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Architects of Archinect, is there an open architecture knowledge database? - Archinect

Expectations of future workloads by architects working in the private housing sector hit their lowest point in more than two years last month as soaring inflation and rising mortgage interest costs take their toll on the market.

Architects now expect no growth in orders for private residential projects over the next three months, according to RIBAs latest Future Trends survey.

Respondents returned an index figure of zero for expectations of future workloads in the sector in July, down five points from Junes survey. Any figure above zero signifies that architects expect workloads to increase over the next three months.

The index for private housing, which in recent years has consistently been the best performing sector covered by the survey, had been in positive territory since June 2020 in the middle of the first covid lockdown.

It comes following the weakest growth in house prices for a year, with values rising by just 0.1% in July. Lloyds, the UKs biggest mortgage lender, forecast in June that house prices will grow just 1.8% this year and fall by 1.4% in 2023.

Burgeoning concerns about the future of the UK economy are now weighing down on clients and architects alike, RIBA said.

Architects, even those with a full order book now, are increasingly concerned about workloads in three to six months.

Inflation continues to push up construction costs, reduce the available funds for client investment, and so limit potential new commissions.

Optimism about workloads for public sector projects also slumped again in Julys survey, dropping by five index points to -6, while the outlook for the community sector fell by two points to -8.

The commercial sector, which has typically had low workload expectations in recent years, edged up by three points to +1.

But optimism in London and the South of England, the largest markets for commercial schemes, fell last month with workload expectations across all sectors in the capital slipping by four points to -6 and by 7 points in the South of England to -3.

The picture was brighter in other regions, with the Midlands and East Anglia returning a figure of +10, the North of England +13 and Wales and the West +15.

Read more:
Architects brace themselves for housing market stagnation | News - Housing Today

A quick search for leading architects in contemporary Ukraine will inevitably bring you to Oleg Drozdov, the principal architect of Drozdov&Partners (formed in 1997) and a co-founder of Kharkiv School of Architecture (KHSA), the first and only private architecture school in Ukraine, in operation since 2017. Both entities were started in Kharkiv, the second biggest city in the country after its capital, Kyiv. In March I talked to the architect about the school and his vision for Ukraine after the war, and this month we discussed the move of his practice and school to Lviv, the intentions behind some of his projects, the current state of Ukrainian architecture, and who are the countrys most influential architects. A portion of our conversation follows a short introduction.

Oleg Drozdov was born in 1966 in Volgodonsk, Russia, less than 250 kilometres east of the Ukrainian border. He studied architecture at Civil Engineering Institute in Kharkiv, and graduated in 1990, following military service in the Russian Far East. Upon his graduation, Drozdov went to Sumy in northeastern Ukraine to practice architecture for two years before leaving for Prague where he attempted to pursue an artistic career as a painter, experimenting with rusted surfaces in a sort of dialogue with nature. He returned to Kharkiv several years later to restart his career as an architect.

In his earlier architectural projects, Drozdov experimented with gesso, playing with two opposing ideas uncompromising contemporaneity and patina of time. These mostly interior design commissions included fashion boutiques and restaurants that were the first in Ukraine to incorporate frameless glazing. These strikingly modern spaces pushed the idea of transparency, openness, and exhibitionism. Eventually, his work transitioned from celebrating new and bright surfaces to what would be more agreeable with the passing of time. He continued to experiment with blurring boundaries between the house and garden, interior and exterior, and finding commonalities between private and public, commercial and public spaces. His current focus is on returning architecture to its essence by underlining buildings' tectonics.

The architect's most well-known projects include VG Horse Club, several commercial centres, and apartment buildings all in Kharkiv as well as houses across Ukraine and Caf Trs in Montreux, Switzerland. Since the Russian invasion, the office collaborated with Lviv studio Replus Bureau and Ponomarenko Bureau from Kharkiv on designing and building 17 shelters within schools and sports facilities, serving at least 15,000 people. The architect's theatre Teatr na Podoli in Kyiv turned Drozdov into a public persona in the country due to a huge amount of discussions about this building's appropriateness in the city's historical heart. It became a certain Rubicon of Ukrainian architecture, attracting intense debates. This engagement of Ukrainian citizens in scrutinising the quality of the built environment will surely be critical in the upcoming massive rebuilding process.

Vladimir Belogolovsky: Before the war, you were based in Kharkiv, the city that you had to flee. Now that you are in Lviv, could you talk about your current situation?

Oleg Drozdov: Both our office and school, moved to Lviv, 1,000 kilometres to the west, within the first week after the war started. We set up the new office and returned to work two weeks later. The school was also operational within weeks. I knew that there were going to be lots of refugees in this part of the country. So, we contacted the mayor's office here about setting up shelters. Parallel to that, we organised fundraising campaigns. Our architects, students, and their parents all volunteered on these projects.

VB: Where are you operating from in Lviv, both your office and the school?

OD: The school initially moved to a rent-free space at the Ukrainian Catholic University here. And now we found a more permanent home at the Lviv Academy of Arts. We are organising fundraisings to get money for renovating these spaces. We will start our much-anticipated school year in September. Already one month after the war started, at least half of our students and professors, moved to Lviv and we started having our classes half online and half in-person. And our office was initially hosted by a local firm, AVR Development. Recently we moved to our own new space, which was rented to us at half market price.

VB: What projects are you currently working on at the office and how many of you are now in Lviv?

OD: We now have 15 people here. Before the war, there were 27 of us. Three people left the country. A few others had to stay with their families in Kharkiv and other cities. And several people took a break due to the incredibly high level of emotional stress these days. And some architects are working remotely.

Among the first projects that we returned to work on were our commissions in Switzerland a city villa and an apartment building. There are also a couple of projects in Dnipro a museum for the municipality and a city art gallery called Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture or DCCC, a new major cultural hub with public recreation zone and committed to maintaining free access. Then there is an educational campus in the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine. And there are co-housing and co-working projects in Lviv and the medical campus in Kharkiv.

In addition to these commercial commissions, we are working on research projects, including reconsidering municipal rental models and collaborating with factories on developing new materials and building types. We explore ideas for using prefabricated concrete panels and other elements in these projects, particularly in those buildings that were damaged during the war. And we explore ideas for utilising materials that come from demolished buildings and how to revive the typical Soviet microraion or micro-district model by increasing density but lowering the number of floors, improving insulation to better reflect climate change, and inserting new public functions.

