When picturing Phillip Johnson’s Glass House, what comes to mind is the skeletal and translucent structure sitting among 47-acres of lush Connecticut landscape. The subtle color of the modernist building is so seamlessly integrated into nature that it recedes to the background and often goes unnoticed. This design decision was the work of master architectural colorists, Donald Kaufman and Taffy Dahl, who rendered the site-specific color palettes for Johnson’s architecture when it was built in 1949.

Hailing from a background in creating ceramics and paintings, Kaufman and Dahl work as a team, providing logical coloring as “frosting on the cake” to architectural masterpieces. In this film released by The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the two colorists are invited to share their experience of the Glass House, on-site with the public:

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When I first heard last November that there was going to be a full-scale exhibition, Savage Beauty, a tribute to Alexander McQueen, I wasn’t sure the Metropolitan Museum of Art was going to be the best venue to facilitate the retrospective show. Then again, at the time, I had yet to delve into McQueen’s work. I had heard of his exquisite tailoring often presented in obscure runway performances, I recognized the iconic skull printed on his ubiquitous ready-to-wear silk scarves and I adored the tail of the uppercase Q in his brand identity. That was the extent of my McQueen knowledge.

But the exhibit was eye-opening, and after two visits, I’d still consider a third. The first time I went, I was well prepared, armed with a magazine and iPod as I joined the queue for a densely packed Savage Beauty. While the exhibit earned outstanding critic reviews, it also received significant publicity for its notoriously discouraging wait. Since the opening, the museum has consistently estimated waiting times up to two and a half hours, fending off visitors not keen enough to join the meandering line. Still, for the Kate Moss Widows of Culloden hologram and the intricately crafted mannequin masks alone, I’d say the wait is worth it, and still is even for a second time. Read more…

Since its establishment in 1996, Design Workshop at Parsons The New School of Design has been providing pro bono architectural and construction services to nonprofit organizations, allowing their graduate architecture students to design and meet community needs, through projects ranging from rooftop gardens to recreational grounds for children. This summer, the program has teamed up with New York City’s Parks & Recreation to transform a 19^th Century landmark.

Tucked away in Washington Heights is one of the oldest surviving structures, the High Bridge, a landmark noted for its historical significance. Since its construction in 1848, the High Bridge has been used as an aqueduct, bringing fresh water to the city as the main source of water inflow. The bridge was eventually closed in the 1970s due to rock-throwing from above and the reservoir that once accompanied the historical aqueduct was replaced with the Highbridge Park Pool. Designed by Aymar Embury II during the Robert Moses era, the Highbridge Pool complex was one of the eleven pools built as a part of the Works Progress Administration’s attempt to create jobs during the Great Depression. Once completed in 1936, it became open for public use, serving the local community. Read more…

Traffic ahead of the I-405 shutdown, photo via the Daily Mail.

When America’s busiest freeway, Interstate 405, closed temporarily for mandatory construction from July 16-17, all of Los Angeles broke out in panic as drivers canceled weekend plans and signs flashed on every freeway in the region preparing locals for anticipated delays. The LAPD even recruited popular celebrities on Twitter, including Ashton Kutcher and Kim Kardashian, to broadcast a warning so people would stay off the roads, during what was referred to as the “Carmaggedon.” But 53-hours of blocked access and apocalyptic panic later, LA did not find itself in a hopeless gridlock. Instead, the anticlimactic closure proved how much Californians depended on the 10-mile route, yet how surprisingly easy it also was to abandon their cars for 2 days.

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Just as the film makers at One Time Studio are rallying up supporters and funding for their documentary, Design & Thinking, another group of designers are working on their own film, also eager to investigate the meaning behind the overused buzzword “design thinking.” Initiated by Erik Roscam Abbing, Design the New Business is a collaboration with Erik van Bergen, Esra Gokgoz, Gunjan Singh, Juan David Martin, Marta Ferreira de Sá, Miguel Melgarejo and Robert Zwamborn to find out the design key to business success.

Like Design & Thinking, Design the New Business promises it will feature an array of notable interviewees across the design industry, but the line-up has not yet been announced. They’ve released a teaser so far, and have emphasized that there will be equal parts focus on design and business. Read more…

The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 was a visionary approach that reshaped New York’s underlying structure, separating Manhattan from the old organic cities, while still defining it today. To acknowledge the success of the grid model made possible by John Randel, Jr., and celebrate its 200^th anniversary this year, The Center for Architecture opened an exhibition, Mapping the Cityscape, on July 6, exploring the ways in which mapping influences our perception of the environment. The exhibition includes maps ranging from 1609 to present day interpretations, taking into account the technological advances and methodologies that are shaping our urban landscape.

