THE ARCH ITECT SN EWSPAPER 06_i2.i2.2007
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CO I— 08 LU WHY IN GRAND THEATER IS FIRST BUILDING o o COMPLETED AT L.A. LIVE RAPIDS 26 NOKIA MIKE DAVIS ON FIRE 05 EAVESDROP 11 AT DEADLINE CALLING 21 DIARY 22 REVIEWS PORTZAMPARC TO DESIGN ACADEMY'S FILM MUSEUM 24 MARKETPLACE No matter where you were in Los Angeles on the night of October 18, it was difficult to miss the opening of the Nokia Theatre. Not only did the building glow brighter TWO OF THREE BY MORPHOSIS than every other building in downtown, AT LA DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT LEADING MAN but dozens of lights spun deliriously into On November 8 the Academy of Motion Center for Motion Picture Study, south of the sky, putting any klieg-lit premiere in Picture Arts and Sciences announced Sunset Boulevard. Designs have not yet been Hollywood to shame. The sleek building HEARST its selection of Paris-based Christian de developed, but Bruce Davis, the Academy's is the first completed building at L.A. Live, Portzamparc to design its new movie muse• Executive Director, said that the museum the massive residential and entertainment um in Hollywood. will sit on an 8-acre campus that will likely corridor taking shape in the blocks adja• The museum, described by the Academy be divided among different buildings. cent to the Staples Center, in the South CASTLES as "a place for watching and learning about Davis said the Academy, which hosts the Park neighborhood. On November 6, Los Angeles City Council film and filmmaking, for exploring film's Academy Awards and has a membership When completed in 2010, the 4-million- upheld the Environmental Impact Report relationship with the greater world, and for of about 6,500 filmmakers, began thinking square-foot L.A. Live will also include the (EIR) for the redevelopment of the 1913 listening to stories told by filmmakers," will about the museum five years ago, and that 2,400-seat Club Nokia venue, corporate Herald Examiner building on the southern be located just north of its existing Pickford it began the search for continued on page 3 office space for continued on page 6 end of downtown. continued on page 5
Officials from the MIT SUES GEHRY BUT ARCHITECTS HAVE lUILDING: MURALS GET A NEW LOOK IN LA HEARD IT ALL BEFORE Massachusetts Institute of Technology went to Boston's Suffolk County Courthouse on October 31 to file a lawsuit against architect Frank Gehry and contractor Skanska. The claim: Gehry's design— for which he was paid $15 million—of the Ray and Maria Stata Center was defective •2 'fill and caused the university considerable damage. mm ifi iiAtiiH The building, which opened in the spring of 2004, featured Gehry's characteris• SHOCKED,SHOCKED tic flourishes and unconven• tional angles, and was meant ABOUT LEAKS to support continued on page 6
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LEADING MAN continued from front page Diana Darling It seems that every green building these days claims to be a first: a new architect two years ago. The O I— The first multi-family, mixed-use, south-facing LEED Silver Academy's original list of candidates included William Menking M skyscraper; the first LEED-rated cafeteria in the northern two- 154 architects, a number they whittled down EXECUTIVE EDITOR to 32, and then to five finalists. Julie V. lovine LU thirds of California; the first green bathroom in the country that CALIFORNIA EDITOR While some Los Angeles architects have is not an outhouse. grumbled that a local architect should have Sam Lubell And while it is of course admirable for a building to aspire won the commission, Davis said the choice Martin Perrin to being green, this unending barrage of firstsha s gotten out of came down to a combination of aesthetics, NEW VORK EDITOR control. Obviously LEED and other green rating measurements practicality, and Portzamparc's alluring Anne Guiney intangibles. "We certainly had no prejudice have become much more than tools to measure sustainability. Alan G. Brake against local people," he said. "He seduced Aaron Seward They have become tools for marketing. those of us who went to Paris and then he Granted, the marketing is necessary for most buildings to came here and re-seduced the committee. Matt Chaban secure funding, tenants, and recognition. The problem comes You can tell you're dealing with a visionary; Lisa Delgado a sort of poet of architecture. He has a very DESIGN AND PRODUCTION when the hyping of a building's green credentials begins to unusual and artistic approach to his craft." Dustin Koda overshadow the importance of overall design quality. Already WEST COAST SALES AND MARKETINO DIRECTOR Portzamparc, 1994 winner of the Pritzker Frank Dantona otherwise unremarkable buildings are getting praise thanks to Prize, is best known for his design of the ASSISTANT MARKETINO MANAGER the United States Green Building Council's (USGBC) stamp of French Embassy in Berlin (2003), his LVMH Andrew Griffin approval. Too often the standards of design seem to lag behind. Tower in New York (1999), and his Cite de la EDITORIAL/MARKETING ASSISTANT Musique in Paris (1995). Audrey Jaynes Aesthetics, occupant experience, programmatic innovation, all The Academy, which plans to raise EDITORIAL INTERN Rodney DeaVault come second to the all-important green checklists. And, as one $300 million to build the museum, is in final architect recently told me, this stampede for ratings, which negotiations to secure the last parcel of land he called a "point hunt," is not always in the best interest of the it needs for the site. particular building. "We can design something that's important Davis said that he hopes to have renderings of the new museum by this summer. For for the quality of the building and the occupants, but that doesn't now, he says, the museum will not focus CONTRIBUTORS always get any LEED credit. But if we put in a bike rack we get on artifacts, but on how movies are made GREG GOLDIN / GUNNAR HAND / AMARA HOLSTEIN/ JULIE KIM / ALLISON MILIONIS/ JOHN PASTIER/ three points," the same architect complained. and the impact of cinema. It has named LAURI PUCHALL/CRAIG SCOTT / ALISSA WALKER/ Maryland-based Gallagher & Associates to I think you may well want to question the sincerity of a com• design the museum's exhibition spaces. EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD pany that so aggressively uses green as a tool for obtaining higher SAM LUBELL FRANCES ANDERTON / STEVE CASTELLANOS / ERIN CULLERTON/TEDDY CRUZ/MIKE DAVIS/ profits and getting more exposure. Sure, it's a good problem to NEIL DENARI/BETTI SUE HERTZ/BROOKE HODGE/ CRAIG HODGETTS/WALTER HOOD/DAVID MECKEL/ have. At least the buildings are green. But you wonder, for KIMBERLI MEYER / JOHN PARMAN / instance, about the amount of trees they've cut down to print the ROGER SHERMAN/WILLIAM STOUT/ WARREN TECHENTIN/HENRY URBACH press releases letting everyone know how sustainable they are. Just because a building is green doesn't mean it's ft^ee fi-omsin . GENERAL INFORMATION: INF0(5)ARCHPAPER.C0M EDITORIAL: EDITOR^iARCHPAPER.COM New green condos are kicking out existing populations with ADVERTISING: DDARLING®ARCHPAPER.COM their high price tags. A new green BP gas station in Los Angeles WEST COAST ADV: FMDMEDIA(!>SPACESALES.COM SUBSCRIPTION: SUBSCRIBE(?iARCHPAPER.COM serves good old-fashioned unleaded, instead of bio-diesel. And REPRINTS: [email protected] then there's the biggest question of all: How green can a building
VOLUME 01, ISSUE 06 OCCCMBER 12. 2007. THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER'S be if it's built from scratch? The greenest building employs the CALIFORNIA EDITION (ISSN 1952-80811 IS PUBLISHED SIX TIMES A YEAR (FEBRUARY, MAY. JULY, AUGUST, OCTOBER, DECEMBER) BY THE existing building fabric, rather than exploiting new materials ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER. LLC, 21 MURRAY ST, 5TH FU NEW YORK. NY 10007. SEND ADDRESS CHANCE TO: 21 MURRAY ST., STH FL., NEW YORK, NY 10007. FOR SUBSCRIBER SERVICE: CALL 2l2-»6e-0«30. FAX 2I2-9M-0633. and resources, no matter how green they are. S3.95 A COPY. S2S.0O ONE YEAR, INTERNATIONAL SAO.OO ONE YEAR. INSTITUTIONAL SSO.OO ONE YEAR. ENTIRE CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 2006 BY THE ARCHITECrS NEWSPAPER, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. In the end green building shouldn't be a marketing coup.
PLEASE NOTIFY US IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE COPIES. THE VIEWS WWW. OF OUR REVIEWERS AND COLUMNISTS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT It shouldn't even be a big deal. Everybody should build green. It THOSE OF THE STAFF OR ADVISORS OF THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER. FOR REPRINTS. E-PRIHTS AND RELATED ITEMS CONTACT should be the starting point for every project, not the crowning PARS INTERNATIONAL TEL 212-22I-9595: FAX 212-221-9191; WWW.MACREPRINTS.COM/aUICK0U0TEJkSP. achievement. ARCHPAPER. COM
MORE UPGRADES NEEDED as the unique proposition that they no Sacramento—the Coalition for Adequate CORRECTIONS Regarding "Smart Thinking" {CAN doubt are. The problem is quite a bit greater School Housing to understand the forces In Eavesdrop (CAA/05_10.24.2007), we incor• 05_10.24.2007), it should come as no than l_AUSD admits, the absence of design at work. While we expect excellence from rectly stated that Jennifer Caterino was leaving surprise that the largest school district in excellence in school design is redolent our students, apparently adequacy is all we FORM magazine t^o months after it launched. California would find it more expedient to throughout the state. You need look no aspire to in our places of education. She left six months after it launched, and pnor accrue to standardization in the design of further than the pnmary lobbying/ CHARLES A. HIGUERAS, AlA to that had been involved with Balcony Press, its new schools rather than approach each advocacy group for K-12 schools based in OAKLAND, CA its parent company for two years.
