The play "The Bilbao Effect" by Oren Safdie runs through June 5 at the Center for Architecture in New York City. Photo: Marino Carlos Extra Large Image
Hurghada · 2010.0512
The Irvine, California, office of hospitality design firm WATG has revealed its preliminary detailed master plan for Phase III of the Sahl Hasheesh International Resort Community, located south of Hurghada, Egypt, on the Red Sea. The 4,090-hectare (10,110-acre) mixed-use project, being developed by Egyptian Resorts Company, will include civic centers, a university, schools, a business park, apartments, villas, and other resort components.
The master plan features a landscape structure of open-space corridors, incorporating the metaphor of a fertile valley. Landscapes will range from oasis desert landscapes to informal agricultural use, lush semitropical landscapes, and formal, geometric landscapes.
WATG has been involved with the project since 2008 and designed Phase II.
New York · 2010.0512
The play "The Bilbao Effect" by Oren Safdie debuted at the Center for Architecture in New York City on May 12, 2010. The play centers on Erhardt Shlaminger, a "world-famous" architect who faces censure by the American Institute of Architects following accusations that his urban redevelopment project for Staten Island has led to a woman's suicide. The play tackles controversial urban design issues that New Yorkers have recently encountered in Brooklyn as a result of the hotly debated plans to redevelop the Atlantic Yards into a "starchitecture" mega-development.
The phrase "Bilbao effect" was coined after Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum (pictured) brought tourists — and attendant revenue — to the poor industrial port city of Bilbao, Spain. Other cities have since recruited big-name architects to design dramatic buildings in hopes of reaping similar benefits.
A former architecture student at Columbia University, Oren Safdie is a native of Montreal, where he grew up in the famed Habitat '67, designed by his father, Moshe Safdie. This play is the second in a planned trilogy about contemporary architecture, which began with "Private Jokes, Public Places" in 2001.
Performances of "The Bilbao Effect" will run through June 5 at the Center for Architecture. Directed by Brendan Hughes, the play was commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts.
New York · 2010.0511
Three employees have been promoted in the New York City office of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., an engineering firm focused on design, investigation, and rehabilitation of structures and building enclosures. Vince Cammalleri and Milan Vatovec were promoted to senior principal, and Kevin Poulin was promoted to associate principal.
Cammalleri has more than 20 years of relevant experience, and leads the firm's building science practice group and the office's building technology division. Recent projects include building enclosure design for the Yale University Art Gallery expansion in New Haven, Connecticut. Vatovec has more than 13 years of related experience, and heads the office's structural engineering division. He is the engineer of record of the slurry wall strengthening at the World Trade Center Memorial Museum. Poulin has 20 years of experience. His structural engineering projects have included managing design of the New Museum in New York City.
Cleveland · 2010.0511
Gary L. Bennett has joined Middough, a Cleveland, Ohio-based architecture, engineering, and management services company, as the firm's quality manager. Bennett brings more than 26 years of substantial work experience as a quality manager, project manager, engineering manager, and training manager.
Daniel Libeskind's design for the Jewish Museum Berlin Academy has been revealed. It is planned as the adaptive reuse of an existing market hall across from the Jewish Museum Berlin in Berlin, Germany. Image: bromsky/ Courtesy Daniel Libeskind Extra Large Image
Berlin · 2010.0511
The Jewish Museum Berlin in Berlin, Germany, has revealed the design by Daniel Libeskind for the Jewish Museum Berlin Academy (rendered above). The former Berlin Flower Market (Blumengrossmarkt), located across from the museum, will be adapted to house the academy, combining a library, archives, and educational and public programs, along with additional office, storage, and support space for the museum.
The walls of the market hall will be clad with titan zinc-plate panels, and a tilted cube will penetrate the outer wall, with the academy entrance through a slice in the cube. Inside, cubes housing the lecture hall and library, clad with rough timber boards, will tilt toward each other. Other rooms will be located in functional one-story structures along the exterior wall and in the basement, and unoccupied areas will be used for an interior garden.
The academy will be integrated into the related ensemble of structures, including the historical Kollegienhaus (the old museum building), the 2001 museum building by Libeskind, and the Glass Courtyard, Libeskind's 2007 extension to the original building.
Seattle · 2010.0510
Ev Ruffcorn, FAIA, has joined the Seattle, Washington, office of NBBJ as a principal. Ruffcorn has almost 40 years of design leadership experience, including 14 years as a design partner at Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects (ZGF) before founding his own firm, Ruffcorn Mott Hinthorne Stine, in 2004. In his new position, Ruffcorn will provide design leadership across a variety of markets.
Los Angeles · 2010.0506
Stephen Stokes has joined the Los Angeles, California, office of RTKL Associates Inc. as a principal in the firm's healthcare sector and as the firm's Asia healthcare practice leader. Stokes has over 20 years of healthcare architecture experience, and joins RTKL from the San Diego office of NTD Architecture, where he served as a principal.
Hangzhou · 2010.0422
The MIXc development has opened in the Qianjiang new central business district of Hangzhou, China. International architecture firm Callison performed master planning and architectural design for the mixed-use development, which includes 520,130 square meters (5.6 million square feet) of retail, office, and residential space, and a Park Hyatt hotel. The project also includes a world-class ice rink, a high-end supermarket, and an IMAX cinema. The three luxury residential towers, MIXc Residences, contain over 600 units. The clients were China Resources and Sun Hung Kai Properties.
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