core.form-ula

 A Message from President Amy Gutmann and Provost Ron Daniels

We are writing to inform you that we have selected to be the next Dean of the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, effective October 1, 2008. Marilyn Taylor, Partner in Charge of the Urban Design and Planning Practice at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP and the first woman to serve as Chairman of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, is internationally known for her distinguished and passionate involvement in the design of large-scale urban projects and civic initiatives. Over a 35 year career with Skidmore Owings & Merrill, she has led many of the firm’s largest and most complex projects around the world. She was also both the first architect and the first woman to serve as chairman (2005-07) of the Urban Land Institute, a non-profit research and educational institution, where she championed a renewed focus on cities, sustainable communities, and infrastructure investment. read more

Reiser + Umemoto were awarded first place honors in the international jury phase of the Shenzhen Airport competition. despite losing out to massimiliano fuksas architects in the final local judging phase, their design gained attention for its innovative concept. the firm is now being given a presidential citation from Cooper Union based on the strength of this project and their previous work. the principal architects, Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto are both graduates from the New York design school. the school’s president, George Campbell will bestow them with the honor on may 28th. they have a number of other projects on the go including buildings in Dubai and Taiwan. via designboom read more

The Umbra Concept Store opened its doors on June 1st, 2007 in downtown Toronto to customers and design enthusiasts alike. The space showcases the largest assortment of Umbra and U+ Studio Collection products. To enhance your shopping experience, the store displays unique, limited edition artwork and a functioning design space where you can interact with designers at work. Recently named Project of the Year at the September 2007 Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario (ARIDO) awards, the store is hard to miss from the outside and extraordinarily dynamic on the inside. read more

It was 2yrs ago when Easton+Combs & the “Super Team” were narrowly defeated in a close fought battle for the hearts and minds of the good people in Hendersonville, N Carolina. There is no need to get into the specifics because it does not look like the project will be going forward for the winning team but we managed to grab some national television exposure w/ this 30sec spot. read more

Nine white cars suspended in various stages of flight – with blinking LED lights streaking in cartoon-like drama from their window screens – appear to be flying through the centre of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York. The centrepiece of Cai Guo-Qiang’s show is a step-by-step depiction of a car bomb. It’s possibly the most spectacular and authoritative use of the museum’s difficult central atrium in its 50-year history, and a powerful introduction to Cai’s exhibition I Want to Believe. read more

Pingmag have quickly won a place in our heart w/ a succession of 3-4  great articles.  enjoy>>>

“Canadian Edward Burtynsky takes beautiful large-scale photographs of landscapes that have been industrially altered by mankind to the very extreme. The documentary Manufactured Landscapes by Toronto-based filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal now visits, along with the photographer, places in China and Bangladesh and shows how these amazing pictures are taken. It gives you with a weird as well as surreal experience of the grotesque and grim consequences of mass production. For example, fifty percent of all world‘s computers end up in China, amongst many other used materials… You don’t have to be too ecologically minded, but this documentary will leave you thinking, no doubt. PingMag talked to Jennifer Baichwal about her consciousness-raising film.”

via. pingmag

FLARE is a modular system to create a dynamic hull for facades or any building or wall surface. Acting like a living skin, it allows a building to express, communicate and interact with its environment.

Not sure if the image and movie are renderings or the real thing. Either way the site opens up the process and technical underpinnings that are valuable in an of themselves. If they ever  get this built I  am sure it will be mesmerizing.

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FIBER architecture, textile structures, computation and biology

Jenny E. Sabin with Peter Lloyd Jones and Philip Beesley

April 21 - 25, 2008
Opening: April 24, 6 - 9pm

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Over the next few days we will be placing a series of student drawing examples on the site. They are primarily line drawings that are layered w/ secondary content in Illustrator. This set was created by Nehali Nanawati from SP06. We will have more on this project and others from that studio sometime in the near future.

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There is a great video coming from Andrew Payne over @ liftarchitects that begins to explain Theo Jansen’s kinetic sculptures. He goes into a much deeper description on his site and has the file available for download. >enjoy