While we are doing all this work, we put on hold our normal salaries and profits and live and work as a sort of commune. We share apartments, responsibilities, and profits. In short, we dont treat working on our projects as a business.

VB: Anti Patio is your own house. How would you formulate its main concept?

OD: It is a container for living. It is a vessel that contains many incredible plots. It changed my life by letting me live many lives that I could not predict. The first days that I moved there, almost all my time was spent staring at things with my mouth open. I learned so much. I started paying very close attention to every detail in the garden. I should point out that being in every room you are entirely surrounded by the garden and the views that go on for many kilometres. So, the house is like an endless plot or film. It is open to a very fulfilling experience. Many of my friends were provoked by the house as far as their change of behaviour or mood. This place keeps accumulating many important meetings and conversations that took place there. And it is a whole other world for my friends' children.

VB: And what can you say about your Horse Club?

OD: There we wanted to marry the vernacular architecture and the industrial architecture. The projects tight budget led to the idea of a very unusual faade. This was our second project for this client, after designing his villa. Thats how we knew that he owned a forest where he had been collecting fallen trees. So, I asked if we could utilise them as a display of trunks at the buildings front. This forest is very decorative, and the client protects it dearly. The challenge was to use these elements not as dcor but as an integral part of the construction. So, these trunks, in fact, carry the weight of the front wall, although their mere presence evokes the classical order of architecture with certain Post-Modernist connotations. But for me whats important is that it tells a story. This story is about integrating the material and the legacy of the site and making it a part of the new project and how old materials are used in new ways.

The other interesting particularity about this project is that it is all designed around the physiology of the horse because just about every dimension door openings, corridor widths, temperature mode, ventilation, pavement materials, not to mention such details as washing and massage equipment everything is catered to these wonderful animals.

VB: I would like you to elaborate on some of your quotes. The first one: To be, not seem to be.

OD: To that, I would add to live, not to own. This means that whats important is not to own a representation of something but to enjoy life itself. Architecture should help us do that in the most direct and provoking ways, not just package our dreams in fancy materials. I like when architecture is not merely a space for the accumulation of stuff but a tool to learn and enjoy life. I try to separate the essence from mere make-up.

VB: I dont see any boundaries between Artist, architecture, art, and life.

OD: It is true. I see the world both as an artist and an architect. Of course, there are works of architecture that have nothing to do with art. [Laughs.]

VB: We want to change our cities for the better.

OD: This slogan is key for our school. The idea of the school is to form a community with common values and the need for honest and deep discourses, and it is the community that will form our cities. Our cities cannot change simply by adding singular, even good-looking buildings. We all must be agents of change.

VB: Architecture must declare its position to the environment, place, and time. Buildings evoking grandiose funerals of the construction materials are to be avoided.

OD: It is all about creating buildings responsibly. And I think some of the most celebrated buildings with their dubious experimentality from the late 1990s and early 2000s are now incredibly outdated. While some earlier projects, such as those by Marcel Breuer, only become more relevant. I think he has become the most contemporary architect whose buildings are about eternity, proximity to nature, performance, depth, and tectonics qualities that contemporary architecture has lost.

VB: Even though the war is still in a very active phase, architects are already discussing the future of the countrys reconstruction. Some foreign architects rushed to take part in the rebuilding efforts. Any thoughts on that?

OD: As we progress in this process it is important for us, not simply to transition from being a colonial state under Russia to becoming another colonial state of the West. I was one of the initiators of the Ro3kvit urban coalition, which engaged in a collaboration with western specialists in three areas: research, education, and public programs. Any progress must be done collaboratively with local authorities, the population, and, of course, local architects. These relations should be established before any architectural objects will be designed. Already we established our ongoing conversations with local municipalities, community activists, and foreign architects as consultants. The situation presents a chance for Ukraine to accumulate huge global knowledge about the most successful urban projects and integrate it into our context. New projects should not fall from the sky drawn up by an established foreign architect.

VB: Is there such a notion as contemporary Ukrainian architecture?

OD: Our architecture is going through a unique transformation. I am particularly interested in the work that started after 2014, the year the war between Russia and Ukraine first broke out. In the last three years, I have been serving as the Mies van der Rohe Award expert, nominating buildings in Ukraine. 2014 brought a certain agenda that has been forming architecture. Before that, it was entirely driven by consumption and profits. Since 2014, there is a new community awareness and a new social agenda. The beginning of the war signalled the moment when Ukrainian society started to form. After the war architecture will change dramatically but even between 2014 and now it has matured significantly because our society is undergoing an incredibly dynamic transformation. Our architecture will reflect that. There is a kind of hipster urbanism that has become quite central in our cities.

VB: Which buildings built in Ukraine since the turn of the century would you identify as the most important?

OD: I would pick a temporary open-air stage structure called Stage, the main venue of the 2018 cultural festival Construction in Dnipro. It was a collectively designed, ground sourced and ground funded public space. The design was led by architect Tomasz wietlik and urban designer and researcher Kuba Snopek, both from Poland. Another project that I also nominated for the Mies Award is the Center of Andrey Sheptytsky, a cultural centre, and library at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, designed by Behnisch Architekten and built-in 2017. Its architecture may be excessive and redundantly polyphonic, but its social impact is quite phenomenal. It is extremely active. They constantly organise all kinds of public events.

The third project I would include here is the Memorial of the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred by Guess Line Architects in Lviv which opened in 2019. It is a very appropriate statement and testimony that established new relationships with the city the way it works with tragedy, memory, public space, and the park. Finally, I would mention the Renovation of the Spassky Bastion and Church in Kyiv by AER Architects completed in 2018. All four projects are more about a new social model than architecture in a narrow sense. This is what Ukrainian architecture was missing before. Only speaking of social qualities, we can really discuss contemporary architecture.

I would also say that Ukrainian architecture is quite regional with Dnipro being a strong leader, while Lviv is a close second. This has a lot to do with the work of Alexander Dolnik [1954-2013], the late Dnipro architect. In his buildings, you can recognise numerous quotations from 20th century architects, but he surely found his own language. He was the leading architect in the country in recent times, leaving a very powerful legacy.

