How Digital Tools Shape the Way Architects Think
Architecture Master Thesis presentation - Benjamin Stangl - 2013 06 18 - Vienna University of Technology, Austria Examining board: Peter Ferschin, Drte Kuhl...
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Centre sportif - Zac Pajol - Paris 18.
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By Matikas Santos INQUIRER.net
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MANILA, Philippines The entry of foreign architects will challenge Filipino architects to become more competitive, National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) chairman Felipe De Leon said Thursday.
Nothing wrong with opening up architecture design to international competitors; it will be good because it will challenge Filipinos who sometimes are too complacent, De Leon said when asked to comment about the announcement of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) that it plans to open the local labor market due to a shortage in skilled labor.
DOLE said there is a shortage of architects in the country. Aside from architects, the country needs chemical engineers, chemists, environmental planners, fisheries technologist, geologists, guidance counselor, licensed librarians, medical technologists, sanitary engineers, computer numerical control machinists, assembly technicians, test technicians, pilots, and aircraft mechanics.
Architecture is one of the seven arts that the NCCA oversees. The others are cinema, dance, literature, music, theater and visual arts.
I dont see anything wrong as long as there is no monopoly in contracting architects, De Leon said.
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GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) Imagine a parking garage doubling as a concert venue, a fairground, or a skating rink.
As CBS 2s Carolyn Gusoff reported, some of the best and brightest architects unveiled their designs Thursday from the parking lot of the future.
While cars are loaded with ever-improving amenities every passing model year, where we park those cars has not changed much in decades.
Parking is thought of almost apologetically, said Roger Sherman of Architecture + Urban Design. We try to cover it up, we try to screen it, we try to make it look like its not there.
If you have parking lots for as far as the eye can see, its not a very beautiful place, said Tim Love of Utile Inc. Architecture + Planning.
The think tank Long Island Index has decided it is time to rethink the parking lot. The think tank challenged top architects to design parking lots of the future to free up space, with the ParkingPLUS Design Challenge.
If Long Island wants to rethink our downtowns, the place to find the space to do that rebuilding is in our surface parking lots, said Ann Golob of Long Island Index.
The results included a design for Rockville Centre, featuring a tiered garage with a ground-floor arcade where festivals and food markets could be held when commuters are not parking there.
So you recapture some of the space and make it part of the kind of civic life of the village, Love said.
A design for Westbury features terraced train parking mixed with apartments, with rooftop courtyards and gardens.
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Architects Unveil Designs That Rethink Parking Structures On Long Island
Despite the emptying out of the tallest privately owned building in the state north of New York City, Western New Yorks office, industrial and retail markets are strong, according to new statistics released Thursday evening by the Buffalo office of real estate brokerage CBRE.
CBREs annual MarketView reports found the volume of open space in the region fell in two of the three categories, as strong demand for quality office and industrial space driven by an improved economy absorbed a lot of available space.
At the same time, the brokerage reported, a lack of new construction to replenish the inventory of manufacturing space means the industrial base isnt growing. And some vacant buildings were redeveloped for entirely new uses, taking them off the market.
Western New Yorks economic base and overall demographic trends continue to position it as a conservative region for real estate investment, development and lending, CBRE wrote.
Theres more empty office space in the region compared with a year ago, due to the downsizing of HSBC Bank USAs presence in downtown Buffalo and law firm Phillips Lytle LLPs move to One Canalside. Those two shifts resulted in more than 700,000 square feet of space being dumped on the market, as the former One HSBC Center now One Seneca Tower went from 95 percent full to 95 percent empty in a matter of weeks. As a result, the office vacancy rate jumped from 10.37 percent to 13.71 percent. The national vacancy rate was 15.1 percent.
That had been expected for more than a year and hasnt affected other market activity, said Shana B. Stegner, director of office sales and leasing for CBRE. Office leasing in other parts of the region tightened, taking up some of the new slack, while new construction boomed.
The activity is there. The momentum is there, Stegner said. When you look outside and see everything thats happening, its not stopping anybody from following through with their plans.
The vacancy rates for office, industrial and retail space in the region remained below national averages.
Despite this challenge, if the momentum continues through 2014, the Buffalo office market holds promise of recovery and continued future investment, CBRE said in the report.
Meanwhile, sales of existing apartment buildings rose by almost 40 percent compared with the previous three years average, while the total value of those sales rose by 27 percent. And more buildings are coming online, thanks to a mixture of new construction in the suburbs and adaptive reuse projects in the city.
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WNY real estate markets strong, CBRE says in annual MarketView reports
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Historic Building Restoration, Historic Home Restoration in Easton MD 21601
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Portability and connectivity with the explosion of smartphones, notebooks, tablets and Wi-Fi have been game changers in the way we think of home offices. They have expanded the options for working just about anywhere, including at 40,000 feet.
Even the peripherals have downsized, such as super-small printers and compact projectors for those PowerPoint presentations or family slideshows.
So a move to more minimal desks started taking root two or three years ago, as the need for mega-footprint towers, printers and monitors lessened. Hulking furniture is not necessary for your personal workstation, unless its your style to rock a honking executive desk.
Still, its nice to have a clean surface for at-home work.