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THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007 LIFE'S NOT SO GRAND Well, October came and went and despite earlier announcements, if our keen ^H Eavesdrop eyesight serves us correctly, the Grand Avenue project in downtown i— Los Angeles has still not broken ground. Where, oh where to place the blame ID O now? Some say civic bureaucracy, some say steel costs, but we don't buy either CQ of those excuses since AEG's L.A. Live seems to be progressing guite nicely just down the street. We do know that the designers are starting to feel the pinch. Our top-level informants tell us that Gehry Partners have put a freeze on hiring, LU a first in at least the last decade at the firm. And that was before the whole Q. lawsuit from MIT citing "design flaws" in his Stata Center building. Meanwhile, O Q. Gehry himself was shilling for Audi's new Cross Cabriolet Ouattro at the L.A. Ol Auto Show. We hear you can pick up some serious cash in those spokesman gigs. Ql
CO SCI-ARC TENT CITY > BISAZZA 8371 Melrose Avenue, > No, those people sleeping in SCI-Arc's parking lot in early November weren't Los Angeles < students down on their luck, they were actually four artists recruited to inhabit LU Tel: 323-782-9171 experimental structures built by instructor Stephanie Smith's design studio, Designer: Bisazza Design Studio lana Ouesnell, Alex Neroulias, Jelani Haywood, and Aaron Garber-Maikovska occupied the scaffold-like aluminum shelters for ten days, and were challenged Looking right at home alongside the Marc Jacobs and Diane von to manipulate their dwellings to explore the architecture of temporary living Furstenherg boutiques, and with nods to fellow design newbie Moss Los situations. Ouesnell, a Tijuana-based artist, spent all ten nights in the downtown Angeles iust across the street, Italian tile and mosaic company Bisa//.a"s parking lot foraging in the SCI-Arc trash for bedding materials, bathing in a new showroom is the latest retail space to bridge and blur the relatit)nship bucket shower of her own design, and using discarded sawblades to keep rats between design and fashion on this now-notable strip of Melro.se. Bisazza from climbing into her living room. Although her past work has included living Design Studio, a group of around i8 young designers headed by Italian in her truck and a stint in a tent in Bosnia, Ouesnell described the situation as architect (.'arlo Dal Bianco, designed the space, as well as Bisazza's intense. "The first five days were a blast," she said, "but by the sixth day I was products and accessories, which are also sold at the stt)re. Dal Bianco's finished." The structures will remain up until November 30. choice of appointments and furnishings take design cues from through• out the 2o"' century, resulting in a modern setting. Mirrored tiles LONELY LONELY LAUTNER encircle pillars like classy disco balls, a black-and-white graphic inspired by bricish optical patterns runs the length of the floor, while silver tiles World-famous mid-century modern structure. Seminal work by leading architect. arranged into florals in the living room create a look evocative of flocked Reduced to $495,000. That's the reality in Desert Hot Springs, where a 1947 John Lautner motel can't sell to save its life. Sure, the four-unit property, which wallpaper. Ten Marie .'\ntoniette chandeliers, made from Bisazza glass went on the market after former owner Steve Lowe died suddenly in January, tiles, sink low into the rooms, tossing even more glitter against the walls. could use some work, but what gives? Tony Merchell, who managed the motel as "We like to be seen as a lu.xury item," said Dal Bianco. "And we know recently as 2005, and now manages April Greiman and Michael Rotundi's that our customers are some of the .same ladies who shop at Marc Jacobs Miracle Manor nearby, says it's actually because the neighborhood is just really and Diane Vim l-urstcnbeii;." ALISSA WALKER ...unattractive. "This neighborhood is basically no better or worse than other Desert Hot Springs neighborhoods, it's just kinda ugly," he said, describing the immediate area as speculative development, infill houses, vacant lots, and trailer parks. He says people who are familiar with the Julius Shulman photos showing the motel surrounded by 160 empty acres are scared away when they come to see the property. But once you get inside, says Merchell-who has slept in all four rooms-none of that matters. "All the windows and views are to the sky. It's like looking into another world." SEND TIPS, GOSSIP, AND PARTY SOUVENIRS TO SLUBELL " AHCHPAPER.COM
HEARST CASTLES continued from front page 1108 South Hill Street and 1201 South Main The move effectively pushed forward the Street, will include a 24-story, 268-unit long-delayed scheme, which is being devel• building on the site of the old Herald oped by Hearst Communications and—very Examiner Press Building and a 37-story, significantly— includes construction of two 319-unit building, which will be built at the nearby condominium towers by Morphosis. site of a former parking lot. Hearst would The original EIR had been adopted not release renderings, but according to the in October 2006, but was appealed by EIR both buildings will draw on the heavy Conquest Student Housing, a company that structural grid of the Herald Examiner provides student housing at nearby USC. building for inspiration. For example, the The November 6 council measure denied Hill Street building will have a concrete that appeal. wall structural system, continuous concrete The Mission Revival-style Herald Examiner balconies, and exterior materials that could building, at 1111 South Broadway, has been include terra cotta, red cement fiberboard, closed since 1989, when the Hearst-owned pre-finished sheet metal, or glass fiber rein• newspaper folded. According to the EIR, the forced concrete. The towers are expected to renovated building will include 40,000 square be completed by 2009 and 2010. feet of office space and 20,000 square feet of The project is also set to include a 50- retail space. Preservation architect Brenda foot-wide landscaped courtyard between Levin, who has helped refurbish City Hall, the Herald Examiner Building and the SELUX offers an extended line of environmentally friendly the Wiltern Theater, and Grand Central new Hill Street building, and streetscape products including IDA approved "Dark Sky Friendly," Market, among other buildings, will oversee improvements including tree plantings, new LED light source and solar powered luminaire systems. the building's rehab. sidewalks, and a possible new landscape Morphosis' new towers, located on median along Broadway, SL
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THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007
SHOCKED, SHOCKED ABOUT LEAKS continued a lot of them are successful," he said. "The from front paqe interactions among faculty problem for architects," he continued, "is WSP CANTOR SEINUK and students in computing, information that they have to rely on other people like science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, structural engineers and construction man• STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS and philosophy. What critics called "daring" agers, and with many projects, architects are and "bold" at the time, MIT eventually found relieved of their duties during construction." to be nothing short of problematic. The Bolazina stressed that "architects need to lawsuit alleges "persistent leaks at various be very closely involved in the construction The First Diagrid High-Rise Buildin locations throughout the building," along phase of the project, maintaining communi• with "masonry cracking, efflorescence, and cation and attention throughout it.... More In The Americas poor drainage" in the amphitheater, and than 90 percent of these cases," he added, "mold growth" on the exterior elevations. "will be settled before they go to court, Calling the lawsuit a "great surprise and since most building professionals would lur innovative design resulted in 20% less disappointment," Gehry said, "I fully stand rather negotiate in arbitration, where they behind the center's design and have no rea• can deal with people who have knowledge steel construction than an equivalent son to believe that it contributed in any way of what the realities of construction are, and to the problems, which are relatively minor not a judge, who would have to determine conventional moment frame structure and easily addressed." a standard of care." In a 2004 Architectural Record interview This situation is by no means unique. No about the Stata Center's budget, which ran sooner had the opening festivities ended at approximately $85 million over its original Daniel Libeskind's Denver Art Museum than S200 million estimate, Gehry said, "we value- construction crews were on its roof repair• engineered, cut things, bit bullets." He is ing the building's many leaks. And Frank now suggesting that the "cut things" include Lloyd Wright's legacy is famously subject to devices that would have prevented leaking. routine patchwork. r/7../i The leaks—at least 38 of them—were first Signifying the issue's longstanding reported in the Boston Globe in October, just importance, one of the earliest written six months after the official opening on May 1. legal documents, Hammurabi's Code from In repairs done in 2006 and 2007, MIT ancient Babylon, specifically addresses the ripped up the brick amphitheater to install issue—but with higher stakes. It specifies a drainage mat beneath the brick at a cost of that "if a builder build a house... and this $1.5 million. The university is now seeking house which he has built collapses and Hearst Headquarters "'^'-j^iij an unspecified amount for that procedure causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder should be put to death." It also First building to receive a Gold LEEO certified rating for "core and shell and Interiors" in New York City. and for other necessary repairs. Chicago-based Dennis Bolazina, who says that if an architect "does not make its
EAST COAST OFFICE WEST COAST OFFICE LONDON OFFICE DUBAI OFFICE is licensed both in architecture and law, construction meet the requirements and a 228 East 45m Street 3ra Flooi 5301 Beethoven Street. Suite 26C Buchanan House SneiKn Zayea Roatt wall fall in, that builder shall strengthen that Ne%v Yortt. NY 10017 Los Angeles. CA 90066-7052 24-30 Hoiborn PO Box 54102 and who is a member of the AIA documents Tel ir!2i 687-9888 Tel (3101578-0500 London ECINTHS. UK •ul>ai. Unilea Arab Emirates committee, which monitors these issues, wall at his own expense." Thirty-eight hun• Fax (646)-t87-SS01 Fax. (310)578-1250 Tel -44 (0)20 7314 4666 Tel •'•971(0>4 321 1664 Fax +44 (0l20 7314 5001/4660 Fax -^71(0)4 321 1665 said "this is really not that unusual." dred years later, this is what MIT and Gehry "Frank Gehry does a lot of buildings, and must sort through, JOHNGENOALL
NOKIA CALLING continued lobby buzzing with LED pan• cameras and familiarity on a EXCLUSIVE els, the interior of the theater human scale, said Bob Hale, IMPORTER OF nt paq< Herbalife, studios for ESPN, a Grammy itself is understated, almost partner at Rios Clementi Hale, •iSraxnuL. museum, and a flurry of unfinished, meant to be alluding to more than 15 res• dining and entertainment a neutral backdrop for the idential towers completed TITANIA: tenants. A 54-story tower performers (it's described by or under construction within STAINLESS STEEL designed by Gensler will the designers as the "biggest walking distance of the plaza. serve as the anchor hotel black box in the country"). "For certain events it will for the convention center, The theater blends the raw be the center of LA, but on a including residential units, energy and high-end pro• day-to-day basis it's the town a 123-room Ritz-Carlton and duction capabilities of larger square for that part of South an 878-room J. W. Marriott. venues—the stage measures Park," remarked Hale, who AEG, the sports and enter• 14,000 square feet, one of also said that developers tainment corporation that the largest in the U.S.—with would like to bring a green- also owns Staples Center, is the intimacy of a concert hall. market to the plaza as just serving as developer for the "No seat is further than 220 one of its many uses, from project, which is estimated feet from the stage," says red carpet arrivals to cultural at $2.5 billion. Berkeley- ELS principal Kurt Schindler. festivals. For special events, based ELS Architecture "Seating is designed with the plaza itself can convert designed the 260,000- a comfort level that exceeds into an entertainment venue, square-foot, 7,100-seat an arena and approaches a aided by an electronic infra• Nokia Theatre. The 40,000- performance theater." structure that allows "plug square-foot plaza surround• and play" audio-visual capa• More important to the ing the theater was designed bilities, and the six towers exterior are the throbbing by Rios Clementi Hale Studio which can further support LED panels that plaster the of Los Angeles. filming, projection, or per• building, giving it that healthy formance space. The plaza glow. These had to be dis• Designed to complement is flanked by landscaping, tinctive from the air, as the the Staples Center, the including planters that pro• Nokia-Staples complex will Nokia's exterior uses a vide places to sit and gather serve as the centerpiece of ARCHITECTURAL STAIRS THAT MOVE similar palette of materials, while shaded by canopies of the "blimp shot" for broad• including metal panels, plane trees. Rios Clementi THE BODY, MIND AND SOUL. casting events. A similar concrete, and glass, which Hale's design will continue consideration had to be made will in turn be referenced to be implemented to visually for the plaza, where an ele• in other elements at L.A. unite the entire L.A. Live gant graphic paving pattern da Vinci Live. Beyond the drama of complex. AW lends richness for television BY DESIGN a three-story glass-fronted 888 STAIRS-9 daVincibyDesign.com WWW.ARCHPAPER.COM VALCUCINE: THE LEADER IN SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FOR OVER 25 YEARS Recyclable Non-Polluting Innovative Low Maintenance User Friendly Superior Quality Crafts• manship Safety Conscious High Technology Resource Management Responsible Manufacturing Showroom and dealership inquiries: 800.311.0681 vvww.valcucinena.com
