Hasta La Ideas

We didn’t want to bore you with another never-ending series of “will he leave or won’t he?” posts surrounding Frank Gehry and the Miami Beach New World Symphony project. Everyone who has followed the story of Gehry getting upset at the budget and threatening to walk has known that the starchitect wasn’t going to be working on this since back in April. But now we can report, and wash our hands with it, that the Miami Beach Commission has officially voted to remove Gehry and instead have the Dutch firm West 8 come in to replace him, starting as soon as the first of August. If you were unfamiliar with the project, the long and short of it can be boiled down to the city not wanting to pay Gehry’s millions of dollars in consulting fees and miscellaneous personal expenses (near $2 million) and so he decided to scram. Fortunately, the starchitect has decided to be a stand-up guy about the whole thing and has promised “to be involved with the park project and review the final park design plans for free.”

Olafur Eliasson is one of the most interesting and influential visual artists of our time. He brings the idea of “interactivity” to a new level. He is more interested in “why” rather than the “what”. In this talk, he speaks quite eloquently about his work.

“Many of his best-known works explore architecture and the mechanics of perception, almost as if the fantastical imaginings of Buckminster Fuller were reinterpreted by a cognitive scientist.”
Michael Joseph Gross, New York magazine

Julius Shulman, architectural photographer.

Via Rachel Kester.

Zaha Hadid Architects have designed a high-rise building for the center of Bucharest, Romania, which has a structural, lattice façade. (more…)

Originally coming from Arizona and now in Chicago, this writer has led a life of quiet envy, wishing he lived in a place with interesting grocery store names. Jewel? Bashas? Safeway? Blah, all of them. We want the thrill that comes with a Piggly Wiggly or a King Soopers. We can’t even imagine how exciting it must be to buy milk and dog food at places like those. And making one sustainable? Now you’re blowing our minds. It’s been a slow but steady march toward going green, but following the first grocery store, PCC Natural Markets (boring name), to earn Gold LEED certification back in 2007, then a Platinum LEED just this week in Maine at the Hannaford Supermarket (also a very boring), the Food Lion chain has announced that they are jumping on the greening bandwagon and will be constructing their first LEED-certified store in Columbia, South Carolina, which will open later this year. Food Lion, of course, is the greatest name ever because it makes you picture a) a lion who brings you food or b) a lion who is made out of food. Either way: awesome. And now that it’s going LEEDy, we’re going to go buy a map and find out where Columbia, South Carolina is because we’re moving there as soon as that sucker opens.