VB: In your opinion who is the leading architect in Ukraine today?

OD: I would rather name some of our most influential architects. And I would stress that their influence comes more not from what they built but rather from what they preach. For that reason, I would name Viktor Zotov, an important figure on the architectural stage; he is the founder of ZOTOV&CO in Kyiv and of an institution called CANactions, a popular educational platform, festival, and publishing company. I would also name Slava Balbek and his Balbek Burau in Kyiv as one of the influential architects with an emphasis on creating contemporary interiors. Then there is an influential architect and journalist Julian Chaplinsky with his popular Chaplinsky Blog. The contemporary architecture here is still being formed. Our architects are ready to work with the people to create not just elegant buildings but buildings that can fulfil the needs of our society in the making. What is great about our architecture is that it is being formed right now. And we also need to rethink our heritage, which is rich, and inspirational, and if we do it critically, a lot can be learned from it.

See the article here:
Ukrainian architect Oleg Drozdov talks about building at the time of war - STIRworld

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Project Details:

Location:Lincoln, Massachusetts

Architect:Earl R. Flansburgh

Footprint:2,382 square feet

From the Homeowner:"Earl Flansburgh was a modernist architect in the Boston area for nearly half a century. Throughout his career, he advocated for his profession, serving as the president of Boston Society of Architects in the early 80s.

"Flansburgh + Associates primarily designed institutional buildings, such as the Boston College Library (1997) and the subterranean Cornell University Campus Store (1971). Mr. Flansburgh rarely took on residential clients, however in 1963 he designed a home for his own family which came to be known as the Flansburgh House.

"Built in Lincoln, Massachusetts, within a wooded area, the home features a courtyard surrounded by interior windows which beckon the outdoors into every area of the house. Today, the all-white structure is highlighted by striking yellow bands that run along the vertical side of the windows.

"The homes floor plan was featured in a 1966 issue of Better Homes & Gardens, offering a glimpse into Flansburghs architectural approach: He placed bedrooms and bathrooms on one side of the home, and living areas and the kitchen on the other. Connecting the two is the homes entrance, courtyard, as well as a playroom area for he and his wife Pollys two young children.

"Inside, the home features architectural curiosities that still resonate today: An accordion wall can transform the open entryway into a private space with courtyard views. Another stand-out design element is a curved wall that contains a hidden closet. The most surprising architectural detail, however, is the homes underground tunnel leading to the garage, which was added in 1967.

"Although Flansburgh died in 2009, Polly subsequently secured an easement that ensures the house cannot be demolished or significantly altered."

Read this article:
A Massachusetts Architects 1963 Family Home Still Feels Ahead of Its Time - Dwell

Continuing their work on curved-roof atriums, exemplified by the Jewel at Singapores Changi Airport, Safdie Architects has emulated the feeling of a tree canopy in So Paulos Albert Einstein Education and Research Center (AEERC). With state-of-the-art medical research facilities, the project connects to an existing hospital in the citys Morumbi district.

The building will serve the needs of over 2,000 medical and nursing students, containing 40 classroomswith programmatic flexibilityan auditorium, laboratories, and facilities to simulate examination and operating rooms. The building is organized around a tiered central atrium that houses a garden-like space, while also connecting the four primary floors of the building. The central court is shaded by a vaulted glass ceiling, with three structural domes spanning its length. Around the atrium, facilities are grouped in two wings, with the buildings structure embracing the sloping landscape of the 12,000-square-meter (129,167-square-foot) site.

The 3,800-square-meter (40,900-square-foot) ceiling was constructed from 1,854 glass panels, with minimal structural steel in order to reduce weight. The glass is barely reflective, as the architects did not want strong reflections to impact the surrounding environment. It was designed with extensive digital modeling. As Safdie Architects partner Sean Scensor and senior associate Isaac Safdie explained, the aim was to simulate the effect of being outdoors, under the canopy of trees, on a beautiful day with a clear view of the sky above.

Working between offices in So Paulo, London, and Boston, and collaborating with mechanical and environmental engineers, horticulturalists, and landscape architects, the team at Safdie led the modeling of environmental factors that led to the final design and material decisions. Shading was a delicate balance; as Safdie and Scensor explained, they needed to provide enough light for the plants, while limiting the glare of direct sunlight and also keeping electricity usage to a minimum.

In order to sustain the garden, the model tracked optimum light levels20,000 lux for 1,200 hours per yearevapotranspiration rates of the plants, and determined a maximum temperature of 24 degrees celsius (75 degrees fahrenheit) and a maximum relative humidity of 50 percent. With climate data from So Paulo, the team used ray tracing software to model the full range of daylight conditions. Based on this data, the architects selected insulated laminated glass with low emissivity solar coating, high visible light transmittance, and a neutral color. The team also used computational fluid dynamic modeling to map heat and humidity in the space over time maintaining comfort for both people and plants, said Safdie and Scensor.

Safdie and Scensor further explained that the model presented a challenge in that it could not fully model the beneficial effect of the tree canopyrequiring special interpolation and interpretation of the results. The final design of the roof was formed of an outer layer of fritted glass, attached to a steel structure, and an inner layer of a printed acoustic membrane. The outer layer of fritter glass was fabricated with a pattern of translucent ceramic dots, which act as a solar shading mechanism. The inner membrane layer was micro-perforated to absorb sound, and also printed with a pattern of translucent dots for solar shading, though these dots also glow in sunlight. The dots were arranged to be denser as they approached the east and west ends of the building, effectively shading the sun at low angles. The dual layers of dots filter the dappled light, giving the intended effect of the tree canopy.

Sun shading was also a primary consideration on the faces of the building, most of which contain floor-to-ceiling glass. The building is tiered on alternating floors, with the floors that are set back shaded by the overhanging floor above. The floors that are not shaded by the overhang were wrapped in a polymer resin brise-soleil, shading them while still allowing for views of the neighborhood. As Safdie and Scensor explained, the design team primarily used passive solar design principles, placing 40 percent of the program below street level in addition to the daylight from the atrium, which reaches lower levels. The architects opted for triple silver-coated glass, maximizing shading performance and reducing the need for electricity usage during the day.