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In contrast to art museums distinctive forms of helped shape the design, CULVER CITY-BASED WHY ARCHITECTURE'S GRAND RAPIDS ART MUSEUM in Milwaukee, Akron, and expression. though Yantrasast insists other depressed midwestern The museum is set at an that sustainability is largely cities that commissioned angle to a main downtown a matter of common sense. starchitects to create eye• artery and is partially Wherever possible, the catching structures in the obscured by the silver building is constructed
III! hope of achieving the birches and grassy knolls of of locally sourced, recycled, • Ill Bilbao effect. Grand Rapids Maya Lin's adjacent elliptical and recyclable materials. selected an emerging park. Fingers of the museum Seventy percent of the Culver City firm to design extend into the greenery, building is naturally lit, a sober—and sustainable— and a reflecting pool and dry but the light is baffled and I I n I: showcase for art. The new garden provide additional filtered to reduce heat gain Grand Rapids Art Museum exposure for the adminis• and protect the art works. (GRAM) opened in October trative wing, axial lobby, Aluminum louvers, optimally Built by Workshop Hakomori and restaurant. These open angled to open up views Yantrasast Architecture and green spaces mediate and block sun, cover the (wHY), it is an airy, light-filled between the bustle of the extensive glazing. cluster of poured concrete city and the serenity of the Back in Los Angeles, and glass boxes, tied togeth• galleries, which open off wHY is designing a house in er with a boldly jutting the lofty skylit lobby and Hollywood that is wrapped canopy and crowned with extended flights of stairs in a continuous band, like a trio of glass lanterns. The to two upper levels. Each a strip of film; converting project is just one of many gallery is harmoniously pro• a mid-century Culver City for a firm that seems des• portioned and lit in a differ• warehouse into a photo stu• tined to be future starchi- ent way—most dramatically dio; building a spa in Santa tects themselves. on the third floor, where vis• Monica; and creating the Kulapat Yantrasast, who itors look up into the softly "Art Bridge," a footbridge founded wHY in 2003, was glowing lanterns as though over the Los Angeles River project architect for Tadao they were James Turrell that will double as a viewing Ando's highly acclaimed sky spaces. The cool light platform for the Great Wall Fort Worth Art Museum, and is warmed by the white oak of Los Angeles mural (the there are obvious affinities floors, upper-level stairs, longest mural in the world). between the two buildings. and cabinetry. WHY is also redesigning What's remarkable is how Peter Wege, the former existing galleries at the quickly Yantrasast, who CEO of Steelcase, gave the Chicago Art Institute, in con• worked with Ando for seven lead grant of $20 million for junction with Renzo Piano's years and continues to col• the new building on condi• addition. laborate with the Japanese tion that it be green. The MICHAEL WEBB master, has found his own quest for a Gold LEED rating
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NEUTRA'S RECENTLY RE SE FOR SALE Pier 3 Cruise Ship Dock Canopy San Juan, Puerto Rico Ray Architects and Engineers
LANDMARK ON THE BLOCK
On Halloween, Christie's announced that house came from. one of Richard Neutra's best known build• Though a house comprised largely of ings would be the next high profile house to glass might not seem ideal for a desert hit the auction block. The Kaufmann House, setting, Radziner defends Neutra's design, built for department store magnate Edward pointing out that the house was meant only Kaufmann in 1946, will be auctioned on as a winter residence. The rest of the year, May 13 as part of a sale of postwar and the Kaufmanns lived outside of Pittsburgh WEIDLINGER ASSOCIATES® INC contemporary art. The current owners. in the house designed for them by Frank CONSULTING ENGINEERS Brent and Beth Edwards Harris, bought Lloyd Wright, Falling Water. the house in 1993 for $1.5 million and went Christie's, which assigned the Kaufmann about restoring it to its original design, House a sale estimate of $15-25 million, has WAI.COM I NEW YORK NEW JERSEY MASSACHUSETTS WASHINGTON OC CALIFORNIA NEW MEXICO SCOTLAND UK obscured by several additions over the auctioned other landmark buildings, most years. The couple are in the process of getting notably Pierre Koenig's Case Study House a divorce and selling off assets. No. 21, which sold for $11.1 million in 2006. Ron Radziner, a principal at Marmol Sotheby's sold Mies van der Robe's Radziner and Associates, the firm that Farnsworth House, located an hour south• restored the Kaufmann House for the west of Chicago, to the National Trust for OJ TECTUS Harrises, recalls doing a full year of Historic Preservation for $7.5 million in 2003. 3 research before any physical work began. Radziner notes that location works in the in The architects worked with Beth Harris, c favor of the Kaufmann House. "I do think a who earned her PhD in architecture history this is very different from the Farnsworth 01 from UCLA, to come up with what Radziner E ~D House sale, which is in a location that a O m calls "restoration methodologies for vanous lot of people don't want to live in, whereas E components of the house," including every• T3 this house is in the most beautiful part of C thing from the crimped sheet metal to the C Palm Springs." white concrete floors. He likened the job to — Modern houses have sold at auction at working on an archaeological site: Over the o considerably higher prices than they would a» years, the house had been doubled in size z have yielded if sold on the real estate market. with various additions that needed to be removed before the architects could see the But deeming a house "art" doesn't always original contours. But when they got there, work: In 2005, the owners of the Umbrella House by Paul Rudolph asked Sheldon C Radziner says, "All that was left was a carcass, o a skeleton, but you could tell how beautiful Good & Company to auction the 1953 house •/I c it was, you could feel the shape again." and considered an important example of a,' mid-century modern in Sarasota, Florida, E Julius Shulman immortalized the house— where today many Rudolph buildings face and Southern California modernist chic— demolition. There were no buyers to meet in a 1947 photograph that featured Mrs. the $1.2 million opening bid. It eventually — Kaufmann lounging at the pool. Arguably, sold to exhibition designers Vincent and 0 it set off a craze for SoCal style that culmi• Julie Ciulla, who purchased it through nated—and crashed—in sitcom heaven. Is it a realtor. That house is now open to the any surprise that the Brady Bunch patriarch public. "As long as we're dressed," Vincent ~0 c was an architect? Ciulla says, "we let them in." After seeing the restoration by Radziner Whether or not the Kaufmann House and his partner, Leo Marmol, Shulman will be available for public viewing remains pronounced the current house an improve• a question, but Radziner agrees with Beth ment on the original. He takes some credit Harris, who believes that the likely buyer for the job: "My photos were instrumental will love the house specifically because it in recreating the house." Though the archi• is a Neutra design and will likely preserve it. tects didn't have access to the original plans, And if one blog. Radar, has it right, the they pieced together the design by studying available through craze for mid-century modern has shed its Shulman's photographs and correspon• sitcom tackiness forever—they report that dence between Neutra and the Kaufmanns. there are rumors Brad Pitt might be eyeing Letters revealed critical information like index- the Palm Springs landmark. His agent had where in Utah the stone Neutra used for the no comment, anoela starita 00 O
THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007
SEATTLE- HUN WINS WITH URBAN FARM BUILDING
UNVEILED The 12-unit building, which will include 2,800 square feet of commercial space and 12 loft-style condos, will be organized around CHEROKEE LOFTS a central, landscaped courtyard, while its Santa Monica-based architects Pugh -•• facade will be clad in perforated metal panels Scarpa broke ground in early December with varied openings and designs to create In today's urban housing market, the draw Mithun named their live/farm project the on Cheroi
Art and architecture dance around grates, and polished concrete floors. The architect has no say, and vice each other in subtle ways all the time The upper levels have bamboo flooring, versa," he added. in Los Angeles, but lately, a few new a gas fireplace, and solar panels. On Across town, in the heart of bustling architectural projects have brought art the street level, giant glass windows Koreatown, April Greiman's oil painted to the forefront. were designed to pivot horizontally and video image covers 8,200 square feet Venice developer Frank Murphy open onto the street, creating a rela• on two sides of Arquitectonica's newly recently opened three artist lofts by tionship with life on the buzzing side• completed six-story mixed-use building Culver City-based Equinox Architecture walk. on Wilshire Boulevard. The piece is at 1212 Abbot Kinney Boulevard, in the According to Murphy, who has com• a Percent for Art project through LA's midst of the street's trendy retail area. missioned artists for many buildings, Department of Cultural Affairs. The The most notable detail is a striking the art has caused more of a stir than image was derived from video footage mural by artist Elaine Carhart that spans usual. "I got more calls about this shot in the surrounding neighborhood. the 60-foot facade of the building. mural—people either loving it or hating From a distance the geometrical orange, red, green, and blue work Carhart's colorful mural, with its it," he admitted. "I like to create that spans across two buildings and subtly orange background and celebratory sort of tension between the art and reveals itself as a bowl of rice. Unlike images, depicts "the pastimes that make the architecture. And I love it when the the mural in Venice, the piece was a for the material good life." Her influences community weighs in. It means we've collaboration. "April was fabulous. ^ include traditional Portuguese and done something right." Murphy's build• We're very pleased with her concept % Turkish tilework along with Japanese ings are unusual in an era where com• and technical execution," said Dan g Ukiyo-e prints, which tell stories. mittees and boards often qualify art that Rosenfeld of Urban Partners. "All the 5 Equinox's Jim Gelfat designed the is incorporated into new buildings. Both ingredients, the artist, the architect, u 3,500-square-foot modern boxes with the architect and artist sign a contract, our business requirements, and the 5 a nod to raw materials. The steel and which makes them mutually exclusive. Koreatown community made for a > glass exterior mirrors the interior space, "I'm the builder and it feels good to fascinating process." i which includes industrial steel staircas- make a canvas where someone can cre• ate art with complete creative freedom. Elaine Carhart's mural on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. § es, second-floor catwalks made of steel KIMBERLY STEVENS 00 3 LU
