Foreclosed set itself up as more than just your typical museum exhibition. The show, which ran from February through August of last year, attempted to tackle one of the most urgent and admittedly bleak questions that face architects, policymakers, and the public today. This, of course, is the housing question, but it would be a mistake to simply collapse the intricate economic, social, and legislative nuances—to say nothing of the design issues—that necessarily follow discussion of the “American dream” and the challenges made to its enduring (and, it can be said, catastrophic) relevance.

The exhibition, which was organized by MoMA architecture curator Barry Bergdoll and Reinhold Martin, director of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture Columbia University, featured work from Jeanne Gang, MOS, WORKac, Visible Weather, and  Zago Architecture. Together they formed a vast body of work—models, diagrams, research, and video—that realized five entirely new visions of suburbia. Each of these “study sites” were different manifestations of the exhibitions’s underlying “script,” The Buell Hypothesis and its provocative mantra: Change the dream and you change the city.

Several months on, Comments on Foreclosed attempts to not just offer a reading of Foreclosed, but also to, in Martin’s words, “inquire into what can and cannot be discussed in public.” The book collects media coverage of and responses to the project, in the form of reviews, blog posts, think pieces. In addition to this “archive” of data, the Buell Center will host further discussions and comments on the Comments on Foreclosed site, where Columbia students, faculty, and organizers, along withpublic participants, will further address the issues provoked by the show and beyond. The book launches this Monday, February 18, 6:30 PM at the Buell East Gallery at Columbia University. The event is open to all, so be there.

more

Playlab and Family’s “Worms” project did for the Festival of Ideas for the New City in 2011

Let’s play a game. Every time we say “ideas”, you take a shot. You ready? OK, let’s go.*

The follow-up biennial to 2011′s “Festival Ideas for the New City”, IDEAS CITY 2013 will light downtown Manhattan up with all series of cultural events, installations, and, of course, ideas. The festival, which runs from May 1-4, will be themed around the idea of “untapped capital”, a concept that’s not as scary as it sounds when you think about it.  It can mean people, property, natural resources, varied resources, networks of communication and so forth—wherever there exists a surplus of material or knowledge that is currently underutilized, i.e. that lies “untapped” and ready to be actualized. The theme is meant to be a launchpad for ideas, which will then be articulated and made manifest by hundreds of vendors, workshops, informal classes, demos, installations, and performances. Come May, these will be sprinkled throughout the Bowery near the New Museum. And that creates a spatial problem: how to house this sprawling “StreetFest”?

The Storefront for Art and Architecture, along with the New Museum and Architizer, have launched the Street Fest Competition, where we ask you, architects, to design a temporary structure for IDEAS CITY 2013. The winning entry will be built and will remain standing for the duration of the event! Click through for the details.

more

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank, the site of Beaux Arts Ball 2012: TENDER

The Architectural League‘s annual Beaux Arts Ball kicks off this Saturday, and it promises to be the event of the architectural season! This year’s ball will be held at the Williamsburgh Savings Bank on September 22, with the vaulted interior space fashioned into an “environment” by SOFTlab. The design of the large-scale installation, which was done with Natasha Jen from Pentagram and includes a site-specific sound component by Dave Rife of Arup, is intended to match the event’s theme, “Tender”. How it does this is up to anyone’s guess–you’ll just have to go to find out!

Lucky for you, we’re giving away two sets of two tickets (four in total)! Click through to find out how to win.

more

A discussion panel and cocktail party will be held at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn; Photo via Wythe Hotel

Dwell Media and New York Magazine have joined forces to create City Modern, a week long celebration of all things architecture and design in New York to mark the launch of a joint design publication. The collaborative event, with presenting sponsor Audi, will host a week (October 1-7) panel discussions and parties, culminating in a weekend of home tours in Manhattan and Brooklyn (Oct 6-7). Continue.

more

Long Studio, Fogo Island. Saunders Architecture.

Todd Saunders, the Canada-born, Norway-based architect of the North, famed for his contemporary projects on wind-swept promontories and near-arctic coniferous forests, will be giving a lecture at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning on October 15^th. The title of the talk, ‘Architecture in Northern Landscapes,’ references the usual setting for Saunders’s work in Norway and Canada, though the firm has worked in locations further from the Arctic Circle. Read more.

more

Wolf D. Prix of Coop Himmelb(l)au; Photo: Elfie Semotan

Wolf D. Prix isn’t afraid to speak his mind. The celebrated architect and erstwhile avant-guardist formulated his thoughts of the just-opened Venice Architecture Biennale in a scathing 570-word statement that’s more than a little tedious. The document, entitled (!) “The Banal”, voices Prix’s dissatisfaction with the Biennale’s “vanity” and the “boring” exhibitions that litter its grounds. He decries the event as an “expensive danse macabre” that doesn’t, and perhaps, never has fulfilled its founding purpose: to host and provoke “lively discussion and criticism of topics in contemporary architecture”. Read More.

more

Contemporary architecture set amongst the remnants of the Venetian Arsenale. Superb juxtaposition. @la_biennale #architecture #architizer

The Golden Lion winners of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice were announced this morning, but there’s still plenty of biennale action left to be had. Our correspondent Greta Hansen reported earlier about the prevalence of pomo (post-modernism to the uninitiated) at the this year’s exhibitions–the latest post in her week-long coverage of the event. It’s also @marchitizer, Architizer CEO’s Marc Kushner’s last day in Venice, but he’s made sure to make the rounds before he sets off for home. He sent over a flurry of Instagrams documenting the most interesting beats, including Zaha’s icy models and yonic ‘Arum’ sculpture, the Spanish pavilion’s pulchritudinous servers/performers, and the sandy, fun-in-the-simulated sun at the Arsenale’s indoor micro-beach.

