Warning: the 2009 documentary Casa Bronfman is guaranteed to arouse severe real estate envy in even the most sanguine New Yorkers. The 38-minute film—which is being shown this weekend at the 28th International Festival of Films on Art, in Montreal—takes viewers on a leisurely tour of the Manhattan townhouse of Edgar Bronfman, Jr., and family. Their 12,800-square-foot home was designed in the 1990s by the architect Peter Rose (who also designed the Canadian Centre for Architecture for its founder and director, Phyllis Lambert—the daughter of Samuel Bronfman, Edgar, Jr.’s grandfather.) Rose took a 1918 townhouse that had been converted into apartments and returned it to a single-family home, organizing the interior around two vertically-stacked central courts. This allowed for ample natural light in the middle of the building—traditionally the darkest part of a New York townhouse—and also created an interesting arrangement of space, with a large semi-private event/entertainment core surrounded by a warren of private family rooms. (And, on top of the lower court, an outdoor garden designed by Dan Kiley.) For a quick tour, check out the three-minute sample of the charming-if-jealousy-inducing film above.
Update, 10/19: Due to a technical glitch, the video is now unavailable; we’re working to restore it as soon as possible.
As much as we love to read around here—and even though we rely on the printed word (and the e-printed word, or whatever you want to call it) for our livelihoods—by some Friday afternoons, we’ve reached our limit; it’s all we can do to drag our text-saturated eyeballs across another line of type. If you’re feeling about the same—and a quick nap isn’t an option—then perhaps a video diversion will help. And we think we have just the thing: a collection of time-lapse architecture videos from around the Web. Read more…
Last week, Parsons the New School for Design announced that it will begin offering an MFA in “Transdisciplinary Design” this fall. If you have no idea what that means, you’re not alone—the program’s chair, Jamer Hunt, recently made a short video to find out how some random New Yorkers would define the nascent discipline. (Watch until the end for a cameo appearance by MoMA’s Paola Antonelli.) Read more…
Click the play button to watch Metropolis’s editor in chief, Susan S. Szenasy, discuss this year’s Smart Environments Awards.
The annual IIDA/Metropolis Smart Environments Awards recognize excellence in interiors that are in tune with 21st-century needs and desires—meaning that they are beautiful, sustainable, and accessible. Click here to read about this year’s winning projects. For monthly coverage of the best in sustainable design, subscribe to Metropolis today.
Last September, Steelcase hosted a symposium on the 100-year anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Meyer May House, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At the event, Metropolis’s Susan Szenasy asked leaders in the architecture and design community—including Jeffrey Bernett, Shashi Caan, Toshiko Mori, and Michael Van Valkenburgh—to consider both what makes Wright’s architecture uniquely successful and what his designs can teach us today.
If you missed the event, you’re in luck: Steelcase has just posted video clips of pretty much the entire conversation on its Meyer May anniversary site (including the above sample, in which several of the speakers talk about principles in design). Moreover, a live version of the symposium may be coming soon to a city near you; Steelcase is currently firming up plans to host similar events in major U.S. cities throughout this year. The first one will take place in New York on April 6, with Szenasy reprising her role as moderator. We’ll keep you posted as the list of speakers in finalized, and you can always find the latest information on the Meyer May events page.
Last night, in San Francisco, Emily Pilloton and her merry band of humanitarian-design crusaders hosted the official send-off for their Design Revolution Road Show, which will be touring the country in a vintage Airstream trailer between now and April. I am very sorry I wasn’t able to attend—the invite to the “parking lot party” touted a tantalizing trifecta of mobile food vendors: one taco truck, one pizza truck, and one cupcake truck. Fortunately, even if you can’t make it to any of the tour stops, Pilloton and company are posting copious photos and videos on their blog. In fact, the Road Show has already made three pre-kickoff stops, including one at Pilloton’s alma mater, Redwood High School.
One other piece of related news: Pilloton’s nonprofit, Project H Design, is in the running for a $50,000 grant from Pepsi to help launch Studio H, a design-build program in the poorest county in North Carolina. It’s a terrific idea, so be sure to take a moment to vote for Studio H here.
You can also watch a video about Studio H, “the country’s first design, vocation, and community-service program in a public high school,” after the jump. Read more…
Click the play button to watch Metropolis’s executive editor, Martin Pedersen, deconstruct the “strange, almost mutant form” of a building in his Yorkville, Manhattan, neighborhood—one that appears to have been designed entirely by real estate lawyers. (Click here to watch the first installment of “My Banal Neighborhood.”)
Last night, Project H Design founder and Design Revolution author Emily Pilloton appeared on the Colbert Report to talk about humanitarian design, the Spider Boot, Adaptive Eyecare, the “triple bottom line,” and more. Watch the complete interview above (or click here to see a larger-sized video).
Related: At the 2008 Metropolis conference at the ICFF, Pilloton spoke about social-minded product design. Click here to watch a video of her presentation.
Click the play button to watch Metropolis’s creative director, Criswell Lappin, talk about this month’s cover-design process.
We’ve nicknamed the January issue of Metropolis the “1 - 5 - 10 Issue” for its cover story, called “What Next,” in which architecture and design leaders forecast events in their fields—one, five, and ten years from now. It’s a perfect example of the kind of forward-looking, interdisciplinary design coverage you can only find in the pages of Metropolis. Click here to subscribe today.
In the magazine this month, Paul Makovsky writes about the Utah teapot—the world’s first complex 3-D model, which, in the years since its design in 1975, has often been used as an inside joke among digital animators. The teapot has made its way into Pixar’s Toy Story, an episode of The Simpsons (above), and a video by the Norwegian synth-pop band Röyksopp. Watch video clips of these cameo appearances after the jump. Read more…
As much as we love to read around here—and even though we rely on the printed word (and the e-printed word, or whatever you want to call it) for our livelihoods—by some Friday afternoons, we’ve reached our limit; it’s all we can do to drag our text-saturated eyeballs across another line of type. If you’re feeling about the same—and a quick nap isn’t an option—then perhaps a video diversion will help. And we think we have just the thing: a collection of time-lapse architecture videos from around the Web. 
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