Courtesy of California Library

The May Company building in Los Angeles.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has been trying to build a museum dedicated to movies for decades. Now one seems to finally be in the works: The Academy announced this week that theyve signed on big-name architects and plan to redo a Los Angeles historic landmark.

While the Academys search for a suitable location for its first museum ended up stopping close to the groups rootsthey chose the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts Art Deco building at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenuethe hunt for an architect to redesign the space took them first to Culver City, Calif., and then to Italy. Theyve hired local, yet still well known, architect Zoltan Pali and paired him with Pritzker Prize-winner Renzo Piano to help create the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Both men know museums and performing arts venues. Pali has already restored the Greek Theatre, the Gibson Amphitheatre and the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. Piano has helped create the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Central St. Giles Court in London, the Menil Collection in Houston and the New York Times headquarters. He knows L.A., too, with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art expansion to his name, a building that sits next door to the Academys newfound museum home.

(MORE: 10 Questions for Renzo Piano)

The new museum siteoriginally designed by Albert C. Martin and S.A. Marxis also known as the May Company building, as it housed that department store from 1939 to 1993. It opened the same year Gone With the Wind and the Wizard of Oz were released. Since 1993, the Museum of Art Group has owned the building, but never had a real use for it. The L.A.-based group had previously hired Palis spf:architects firm to create a plan for the interior of the space, but when the Academy agreed to lease it, they added Renzo Piano Building Workshop, putting two architectswho have known each other for years, but have never worked together on the same projecttogether for their first collaboration.

The pair plans to work in unison to recreate the interior of the space inside the 325,000-square-foot building, but leave the exterior faade of the historic landmark structure in tact. The architects know they need to create a space where exhibition designers can concoct experiences for visitors, not simply a building that can house memories.

We as architects make buildings that are portraits that represent our clients, says Piano, who, like the building, was born in the 1930s. The Academy Museum will take the visitor through the back door of cinema, behind the curtain, and into moviemaking magic.

With the announcement of the agreement coming this week, theres still plenty of fundraising and planning to do before the museum opens, hopefully in early 2016.

See the original post:
Famed Architects to Finally Create Movie Museum in L.A.

Yong this years award will recognise the busiest property developers and architecture firms.

WINNERS LEAGUE: Back again, bigger and boasting two award categories for property developers and architecture firms plus green buildings, the BCI Asia Awards recognised the top 10 most active firms recently.

This year marks the 8th annual BCI Asia Awards being organised. Since we first started in 2005, we have given recognition to 10 of the most active architecture firms in the seven Asian countries where we operate, namely Vietnam,

Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Hong Kong, said Kelvin Yong, country manager of BCI Asia in Malaysia.

Yong added that since last year, BCI Asia introduced a new award category for property developers which is based on the aggregate value of projects.

This is a record year which saw Arkitek MAA Sdn Bhd and BEP Akitek Sdn Bhd winning the award for the seventh time each. The other winners are SA Architects Sdn Bhd and VERITAS Architects Sdn Bhd, both winning for the sixth time and Akipraktis, winning for the fifth time.

It was a first win for both ArchiCentre Sdn Bhd and B.L. Tay Architect from Penang. The rest of the winners in the architecture category that have won three times and below are ATSA Architects Sdn Bhd, KAZ Akitek Sdn Bhd and NWKA Architects Sdn Bhd, Yong revealed.

In the property developers category, Dijaya Corporation Bhd, IJM Land Berhad, IOI Properties Berhad, Mah Sing Group Berhad, Nadayu Properties Bhd, NAZA TTDI Sdn Bhd, Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor (PKNS), Sime Darby Property Bhd, SP Setia Berhad and Sunway Berhad emerged in the top 10 most active list.

Besides recognising leading developers and architecture firms, the awards also aim to recognise firms that will shape the built environment of the future, and their impact, both socially and on the environment.

A few years ago, we started a category for the FuturArc Prize and the FuturArc Green Leadership Award. The FuturArc prize is an international competition for green building designs while the Green Leadership Award, started in 2008, is an international award recognising the contribution of architects to sustainable design or green built projects.

Read the original here:
Being ‘busy’ pays for top 10 architects and developers

Michael Graves & Associates (MGA) has been given the commission to design massive renovations to the on-campus Louis Brown Athletic Center -- which houses both the Rutgers men's and women's basketball teams -- according to a release sent out by the Rutgers athletic department today.