main university stacks. The total budget, including site clearing, was $46.4 million. The McCarthy Building Companies were the main project contractors. The 68,000-square-foot, concrete- framed building is partially clad in granite— NTERNAT ONAL imported from China—that extends down to People Helping People cover the base on the right side of the south CODE COUNCIL Build a Safer World"' facade. Glazing on this south side, like on the east and west sides, is shaded by monumental bronze screens cast in China. The screens vaguely allude to traditions of POSITIVELY EFFECT Asian etchings and woodcarvings, said the architects, with staggered rectangles and BERKELEY GETS A NEW EAST ASIAN branching patterns that evoke cracked ice. PUBLIC SAFETY STUDIES LIBRARY TWBTA respected a certain sense of order regarding the campus' neo-classical core, "engaging it and being part of the Glade, not Attend EAST MEETS WEST dominating it," according to Tod Williams. The University of California at Berkeley For example, the firm was required to incor• 2008 ICC Codes sits directly across San Francisco Bay from porate a California colonial-style clay roof. the narrow passage to the Pacific Ocean. The architects harmonized this and other Forum and Code This "Golden Gate" is a threshold between constraints into their design. "From a worlds: the Americas, the West, and the cul• distance, you can see it as part of the neo• Development tures of Asia and the Pacific. Frederick Law classical context but from up close that roof Olmsted recommended an axis that pointed disappears due to the cornice and it becomes Hearings directly to this gateway in his early study much more abstract. Then, as you begin to of the former College of California in 1866. engage it inside, it's visceral," said Williams. February 17-March 1 Later, in deference to Olmsted, campus Because of the site's hilly topography, he CODES FORUM Palm Springs, California planner John Galen Howard placed a second continued, "the interior becomes a part of axis parallel to Olmsted's, through what the landscape of the hill, or the hill becomes has become today's historic campus core. a part of the interior of the building." Many REGISTER NOW! Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects external forces are resolved in the interior www.iccsafe.org/codesforam (TWBTA), whose office sits across from one of the building. Once you're moving around of Olmsted's greatest projects, New York's inside, a slight turn reveals a dramatic Central Park, have now entered this legacy sky-lighted staircase of cantilevered stone with a recently completed building along treads traveling the entire height of an Howard's axis on the Berkeley campus. atrium. The central axis of the building gets The building will look to the east in another treated as an in-between zone that organiz• way: The free-standing C. V. Starr East Asian es foot traffic to the north and south sides. It Library also houses the broader interdisci• also acts as a podium from which to experi• plinary Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian ence both the glade and the slope on either Studies, of which the library is part. side. A reading room on the north of this axis is clad with a vast expanse of glass Wood-Mode, the leading custom cabinet The building is named for the late that receives cool north light, while at night philanthropist Cornelius Vander Starr, a m LU THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12. 2007 + SUNSET PLAZA RESIDENCE (2008) UJ LU _J CD s: LU CO C/) <: CO > o I— CO THE RESERVE(2009) Assembledge+, founded in 199H by HolJywood- condominium on the site. They did just that, with any given time. "It's definitely become a big part born.Tulane-trained architect David Thompson, their friend Thomas Harp, an .MBA at Wharton of our office," said Thompson. "We don't have a combine.s minimal but warm, edgy, and sophisti• who was vice president of principal investments ton of time to look for projects. It takes a lot to be cated architecture, with a nose for real estate that's for Buchanan Street Partners, a California- a developer and a lot to be an architect. Having Tommy as a partner makes it doable." rare in the business. based real estate investment bank. They are now That shrewdness came rather by accident, developing a seven-unit building in Larchmont Meanwhile the firm is assembling an impressive thanks to one very interesting project. Back in Village that should be completed by next summer. architectural portfolio that includes condo build• 2005, Thompson s wife, lamie, a real estate broker Meanwhile Harp now works with the firm as a ings, single-family houses, a library, and even a at Prudential, tipped him off that one of her clients partner, finding properties throughout California resort in Costa Rica. "It's been like wildfire," said was going to sell a house in Larchmont Village, for the firm to turn around or build from scratch, Thompson of the firm's success. "Really ama/ing." where the Thompsons live. They wondered if they and Thompson remains committed to having at SL should buy it and try to develop a multi-family least one major development project in process at CO m COMMERCE LIBRARY(2009) RIDGEWOOD RESIDENCE (2006) SUNSET PLAZA RESIDENCE (2008) THE RESERVE(2009) COMMERCE LIBRARY(2009) RIDGEWOOD RESIDENCE (2006) Located on a flat site above the Sunset Strip in the The Reserve is an eco-friendly development of In renovating the City of Commerce's Central The Ridgewood Residence, in Larchmont, Hollywood Hills, this 5,000-square-foot house opens 24 single-family units within the lush jungle Library, situated in a 1960s warehouse, the firm somehow fits perfectly into a block full of up to the landscape, with spacious balconies, large overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the small town uncovered a series of three north-facing Craftsman houses. The modernist-inspired house glass walls, and impressive views of Hollywood. of Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. The developer is Los sawtooth skylights that had been covered up was built using an interesting combination of The house's simple, interlocking forms, L-shaped Angeles-based Dan Nathanson. The development and left unused. The firm's design exposes and natural, local materials, dynamic patterning, a plan (arranged around a long pool), and warm will use natural, local materials for building highlights these apertures, using their form, blur in the distinction between outside and inside, material palette evoke a clean, rational approach and pervious materials for surfacing. Low-lying as well as that of the warehouse's trusses, for and creative space-maximizing. Materials include reminiscent of the early modernist homes in and dug into the ground, the building will "try inspiration. The minimal design will maximize sustainably-harvested cedar and smooth plaster, the area by Schindler, Neutra, and other architec• to make a minimal impact on the landscape," says natural light and open space, celebrating the form while the garage is made of a combination of tural legends. Most of the first floor is glazed, Thompson. The community will likely rely on elec• of the original building. "We want to keep it pretty colorful, medium density overlay panels, creating making the timber and concrete-clad upper floor tric vehicles, says Thompson. Like the Ridgewood simple and pretty clean," says Thompson of the a sense of movement. Large glass doors slide past appear light, as if it were afloat. house, the open floorplan along with the full wail library, on which the firm is working with Dallas- solid walls to allow the interior spaces to transition of sliding glass will allow the jungle terrain and the based Providence Architecture. The scheme will to the outside, A second-floor deck stretches out inside living spaces to blend together. play with color and art and will be open and over the garage and spills into the yard, and other flooded with light. decks project out from the master bedroom and a bedroom for the couple's daughter. ARCHITECTS NEW YORK ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN WWW.ARCHPAPER.COM REGISTERED ARCHITECTS IN THE NORTHEAST AREA ARCHITECTS ARCHITECT'S ARCHITECTS (NY. NJ, CT. PA, MA, MP, DE, RI AND DC) FREE. SEE WHAT WEST COAST ARCHITECTS ARE UP TO, ——-« j^^^ SUBSCRIBE TO THE CALIFORNIA EDITION FOR $25! •Must provide RA number m 1^ RA number • 1 year i 2 years J CA 1 year $39 FREE!* $69.95 $25 Q Institutional Canada/Mexico [ International $75 $149 $160 INDUSTRY JOB FUNCTION FIRM INCOME Mail tilis form with a check payable to: The Architect's Newspaper, LLC. The Architect's Newspaper, 21 Murray St., 5"' Floor New York, NY 10007 C Academic •Academic • Under $500,000 ref. 12.12.2007 • Architecture •Architect "_$500.000 to 1 million • Construction • Designer •$1 to 5 million Name Date • Design •'Draftperson • +$5 million Company ll Engineering •Firm Owner EMPLOYEES Address • Government •Government • 1-4 • Interior Design •intern City/State/Zip Code •5-9 • Landscape Architect •Managing Partner Email Phone • 10-19 • Planning/ Urban Design •Project Manager •20-49 RA License Number • Real Estate/ Developer •Technical Staff • 50-99 Credit Card Number Exp. Date • Media •Student • 100-249 SIGNATURE REQUIRED • Other DOther •250-499 00 N^- UJ THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007 CO i- o LU H- in < o LU oi A LU Z) CO CO M UJ UJ co| z> o Clockwise from top left: The roof-top penthouse sits on a converted concrete warehouse in San Francisco; the angular structure is clad in Cor-ten steel; clear qiass wraps the master bedroom suite; on the level below, an interior courtyard opens to the sky; the kitchen; the living room with a view of the dense pattern of a wooden joist celling. Amy Shimer and Jason Shelton, a young apartment its name: the Grasshopper, "I probably wouldn't have made that deci• views. From here you can see the pent• professional couple with two children, because, as Fougeron pronounced, it's sion if it were my house," she continued. house, and those in the penthouse can used to live in a single-family home in "like a grasshopper that landed on the On the second floor, which contains the see you. Fougeron says the clients plan Granada, California, about 40 minutes roof." The steel-framed structure contains kitchen, living room, children's, and guest to add landscaping to this space, which south of San Francisco. They loved having the couple's elegant master bedroom, rooms, Fougeron made the most of the already has a drainage system. A black lots of space, but were sick of the suburbs. shower, and bathroom. Its angular shape airy space, with its 8-foot-tall ceilings sculptural stairway made of angled steel So they asked San Francisco architect flares out dramatically, making it some• and huge bank of north-facing windows, fins that cantilever from a central steel Anne Fougeron to build them a huge loft what reminiscent of the rooftop stairway creating an open-planned living room beam seems to float between floors. in the city. Really huge. enclosures found on top of many San divided only by existing concrete columns. Meanwhile, on the ground level, But finding a loft of the size they Francisco buildings; except it's clad in In the kitchen, rough concrete walls and Fougeron built her own office, moving required wasn't easy. In fact they never Cor-ten steel and crystal-clear glass, pro• floors contrast with shiny resin floors, there about a year ago, well before the found anything big enough, so they viding the rooms with fantastic vistas, but sleek Carrara marble countertops, and apartment was finished. Now she can added a rooftop structure to a two-story also making them visible from all around. tall resin varnished cabinets. To eliminate visit the new masterpiece whenever she concrete-framed warehouse space in San "They have their own ideas about what dark recesses in the loft, Fougeron cut wants (or at least whenever the clients Francisco's South of Market area. Their it means to live in an urban environment through the ceiling and inserted a glass- let her), and reflect on what she's done: total new space is a whopping 4,800 where they don't feel a need for privacy. enclosed, pebble-floored inner courtyard "It's got familiar elements, but we really square feet. If they're comfortable with it, I'm comfort• that opens to the sky, affording plenty of updated the loft typology," said The new rooftop penthouse gives the able with it," said Fougeron, of the clients. natural light, ventilation, and interior Fougeron. SL (?A6o|OuqD9i lAlia P^^N Incorporate BIM technology when the client and project demand- without turning your firm upside down VectorWorks Architect's approach to Building Information Modeling (BIM) lets you improve your design process instead of trying to replace it. Design the way you want with technology that allows you to work faster while reducing drawing errors-but keeps you in total control. Link plans, elevations, sections, perspectives, reports and even rendered views, so a change to one updates the others. Export models via IPC to a growing selection of validation, analysis and construction programs. To learn more, call! -888-646-4223 or visit us at www.vectorworks.net/california VectorWorks Architect 2008-Flexible to Fit Your Workflow image courtesy of WMCRP Architects, Maryland VectorWorks im LJJ NO ZD I— < LU THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12. 