We see work styles and workplaces all over the country really evolving these days, said Kim Shaver, a spokeswoman for Hooker Furniture. When you bring work home from the office or check email or pay bills online, you want to stay connected to the people and activities around you. ... Because of portable electronics, we want to seamlessly integrate them in the home with multifunctional, high-fashion, high-style pieces that can go into any room. That allows you to blend work and family life.
Some recent furniture introductions nod to beautiful classic pieces that are as decorative as they are functional 18th century, 1930s Art Deco or midcentury modern styles made from exquisite woods and veneers, allowing their craftsmanship, form and style to speak volumes. Other desks are more generic, with simple lines, pleasantly traditional with familiar details such as cabriole legs or reeded aprons, transitional, like campaign styles with crossed legs, or ultra modern.
Even the sleek offer surprises. One simple design (the Torino) by Manuel Saez at CB2 has a matte lacquer white top that sits on a white oak stretcher base with U-shaped legs that are braced with intentionally exposed hardware. Peek inside: With an integrated pull, the top opens to reveal 9 square feet of stash space for laptop, smartphone, tablet, projects, books, planners, folders and supplies even hidden cord cutouts to charge electronics.
Industrial influences
There especially has been an uptick in the industrial look with metal or raw, grained, often reclaimed woods sometimes combined with steel and iron. These materials lend themselves well to clean-line designs. Theres also the allure of the back story, such as the use of reclaimed telephone poles that celebrate distressing, knobs, drill holes and splits, at Crate & Barrel.
A desk with rounded corners anchored by cast arched trestle legs at Restoration Hardware is a faithful reproduction of a 1950s English garment factory table. Also at RH is another 74-inch metal desk with an ample-sized surface, complemented by a symmetrical pair of curving, open compartments for storage, a slatted shelf stretcher and a hidden slide-out panel beneath for a keyboard. Its truly an elegant form.
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New era of design design reflects consumers’ tech trends
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UP TO 300 disabled adults will lose access to council-run day centres within two years following the approval of modernisation plans.
Staffordshire County Council yesterday rubber stamped the decision to close two day services for adults with learning disabilities as part of wider changes to provision.
Families have criticised the council's plans to encourage those with less complex needs to access non-council services in the community.
Campaigners heckled cabinet members throughout the discussion, claiming the proposals would result in vulnerable people being left to 'wander the streets'.
But Alan White, cabinet member for care, insisted the move from building-based facilities to community-based provision was 'best practice'.
He said the transition to the new model would take up to two years, and that no service user would be barred from a day centre without alternative services being available.
Mr White said: "In our experience, the outcomes from modernising services have been extremely positive.
"The consultation results show that people don't want change. However, the evidence from experts points towards the direction where we are proposing to go. A consultation isn't a referendum. If 70 per cent of people want no change, we will have to work doubly hard to implement the changes in the right way." Around 440 people currently use day services across the county, which cost 8.6 million to run.
Under the council's plans the centres in Kidsgrove and Codsall will close, while the facility in Leek will be downsized.
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Eleven months after former Small Business Administration boss Karen Mills announced her resignation, President Barack Obama is set to nominate a replacement today: Maria Contreras-Sweet, a native of Mexico with a background in small business financing and government service.
In addition to her banking experience, the 58-year-olds diversity is a quality being sought for Cabinet jobs. Her impending nomination, which is expected to come at a formal event in Washington, was first reported by the Washington Post.
Contreras-Sweet immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 5 and went on to achieve a number of firsts, including being the first Latin American woman to serve on the board of Blue Cross California (WLP), and first to hold a cabinet secretary position in California state government. (She was Californias secretary of Business, Transportation, and Housing from 1999 to 2003.)
She is chair of the board at ProAmerica Bank (PMRA), a publicly traded Los Angeles community bank she founded in 2006. Before that, Contrereas-Sweet served as president of Fortius Holdings, a private-equity fund she co-founded specializing in California small businesses.
Those experiences should help her tackle the SBAs core function of helping small businesses find capital. Under Mills, the SBA has backed about $30 billion in loans in each of the last three years, up from $17.8 billion in 2009. The International Franchise Association and Main Street Alliance were among advocacy groups to issue statements touting Contreras-Sweets lending credentials.
Once nominated, Contreras-Sweet would have to be confirmed by the Senate, although that process would appear to be simpler under new Senate rules. Senator James Risch, the Idaho Republican who serves as ranking member for the Senates Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, did not respond to a request for comment.
Contreras-Sweets nomination would end a long wait for a permanent SBA chief, which has led to speculation that President Obama plans to eliminate the SBA as a standalone agency. If confirmed, Contreras-Sweet would take over from Jeanne Hulit, who has served as acting administrator since Mills left the SBA for Harvard University in August.
Contreras-Sweets experience as an entrepreneur will serve her well in the new role, says former SBA chief Hector Barreto, who once traveled to Israel with Contreras-Sweet on a mission for Hispanic business leaders.
Barreto, who now chairs the nonprofit Latino Coalition, says Contreras-Sweet was responding to a need when she decided to open ProAmerica. With all of the growth of the Hispanic business community in Los Angeles, she felt it was unacceptable that there werent Hispanic-owned banks, he says. So she founded one of the first Hispanic-owned banks in L.A. Thats the kind of vision and leadership that you need at the SBA.
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Obama Is Finally Picking a New SBA Chief