Although mum on specifics, the release said that the renovations will include "the addition of a state-of-the-art practice facility for mens and womens basketball; new strength & conditioning, training, and equipment rooms and offices for the athletic department; improved fan experience including a Rutgers Hall of Fame and seating bowl reconfiguration with premium seating; and building improvements including systems upgrades and a new entrance faade.

The construction of state-of-the-art practice facilities and the overall modernization of the RAC is the highest facilities priority for Rutgers Athletics," athletic director Tim Pernetti said in the statement. "Michael Graves and Tom Rowe have a clear vision for the project, and I am confident the new RAC will have a great benefit to the student-athletes in 19 of our 24 sports, help to generate new revenues through premium services, and be a source of pride for the entire Rutgers University community.

MGA will partner with Heery International, an Atlanta-based architecture firm specializing in sports facility design.

No start date or timetable was provided in the release. The RAC was constructed in 1977.

More:
Rutgers selects architects for 'multiphase renovation and expansion' of RAC

Award-winning architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali will design the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science announced Wednesday.

The movie museum will be located in the May Company building, part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

"Renzos track record of creating iconic cultural landmarks combined with Zoltans success in transforming historically-significant buildings is a perfect marriage for a museum that celebrates the history and the future of the movies," said Dawn Hudson, Academy CEO.

Piano, who won architectures highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, in 1998, is the founder of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. His design accomplishments include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Central St. Giles Court in London, the Kansai International Airport Terminal in Osaka and the Menil Collection in Houston. Piano also designed the expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Pali, a Los Angeles native, is the design principal and co-founder of Studio Pali Fekete architects. He is known for his Los Angeles-area restorations of the Greek Theatre, the Gibson Amphitheatre and the Pantages Theatre.

The Museum Committee is composed of Academy governors Craig Barron, Jim Bissell, Gale Anne Hurd, Rob Friedman and Robert Rehme; Academy members Kathleen Kennedy, former president Sid Ganis and Academy President Tom Sherak.

Read the original:
Academy Taps Renzo Piano, Zoltan Pali to Design Movie Museum

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is one step closer to finally creating a museum dedicated to the movies in Los Angeles. The Academy announced Wednesday that it has picked the two architects who will design the museum.

Award-winning architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali were hired to create the design. Both are acclaimed architects who have handled big projects in the past.

In 1998, Piano won the Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in the architecture world. He is the founder of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, which has offices in Paris, Geno and New York. Some of his major designs include the New York Times headquarters, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Central St. Giles Court in London. The Los Angeles Times reports that Piano also worked on the LACMA, remaking the western half of the museums campus.

Pali is a Los Angeles native who co-founded the Studio Pali Fekete architects firm. The firm has won numerous LA awards and Pali oversaw the restorations of several LA landmarks such as the the Gibson Amphitheatre and the Pantages Theatre.

Renzos track record of creating iconic cultural landmarks combined with Zoltans success in transforming historically-significant buildings is a perfect marriage for a museum that celebrates the history and the future of the movies, Dawn Hudson, Academy CEO, said.

In October of last year, it was reported that the Academy would work with LACMA to create a museum using the old May Co. building what was known as LACMA West. The iconic art-deco style building will now be home to a museum dedicated to the film industry.

The Academy made the decision after abandoning a pricey 2005 plan to work with French architect Christian de Portzamparc to create a museum from scratch.

Go here to see the original:
Academy hires architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali to design movie museum

BOSTON, May 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --GRAPHISOFT, the global leader in Building Information Modeling (BIM) solutions for architects, has been selected as the winner in the desktop category of Architosh's Best of Show awards for software presented at the 2012 AIA National Convention & Exposition recently held in Washington, DC.

Architosh is an Internet magazine dedicated to Mac and iOS CAD and 3D software applications led bySenior Associate Editor, Pete Evans, AIA and Editor-in-Chief Anthony Frausto-Robledo, AIA, LEED, AP. Evans and Frausto-Robledo selected the best software items in two categories: desktop and iOS mobile.

"ArchiCAD 16 introduces powerful, new direct-modeling technology," Frausto-Robledo stated, "and explicit modeling has beenclearly identified in BIM market researchas a need, includingArchitosh's 2010 BIM report. In addition, the integration of GRAPHISOFT's EcoDesigner into ArchiCAD 16 encourages architects to design buildings with the environment in mind."