Using digital modeling, scaled physical models, and full-size mock ups, the design team studied the louvers of the brise-soleil to optimize shading. By spacing the louvers 37 centimeters (14 inches) apart, and tilting them 45 degrees, they were able to optimize shading without blocking views of the exterior. The diagonal louvers were installed on the east- and west-facing facades to shade morning and afternoon sunlight, while the louvers on the north were left horizontal to shade direct sunlight midday.

The louvers were fabricated with polymer resin over concrete, metal, and fiberglass options, for its light weight, tensile strength, and precise tolerances. The pine wood color of the resin was customized to minimize cleaning, but also establishes visual continuity with wood used in the interior. The shape was also customized, which Safdie and Scensor described as winglike, diffusing light by bouncing it between louvers. Rooms are also equipped with operable solar and blackout shades, allowing for adjustment based on occupant needs.

While the design attempted to control environmental needs as much as possible, So Paulos climate did pose challenges during the construction process. The rainy season prolonged the site excavation, but the design team was able to assemble full-scale mock ups on a nearby lot. Representing each significant component of the building, including a full-size classroom, materials and design features were demonstrated to the client. Collaborative work with tradespersons, particularly in custom assembly, was key to saving time and improving quality control.

Refining the exposed concrete was a complex process that required the design team to work with a number of subcontractors to evaluate the formwork, mix, curing time, and sealers that were locally available. Safdie worked with Perkins&Wills So Paulo officethe Architect of Record on the joband the contractor, Racional, to specify domestic suppliers and manufacturers on a range of materials, saving costs by reducing the quantity of imported materials.

The design team worked closely with Seele on the structural design, fabrication, and installation supervision of the glass ceiling. Safdie previously worked with the firm on the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), and encouraged the client to bring on Seele during early phases of the design process, streamlining materials selection, cost, and constructability. The contractors and client were able to tour both the USIP and the Jewel to understand the need for long-term maintenance of the skylight, and to learn from the past construction processes.

Link:
Albert Einstein Education and Research Center emulates a tree canopy - The Architect's Newspaper

The period between 1850 and 1920 was full of colorful neer-do-wells.

Career criminals like Jesse James, John Dillinger, and Butch Cassidy gained infamy for their brazen bank heists. These rebels and rule-breakers were an unsavory byproduct of American individualism, plundering their way to financial success by nefarious means.

But one oft-forgotten man was more productive than them all.

George Leonidas Leslie led a double life: By day, he was a distinguished architect who hobnobbed with New York Citys elite denizens; by night, he was one of historys most prolific bank robbers.

Unlike other heisters of his time, Leslies approach was academic rather than brutish. He studied the anatomy of locks, drafted up blueprints of banks, and invented mechanical safe-breaking devices.

During his career, authorities estimated that his exploits accounted for 80% of all bank robberies in the entire US during his active years of 1869-78.

Altogether, he stole at least $7m ($200m in todays money), much of it pilfered from the bank vaults of Americas wealthiest titans.

The final bank heist he orchestrated is still, to this day, the largest in US history an astounding $81m haul, adjusted for inflation.

But a mysterious murder would prevent him from ever seeing it play out.

Born in 1842 to relative wealth, Leslie enjoyed a much different upbringing than most outlaws of his time, according to biographer J. North Conway, who explored Leslies life in the book The King of Heists.

Get the Hustles 5-minute weekday roundup that keeps you hip to happenings in tech, business, and internet things.

When the Civil War broke out, Leslies father, a successful brewery owner in Toledo, Ohio, paid a sum of $300 (~$10.7k today) to relieve his son of his military obligation.

Instead, Leslie enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, graduated with high honors from the architecture program, and opened his own successful firm.

No known photographs of Leslie exist, so heres Cincinnati, his college city, in the 1840s (NYPL Digital Collections; John Caspar Wild, Henry Robinson)

By all accounts, Leslie was a bright, upstanding businessman with a promising future in legitimate enterprises.

But after his parents died, he had a sudden change of heart.

In 1869, he sold the family home and his architecture firm and set off for New York City. Before leaving town, Leslie explained his motive to friends: He wanted to pursue easy money.

Once in New York, Leslie wasted no time falling in with an impressive cast of characters.

He took up residence at the prestigious Fifth Avenue Hotel a gathering place for the ultra-elite of the Gilded Age, including shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt and then-president Ulysses S. Grant.

Though he wasnt a millionaire himself, Leslie ingratiated himself into the high-status world, donning the finest suits, attending theater openings, and collecting rare books.

His apparent wealth and pedigree gained him the friendship of robber barons like Jim Fisk (a millionaire who cornered the gold market and orchestrated Black Friday), Jay Gould (a railroad magnate), and Boss Tweed (a corrupt politician who embezzled millions from taxpayers).

These men, and other members of high society, saw Leslie as a bon vivant of the highest order and accepted him with open arms.

Jim Fisk (left) and Jay Gould (right) were robbers of their own kind, amassing extraordinary wealth by sometimes ruthless means (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress)

But Leslie had an ulterior motive.

As Conway wrote, the 27-year-old gentleman was secretly obsessed with pulp Western novels and the hijinks of outlaws like Jesse James.

Hed come to New York City not to hobnob with pin-stripe bankers, but to rob the very banks where they were housing their riches.

And before long, he began to seek out a second, much different social group one that could bring his vision to life.

Leslie, of course, faced a problem.

Robbing banks wasnt exactly the kind of profession one could learn from books. It required a strong connection to the criminal underworld. And he found just that in a woman named Fredericka Marm Mandelbaum.

Mandelbaum was New Yorks greatest fencer.

Working with an expansive band of criminals and pickpockets across the city, she housed and resold millions of dollars of stolen goods largely with impunity. Like Leslie, she was in with the elites, whom she hosted at extravagant parties in a home appointed with ill-gotten luxuries.

Introduced through Fisk, Leslie and Mandelbaum hit it off in grand fashion.

Top left: Marm Mandelbuam(Sins of New York: As Exposed by the Police Gazette; Edward Van Every); Top right: Mandelbaums residence; Bottom: A depiction of a typical Mandelbaum dinner party (Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, George Washington Walling; 1877)

At the time, modern bank vault locks were thought to be unbreakable. Most bank robbers relied on explosives to break into vaults a loud and messy affair. A few others tried, mostly without success, to crack safes by listening to tiny clinks in the lock with a stethoscope.