2007 With all the hype surrounding be lit by incredibly hot lights sustainable building in order to survive. techniques, the decision to go "Normally we could just green seems like a no-brainer. throw cold air at it with fans But the decision is more and air conditioning," pointed complicated than most realize. out Brandon. "But not if we Each new green element, wanted LEED Platinum." from daylight maximization In order to keep the space to passive cooling, can affect from overheating, the firm other systems, often forcing developed an electronic changes that were never lighting and ventilation system anticipated. As more green that will control mechanical elements are added, more blinds and lower the tree- time and money must be related lights during the spent on making adjustments, day and blast them with and more potential conflicts light when occupants leave can arise. Light baffles and at night. The system will then vents can cause headaches automatically "flush the hot for acousticians; operable air out" in the morning before windows can cause headaches visitors arrive. The firm also for fire experts, and so on. had to limit the size of sky• AN sat down to discuss this lights to minimize natural issue with six architects and light, which went against engineers from a firm with the grain for Piano. He was plenty of experience in the also not pleased with the field: ARUP. The employees of fact that all windows could the firm's San Francisco office not be crystal clear low-e shared their enthusiasm for glass. Semi-tinted glass was sustainability, but were honest necessary to keep the space about its realities, which often from overheating as well. mean difficult compromises The team finally did reach between members of a a compromise with a combi• building team, whether lighting nation of clear and non-clear experts, acoustics experts, windows. architects, or engineers. In building green, they pointed GREEN = TOO QUIET? out, not everyone can be Happiness doesn't always made happy. come first. Green does. "Before you could just fix "People won't get every• a problem by throwing money thing they want. They'll get at it," said associate Pam enough," said Chris Fields, Brandon. "With green that's an acoustician who is working not the case. You've got to fit on another ARUP project, the it within certain parameters." Stanford Graduate School She noted that there have of Business, which the firm always been issues between developed with architects various building experts, but Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. That that energy and environmental project again sought passive design has forced everyone to heating and cooling, but this THE time in the form of chilled and "learn a new language." heated beams in its ceilings as well as a system of vents. PASSIVE HEATING AND UNINTENDED It was almost more trouble NATURAL LIGHT: than it was worth. GOOD IDEA, RIGHT? One of the firm's most- The use of passive cooling CONSEQUENCES publicized projects, the posed two major problems California Academy of with sound. First, the absence Sciences in San Francisco, of traditional HVAC systems OF is a good example. The can make the space too quiet. soon-to-be completed project, Fields points out, removing designed in collaboration what is usually a barely-audible with Renzo Piano Building white noise that helps you BUILDING Workshop, is aiming for concentrate when others a LEED Platinum rating. are gabbing on the phone or But achieving this standard crumpling paper. The firm will GREEN imposes challenges, especially likely install a noise generator when designing for a museum in the building to provide what where exhibition spaces need is called "acoustic masking." to be painstakingly regulated. The use of chilled and BY SAM LUBELL One of the biggest challenges heated beams poses another was trying to naturally problem. The subsequent condition the building with exposed concrete ceilings chilled and heated slabs, and decrease acoustic absorption, keep as much of the building so that sound can travel from as possible lit by natural light. one end of the room to another This is normally a simple producing a "whispering procedure, but not so easy wall" effect. The firm will likely when dealing with an atrium install metallic fins along the space full of trees that need to ceiling to break up this sound. < 111 or work with lighting designers install quieter fans, as well as The swelling green root (previous to produce lights that can a system of silencers on the page) at the California Academy perform the same function, fans' intake systems. of Sciences in San Francisco is nearing completion. Once it has said Fields. Other projects have posed grown in, nine native plant species similar challenges. An office will cover much of the roof (above). NATURAL LIGHT? the firm is developing in San The Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki NOT SO FAST. Francisco has experienced Environment and Energy Building Another challenging problems adhering to IBCC at Stanford (below) will feature an building at Stanford was fire code, because its operable eco-roof system, plus passive ventilation, solar collection, and the Department of Energy window system doesn't allow storm water management. Resources Engineering, smoke to be contained on a designed with BOORA single floor.The firm is vexed Architects of Portland. It by an attempt to develop clear has four atria fitted with cubicle dividers to enhance large rooftop vents that bring light; they need to somehow in natural light and cool air, ensure that these are as sound creating an airy, pleasant absorptive as cloth walls. In environment. the end the best way to cope, But all that natural splendor pointed out Kurt Graffy, an had a cost, this time for fire ARUP acoustician, is to think experts and acousticians. The of buildings more holistically problem, said Armin Wolski, from the start. "The old process an Arup Fire Safety Engineer, of working with blinders on just was that the large vents threw won't do it anymore," he said. the smoke management SAM LUBELL IS 4M'S CALIFORNIA system—large fans above EDITOR. these vents—out of whack by allowing their loud whir to be clearly heard inside the atria. Placing sound barriers over the vents caused problems by impeding airflow. The eventual solution was to • •• LU 00 r- < LLJ THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007 In Scotlsdale, Arizona, the Green Building Program awarded points to Will Bruder • Partners' live-work project, Loloma 5 (above) for its perforated aluminum shades and living ocotillo fence, among other contextually and environmentally sensitive features. Built Green awarded David Vandervort Architects a four star rating for a single family home (facing page) in Seattle—the firm's hometown. LJJ O I— < LU By now, you're probably familiar leaves the remaining 75 percent with puns like LEED leads the way without any guidance or incentives. or, better yet, LEEDing the Way. This inclusive point of view But just how true are they anymore forms a major difference between when there are so many other local green building programs and systems besides the LEED rating the USGBC's approach, which aims to determine a building's green to position LEED-certified buildings credentials? The fact that the United as exemplars of environmental States Green Building Council has efficiency. It's also the reason why taken overtwo years to roll out LEED the City of San Francisco chose for Homes (LEED-H), a program GreenPoint Rated over LEED-H for measuring the environmental standards last spring, when a friendliness of new single- and taskforce convened to draft a multi-family houses, has left the mandatory green building policy ratings market wide open for dozens for all new private residential of other smaller, more regionally development. (LEED standards will focused groups to draft their own still be used to measure commercial versions of residential green build• projects.) ing standards. On its own website, Some designers familiar with the USGBC reports that there are LEED's process are skeptical of the more than 70 local and regional city's choice. "As far as I can tell, green homebuilding programs GreenPoint [Rated] looks really nationwide. watered down compared to LEED Most of these groups are, like for Homes," said Mark Hogan, the USGBC, non-profit organiza• a designer at David Bakers and tions seeking to guide the for-profit Partners in San Francisco who has building industry down greener worked on housing projects seek• paths. Many of them also follow in ing both GPR and LEED-H ratings. the USGBC's footsteps by centering Yet these regional green building the evaluation and rating process programs suggest that the USGBC around a proprietary checklist, may have set the bartoo high. a long and highly technical ledger Many offer ways to certify green of things designers, developers, building newbies as well as incen• and homeowners can do and buy tives for those who have been at it to minimize their carbon footprints. for a while. They also account for A non-LEED checklist generally the fact that "green" is itself a rela• lowers the threshold for calling a tive term whose definition changes building "green." This may seem with geography and climate. counterintuitive, but some argue Which begs the question: What that LEED standards are too rigor• is the purpose of a nationwide ous—and the USGBC's rating program when the attention to process too complicated and cost• details—regional differences in ly—^to affect widespread change. climate, market conditions, and According to Tenaya Asan, the proximity to resources—that forms program manager for GreenPoint such a crucial part of what makes Rated, an offshoot of the Berkeley- a building sustainable is lacking? based organization Build It Green, Below are five West Coast rating only the top 25 percent of home- alternatives to LEED-H. builders have the right combination JULIE KIM IS A FREQUENT of wherewithal and resources to CONTRIBUTOR TO AN. attain LEED certification, which GREENPOINT RATED CALIFORNIA GREEN BUILDERS BUILT GREEN AUSTIN ENERGY RESIDENTIAL SCOTTSDALE GREEN BUILDING BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA SACRAMENTO,CALIFORNIA BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON GREEN BUILDING PROGRAM PROGRAM AUSTIN, TEXAS SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA Devised by Build It Green, a statewide An off-shoot of the Building Industry Built Green is affiliated with the Master Many of this program's requirements As the authors of Arizona's first green non-profit membership organization, Institute, the California Green Builder Builders Association of King and are aimed at incorporating efficient building program, the City of GreenPoint Rated (GPR) grew out of (CGB) program is geared toward devel• Snohomish Counties, a professional ways to cool buildings in Austin's hot Scottsdale has issued nearly 1,000 green building guidelines first devel• opers of 150- to 200-house subdivisions group that has been working with and humid climate. For new homes, residential green building permits since oped by Alameda County in 2000. Now in Sacramento, Bakersfield, and the local and state governments since 1909 this means awarding points for reduc• 1998. Like San Francisco, the city is in the form of a user-friendly checklist Central Valley. A CGB certification—^this to build affordable housing while also ing square footage, installing ceiling using LEED standards to evaluate new that awards points in five categories— program has no points or levels—calls protecting the environment. This pro• fans or fluorescent lights, and avoiding commercial projects, but has chosen energy, water, indoor air quality, and for 15 percent better energy efficiency gram's aim is accessibility; it only costs oversized air-conditioning systems. to institute a locally grown checklist to community—the guidelines are revised than the state's residential standard, between $50 and $150 to shepherd a Points can also be gained for guide the development of new single every few years to reflect changes in and a cut in water usage of 20,000 single- or multi-family project through installing a drainage and plumbing and multi-family housing. Title 24, the state of California's energy gallons. According to Justin Dunning, the certification process. system to recycle the estimated 45,000 The city's rating program offers code. Unlike the LEED rating system, the Green Builder program coordinator, It also requires builders or develop• gallons of rainwater that fall on an both entry-level and more advanced which awards silver, gold, and platinum more than 1,700 homes have been ers to follow a set of criteria to attain average-sized roof each year. Austin certifications, and encourages a "not- labels for every 15 points above their CGB-certified. and another 6,400 are the "Built Green" stamp of approval. Energy also awards bonuses for too-big" home approach by awarding minimum point requirement for basic in the pipeline. "We see our program Built Green allows builders seeking a planting buffalo grass, a slow-growing points for houses smaller than 3,000 certification, GPR doesn't go to extra as a win-win marketing tool tailored to one-, two-, or three-star rating to self- variety native to Central Texas, in lieu square feet, while subtracting points lengths to provide tiered ratings. California's unique environmental and certify their projects by completing the of the more commonly used turfgrass— for houses that are bigger. Also, to Instead, the strength of a particular market conditions," Dunning said. MBA's checklist and signing an and for meeting the city's "visability" keep interiors cool in Arizona's desert project's GPR rating is simply commu• Guidelines are grouped into five accompanying code of ethics. Four- requirements by locating a new resi• climate, the checklist recommends nicated through its score, which can categories—higher energy standards, and five-star ratings require verification dence within a quarter-mile of a public that windows comprise no more than range anywhere from 50 to 251 points. water conservation, wood conservation, by a third party. This can include transit stop, or within a half-mile of a 20 percent of the building envelope. As of October, eleven cities in the advanced ventilation, and construction such criteria as using small machines grocery store or park. Will Bruder + Partners achieved this by Bay Area had adopted GPR standards waste diversion. It costs $400 for a for excavation as at a single-family adding shade screens to its Loloma 5 as the required benchmark for new developer to apply for CGB certification, home designed by David Vandervort project in downtown Scottsdale. residential construction. Another seven, and $50 for every lot thereafter. Architects, including San Francisco, Monterey, and Palo Alto, have mandatory GPR programs in development. LU O < LU THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007 It is no wonder that what constitutes Director of Toxics Use Reduction Institute "green" is so hotly debated in architectural (TURI) in Lowell, Massachusetts, in order to circles when healthy building experts tell us move toward a sustainable world economy that some practices and products that pass we need to use fewer industrial materials for green are, quite frankly, greenwash. by a factor often. His book Materials Matter: Even worse, some are harmful. Toward a Sustainable Materials Policy caWs In search of clarity, an investigative corps for the elimination of "bioaccumulative, of scientists, architects, policy makers, and persistent, and toxic materials" within the building specialists are paying closer atten• next 50 years. tion to the relationships among material And lest we think it possible to offset culture, social justice, toxicity, and health— output through current recycling practices, both environmental and human. These architect William McDonough tells us to "green detectives" are developing sophisti• think again. He and co-author Michael cated tools and researching new materials Braungart, a chemist, write about reformu• to help architects address the full spectrum lating building materials to make them safer of issues surrounding materials selection. in their book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking Further, they are creating ways to ensure that the Way We Make Things. They tell us that green is also safe, healthy, and in all ways today's recycled content products, like floor• sustainable. ing made from old rubber tires or structural steel that can be melted and reformed, cre• Jack Geibig, a research chemist with ate toxic byproducts via material degradation degrees in both environmental and chemical i over time, or "down-cycling," or via dioxin engineering, directs the University of emissions, "an odd side effect for a suppos• Tennessee, Knoxville Center for Clean edly environmental process," they say. Products and Technologies. He received a $300,000 grant this summer from the The solution, according to McDonough, \ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Braungart, and Geiser, is to redesign Indus- I to analyze materials used in modular try to use less toxic materials from the start. | and prefabricated homes. In partnership Green detectives are making headway in with the Healthy Building Network (HBN), this department, but scrutiny of new a Washington D.C.