If we need any further proof that the Danish architect and wunderkind Bjarke Ingels is destined for superstardom (and we don’t), here’s another piece of evidence: a new documentary on Parkour, the so-called “urban sport” where competitors race from one spot in the city to another as quickly as possible. (Fifty years ago this was called “playing on the fire escape.”) The film—directed by the Danish director Kasper Astrup Schröder and entitled My Playground—began as a modest twenty-minute effort. But the irrepressible and relentlessly media savvy Ingels watched a rough cut, saw hipsters at his Mountain complex in Copenhagen leaping from one terrace to another, and suddenly a short film on Parkour became a somewhat longer film on Parkour—and architecture. (More specifically, Ingels’ architecture.) Think of it as a benign form of creative hijacking. The trailer, in fairness, looks like a lot of fun:

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Dubai Federal National Council building. Courtesy Ehrlich Architects

Steven Ehrlich was recently named this year’s recipient of the Maybeck Award for achievement in architecture. The award is given by the American Institute of Architects California Council for an outstanding body of work spanning ten years or more. It is sometimes mistakenly called a lifetime achievement award, but at 65, Ehrich is still a ways off from this—still a burgeoning youth in architectural years.

Refining the refined. 1939 Schindler house, updated 2011. Photo, Grant Mudford

When I think of his body of work what comes to mind are the different moves—the small moves and the big moves. Read more…

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s temporary stage in New York. Photo: Stephanie Berger

When you have something that works it’s only natural you would want to replicate it. Especially if that something is the long-awaited, newly revamped stage home of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford upon Avon, England, recently nominated for a Stirling Prize for best building of the year and responsible for taking the RSC firmly into the twenty-first century with state-of-the-art acoustics and technology. So as 2011 dawned and the RSC turned 50 it set about building a temporary version of its main auditorium and thrust stage for export. Five months and 230 tonnes later the provisional theatre was shipped over to New York and painstakingly re-assembled for use in a six-week summer season of Shakespeare in New York. The only venue in the city big enough to house it was the suitably atmospheric 19th-century Armory building on Park Lane, leading Michael Boyd, Artistic Director of the RSC, to refer to the project with some pride as “an hubristic thing we’re trying to do”.

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The Metropolis office was saddened this week to hear of the sudden loss of a visionary leader in the design community. Sylvia Harris, the founder and principal of Citizen Research & Design and a designer at the Public Policy Lab, passed away on Sunday. Harris is remembered for her pioneering approach to improving the usability of public spaces and programs through design.

Sylvia (center) and her team, image courtesy Citizen Research & Design.

Harris’s company—originally called Sylvia Harris LLC but recently renamed Citizen Research & Design—specialized in wayfinding graphics and improved communication in the public realm. Harris once wrote, “As citizens, we deserve public services that are efficient, effective and respectful. We need straightforward forms and publications, easy-to-use websites and call centres and clear signage and communications in public buildings.” The company’s projects prove that good design can make virtually anything easy to understand.

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For the past few months, Metropolis has had a ringside view of the first ever Core77 Design Awards—but so has everyone else! In an age that is so unfortunately obsessed with “vote for your favorite online,” the recently concluded awards program has pulled off a class act, making the act of judging design an open, inclusive experience that truly celebrates the profession.

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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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The Guangzhou Opera House, by Zaha Hadid, photo: Virgile Simon Bertrand

Among the recognitions and awards given by the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Stirling and Lubetkin prizes are the most prestigious. The Lubetkin prize, in honor of the Tecton Group founder Berthold Lubetkin, is given to the best international building outside the European Union. The Stirling prize scarcely needs introduction. Long considered Britain’s foremost architectural award, and given for a building “built or designed in Britain,” it bestows upon the winner not only £20,000, but also a nimbus of accomplishment.

RIBA released the shortlists of both prizes this morning, and they include many familiar favorites of the Institute, such as Zaha Hadid, who has made it into both lists. Here are the selected buildings:

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Portable Spot Cleaner, designed by Adrian Mankovecky, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia

If the Electrolux Design Lab competition were given charge of the future of our home appliances, all our gadgets would be monochrome, have oversize back-lit interfaces, and be either rounded or flexible. Since its inception in 2003, the competition has been asking industrial design students to imagine the future of home appliances, offering 5,000 Euros and a six-month stint at an Electrolux design center to the winner.  Each year’s theme is different, but the finalists always have a remarkable family resemblance. And they always manage to work past the fact that domestic appliances are energy guzzlers by suggesting some as-yet-unproven battery technology – sugar crystal batteries are a hot favorite this year, perhaps because they were specified in last year’s winning entry.

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Le Nichoir: Matali Crasset’s first feral house in France, photo: Lucas Fréchin

The last time we checked in with Matali Crasset, she was coming up with names like The Troglodyte for the ecolodge she had designed in the Tunisian desert. Now we find her deep in the forests of France, building little camper’s retreats. Six villages in the region of Meuse, Lorraine, which collectively call themselves by the rather lyrical name Le Vent des Forêts (The Forest Winds) have been inviting artists to their neck of the woods since 2008. Crasset is the only designer among this year’s invitees.

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The never-ending building boom continues on the Bowery and in NoHo in New York, and for the most part it is a good thing.  Neighborhoods will and should evolve. The East Village and NoHo are about to gain two new buildings, both of which are meant to look toward the future. One succeeds and the other fails.  

51 Astor Place, photo: Ann Weiser

The first is a welcome replacement for the dreary 7-story set of beige brick rectangles at 51 Astor place. In its place will be a striking 13-story building from architect Fumihiko Maki. While the base of the new building does consist of some right angles (which meet the  generous sidewalk in a welcoming way), its form begins to fully take off five stories above the street, with two muscular shards—one of glass, the other of granite—that slice mightily upward. The height shows restraint and is suitable for the immediate neighborhood. Read more…