Leslie had a different proposal that intrigued Mandelbaum:

After a few months of feeling out the newcomer, Mandelbaum decided to give Leslie a shot at his first bank robbery.

She assigned him a crew of accomplices, including Tom Shang Draper, a con artist and lifelong crook; Red Leary, a towering, redheaded enforcer; and Johnny Dobbs, a notorious safecracker.

Leslie selected his first target Ocean National Bank in New York City and began a laborious, three-month-long planning process.

His preparations entailed the following:

A typical bank vault in the late 1800s (Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, George Washington Walling; 1877)

His men were not happy with the slow process. They just wanted to blow stuff up.

But Leslie instructed them to do nightly rehearsals for weeks using his replica, playing out various scenarios in a dark warehouse.

In June 1869, Leslie made his move.

First, the planted employee let him in at night, after the guards had gone, and he installed his little joker device, a tiny tin wheel with a metal wire around it that went behind the combination knob of the vaults lock.

When the tellers used the vault the next day, the little joker, hidden behind the dial, would get etched with deep cuts where the three numbers of the code were, limiting the combination to just a few possibilities.

Several nights later, Leslie and his crew entered the bank again, removed the little joker, and used the etches to crack the lock.

This only gained them entry through the first door: The safe had three of them, each built of thick iron. And inside the vault the safes had to be opened, too.

For this, the crew relied on a bevy of ingenious tools jimmies, wedges, sledges, nippers, and drills.

Tools of the bank robber trade, as coiled by a police chief (Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, George Washington Walling; 1877)

The following morning, bank officials arrived at a chaotic scene: floors strewn with coins, bank notes, and drill bits. But the main door to the vault was intact, which stumped investigating police officers.

The New York Herald declared it a masterful bank job pulled off by one very special bank robber. A report in The New York Times remarked that a robbery of this type was a thing never heard of before.

In sum, Leslie and his crew made off with $768,879.74 (~$27.5m today) a record-setting sum.

And that was just the beginning.

Over the following years, Leslie employed similar tactics in a torrent of robberies across the East Coast.

At a time when the average annual wage in New York was <$1k/year, Leslies heists often pulled in five- or six-figure sums in one night:

Leslie began to gain recognition in criminal circles around the country and was soon enlisted as a bank robbery consultant, charging a fee of $20k (~$500k) to look over other outfits plans and make suggestions.

In the meantime, he continued to charade as an upstanding member of society, socializing with well-respected members of the gentry class.

He married a woman in Philadelphia, under the auspices that he was an IRS detective. The couple moved into a 10-room, $100k ($2.5m) house in New York, which he furnished with a grand piano, a library, croquet grounds, and imported carpets.

Leslies biggest bank heists were yet to come (various newspaper clippings from the 1870s)

In 1876, Leslie chose his next big strike: Northampton Bank, situated in a quiet town in upstate New York.

Several years earlier, the bank had decided to install a supposedly invincible new lock that required both a key and a combination.

Leslie had a trick up his sleeve.

He tracked down the lock salesman whod installed the new system and bribed him with a cut of the action. The employee, William Edson, made a copy of the keys and gave them to the banks cashier.

After weeks of staking out the location, Leslies men kidnapped the cashier and forced him to relinquish the key and the combination.

The robbers made off with $1.6m ($39m) in loot but there was a serious problem. Most of the haul was in nonnegotiable bonds, which could only be cashed in by the person whose name was on the slip; only $12k was cash.

The heist ended up being mostly a bust and led to the arrests of several of Leslies henchmen.

Two years later, Leslie hit another snag: A similar botched bank robbery in Dexter, Maine, left an uncompromising cashier dead.

Beyond the failed robberies, things were beginning to turn sour between Leslie and his fellow delinquents particularly, Shang Draper.

Draper didnt like that Leslie took 50% of the cut for himself and delegated the other 50% to the rest of the group. He also began to grow suspicious that Leslie was having an affair with his wife.

But Leslie was singularly focused on one thing: the biggest bank heist hed ever planned.

For three years, hed been meticulously mapping out a hit on the Manhattan Savings Institution, the largest and most formidable bank in the city.

It was, by all accounts, a ponderous labyrinth of bolts, locks, and seemingly impregnable doors, wrote Conway in King of Heists.

Top: A depiction of the formidable Manhattan Savings Institution (Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, George Washington Walling; 1877); Bottom: A diagram of the banks second story (The Hustle, via news archives)

Leslie had done all of his regular due diligence:

Except this time, he had a different plan: Hed turn his back on his gang at the last minute and work with another gang on the crime. After this one, he planned to bow out of the robbery game and resettle in another city.

The bank Premises were as accurately surveyed by Leslie as they would have been had a professional architect been employed, New York police chief George Walling wrote later.

Everything was in place. But Leslie never got a chance to pull it off.

In October 1878, Leslies gang used the architects plans to break into the Manhattan Savings Institution.

The crew made off with $2,747,700, ~$81m in todays money an inflation-adjusted figure never matched even today.

Zachary Crockett / The Hustle

New York reports at the time dubbed the heist the most sensational in the history of bank robberies in this country.

But its mastermind a man who police say was involved with more than 100 bank robberies through his nine-year career wasnt there to see it happen.

On June 4, 1878, several months earlier, Leslies decomposing body had been discovered near Yonkers along the Hudson River.

Hed been shot dead at the age of 36.

While the murder was never solved, there was a strong suspicion that Leslies colleague Draper was the culprit.

Leslies funeral was a curious affair. A mishmash of crime lords, cops, and financiers, it was the perfect manifestation of his dual existence.

In obituaries, he was at once described as a man of refinement and culture, a skillful mechanic, and someone whose aid and advice was secured in every one of the larger robberies that have been committed for the past 10 or 12 years.

The nations most notorious bank robber was buried in an unmarked grave under his real name, George Howard a fitting conclusion to the life of a man who lived in the shadows.

Note: For more on Leslies life and heists, check out King Of Heists (J. North Conway), A Burglars Guide to the City (Geoff Manaugh), and this incredible 1887 memoir from a NYC police chief.