"GRAPHISOFT is committed to bringing products and services to market that add value to the design process and extend the reach of the architecture building information model," said Steve Benford, GRAPHISOFT North America managing director. "We are pleased and honored ArchiCAD 16 was selected by the Architosh editors for a Best of Show award."

About GRAPHISOFT GRAPHISOFT ignited the BIM revolution with ArchiCAD, the industry first BIM software for architects. GRAPHISOFT continues to lead the industry with innovative solutions such as the revolutionary GRAPHISOFT BIM Server, the world's first real-time BIM collaboration environment, and the GRAPHISOFT EcoDesigner, the world's first fully integrated building energy modeling application. GRAPHISOFT's innovative solutions have fundamentally changed the way architects around the world design and collaborate. GRAPHISOFT has been a part of theNemetschek Group since its acquisition in 2007.

http://www.graphisoft.com

Tweets by ARCHICAD

Original post:
GRAPHISOFT's ArchiCAD 16 Recognized by Architosh as AIA 2012 Best of Show

The phone call from China came out of the blue in 2009, just after Williams + Paddon Architects + Planners won a prestigious Gold Nugget award for the design of a clubhouse on California's Central Coast.

Terry Green, a principal with the Roseville firm, fielded the call from a consultant whose clients were interested in using a Western architect for similar work.

"I spent a year-plus sending brochures and proposals, and then we arranged a business trip where we went out there to China and we went all over the country ... and we landed two really good clients," Green said.

In two years, those "really good clients" names are confidential agreed to work that makes up almost 40 percent of Williams + Paddon's billings. Increasingly, small architectural firms from Heller Manus Architects in San Francisco to Goettsch Partners in Chicago are booming with demand from China where they find clients who are adventurous with design and have money to spend.

"Budget's not an issue," said Green, a Sacramento native who attended Mira Loma High School. "They want the right design for the right project."

Williams + Paddon had been cultivating deals in South America and the Caribbean before the call from China, but funding for those projects is pending. In the meantime, the firm has begun work on everything from teahouses to golf clubhouses to a 100,000-square-foot exhibition hall in China.

Foreign business interests also came calling on Jim Schraith, but this query arrived via a form at his small startup's website, http://www.boardevals.com.

Dozens of corporations and nonprofit organizations use the online questionnaires at BoardEvals.com to assess the performance of their boards of directors, exposure to risk and more. On average, clients pay annual fees of $6,000 to $8,000.

"Our largest customers are literally multibillion-dollar organizations," said Schraith, a director for BloodSource and Folsom's SynapSense, among others. "Our smallest customer is a three-person board of a private company."

Schraith expects to add 400 director accounts this year to a base of 600. Directors log in from any computer to rate the board, company management and processes. It cuts down on paperwork or oral interviews and, because it's anonymous, often leads to franker assessments.

See the article here:
Cathie Anderson: Roseville architects land big China contracts

May 31, 2012 15:12

Metallers also speak about the departure of guitarist Tim Hillier-Brook

Photo: Ross Gilmore/NME

Architects have have said that fan reactions to them on Twitter and Facebook are causing a "culture of relentless negativity" and "put a cloud over reality".

The Brighton metallers, who released their fifth album 'Daybreaker' on Monday (May 28), said they found the online reaction to their new record bemusing and can't understand why so many people feel the need to criticise them via Twitter and Facebook.

Speaking to NME, singer Sam Carter said: "Everyone thinks they're a journalist now. Everyone thinks they're working for a magazine or for fucking BBC News. They all feel like they can comment and say what they want to thousands of people. It gets to me, it's like we live in this culture of relentless negativity."

Guitarist Tom Searle went further, adding: "The culture today is so critical, we live in a very strange culture, where even people who love an album will find a problem with it and they'll let you know. This didn't exist when we were kids. It pisses me off when its kids you've met and been nice to suddenly start talking about how shit you are."

He continued: "I sometimes think about removing myself from all that, because when you go out and play a show, none of that shit matters. Social networks put a cloud over reality. If we believed the internet; we'd have been done after our last album."

The band also spoke about the departure of guitarist Tim Hillier-Brook, who left earlier this month. Hillier-Brook had been in the band since they formed in 2004 and has been replaced by Sylosis frontman Josh Middleton on a temporary basis.

