falls in negative territory (any score under 50 indicates a decline in billings), July’s activity was a considerable jump from June’s meager 45.9. And, even better, July’s new projects inquiry index moved up almost two full points to 56.3. Regionally, the South is surprisingly leading the averages with 52.7, followed by the Midwest with 46.7, the West with 45.3, and lastly, the Northeast region capping out at 44.3. In terms of the sector breakdown, multi-family residential remains strong with 51.4 followed by commercial/industrial projects and institutional projects. AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA, explained, “Even though architecture firm billings nationally were down again in July, the downturn moderated substantially. As long as overall economic conditions continue to show improvement, modest declines should shift over to growth in design activity over the coming months.”

The Chicago Architectural Club, along with its partner, the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects, just announced the 2012 Chicago Prize Competition: Future Prentice. The competition is intended to act as a platform for public debate about the future of one of Chicago’s most architecturally significant Modern buildings, Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital. Located in the downtown Chicago neighborhood of Streeterville, this concrete, clover leaf-shaped structure is considered an iconic piece of architecture for the city by some and an eyesore by others. Today the building is in imminent danger of being torn down by its owner, Northwestern University, but it’s fate ultimately lies in the hands of the city’s administration. The submission deadline is October 15. To register and for more information, please visit here.