NBWW BLOG…

Architect Paul Doherty, policy and sustainability expert Debra Lam, and author Anthony Townsend exchange opinions and insights on why companies across all sectors want a stake. By Wanda Lau Welcome to season four of ARCHITECT’s podcast. Listen to more episodes here. These days, companies in every sector from lighting and software to energy and automobiles seem to tout expertise in smart cities. Major cities and even states are vying to become the smartest of them all. But what is a smart city? Why are companies across industries jumping into the fray? And how can architects contribute their experience and expertise? Excerpts from this roundtable, including several questions not included in this episode due to time, appeared in text form in the January 2019 issue of ARCHITECT...

by Pedro Vada Most architects who are parents have thought, at some point, about designing and building toys for their children. Paula Zasnicoff, a partner at Arquitetos Associados, along with designer Andrea Gomes, decided to go for it and created the Bubud brand. Zasnicoff, an architect and, most importantly, mom to Ana, likes to invent. As she searched for her three-year-old daughter’s first dollhouse, she turned the quest into something fun; she designed and produced a unique toy that continues being a hit in the house. Her inventions haven’t stopped and she keeps designing toys for Ana and her friends.   Gomes, a graphic designer, and Paula’s close friend and partner, has two of her own daughters: Lina and Rosa. She suggested that their brand to be called Bubud–a magical...

Join the ULI and AIA Young Professionals Wednesday, March 13th 5:00 – 7:00pm As we check out Related’s brand-new Auberge Beach Residences & Spa in Fort Lauderdale over drinks at our NETWORKING HAPPY HOUR @ AUBERGE BEACH $10 for ULI / AIA Members $20 Nonmembers Auberge designed by NBWW (Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe). Source: Joint ULI & AIA Networking Happy Hour @ Auberge Beach! – ULI Southeast Florida/Caribbean

Where can architecture go after the digital revolution? In Possible Mediums, four professors examine a moment’s diverse, eclectic experimentation. By Max Kuo Possible Mediums Edited by Kelly Bair, Kristy Balliet, Adam Fure, and Kyle Miller Actar $34.95 MSRP Possible Mediums, a volume edited by four xennial American architecture professors, documents the formal experimentation of the recent post-digital turn in architecture. The book glimpses a generation paradoxically invested in using obscure methods to make charismatic forms. Unlike other postmodern camps (pomo, deconstructivism, parametricism), this generation eschews stylistic cohesion, instead claiming diversity and eclecticism as its hallmark. Inspired by philosopher Michel Foucault’s reading of a fictional Chinese...

A new book explores the meaning of data centers, robot factories, and a world not built for humans. By Patrick Sisson Machines taking control—and making humanity obsolete—has a long history in pop culture, from Terminator to The Matrix. What happens when that shift applies to architecture? Machine Landscapes: Architectures of the Post-Anthropocene, a new collection of writing examining the growing portion of the built world made for machines, sounds as theoretical and futuristic as science fiction. But as the book’s editor Liam Young, a speculative architect, futurist, and instructor at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles, explains, many of the arguably most important and meaningful buildings today, including high-security nodes of the world’s internet infrastructure, simply aren’t meant for us....

The U.S. Department of State and the National Endowment for the Arts Design Program has announced a call for proposals to organize and curate the United Applications are now being accepted to curate the U.S. Pavilion at the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale. The U.S. Department of State and the National Endowment for the Arts Design Program has announced a call for proposals to organize and curate the United States pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2020. The United States government has been gradually increasing the amount of financial support it gives to its selected presenters and will award the selected group $325,000, including $125,000 for pavilion management, with potential additional funding pending availability from the National Endowment for the Arts. However, groups...

Amazon’s HQ2 debacle is the latest sign that the public has gotten wise to corporate subsidies. By Jeff Andrews When Amazon announced the long-awaited “winners” of its search for a second headquarters last November, the swift and visceral backlash from residents and local officials of New York City seemed destined to fizzle with time, just like similar outrage every time a city gives out half a billion dollars to build a stadium or lure a manufacturing plant. But this time was different. Amazon endured three months of negative publicity in New York before giving up the $2.8 billion in subsidies the state and city offered the company in return for a new campus in Long Island City, a neighborhood in the midst of a development boom that’s already the priciest in the borough of Queens....

Bike equity is a powerful tool for reducing inequality. Too often, cycling infrastructure is tailored only to wealthy white cyclists. Anne Lusk Designing for bikes has become a hallmark of forward-looking modern cities worldwide. Bike-friendly city ratings abound, and advocates promote cycling as a way to reduce problems ranging from air pollution to traffic deaths.But urban cycling investments tend to focus on the needs of wealthy riders and neglect lower-income residents and people of color. This happens even though the single biggest group of Americans who bike to work live in households that earn less than $10,000 yearly, and studies in lower-income neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Boston have found that the majority of bicyclists were non-white. I have worked on bicycle facilities...

Gas stations have traditionally represented the freedom of the open road. But what will happen to these architectural relics as vehicles become electric? By James Way It’s a Gas: The Allure of the Gas Station Edited by Sascha Friesike, with a preface by Jay Leno Gestalten $60.00 The Current: New Wheels for the Post-Petrol Age By Paul d’Orléans Gestalten $50.00 Automobiles fascinate architects. Le Corbusier designed the Voiture Minimum; Buckminster Fuller, the Dymaxion; Renzo Piano, the Flying Carpet; and Norman Foster, the Routemaste. And while Charles and Ray Eames were posing with a Velocette motorcycle, Michael Czysz—founder of Architropolis, his firm—was designing the record-breaking MotoCzysz E1pc electric motorcycle. Given recent developments in electric vehicle (EV)...

It’s not a matter of if the architecture profession will feel the impacts of artificial intelligence—it’s a matter of when. By Mimi Kirk for AIA Architect “Self-driving cars can identify objects as they drive,” a video from the company Smartvid.io proclaims. “What if we could bring this ability to the industrial world?” The Cambridge, Mass.–based outfit has developed technology to do just that: It offers software that analyzes huge amounts of data—in the form of photos and videos from construction sites—to identify safety risks that might not be evident to a human observer. It tags, for example, workers who are missing hard hats and types of ladders considered risky, promising to help “reinforce safety culture.” “The risks might not be obvious right away, but when you look...

American Institute of Architects (AIA) president William Bates has issued a statement of support for the recently unveiled preliminary Green New Deal The American Institute of Architects (AIA) released a statement supporting Green New Deal legislation proposed by congressmembers last week. By Antonio Pacheco American Institute of Architects (AIA) president William Bates has issued a statement of support for the recently unveiled preliminary Green New Deal (GND) legislation. In a press release, Bates said: We applaud the efforts of Congress and its committees this week to find new ways to support achieving a carbon neutral future by 2030, which is critical to our global future. By investing in infrastructure, upgrading the existing building stock, and improving resilience in the built...

FitCity Miami 6, Register Today! Tickets are now on sale for FitCity Miami 6 https://miamicad.org/events/fitcity-miami-6/ on March 15, 2019. The event will take place at the Miami Center for Architecture & Design, Inc./ the Welcome Center for Miami Downtown Development Authority. Date: 03/15/2019 Time: 8:30 am – 12:30 pm Location: Miami Center for Architecture and Design Description: Register Today! Source: FitCity Miami 6 | Miami Center for Architecture & Design, Inc.