David Adjaye, future "Starchitect"

"this will be the year - thanks to a quartet of high-profile commissions coming to completion by this autumn - when we find out if Adjaye can really translate promise into achievement and begin to compete with the global "starchitects"."

"...the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Denver, Colorado, the job that will attract the most attention and whose success is key for Adjaye's push into America, where he will be opening a New York office by the end of 2007."

"The £7.5 million MCA in Denver, which opens in October, is a new four-storey building coated in etched grey, milky glass with interior walls of a special textured, translucent plastic enveloping five core galleries - each a distinct chamber accessed by an internal pathway. There will also be three education spaces, offices and a bookshop, plus a rooftop garden that will help to insulate the museum, a "green" building with high sustainability targets. There will be no permanent collection; the gallery rooms will be handed over to individual artists."

article via The Telegraph also BBC Radio 3 Broadcast Interview

UPDATE: 7/18 - maybe Don't Call him a Starchitect?

How does the DAM HAM stack up?

Not too bad, really.

Tallest Tower of Timber to be Built

London architects Waugh Thistleton have designed a timber residential tower they say will be the tallest wooden housing block in the world at nine stories, and will save 125 tonnes of carbon emissions compared to a concrete structure. It will be built of prefabrcated panels made by KLH of Austria and and it's surface will be made up of 70% waste timber panels by Marley Eternit.

via Treehugger and dezeen

OFFSITE2007

At OFFSITE 2007 the Big Build progressed over 5 days last week. What do they have to show for it? 7 homes built as close to the highest levels of the new sustainability code in the UK. See the pictures of the buildings some impressive examples and combination of techonolgies going on here. The Code, launched in April 2007, has been developed by Communities and Local Government (CLG) based on BRE's EcoHomes method to enable a step change in sustainable building practice for new homes. It provides a means of assessing the sustainablity credentials of new homes for energy, water, materials, waste, pollution and other issues.

Integrated Environmental Solutions, with REVIT!

IES Virtual Environment
"There is now a direct link between the 3D modelling platform Revit and the IES . Jointly developed between IES and Autodesk, it represents a revolutionary change for design teams working from a common model. Not only does IES software calculate heating & cooling loads within Revit MEP, but the suite can be launched in order to carry out the full range of sustainable design analyses"... Looks like I should learn Revit.

via Treehugger

"I think Colorado is the most beautiful state in the U.S."

Some interesting remarks from Daniel Libeskind.

His condo project in Edwards seems to be causing a fuss with some locals (CBS4 Video), but I like this statement:

" I do not think there should be anything controversial about it. It uses stone and materials from the area. It is a very green building; a very high-performance, sustainable building. It has a very gentle and very curvilinear shape. It brings a lot of energy and 24-hour kind of density to the site. It has a very small footprint for its building, which is very good for the environment."

via Rocky Mountain News

Denver Green Urbanism

Denver city planners have gathered to once again write the future of the downtown area. The new Downtown Denver Area Plan (which is different than, but complementary to, the Greenprint Denver initiative) still focuses on zoning, transit, and building regulations, but now includes an element completely lacking from the plan adopted twenty years ago - a deeper consideration of the impact of development on the environment.

via WorldChanging blogger Nathan Acks

Almost Time for a Summer Warm-up?

PS1 Gallery at the Museum of Modern Art in New York . Liquid Sky by BALL-NOGUES to be unveiled June, 21, 2007 in P.S.1's courtyard. Warm-up looks pretty cool this year, again. One of the these days Derek and Lesley...

MCAD | Denver Announces Two Permanent Art and Landscape Commissions

"The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver), The city’s first institution devoted entirely to contemporary art, will inaugurate its new environmentally sustainable facility designed by David Adjaye, with two permanent commissions and an inaugural exhibition entitled Star Power: Museum as Body Electric. The two permanent commissioned works, both by Colorado-based artists, include a collaborative design for The Gates Rooftop Garden by artist Kim Dickey and landscape architect Karla Dakin and an exterior site-specific work by artist Clark Richert ." Opening October 28, 2007 . . . more to come.

via Artdaily and Cherry Creek News

Rome Reborn 1.0, Life 2.0?

At the University of Virginia they are rebuilding Ancient Rome, a daunting task, only ten years in the making. Once complete and fully accessible, will this virtual city really become the eternal city reborn? Mankind has always tried to capture the past and present in maps, models, and restoring the physicality of our cultural landmarks. Will we even be able to preserve these copies or will we continuously re-create them with virtual history itself?

This latest incarnation seems to be a growing part of our collaborative virtual "Second Life" culture which includes real life views via Geotagging, Google's Earth and Street View (when do I get my VR Google Goggles?). One day, will all major civilizations be mapped and rebuilt virtually and will we be able to visit them or maybe actually live in a Life 2.0? or would that be Life 3.0 or Death 1.0?

Can we even save our modern and ancient monuments? In places like Machu Picchu (or Europe for that matter), increased tourist popularity could end in severe degradation of the experience, not to mention how future global changes will very likely, drastically alter or submerge some sites even cities. How many of these are worth saving, what is their individual and collective worth, and for how long should they be physically preserved or restored? Do we build civilization around or on top of this past?

How well will this second version of life imitate art and will this art be our version 2.0?

Architecture dash Cyberspacial Wanderings

This blog is meant to share my findings in the cyberspacial world of architecture. It will focus on current trends in design, materials, sustainability, permanence, and other important aspects related to architecture. I will also include local Denver Colorado architectural news and meatspacial wanderings.