Be sure to follow the @architizer Instagram to get the best coverage of the biennale and all things architecture and design. Click for more.

more

United Nude New York Flagship Store

In the last decade since Rem D. Koolhaas founded United Nude, the iconic shoe purveyor has consistently reinvented the form of footwear, moving effortlessly from Futurist and Constructivist models to    Surrealist, Post-modern(ist), and even (quasi-)parametric designs. And that’s just a stab at categorizing the UN collection, whose spunky and colorful seasonal wares will be on display at “Design Night Out” next Monday, August 6.

The event, co-hosted by IDSA NYC and United Nude, will be held at UN’s Noho flagship store at 25 Bond Street. Rem D. Koolhaas will also be on hand, along with the Fashion Footwear Association of New York, to celebrate an evening of drinks, music, and–best of all–sales. For one night only, UN will mark 50% off select merchandise, so make sure to not to miss out (RSVP here)! We’ll see you there!

more

Hit by Wendy’s water cannon; Photo: Instagram user al_zaidy’

What are the two top reasons you should visit Wendy this summer? For the clean air and the cool jets of water, duh. We covered  the  former extensively a couple weeks back, and now it’s time to turn our sights to the geyser-like blasts, cooling  mists, and  wading pools that make Wendy so much fun! All these splashy features were made possible by Dornbracht (with Davis  &  Warshow), who we’ve called the “magicians of all things water” on more than one occasion.

Dornbracht crafts elegant, strikingly stark water fixtures that are the default for any contemporary house. See the indelibly minimalist “Deque” line that makes use of “severe” polished-steel forms which not only dispense, but frame water as it spills forth. There’s also the incredibly meme-able (and borderline NSFW) “Horizontal Shower“, whose cantilevered forms allow the user to recline while showering, as a series of water jets thunder down on them.

At MoMA PS1, Wendy’s water features have quickly proven indispensable, hosing down and cooling off sun-stricken visitors and party goers alike. Children play beside the pools, while adults scramble for a spot in the eye of the pavilions water cannons. Others retreat by the misting walls of water released from under the spiky blue structure.

Sounds refreshing, doesn’t it? Well, escape both office dread and summer sun and head over to 96 Spring Street on Wednesday, August 1 for fun, food, and drinks. Wendy-creators (and Architizer-founders) Matthias Hollwich and Marc Kushner of HWKN will be on hand for the Dornbracht + Davis & Warshow event to talk about what it is that makes the lovable blue skyscrubber so special. They’ll reveal their inspiration and talk in-depth of the many innovations behind the project. So be sure to RSVP (see how below)–we’ll see you there!

more

Navigating the city has become something of nonevent. Armed with smart phones, would-be urban explorers can uncover all of the city’s secrets or wade in its endearing banalities, effortlessly summoning generations of data—planning, mapping, building—at the swipe and tap of a finger. In an instant, the pedestrian is transformed into “psychogeographer”, an increasingly bankrupt distinction given the ubiquitous streams and integrated content that all but remove the challenge and surprise from perambuling about the urban environment.

But what if you were to leave the city and all of its digitized promises behind and step, literally, into the great American expanse? Oh, with nothing but your smart device to help you find your way from coast to coast. How would you even begin to plan that kind of trip?

That’s the premise behind “Go West”, a new collaboration between Audi Urban Future Initiative and Architizer that is sending one blogger across the country with nothing but a 3G signal and the clothes on her back (not too mention her new spiffy solar-panel-sporting backpack). The goal: Find your way from Boston to San Francisco in 14 days without money (no worries, there’s a $100 emergency fund) or any paid/planned means of transport. Use your phone to toggle all and every form of social media—Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram—to reach out to the country’s netizens for a free ride, a spare couch or bed to sleep in, or, most importantly, a hearty meal. Stow away on a ferry, train, or pick-up truck; schmooze or barter a ride onto a semi, tractor, or motorcycle. In forging these new connections on the fly, the trip will test the limits of “social mobility”.

Our intrepid blogger is Lindsay Rule, aka Archispotter, a grad student at UPenn who is pursuing a Masters of Architecture. A native of Oklahoma, Lindsay says she has spent much of her life in a car, ferrying across highways and cities alike, where public transport is underfunded and underused:

“Being from the Great Plains, I can truthfully say I have lived half of my life in a car. Seriously. Public transportation is spoken about with mythical reverence in Oklahoma. Public buses appear with the same frequency as unicorn sightings, and even walking somewhere is generally out of the question (unless you include the few dozen steps taken between the parking lot and your destination).”

Fearless blogger Lindsay Rule

Lindsay is now off to Boston, where she will meet with interdisciplinary firm Höweler Yoon Architecture–who are collaborating with AUDI to rethink infrastructure in a sustainable way—for tips and things to keep a look out for. Tomorrow, she will kick off her two-week trip, passing first down through the East Coast Corridor before passing into unknown territories (the Midwest, the Dakotas, Wyoming?) and finally arriving San Francisco. Lindsay will be blogging, tweeting (#somotrip), and tumbling all along the way so be sure to follow her on all her media channels. Be on the lookout for more posts covering her trip right here on Architizer. Stay tuned!

more