-based environmental building materials is not in the purview watchdog organization, he will look at of most design professionals. To address | environmental and health impacts, tracking this problem, Tom Lent and Julie Silas of j materials from production through disposal. the HBN, in partnership with the Cascadia The goal is to develop a list of ecologically Green Building Council and the University sound construction materials for the manu• of Tennessee Center for Clean Products, are factured home industry. working to create a new tool, the Pharos Project, whose format is similar to the The interest in the environmental health of CONCERNED ARCHITECTS, SCIENTISTS, AND POLICY MAKERS ARE DETERMINED widely used online encyclopedia Wikipedia. prefabricated homes comes in the wake of TO MAKE SURE THAT GREEN MATERIALS AND PRODUCTS REALLY CONTRIBUTE It is expected to launch in summer 2008. Hurricane Katrina. There was public outcry TO SUSTAINABILITY. when unsafe levels of formaldehyde were According to Lent, Policy Director of the found in the Federal Emergency Management HBN, the Pharos Project will "help archi• Agency (FEMA) trailers used as emergency tects search for the best products with housing after the disaster. The Sierra Club the lowest impacts across environmental, conducted indoor air quality tests that health, and social justice issues." Pharos established a connection between the will assist in evaluating manufacturers' GREEN formaldehyde in 44 trailers with chronic claims and provide a forum for discussing health complaints from their occupants. products, he says. For starters, the Pharos website will include a database of over five Indeed, green detectives often take their hundred products prescreened by Geibig lead from environmental activists. A decade and his colleagues at the University of ago, Greenpeace recognized the connection Tennessee Center for Clean Products. While between PVC, dioxin emissions, and cancer. DETECTIVES Pharos is different from certification, it will Energy-efficient, vinyl-clad windows and evaluate existing certification programs, like wood-conserving vinyl flooring are often Greenguard and FloorScore, using a numer• BY LAURI PUCHALL touted as green products. With three-quar• ical ratings system. Most of these programs ters of all PVC used in building applications, are limited in scope, claims Lent. "The wide accounting for 30 million tons a year range of issues aren't all captured by existing worldwide, their safety is no small issue. certification," he says. For example, the The United States Green Building Council Green Label Plus program measures only (USGBC) has declared PVC toxic, and the VOC (volatile organic compounds) emissions. HBN is calling for phasing out the ubiquitous Other chemicals, like controversial phtha• material found in everything from furniture lates (semi-volatile organic compounds to wiring. Meanwhile environmentalists cite or SVOCs), are excluded. Pharos will rate a long laundry list of reasons to banish what materials based on 16 different categories they call the "most deadly plastic." Scientists or criteria, explains Geibig. link PVCs' phthalates to asthma, endocrine disruption, and cancer. In broadcasting a product's ranking on The Pharos Lens is a It is not the first time that a popular green multiple fronts like air quality, life cycle graphic wheel for measuring chemical has been blasted. Recently the assessment, and energy efficiency, other the environmental and HBN led a successful campaign against green detectives are steering industry in social performance of arsenic-treated wood, typically found in the the direction of ecological products and fair green materials. It is part pressure-treated wood used in playgrounds, practices. Geiser, through TURI, researches, of the Pharos Project, which tests, and promotes alternatives to toxic is attempting to reshape decks, and other outdoor applications. the principles that drive Because of HBN's efforts, the EPA has chemicals used in Massachusetts industries green building. A user- restricted the use of arsenic-treated wood. and communities. McDonough has his own generated wiki is in And as of 2004 pressure-treated wood "Cradle to Cradle" rating system. With only development at containing arsenic has been banned from a handful of products—from eco-flooring www.pharosproiect.net. U.S. residential construction. to sustainable surfboard wax—to date, its stringent requirements all speak to the Meanwhile, thousands of untested new dictum, "less is more." products and chemicals are unleashed each year. According to Kenneth Geiser, an LAURI PUCHALL IS A FREQUENT CONTRIBUTOR expert on environmental law and policy and TO AN. >- t- < THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007 DECEMBER WEDNESDAY 19 WEDNESDAY 9 SUNDAY 13 EXHIBITION OPENING FILM LECTURE SATURDAY 15 Visual Griots of Mali Sympathy for the Devil Mika Yoshitake EXHIBITION OPENINGS Fowler Museum of Art (Jean-Luc Godard, 1968), Murakami Greg Rose 308 Charles East Young Dr., 200 min. 3:00 p.m. New Landscapes Los Angeles 7:00 p.m. Museum of Hosfelt Gallery www.fowler.ucla.edu Bill Wilder Theater Contemporary Art 460 Clementina St., 10899 Wilshire Blvd., 250 South Grand Ave., Qd San Francisco Los Angeles Los Angeles JANUARY < www.hosfeltgallery.com www.hammer.ucla.edu www.moca.org WEDNESDAY 2 Gee Vaucher EXHIBITION OPENING THURSDAY 10 EXHIBITION OPENING Jack Hanley Gallery Mind LECTURE Liza Botkin 395-389 Valencia St., Exploratorium Lawrence Weschler 4260 Lankershim Blvd., San Francisco Robert Irwin Studio City Od 3601 Lyon St., San Francisco www.jackhanley.com www.exploratorium.edu 7:00 p.m. www.astudiogallery.com LU Museum of Contemporary CQ OF ALL THE PEOPLE IN ALL THE WORLD: Cory Arcangel, Michael THURSDAY 3 Art of San Diego WEDNESDAY 16 THE AMERICAS Bell-Smith, Joe Bradley, et al. Copley Building LECTURE EXHIBITION OPENING Skirball Cultural Center LU Bitten! Kofi Cole, Peter Cole, 1100 & 1001 Kettner Blvd., Margaret Russell 2701 North Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles Lightbox/Kim Light Gallery Ethan Turpin, San Diego So Chic: Glamorous Lives, LU Through December 30 2656 South La Cienega Blvd., Franco Mondini-Ruiz, et al. wvvw.mcasd.org Stylish Spaces Los Angeles Curiosities 11:00 a.m. In our information-saturated age, we're bombarded www.kimlightgallery.com Edward Cella Greywater Guerillas Pacific Design Center 7:00 p.m. 8687 Melrose Ave., with statistics, but they can be awfully abstract. Rice and Art+Architecture theater enliven the numbers in the hands of Stan's Cafe, Amy Sarkisian Flora Grubb Gardens West Hollywood East Figueroa St., a Birmingham, England-based theater troupe currently Sister 1634 Jerrold Ave., www.pacificdesigncenter.com Santa Barbara performing in the Skirball Cultural Center. Six lab coat-clad 437 Gin Ling Way, San Francisco www.edwardcella.com performers measure rice onto scales, forming piles large Los Angeles www.aiasf.org EXHIBITION OPENING and small, each grain symbolizing one of the 900 million www.sisterla.com Martin Hoener FRIDAY 4 people in North and South America. Juxtaposing statistics SATURDAY 12 Anna Helwing Gallery EXHIBITION OPENING such as the number of prisoners worldwide and the EXHIBITION OPENINGS 2766 S. La Cienega Blvd., Jeana Sohn Modern American Sculpture number of Americans residing in gated communities gives Miles Coolidge Los Angeles My Hands are Crispy Forum Gallery the show a delicate balance of humor and pathos. Having ACME. www.annahelwing.com Taylor De Cordoba 8069 Beverly Blvd., toured internationally from Copenhagen to Budapest, the 2660 South La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles 6150 Wilshire Blvd.. troupe sprinkles in statistics relevant to the show's current Los Angeles www.forumgallery.com Los Angeles THURSDAY 17 geographical demographic. For LA audiences, comparisons www.taylordecordoba.com www.acmelosangeles.com LECTURE range from the number of drivers on Interstate 405 to SATURDAY 5 Roy Arden that of celebrities whose stars have been stolen from the Helen Altman, Ed Blackburn, EXHIBITION OPENINGS Ian Cooper, Anna Craycroft 7:00 p.m. Hollywood Walk of Fame. Other factoids range further afield; Bill Burns, et al. Donald Urquhart Fiction Friction Billy Wilder Theater unlike a 2006 show at the same venue, which focused Generalized Anxiety Disorder Jack Hanley Gallery John White Cerasulo 10899 Wilshire Blvd., on the United States, this one also covers South America. Walter Maciel 945 Sun Mun Way, Sandroni.Rey Los Angeles The actors thrive on audience participation—if there's a 2642 South La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles 2762 South La Cienega Blvd., www.hammer.ucla.edu statistic you're dying to know, actors verify it using onstage Los Angeles www.jackhanley.com Los Angeles computers and incorporate the figures into the show. Stan's www.waltermacielgallery.com www.sandronirey.com EXHIBITION OPENING Cafe next brings its unique brand of data visualization to Kelsey Brooks, Shepard 2007 Small Firms, New York in January, as part of the Under the Radar festival. FOR THE KIDS Fairey, Cleon Peterson, et al. Neal Tait Great Projects Physics of Toys: On Top and Poster Renaissance 2 ACME. San Francisco Design Center Bottom of the World 7:00 p.m. 6150 Wilshire Blvd., Galleria 11:00 a.m. New Image Art Gallery Los Angeles 101 Henry Adams St., Exploratorium 7908 Santa Monica Blvd., www.acmelosangeles.com San Francisco 3601 Lyon St., San Francisco West Hollywood www.aiasf.org www.exploratorium.edu www.newimageartgallery.com Ruby Osorio and Yuh-Shioh Wong SATURDAY 19 Family Albums Re-Mixed Karen Liebowitz Cherry and Martin LECTURE 1:00 p.m. Rosamund Felsen Gallery 12611 Venice Blvd. Erwin Redl California African American 2525 Michigan Ave., Los Angeles 7:00 p.m. Museum Santa Monica wvvw.cherryandmartin.com Museum of Contemporary 600 State Dr., Los Angeles wvvw.rosamundfelsen.com Art of San Diego www.caamuseum.org David Sandlin 700 Prospect St., La Jolla SUNDAY 6 In Gallery II: Helen Garber www.mcasd.org SUNDAY 16 EXHIBITION OPENING 7:00 p.m. SYMPOSIUM 8 Under 28 Billy Shire Fine Arts EXHIBITION OPENINGS Shibori Workshop with Gallery C 5790 Washington Blvd., Victor Man Yoshiko Akane 1225 Hermosa Ave., Culver City Blum & Poe Gallery 1:00 p.m. Hermosa Beach www.billyshirefinearts.com 2754 South La Cienega Blvd., The Japanese American www.galleryc.com Los Angeles Diane Landry National Museum www.blumandpoe.com JAMES TURRELL AT POMONA COLLEGE Ecole d'aviation 369 East 1st St., Los Angeles FOR THE KIDS Pomona College Museum of Art www.janm.org © MURAKAMI tour Solway Jones Gallery Anthony Hernandez Montgomery Art Center Museum of 5377 Wilshire Blvd., Christopher Grimes Gallery 333 North College Way, Claremont TUESDAY 18 Contemporary Art Los Angeles 916 Colorado Ave., Through May 17, 2008 EXHIBITION OPENINGS The Geffen Contemporary www.solwayjonesgallery.com Santa Monica Andre Kertesz www.cgrimes.com 152 North Central Ave., A rectangular wall glows faintly in the distance of a limit• Einar and Jamex de la Torre Seven Decades Los Angeles less blue space seemingly lacking a ceiling and walls; it Graciela tturbide www.moca-la.org Koplin Del Rio Gallery Amie Dicke is an experience so disorienting that a museum attendant The Goat's Dance 6031 Washington Blvd., Peres Projects accompanies visitors for safety. In End Around—part Getty Museum TUESDAY 8 Culver City 969 Chung King Rd., of James Turrell's Ganzfeld series of light installations 1200 Getty Center Dr., LECTURE www.koplindelrio.com Los Angeles that play with sensory deprivation—what appears to be a Los Angeles Graciela Iturbide, www.peresprojects.com glowing blue screen is, in fact, a depth of dense blue light www.getty.edu Roberto Tejada FOR THE KIDS emanating from multiple light sources in a hidden alcove. Graciela tturbide in In the Hands of Babes Margo Bistis, Norman Klein, Reflecting his deep spirituality and studies in psychology, FILM Conversation 1:15 p.m. Andreas Kratky Turrell's manipulations of illumination and space are about Being There 7:00 p.m. California African American The Imaginary 20th Century