Business and tech news in 5 minutes or less

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The architect who became the king of bank robberies - The Hustle

On late Tuesday, Patrick Reed filed a defamation case against Golf Channel and analyst Brandel Chamblee, alleging that theyhave conspired as joint tortfeasors for and with the PGA Tour, its executives and its Commissioner Jay Monahan, to engage in a pattern and practice of defaming Mr Reed. misreporting information with falsity and/or reckless disregard for the truth.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Larry Klayman, is looking for more than $750 million in damages.

Amongst the court documents, it is claimed thatChamblee and Golf Channel have indeed engaged in a longstanding pattern and practice of maliciously defaming Mr. Reed.

The document cites examples where Chamblee has accused the former Masters champ of cheating at the 2019 Hero and quotes from the analyst suggesting that Reed has engaged in improper and misconduct in his past college days, to which both examples Reeds camp call false and malicious.

The lawsuit claims that the defendants, acting in concert with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and their commissioners, have created a hostile work environment for Reed and that the abuse has harmed his performance at tournaments.

Per the document, the personal attacks at events include but are not limited to:

You suck!, You f____ng suck!, You jackass!, You coward!, Shovel!, Why dont you dig a grave and bury yourself in it!, You piece of sh_t!, No one likes you!, Everyone hates you Reed, Good look digging yourself out of this one!, Where are your parents coward!, You cheater!, Cheat!, Everyone hates you cheater!, Youre going to miss this you cheater!, You cheat in college and on Tour and youre a piece of sh_t!, Beat the cheaters ass!, Sorry Webb for having to play with the cheat! Who did you pi_s off!?, Why dont you introduce your children to their grandparents you ungrateful bit_h!

The suit accuses Chamblee of not heading a cease and desist letter sent previously. Its also claimed that due to Chamblee and Golf Channelsbizarre fixationwith destroying Reeds character by fabricating the story that he is somehow a cheater', the family have been victims of abuse, with even their kids being tormented and bullied.

The court documents also get personal, with Chamblee called a disciple of the Skip Bayless school of sports analysis, where it is more important to be loud than it is to be correct.

The lawsuit claims that Chamblee has fabricated a feud with an athlete at the top of their game, first with Tiger Woods and then Patrick Reed, in order to leach attention, notoriety, and fame from those who were able to achieve far more than he ever did as a golfer, which is probably the driving force behind his bitter personal animus and bias leveled against Mr. Reed.

Its another dramatic twist in the LIV-PGA Tour saga. Last week a federal judge denied LIV Golf players Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford and Matt Jones a temporary restraining order to play the PGA Tours FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Following that result, Chamblee tweetedGolf won today. Murderers lost., a comment which Reeds lawsuit claims viciously defamed Patrick Reed as a murderer simply because he now plays on the LIV Golf Tour.

Next fall will likely see the larger antitrust lawsuit filed by 10 LIV players against the Tour.

More:
'I don't think that makes any sense' Patrick Cantlay calls out golf course architects - GolfWRX

With his distinctive aquiline nose and magnificent flowing beard, Albanias national hero, Skanderbeg, has long been a familiar presence in the countrys streets and squares. The 7ft warrior king known as the Dragon of Albania, slayer of the Ottoman Turks, is celebrated in numerous monuments and reliefs, his imposing stature and fiery eyes keeping watch over the territory he fought for in the 15th century.

Now his face will loom larger over the capital than ever before. Construction has begun on an 85-metre-high block of apartments, offices and shops in the centre of Tirana, designed in the shape of Skanderbegs head. Images of the project depict an amorphous white tower ringed with balconies that ripple in and out to form a lumpy approximation of the heros features, imprinting his profile permanently on the skyline in concrete and glass. Wealthy future residents will be able to look out from the warriors eyes, hang out on his ears or dine alfresco on the end of his nose from which greenery will dangle in an unfortunate snot-like drip.

The surreal vision is the work of Dutch architects MVRDV, who are no strangers to concocting buildings shaped like supersized novelty objects or figurative sculptural projects, as they prefer to call them. Their disastrous Marble Arch Mound in London, which arguably cost the Conservative council its leadership of the local borough, was merely the latest in a long line of cartoonish creations that seem to have been plucked from the depths of a joke shop bargain bin. The architects have designed a museum in the form of gigantic comic speech bubbles, an art storage depot in the shape of an Ikea salad bowl and an apartment complex that spells out the word HOME in the form of its blocks. But it seems they have saved their most banal metaphors for the Balkans, perhaps assuming that fewer of their clients and critics will ever see the buildings in person.

A short distance from where the giant Skanderbeg head is planned to rise, there already looms another tower designed by MVRDV, named Downtown One. Topping out last year, its 140-metre concrete frame makes it the tallest building in the city, and it continues the pop-nationalist theme. Rather than a face, this hefty slab of luxury flats and offices features a pixelated map of Albania protruding from its facade although the form is so indistinct, it looks more like the concrete formwork slipped on the way up, leaving a wonky mess in its wake. The dramatically carved volumes imagined by MVRDV appear to have been value-engineered into more shallow dimples, giving the impression that the building is prematurely eroding.

These days, cities around the world increasingly look like each other, says Winy Maas, founding partner of the Dutch architecture firm. I always encourage them to resist this, to find their individual character and emphasise it. Tirana has the opportunity of a blank canvas for high-density structures. It can be progressive in that sense and build up character and a sense of place.

But many local residents arent so sure about the sense of place being created by Maas, and the roster of other international architects who have been flown in to reshape the city. A handful of towers are rising around Tiranas central Skanderbeg Square, with four already complete and at least another six in the pipeline. There have been vocal protests against the destruction of Ottoman-era villas to make way for the slew of high-rise developments, with critics bemoaning the loss of heritage and rocketing property prices, and accusations that the projects are being used as money laundering schemes for organised crime.

Two historic villas were demolished to make way for the Skanderbeg tower in May 2020, when the city was in pandemic lockdown. At the same time, the citys cherished National Theatre, dating from the 1930s, was also bulldozed to make way for a project by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, to widespread condemnation.