Speaking about his departure, singer Sam Carter said: "We didn't know during the making of the album, but on the tour that followed it became pretty obvious that it was coming. He kept himself to himself on the last couple of tours. It's not thrown anything off in the way we sound, we're playing the same as we ever were."

Go here to see the original:
Architects: 'We live in a culture of relentless online negativity'

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has picked Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali as the architects charged with transforming the old May Co. building at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue into the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

The Italian-born Piano, who was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1998, is behind the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Central St. Giles Court in London, and the headquarters of the New York Times. Piano also designed the expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which he began working on in 2003.

The building that will house the film museum sits next to, and is owned by, LACMA.

Pali, a Los Angeles native, has been responsible for the restorations of Los Angeles' Greek Theatre, the Gibson Amphitheatre and the Pantages Theatre. He worked on the renovation and expansion of the Getty Villa museum and is designing the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, which will open in fall 2013.

"Renzo's track record of creating iconic cultural landmarks combined with Zoltan's success in transforming historically significant buildings is a perfect marriage for a museum that celebrates the history and future of the movies," said Dawn Hudson, the academy's chief executive.

[Updated 11:54 a.m., May 30: Hudson, in a conference call with the duo, said the organization chose them because "we actually responded to and fell in love with both architects." The architects spoke from Genoa, Italy, where they are already working on plans for the L.A. site.

Pali and Piano have never worked together but have known each other for a long time. "Obviously, Renzo is a hero for me," Pali said. "It's an incredible honor to team up with his team."

Both men intend to work closely together on the project's interior design. "The idea is that we don't divide the work," Piano said. "Creativity has no limit, no boundaries."

Hudson added that she and the museum committee, which includes some academy governors, current President Tom Sherak and former President Sid Ganis, still need to hire a firm to design the specific exhibits.

Read the original here:
Academy chooses architects for its movie museum project at LACMA

Canadian architect Bruce Kuwabara, Officer, Order of Canada. Photo credit: V. Tony Hauser. (CNW Group/Kuwabara

OTTAWA, May 29, 2012 /CNW/ - Last Friday, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, invested Bruce Kuwabara of Toronto, Ontario, as an Officer of the Order of Canada.

"Bruce Kuwabara has shaped our built landscape in lasting ways. A founding partner of KPMB Architects, he has earned public and critical acclaim for such projects of national significance as Canada's National Ballet School, the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Bell Lightbox for the Toronto International Film Festival and Manitoba Hydro Place. Committed to raising the profile of Canadian architecture, he has taught at the University of Toronto and at Harvard University. He continues to act as an advocate for excellence in architecture, urbanism and sustainable design." - Office of the Secretary to the Governor General

Bruce Kuwabara is one of Canada's leading architects and a recipient of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Gold Medal. Throughout his career, he has been dedicated to raising Canadian standards in architecture and urbanism by integrating design excellence and innovation, city building and sustainable design. He was the design architect for Manitoba Hydro Place in Winnipeg, the first and only large office tower in Canada to achieve LEED Platinum Certification, to winning design competitions for civic architecture including Kitchener City Hall, Richmond City Hall, the Canadian Embassy in Berlin and Vaughn City Hall.

Kuwabara is a graduate of the University of Toronto. Prior to founding Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects with his partners Thomas Payne, Marianne McKenna and Shirley Blumberg in 1987, he worked for two prominent architects, George Baird and then Barton Myers. He is the first chair of the Waterfront Design Review Panel for Waterfront Toronto, and a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.

He is currently design architect for the Remai Art Gallery of Saskatchewan, the Departments of Economics and International Initiatives at Princeton University, the new Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the Global Centre for Pluralism for the Aga Khan Foundation and the Athletes' Village for the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games.

Born in Hamilton to Japanese-Canadian parents who were interned in Vancouver during World War II, along with 26,000 people of Japanese descent. Kuwabara has sought meaningful commissions and opportunities to contribute to the communities and institutions which shaped his experience, including the design of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto and ongoing teaching and fundraising for the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.

Kuwabara says "The Order of Canada reinforces my commitment to express the unique qualities of Canada through architecture and to contribute to building an open world full of promise for future generations."

Image with caption: "Canadian architect Bruce Kuwabara, Officer, Order of Canada. Photo credit: V. Tony Hauser. (CNW Group/Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20120529_C2996_PHOTO_EN_14218.jpg

See original here:
BRUCE KUWABARA, FOUNDING PARTNER Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects INVESTED AS OFFICER OF THE ORDER OF CANADA ...