the transcendent art of perception and the sublime quality (Hal Ashby, 1979), 130 min. The J. Paul Getty Center Museum South Coast Plaza of light for light's sake. In Gathered Light and S//enf Leading 1:00 p.m. 1200 Getty Center Dr., 600 State Dr., Los Angeles 3333 Bear St., Costa Mesta (above), programmed wall-mounted LED lights behind Los Angeles County Los Angeles www.caamuseum.org www.ocma.net 4-foot-by-7-foot sheets of glass create color changes so Museum of Art www.getty.edu gradual as to be almost imperceptible; visitors often pass 5905 Wilshire Blvd., the displays at first unaware of their transformation, only Los Angeles later to become seduced into a transfixed, meditative gaze. www.lacma.org LIST YOUR EVENT AT DIARY(S)ARCHPAPER.COM Also encompassing drawings and models, the exhibition is timed to complement the Pomona College alum's new Skyspace elsewhere on campus, an architectural space VISIT WWW.ARCHPAPER.COM FOR COMPETITION LISTINGS designed for the profound experience of viewing the sky. 00 ru LJJ »—! > .0:: THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007 The Volkswagen Autostadt Lake Street in Chicago, whose in Wolfsburq, Germany, is a colorful facade looks like the car dealership cum amusement front hood of a car. park, complete with two silos Such large-scale work has full of cars for sale. had a pervasive influence on tural floors, were highlights architecture at large from the of the era. In the 1970s, inter• beginning, points out Henley. est in the parking structure His examples include Frank waned and individual Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim design was replaced by Museum, whose spiraling mass-production. But in concrete design is as close to Architecture of Parking the last few years, he shows, a parking garage as a muse• imon Henley the appeal of continuous um will likely ever get; David Thames & Hudson space, exposed concrete, Chipperfield's Edificio Veles e and expressed structure has Vents for the America's Cup renewed interest in the humble in Valencia, with its stacked, car park. cantilvered concrete decks; The book is divided into and UN Studio's Mercedes chapters that explore Matter Benz Museum in Stuttgart, (looking at concrete frame• with its concrete double work and the plasticity of helix spiraling ramps. Other the parking structure form), projects that come to mind Elevation (which includes the are Zaha Hadid's BMW Plant fascinating repetition of forms in Leipzig, with its continous expressed in many garages), concrete form and Herzog and Light (which explores and De Meuron's upcoming the many ways that light can Beijing Olympic stadium, with penetrate garages, including its intricate expressed facade. ouvers, light wells, and intri• The only major drawback cately-expressed structural to this eye-opening book is While Louis Khan, Zaha it is actually one of the World War II, when the car for structural and formal facades). Some of my favorite that it is difficult to find the Hadid, Richard Neutra, and most influential, and most became a fixture of society, experimentation. examples include Holl's work of particular architects. Steven Holl may have all overlooked, building types and when efficiency and sci• Structures like Betrand Nelson Atkins Museum An index, or a more-detailed brought their considerable of the last century. The book ence were paramount fasci• Goldberg's Marina City in underground parking garage contents page would have talents to bear on parking, is painstakingly illustrated nations. While early designs, Chicago (1962)—futurist, in Kansas City, which is lit helped. But that is all out• the car garage is still disliked with photos by Sue Barr. he points out, were often "corncob"-shaped residential from above via round oculi weighed by an impressive by many, and considered by Henley begins by giving derivative of existing building towers with parking visibly built into a reflecting pool; amount of scholarship, mak• most to be a purely utilitarian a brief history of the parking designs, the architecture in integrated into their base Albert Kahn's Henry Ford ing the book an authoritative structure. But Simon Henley garage, a building type that this mid-century "golden age" (united via a helical ramp), Hospital in Detroit, with its and mind-expanding study has proven in his thorough, had a slow start at the turn of parking became more and Rudolph's Temple Street enclosing hyperbolic para- of a place that few of us have enjoyable book. The of the century, took off in the imaginative; the type lot in New Haven, with its baloid concrete panels; and ever appreciated. Architecture of Parking, that 1920s, and exploded after becoming the perfect zone dramatic cantilevered struc- Stanley Tigerman's 60 East SAH LUBELL The interview room at the Santa of the room. With the human tures and spaces is part of their shock Barbara Police Department. element removed, architecture is value. Built by and for our demo• POWER certainly not. complicit in the representation of cratic society, they are normally Ross uses contrast to create control. The vocabulary of authority off-limits to the population at large. STRUCTURES meaning and juxtaposes related is spoken everywhere. The design press rarely shows them, images as a form of commentary. Or maybe it is not. In these despite the fact that the American For example, on one page, he photographs, architecture simply justice system is a multi-billion Architecture of Authority contrasts the portrait of a male provides a staging area for the pro• industry, and the United States Richard Ross has the highest rate of incarceration (Aperture Press, $40) worshipper below the soaring duction of control. The Department interior of Istanbul's Blue Mosque of Motor Vehicles in Santa Barbara in the world. Do design journals with a claustrophobic segregated has the drab gray sameness as the regularly overlook these projects women's prayer area in Syria. tony Mary Boone Gallery, minus the for flashier and more aestheically- The conclusion is obvious. two Le Corbusier-designed black pleasing works of architecture leather armchairs. In other cases, because they are more emotionally In other cases, Ross makes com• neutral as well? positional comparisons to suggest authority is present only by virtue that different types of authority of small but prominent clues. But we should also be aware that can strike a similar visual pose: Handcuffs dangle from a bench. concrete and steel are not the only the hallways of the Santa Barbara A chain link fence casts a shadow on ways to build boundaries, to impose High School and the United States' the ground. Portraits of President forms of control. Ross also takes detainee camp in Guantanamo Bay; George W. Bush and Vice President us to places where authority is a Catholic confessional and a Dick Cheney hang on a wall. conveyed simply by technological communication area for inmates Still, these are all forms of civic device. The Chalk Farm tube station at a prison; the row of bunk beds at architecture, whether they inhabit on London's Underground reminds a Marine Corps recruiting depot and our local sphere or, like Abu Ghraib, us that public space can be moni• a dormitory at a mental institution they are secreted across the globe. tored only by closed circuit television in Havana. Just as the public courthouse stands (mind your head and no smoking, please). "We are neither in the In these images, the presence for the representation of justice, prisons are below-the-radar warn• amphitheatre, nor on the stage, but and also command it. of people—whether they are judge, What do a Montessori preschool, a ing signs that inhabit our psyches. in the panoptic machine, invested In his new book. Architecture of jury, or defendant—is the most London Underground station, and No one would really want to be by its effects of power, which we Authority. Ross confronts us with noticeable absence. Yet, it is the the United Nations Headquarters, found guilty of a crime just to bring to ourselves since we are part a bizarre travelogue of architectural same approach used by most not to mention a mosque, a corpo• see the inside of a jail or a detainee of the mechanism," said Michel sound bites from locations as architects who today routinely rate skyscraper, and a hotel, have in camp, and yet the design of such Foucault, in Discipline and Punish. far-flung as Ho Chi Minh City and photograph their completed works common? According to photogra• facilities illustrates how our society "Our society is not one of spectacle, as nearby as Philadelphia. Although of architecture without people who pher Richard Ross, these are all sites incriminates humanity, and how we but of surveillance." some of these buildings are beauti• might distract from the design. Here, of authority—places where govern• view our world. ments, religions, corporations, and ful, others are intentionally bland. the omniscient, universal voice of TAMI HAUSMAN IS A WRITER WORKING other institutions display power In any case, tourist traps they are authority whispers from the corner Exposure of these public struc• IN PUBLIC RELATIONS IN NEW YORK. LU M > LU UNSUNG MID-CENTURY MASTER Museum of Design Art + Architecture (MODAA) Jerrold E. Lomax; The First 80 Years October 26 - December 31, 2007 This well-deserved and overdue exhibition ical order. This non-linear approach reinforces next to the architect's Ashton-Casella House Above: The Hunt residence designed by features highlights of Northern California the classic features of Lomax's designs which (2000), a more textured, landscape-inspired Jerrold Lomax and Craig Elwood, 1955. architect Jerrold E. Lomax's career in remain current, whether the Pierson House construction in Carmel Valley. Lomax's more Below: The Moses residence, 1973. photographs. The influence of this modest (1955) or the Hawthorne Gallery Project, now curvaceous, silvery Trailer Life Publishing renderings for several of these projects in and precise man's work is visible throughout on the boards. As SPF:a principal, Zoltan Pali Headquarters (1973) in Agoura, is an early addition to wall-mounted photographs. This California. Unfortunately, awareness and commented, "It is a testament to Jerry's con• use of aluminum composite siding with the is an example of how MODAA does especial• acknowledgement of his profound problem- sistency and commitment to a real and honest intended effect of mimicking the exterior of ly well by showing admiration, respect, and solving abilities remains understated even in modernist architecture." Pali, who worked an Air Stream trailer. ultimately embodying the architect's vitality. the architectural world. For more than a gen• for and then collaborated with Lomax, con• The focal point of the gallery floor area is Ideally, however, such a formal exhibition in eration he has resolved structural challenges, tinues to acknowledge the senior architect's a set of four wood models for the Westgate, a museum setting should offer a little more like hillside development and oddly shaped influence on his own practice, and describes Ashton-Casella, Rice, and Lomax-Miles houses, insight. But hopefully the current show will building lots, while maintaining his modernist the exhibit as "the most personal in all beautifully constructed by the SPF:a serve as an impetus for further recognition. aesthetic; no doubt his designs have subcon• MODAA's five year history." sciously entered the minds of numerous "model gang." Across from the models are JEFFREY HEAD architects working in his milieu of glass, steel, Large prints of Lomax's work are beautifully and cement. mounted and show the architect's combined technical and aesthetic finesse. The exhibit Lomax was the Associate in Charge of focuses on finished work. Several projects Design on several of Craig Ellwood's signature are award-winning, such as the Rice Residence buildings, such as the Rosen House, Case (1992) in Glendale, which has a concrete Study House #18, and Kuderna House, among facade, a glass box central structure, and others. After a long tenure with Ellwood, a steel-framed building in the back. Lomax Lomax brought his Miesian approach to developed an innovative terracing technique his own practice, based in Sand City, near that uses multiple cement pods for support. Monterey, which continues today. The exhib• The set-back, cubic, gray-colored West End it focuses on the work of Lomax's office, Condos (2003) in Sand City is another award- but his years with Ellwood are illustrated winning project, although there is no reference with enlarged color prints of the letter's 15 to the merit it received from the Monterey Bay Houses and poster-size prints of the masterful Chapterofthe AIA. Also missing is the process Hunt House (1957), a series of elegant cubes work: sketches, drawings, and ephemera that in Malibu, photographed by Marvin Rand. might reveal more of the architect's hand. For this early project, Lomax built with an An enlargement of the poster for the H-shaped plan that prefigured his design of 1976 LA 72architecture exhibit at the Pacific interior courtyard spaces. Design Center helps place Lomax in the con• SPF:a recently created the lofty, 1,800- text of his peers from that era: Gehry, Kappe, square-foot gallery space at MODAA within Pelli, Lautner, Zimmerman, and others. its new offices in Culver City to promote new Lomax became one of the LA 12 for his architecture and design. Curated by Judit Meda design of the pure white, tetris-esque Moses Fekete, an SPF:a principal, the show does not House (1972). Glen Allison's photographs of present the material or projects in chronolog• the house are part of the exhibit and appear The Architect's Newspaper Marketplace showcases products and services. Formatted 1/16 page, 1/8 page, or 1/4 page, black and white ads are available MARKETPLACE as at right. CONTACT: Frank Dantona 21 Murray St., 5th Floor New York NY 10007 TEL 805-520-2836 / FAX 212-966-0633 fmdmedia^^spacesales.com THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007 At ideate, Inc., our guiding mission DONOVAN & ASSOCIATES architectural marketing services is to provide the most extensive. high-quality information solutions. We offer an array of resources to help AEG professionals meet their technological needs and challenges. With services that What's your story? include training, support, consulting, and community forums, Ideate's repertoire of Let us fielp you develop an effective public relations program. client offerings will ensure the professional \\ ideate Our communications packages start at $1,500 and include press releases, development of your organization. ( From Ideas to Reality articles, and electronic newsletters. To receive a copy of our communications broctiure send us an email request at [email protected]. Autodesk COMMUNICATIONS BRAND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIC INITIATIVES Author..'