The future of Tirana will be full of ghost skyscrapers, says Vincent WJ van Gerven Oei, a Dutch writer who has lived in Tirana for the last 12 years and closely tracked the citys development. I love MVRDV the things they build in the Netherlands are among my favourite buildings but then they come to Albania and become lousy assholes. They think they can get away with crappy design, checking off all the stupid nationalist tropes you can think of.

In a 2018 lecture, when the two towers were in development, Maas addressed the overt nationalist symbolism of designing a building in the shape of the countrys map. I had a discussion with some of the European politicians about that, he said. Because, can you do that? Is nationalism good or bad? But Albania needs it, to show its sexy and that its actually quite cool.

Dashing back and forth on stage, speaking like a hyperactive child who had consumed too many E-numbers, Maas rhapsodised his love affair with Albania. He described it as a country with no money, that drinks only coffee, and where there is nothing to do the perfect blank slate for his outlandish ideas, like a mini-China with bountiful opportunities for architects. Developers are getting richer, he said excitedly, but made no mention of where the money might be coming from to build such heady visions, given the countrys impoverished economy.

A 2020 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime noted that the Albanian construction industry had become a popular hotspot for international criminal gangs to launder money, primarily from drug trafficking. It estimated that 1.6bn worth of dirty money had been laundered through the Albanian real estate sector in the previous three years, with 60% of project funding coming from illicit sources. Albanias own Office of the General Directorate for the Prevention of Money Laundering said that it observed considerable real estate investments with unknown source of funds, which it classified as suspicious.

Last year, anti-mafia prosecutors in Italy found that the Ndrangheta crime syndicate had identified Tiranas new high-rise developments as a prime opportunity for laundering their cash. In one wiretap, two of those arrested were heard discussing a building constructor in Albania who held three building permits for buildings worth 180m, but had only 10m to hand. The new skyscrapers are to be sold for 3,000-4,000 per square metre, one of the suspects says. And do you know how much it cost to build? 510. MVRDV says that, in accordance with Dutch law, it runs background checks on its clients using a third-party company that scans for criminal activity, among other things, and there is no suggestion of illegal funds. A spokesperson for the city of Tirana said: The duty of the municipality is to ensure that construction plans, aesthetics, architecture rules and mobility plans are respected. We understand we live in a toxic political environment in the Balkans and have repeatedly asked opposition leaders to point out: which one of these towers is suspect of such [criminal] activity? To date, we have no response and there has been no official claim with the Tirana prosecution.

The radical reshaping of the Albanian capital over the last two decades can primarily be credited to Edi Rama, who served as its mayor from 2000-2011 and has been the countrys prime minister since 2013. Rama was a professional basketball player and artist in the 1990s, and Maas says in his lecture: I know Edi from Paris, when he was a painter. Rama returned to Albania to become minister of culture in 1998, and embarked on a radical clean-up operation when he became mayor. He made headlines with his policies of painting grey soviet buildings in bright colours to liven up the city, planting trees, creating bike lanes and holding international architectural competitions reforms that landed him the inaugural World Mayor prize in 2004.

One of the first projects MVRDV scooped under Ramas reign was the Toptani shopping centre in 2005, which was conceived as a hollowed out pixelated mass covered in giant LCD advertising screens. Having won the competition, Maas heard nothing until a few years later, when he realised the building had in fact been built by other architects, and drastically watered down in the process. The digital facade was exchanged for standard grey cladding panels, while his vision for an open arcade became a generic closed-off mall.

Projects here are often realised in a totally different way to how the architects originally intended, says Van Gerven Oei. Theres the reality of the digital render, always beautiful, brilliant and groundbreaking, and then the reality of Albanian construction companies, who want to do the easiest, fastest thing at the lowest possible price.

Not to be dissuaded by the Frankenstein mall, MVRDV continued to seek work in Albania. Several unrealised projects followed, from a colossal pile of oblong apartment blocks planned for a lakeside site in 2008, dubbed Tirana Rocks, to a coastal resort for a Russian client designed as an artificial hillside that would glow eerily at night better than any James Bond movie, Maas promised. He explains how Downtown One began as a three-dimensional Albania-shaped building, but proved too expensive, so they decided to imprint the shape of the map on a simple rectangular tower instead. A further commission came in 2018 to transform the striking marble-clad Pyramid of Tirana built in the 1980s as a museum to celebrate the countrys former communist dictator which had become a popular place for the citys youth to scramble up and slide down. MVRDV were appointed, without a public competition, to transform it into a tech hub smothering the sloping sides with concrete steps in the process. Finally, when it comes to the Skanderbeg tower, the origins are as blunt as you might expect. As Maas recalls: Then Edi said: I want to do something with history. And so the giant head was born.

Local people have joked that, as Rama cultivates an elder-statesman look his 6ft 6in frame and growing beard giving him an increasingly Skanderbeg-esque appearance the head-shaped building may end up looking more like a lasting monument to the artist-politician who reshaped the capital, forever gazing out over his vision of empty towers.

See the article here:
What the Marble Arch Mound architects did next: a skyscraper shaped like Albanias national hero - The Guardian

Introducing Rakewell, Apollos wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories.

Rakewell is interested to note that not only is Keanu Reeves confirmed to star in his first leading role in a television series, but that he will be playing an architect. And not just a fictional architect, of which there many examples in cinema. For The Devil in the White City, Reeves has been cast as Daniel H. Burnham, who, as the co-designer of the worlds first building with an all-steel frame, was a pioneer of skyscraper architecture and who, as head architect of the Worlds Fair of 1893 in Chicago, had a hand in making the city what it is today.

Chicago, you say? But hasnt Keanu played an architect in the Windy City before? He certainly has, although your roving correspondent with something of a thing for ridiculous films wouldnt call it the most authentic depiction of the profession on screen. But if you like lakes and houses, baffling time-travel scenarios, and Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves starring in the same film but not stuck on a bus, then The Lake House (2006) is unmissable, mystifying fun. The premise is that Keanus architect and Sandra Bullocks doctor live in the same North Shore lakeside house on stilts only they are in the property two years apart, in 2004 and 2006, respectively. With the help of a magic mailbox, the determined couple send each other letters, fall in love and wonder how they can beat the pesky time-space continuum that is keeping them apart. Reevess character is working on suburban condominiums instead of starting a firm with the unpromising name of Visionary Vanguard with his younger brother, also an architect. Both are cowed by their rather more visionary father who is youve guessed it another architect, played by Christopher Plummer (hooray!) as a charismatic cross between Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. As the one decent architect in the family, it is he who designed the titular house. Rakewell cant quite remember if the ending makes any sense, but Chicago comes out of the picture with great credit.

