Hasta La Ideas

Perhaps as a way of gloating in front of Prince Charles by essentially saying there’s nothing he can do to touch the 2012 London Olympics‘ architecture plans, or maybe just to try and patch up some of the “Does the UK have an architectural future?” talk after all the bad blood from that same fiasco, a large group of architects, including the recently-angry Richard Rogers, took a tour of the ongoing construction on the Olympic grounds, resulting in this video and lots of comments about how great architecture in England is right now:

Lord Richard Rogers said: ‘The new Olympic Park will be a fantastic place and will help to regenerate east London. The designs show exciting sculptural form and will enhance the landscape.’

Joanna Averley, Deputy Chief Executive of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment said: ‘Seeing the project at this stage is an amazing celebration of British engineering, as well as British architecture — particularly the Olympic Stadium, Aquatics Centre and Velodrome, which will provide a lasting legacy for London.’

Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffee chain who has struggled this past little while now that not as many people find spending five dollars every morning on coffee mixed with milk, have decided, along with their recent moves to make their offerings more healthy, to update their image a bit on the aesthetics and ethics fronts by heading in the LEED-certified direction. They’ll be redoing many of their company-owned shops with all sorts of green initiatives and building new ones from here on out using these new approaches from the start. We think it’s great that they’re moving toward being more green and that local contractors will be getting new work, but is a massively expensive undertaking like this the thing for a company during a major financial crisis? We’re not economists, so we don’t know how to answer our own questions, of course, so while we sit back and try to do the math, here’s a bit about the new shops:

While the new store designs are highly interpretive, they share several core characteristics, including use of local materials and craftsmanship, a focus on reused and recycled elements, exposure of structural integrity and authentic roots, a focus on coffee and removal of unnecessary distractions, customer engagement through all five senses, and flexibility to meet the needs of many customer types — individual readers and computer users, as well as work, study and social groups.

Dezeenwire: Sunday Times architecture critic Hugh Pearman has posted his review of Bernard Tschumi’s new Acropolis Museum in Athens on his website – www.hughpearman.com

British designer Thomas Heatherwick has released images of his updated design for the UK pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010. (more…)

DMY Berlin 09: Norwegian designers Fantastic Norway have sent photos of Walking Berlin, a project in which they dressed up as their latest building and walked around Berlin. (more…)