«!Tn.intn8 Center 888.662.7238 • ideateinc.com • [email protected] 1726 E. 7lh Avenue. #7 Tampa. FL 33605 813.951,0000 www.clonovan-assoc.com San Francisco Santa Clara Sacramento Portland tUT PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS Green Roof— esto.com Definitive images of architecture, design, the built environment. A Case Study Review portfolio selections of Esto assignment photographers. Green roofs are the great green hope for And see images of many recent award-winning design projects. advocates of more efficient and environmentally aware buildings. As the first to achieve the difficult balance between sustainability and aesthetics, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates estostock.com new green roof garden for ASLA headquarters Thousands of images are online now. Search the photo archive. in Washington, D.C. makes an ideal case study for Your work can be part of this important research collection. Christian Werthmann architecture students and professionals. Share your projects via online database with colleagues, clients. 8.5 X 9 in. /160 pp. /130 color images $45.00 / Hardcover Available from your local bookseller or www.papress.com <** ASSOCIATED FABRICATION CNC milling design collaboration 72 North 15th Street. Brooklyn, NY 11222 (718)387 4530 as.sociatcdfabrLcation.com World 3 days 20 magazines Architecture 48 judges Festival 96 building types 256 presentations 16 winners 1 Prix de Barcelona The largest architectural awards programme in the world Partner sponsors ARUP DAVIS LANGDON worldarchitecturefestival.com Category sponsors Media partners B prjJJ REVIEW austSalia™"^ |C53 arkltektur architecturenz proJETO ^ BuroHappoid ARCHITECTSNEWSPAPER architecte archftecten ARQ ABSTRACT ilk LLi o THE ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER DECEMBER 12, 2007 00 A helicopter hovering over the Harris fire. Soaring land values and increasingly > RITIC MIKE DAVIS POINTS OUT HOW NEW CAUSES ARE The loss of more than 90 percent of expensive water have conspired to < EASONAL WILDFIRES Southern California's agricultural buffer squeeze bottom-lines; while the monop• zone is the principal, if seldom referenced, oly power of the supermarket chains has reason why wildfires incinerate such forced growers to substitute alligator- spectacular swathes of luxury. Certainly, skinned, easily refrigerated Hass avoca• other variables—including La Nina dos for the thin-skinned, anise-flavored droughts, fire suppression, bark beetle Fuertesthat connoisseurs prefer. Finally, infestations, and probably global warm• to close this circle of economic and eco• ing—contribute to the semi-annual infer• logical misery, California's honeybees are nos that have become so predictable. But dying en masse from a mystery disease RETHERE'S SMOKE what makes us most vulnerable is the (the so-called Colony Collapse Disorder). abruptness of what is called the "wild- Kozy sighs: "You have no idea how diffi• land-urban interface," where real estate cult it is to pollinate avocado flowers." O collides with fire ecology. True, I know as little about the delicate On October 26, day six of the fires, maneuvers of avocado pollination as 1 do I saw the ruins—perched precariously about the mechanics of putting stallions on a wild mountainside—of what my to stud. But I do care deeply about friend Kozy Amemiya she described avocados. In the 1930s, my older sister as "a Tokugawa fortress, like you see in cantered her Indian pony through Kurosawa film." Its twin turrets had been my parents' small avocado ranchito reduced to some twisted girders rising outside Bostonia, about 10 miles south 9-11-like from a smoldering mound of of Ramona, and the little house my father gray ash, but the putting green next to built with its knotty-pine walls and Mexican Every year, sometimes in September, but calves in Van der Veer's book, scarcely the driveway remained eerily pristine. patio has survived every fire. Otherwise, more classically in October just before remember what rain looks like.) "Should Kozy and her husband Tom Royden little of my childhood Bostonia remains. Halloween, when California's wild vege• a good fairy ask me what I wish, 1 know are Ramona avocado growers, the last of The Barker family's 1880s general store, tation is driest and most combustible, what 1 would say! 1 wouldn't ask for a dying breed in a rapidly suburbanizing the irrigation ditches, the country-western high-pressure over the Great Basin and a golden palace, or Arabian horses, or landscape. One of their two ranches is dancehall, the gas station that sold 12- Colorado Plateau unleashes an avalanche a handsome lover. 1 would wish for rain." located in the same hills east of Ramona year-olds cigarettes, the lemons and of cold air toward the Pacific coast. As But instead of rain, an October Santa Ana where Van der Vere's horses once grazed; pomegranates—all vanished in a whirl• this huge air mass descends, it heats up howls over Black Mountain and blasts her the other, larger orchard occupies the wind of "growth." What endures are aging through compression. There is little Ramona ranch. side of a boulder-studded mountain over• tract homes, a plague of auto body shops, enigma to the physics of these devil winds "1 could see herds of dust being driven looking Lake Ramona. Tom's graduate intractable methamphetamine addiction, although their sudden arrival is always into the eastern end of the valley and hur• degree is, literally, in avocados—from and long lines of tail lights headed out disturbing to greenhorns and nervous pets ried down the river, leaving, for a second, California State Polytechnic at Pomona. toward the brave new suburbs. as well as to truck drivers and joggers clearness behind them. Then another Tom has Lloyd George eyebrows, Kozy thinks my nostalgia is sheer (sometimes scythed by razor-sharp palm gust and the east was hidden and more always appears in pressed khaki shorts, defeatism and tries to cheer me up. "Did fronds). Technically they are "fohns," yellow clouds came surging through the and is armed with an encyclopedic you know there are some really magnifi• after the warm winds that stream down valley. ...My eyes hurt, my chest felt full knowledge of irrigation and semitropical cent Fuertes still bearing fruit on Chase from the leeward side of the Alps, but the of dust, my hair stood stiffly up like the agriculture. He could easily pass for Avenue? They're probably a century old." Southern California terminology, of horses' tails. We seemed to be watching one those planter types who caroused This is not quite the consolation 1 need. course, is a "Santa Ana" (or in the Bay a big fire whose flames were yellow at Raffles and ran vast rubber estates Avocados have always been the icon of Area, a "Diablo"). For a few days every instead of red, and it was consuming our in Malaya, or raised coffee and white the San Diego countryside (which pro• year, these dry hurricanes blow our world land while we looked helplessly down." mischief in the Kikuyu hills. Indeed, Tom's duces most of the U.S. harvest) and if the apart or, if a cigarette or a downed power- Luckily the Santa Ana abates before dad wrote in "merchant adventurer" as remaining growers are forced to sell out, line is in the path, they ignite it. the lightly inhabited backcountry of the his occupation on his passport, and his the past will become as inaccessible as They also offer lazy journalists another 1930s catches fire, the good fairy finally mother was descended from generations the future will be combustible. Ramona is opportunity to recite those famous lines brings rain, and the brown hillsides turn of cherry farmers. also special, at least to old geezers like me, from Raymond Chandler and Joan Didion, green with clover, deerweed, and alfilaree. Tom has spent most of his working life because it preserves some of the won• in which the Santa Anas drive the natives But, as Van der Veer insists, such happy advising village cooperatives in Tanzania derful small town eccentricity that else• to homicide and apocalyptic fever. But endings are not inevitable. Southern and digging ditches with Andean farmers where has yielded to the mass-produced Didion's LA books are notoriously allergic California is a land of risk and natural in Ecuador. Kozy and Tom are eloquent landscape. But I can easily visualize the to the local landscape, while Chandler drama, where the unpredictable cycle evangelists about the need to preserve, coming apocalypse: more view homes was a connoisseur of mean streets, not of the seasons is as suspenseful as any if not expand, what remains of an agricul• on the graves of trees, the wonderful chaparral. To understand the real phe• noir novel. Ramona valley farmers don't tural firebreak in Southern California. Their art-deco Ramona Theater bulldozed for nomenology of weather and combustion so much "settle" the land as they learn own fire history is instructive. In 2003, the a Home Depot, the Turkey Inn turned into in Southern California, it would be more to roll with its punches, enjoying luxuri• Cedar blaze (which killed 15 people and a Starbucks, a Cineplex where Judy van worthwhile to read Judy Van der Veer: ous interludes of beauty between disaster. destroyed 2200 homes) passed south of der Veer's home used to be.... an unfairly forgotten writer who spent Moreover, in Van der Veer's time, it was the larger orchard; this time, 50-foot-high 1 suppose the realist view is that our most of her life ranching in the rugged truly the "back country," and a broad flames charged the mountain twice without problem will be ultimately solved by hills nearthe hamlet of Ramona, 35 miles corridor of avocado and citrus orchards success, before returning a third time to combination of burning all the fuel northeast of downtown San Diego. Despite separated the cow ranches and turkey scorch trees and incinerate nearby homes. and then paving the ashes. In Southern the media's incurable penchant for farms from the urbanized coastal strip. Still, as Tom points out, his trees put up California, catastrophic fire only fertilizes portraying Southern California disasters Three generations later, the vast citrus a "bloody stiff fight," providing a firewall more sprawl. through the lens of celebrity, it wasn't forests have been transformed into pink- that saved several of his neighbors' large I pop the big question to Tom. "Can Malibu, but Ramona that was the epicen• stucco death valleys full of bored teenagers houses. "Except in an extreme conflagra• you really get this ranch up and running ter of the Witch Creek Fire: the largest and and desperate housewives. The edge of tion, fire will only penetrate about 10 or 15 again, or will some home developer make most destructive firestorm of the recent the sprawl, especially, is a firefighter's meters into orchards when the ground is you an offer you can't refuse?" swarm. Like a Barbara Stanwyck cattle nightmare. East of LA, for example, in the cleared and well irrigated." He takes a Tom furrows his eyebrows for a queen, Van der Veer rode line and mended San Gorgonio Pass above Palm Springs, penknife and scrapes at charred bark: the moment, then smiles. her own fences, and from the saddle of where 4000 wind turbines harvest flesh is still green. The tree's burly tough• "Do you know the etymology of the her cow-pony she had a much clearer the Santa Anas, new subdivisions are ness is reassuring, but there is bad news word avocado?" view of chaparral ecology than did being built next to 50-year-old chaparral as well. When we drive along the dirt "Aguacate'm Spanish," I mumble. Chandlerthrough his gin bottle or Didion standing 8 feet tall and yearning to burn. tracks we leave behind a deep, mushy "Yes, but the NahuatI original is through the window of her speeding car. Likewise throughout the foothills, free- trail of guacamole. The fire and wind ahucati: 'balls.'" Brown H;7/s (1938)—the second in range McMansions—often castellated have stripped several hundred thousand THIS ESSAY IS ADAPTED FROM ONE THAT a brace of carefully observed memoir- in unconscious self-caricature—occupy fruit from the trees, and Tom estimates ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE LONDON novels—is the diary of a long drought rugged ocean-view peaks surrounded by that he has lost 70 percent of the crop REVIEW OF BOOKS (WWW.LRB.CO.UK). MIKE similar to the current aridity in Southern what foresters grimly refer to as "diesel In the wake of the latest firestorms, the DAVIS' LATEST BOOK IS IN PRAISE OF California. (My twin toddlers, like the stands" of dying pine and old brush. future of local horticulture looks bleak. SAR0AR/AWS