The Devil in the White City, on the other hand, is an adaptation of Erik Larsons true-crime thriller of 2003, which also deals with the murderous exploits of the serial killer H.H. Holmes, who despatched his victims during the Worlds Fair. Although the book is just as preoccupied by Burnhams masterminding of the event, Rakewell wonders how much screen time Keanu Reeves is really going to share with a slide rule. Still, it has to be an improvement on Knock Knock (2015), in which the actor again played an architect. This time, he is a married man left in the house on his own; a married man who unwisely opens the door to two attractive passing strangers. Lets just say that sexy times lead to harrowing times and let us hope for more, both for Keanu and for ourselves, from the real-life tribulations of Daniel H. Burnham.

Got a story for Rakewell? Get in touch atrakewell@apollomag.comor via @Rakewelltweets.

Original post:
Is Keanu Reeves about to become the architect of his own destiny? - Apollo Magazine

The following editorial from Aki Ishida kicks off the Focus section of the July/August 2022 edition of The Architects Newspaper, which showcases the latest and greatest innovations in glass. You can view the entire section, complete with product roundups and case studies, in full here.

In recent decades, technological advancements in chemical coating, structural engineering, and fabrication methods have altered architectural possibilities for the use of glass. As new techniques expand the range of effects and performance of clear glass, glass transparency has become increasingly multivalent and complexit is blurred, both materially and metaphysically. Historical associations of glass with exclusivity and exquisiteness have resulted in todays predicaments of excessive consumption, as evidenced by all-glass iPhones, the curtain walls of luxury high-rises, and other glass buildings and products. At the same time, when we spend more than 90 percent of our day indoors, glass that connects us to the outdoors remains indispensable to architecture.

Beginning in the late 1990s, I worked for four years at the office of glass artist/technologist James Carpenter when glass knowledge was still exclusive relative to today, as now many architecture offices have their own glass and curtain-wall experts. At the time, Carpenters studio worked at the forefront of experimenting with reflective coating (including the polychrome effects of dichroic glass that characterized much of Carpenters early work) and the first use in the United States of cable-net glass walls, designed in collaboration with German engineering firm Schlaich Bergermann Partner.

Building on my professional experience as an architect, in my book Blurred Transparencies in Contemporary Glass Architecture (2020), I examined the intertwining of material, culture, and technology through six case studies and argued that readings of transparent glass are increasingly blurry.

Glasss fragility, which intensifies its exquisiteness, has challenged architects and captured their imagination. From the 11th to the 16th centuries, the secrets of glassmaking were highly coveted by the Venetians until three glassmakers were smuggled in by King Louis XIV of France to realize Versailless Hall of Mirrors. Crystals, glass slippers, coffins, and mirrors often appear symbolically in fairy tales, which describe the collective dreams of a culture. In modern architecture, glass is a material imbued with idealism, symbolism, and utopian vision. Walter Gropius, for example, referenced crystals in the Bauhaus manifesto, writing that the new structure of the future [] will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith. It was thought that in early modern sanatorium buildings, including the Zonnestraal (1931) in the Netherlands, solar transmission through the glass walls would heal sick patients, transforming them into healthy workers. Today, these historical examples continue to affect meanings associated with glass.

Following the financial fallout of 2008 and amid increasing concerns about global warming, glass came under attack for being environmentally irresponsible and unaffordable. Bird lovers villainized New Yorks Javits Center as a hazard for birds that flew into its reflective glass walls. In 2014, FXFowle replaced I.M. Pei and Partners (now Pei Cobb Freed & Partners) original glass with fritted glass that is more visible to birds; avian fatalities dropped by 90 percent. In 2019, in response to a surge of glass skyscraper construction in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio alarmed architects and developers by hyperbolically claiming that steel and glass have no place in our city or on our Earth anymore, although what he meant was that the energy code requirements should become more stringent, not that glass would be banned. Architect and academic Andres Jaques 2021 performance Being Silica was a critique of ultra-clear, low-iron glass made with a white sand extracted from a few exclusive locations around the world; the same sand is also used in fracking. Jaque remarked that low-iron glass, which costs three times as much as regular glass with a green tint, has become the material of choice for high-profile glass architecture, including Apple stores and the supertall luxury apartment towers on New York Citys Billionaires Row. In other words, ultra-clear glass symbolizes excessive wealth and environmental exploitation.

Despite the negative attention given to glass in recent years, much of which is based on valid societal concerns, most people would agree that a world without glass would be unimaginably grim and dull. Responding to the climate crisis shouldnt require a ban on glass, but rather more thoughtful applications instead of draping every face of the building with the material, top to bottom. Architects can educate their clients and the public to no longer associate floor-to-ceiling glass with the good life. Excessive fritting, coating, and tinting needed to meet the energy codes defeat the purpose of having glass in the first place.

Architects can also consider smarter couplings of building function and location with the material of glass. For example, SANAAs Glass Pavilion (2006) in Toledo, Ohio, is an all-glass building that recirculates the heat generated by the furnace in a hot glass shop to heat the gallery and office spaces in the winter. As Michael Na Min Ra of facade consulting firm Front shared in my book, this innovative approach to heating and cooling made an all-glass building sensible in the cold climate of Toledo.

Moreover, as architects such as Lacaton & Vassal have shown, transparent walls and windows can be made operable and adjustable, thus offering the occupants a sense of agency in managing their own environment.

Even though glass is no longer specified for its curative effects as it was for tuberculosis sanatoriums a century ago, transparent glass continues to capture our imagination and remains vital to our cities. As advancements in glass surface treatments and engineering continue to alter glass as a material, its visual perception will become further blurred, along with its cultural symbolism.

Aki Ishida is an architect, educator, and writer currently serving as interim associate director of Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Originally posted here:
Advances in technology shape contemporary glazing applications - The Architect's Newspaper