CALATRAVA RECEIVES AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

Santiago Calatrava, the renowned Spanish architect and artist, has received the 2000 Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts. He was given the award last week at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He was honored for his ability to "merge the boundaries between engineering and architecture, art and function." Calatrava is best known for his public structures including the Campo Volantin Footbridge, a gracefully curving glass-decked footbridge in Bilbao, Spain.

BECOMING AN INFORMATION ARCHITECT

With the ever-increasing quantity of information that architectural project managers must handle, electronic piles of spreadsheets and word-processing documents are only compounding the problems of project management. Tools built on easy-to-use database software can provide an effective solution, but few firms take advantage of them. Consultant Barry Isakson, AIA, believes that architects should be designing their own information management systems. Next week he'll offer an introduction to database technology, with guidance on how to apply it.

GOOD DESIGN IS GOOD BUSINESS

Ten winners were announced recently for the 2000 Business Week/Architectural Record Awards program, cosponsored by The American Institute of Architects. The winning projects showcase architect/client collaborations which are said to have created the most innovative and successful facilities for organizations around the world. Next week we'll show these projects from Japan, India, France, Canada, and the United States. One of them, the American Museum of Natural History Rose Center for Earth and Space, has already appeared in ArchitectureWeek.