Spanning across the walls at this exhibition are a wide range of cartographic representations, including ecological, cultural, planning, civil data, location-based, user-generated, Google and Tauranac transportation maps.  Read more…

New York is on a roll with high-profile public spaces lately. Following the success of the High Line, which recently extended its walkway to 30^th Street, three New York-based designers are now coming together to create the next big splash.

+ Pool is a proposal by Dong-Ping Wong, Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeffrey Franklin, to build a plus-shaped floating pool in the East River. That’s right, just floating in the river right off the banks of Manhattan. With the rising summer heat in New York, it’s no surprise that people are imagining creative ways to dive into the surrounding waters and cool off. But the idea behind + Pool is hardly new, in fact, “floating baths” as they were known, are a part of the city’s history.
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With an abundance of activities happening in New York all summer long, it’s hard to decide where to spend those valuable weekends. I’m told one of the hottest summer traditions though, is not a party on a roof, in a pool, a park or an abandoned warehouse but instead takes place at an institution like MoMA PS1. Nestled in Long Island City, MoMA’s contemporary art counterpart transforms its courtyard into a lively venue every summer for the museum’s popular music festival, Warm Up. This year’s event will be my first, but I’ve heard many good reviews from my friends, raving about the previous years’ successes.

Each year, Warm Up not only brings together a line-up of fresh music talents, but the venue itself is a vibrant playground for adults.  Since 2000, the annual competition Young Architects Program (YAP), has been giving emerging architects an opportunity to reimagine an outdoor recreational space.  Providing the setting for Warm Up this year is Holding Pattern, an installation by the Brooklyn-based architecture firm, Interboro Partners, lead by Tobias Armborst, Daniel D’Oca and Georgeen Theodore. In their winning submission to YAP, Interboro focused on the theme of recycling, proposing a concert-friendly space filled with objects that will also benefit its Long Island City neighbors after.

Interboro Partners’s solution focuses on the temporal nature of the installation, and as Georgeen Theodore describes, the museum is simply “holding these objects in a pattern” before they are distributed to nearby communities. Read more…

Since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been compiling a list of national treasures, sites of architectural and cultural significance that are facing demolition or serious decay. Each year, one-of-a-kind historical places are added, cataloguing American architectural history and raising awareness of endangered cultural gems. While some of these sites are threatened by new development and projects, others are simply left to deteriorate due to lack of preservation and financial resource. This year’s selection of 11 places facing a ruinous fate includes:

Bear Butte, Meade County, South Dakota
Named for the 4,426-foot mountain called Mato Paha that is shaped like a bear sleeping on its side, Native American tribal people and international visitors have been using this land for pilgrimages and spiritual renewal. This sacred praying ground for many Native American tribes has been continually threatened by proposals to develop wind and oil energy. If wind installations and oil fields are built, the cultural landscape and rituals of Bear Butte will be irreparably damaged.

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Like many others, I was brimming with anticipation last Wednesday to see the High Line’s recent expansion, the second section of a three-part plan to build a linear park out of an abandoned railroad on Manhattan’s West Side. Ever since my first visit to the High Line last September, I have been smitten with the experience of standing on an elevated greenway overlooking the waterfront. I’ve been equally blown away by the ambition of a project initiated and envisioned by Friends of the High Line. It became my favorite spot in New York where I often brought my visitors to marvel at this innovative development.

So when Section 2 of the park opened on June 8^th, I hurried to 11^th Avenue in the morning, eager to catch my first glimpse of the city’s latest urban redesign. I started my visit where the old High Line ended, climbing up the stairs at the new access point on West 23^rd Street where I was greeted by a 4,500 square-foot lawn, the only portion of the High Line inviting visitors to sit on the grass. Looking at the flat lawn occupied by young students with sketchbooks and adults lying leisurely on mats, was like staring at a stock photo—seemingly orchestrated but perhaps a good sign that the public space was being used just as the designers intended.

But aside from the tiny patch of lawn, the rest of Section 2 seemed bleak. There are fewer features along the new addition, situated further apart from each other, making this section of the High Line feel more like a boardwalk and less like a park. Read more…