Hasta La Ideas

Perhaps former President George W. Bush is an avid UnBeige reader and when he learned the other day that Jimmy Carter was preparing to redo his presidential library, he was overcome with a “keeping up with the Jones” sort of mentality and decided that his own, still-in-the-planning library needed to be bigger, bigger, bigger! But even if our brain picture of that situation isn’t entirely correct (we figure Laura would read us more than George), such is the reality, as more details have been released about the new building, designed by Robert A.M. Stern on the Southern Methodist University campus. The library has now grown to a massive 207,000 square feet “akin to an average Wal-Mart Super Center” making it some two-thirds as large as it was originally planned for (the request for a much larger policy center is being stated as the primary cause). Here’s a bit about the growth of the plot of land the multi-story building will sit on:

Some faculty and church members have opposed what they say will be a highly partisan think tank on campus. Bush, who has referred to the center as the Freedom Institute, says it will focus on a broad range of topics, including the promotion of democracy abroad and education reforms.

Library organizers first proposed a 40,000-square-foot policy center and a separate 145,000-square-foot building for the library, museum and storage of Bush documents and artifacts. The National Archives will operate those areas, and the Bush Foundation will be housed in and run the policy center.

The policy institute area now figures at about 66,000 square feet, chiefly because of a larger auditorium and more conference and service space.

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Last week, the Chicago-based committee to help land the city the 2016 Olympics released their “Bid Book” to both the decision making body at the Olympics themselves and to the public at large. While most within the city found the new batch of information interesting, with its details and numbers and “Yes We Can!” spirit, our native critic, Blair Kamin, wasn’t particularly pleased, particularly with architectural plans, which were “supposed to be Chicago’s strong suit.” Kamin sees the whole thing as flawed by a design-by-committee mentality held by the Chicago 2016 planning group, with simply commissioning local/national/international starchitecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to stay in the background and serve as “mere advisers.” So what results with the Olympic Village in particular is a series of bland buildings, each handed over to a variety of architects with no particular focus to group them all together. Kamin sees this in stark opposition to the plans handed in by the Spanish and Japanese competitors who seem to understand the importance of “architecture that is environmentally responsible and packs aesthetic punch.” But while he isn’t head over heels at the moment, he believes it isn’t too late, assuming that, if the Olympics do land in Chicago, there’s still time to make things right in the planning.

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Austrian architects Coop Himmelb(l)au have won a competition to design the headquarters for China Insurance Group in Shenzhen, China. (more…)

Architects MAD have revealed a masterplan created when they invited 11 young architecture practices – including BIG, JDS, Mass Studies, Serie and Sou Fujimoto Architects – to design conceptual projects for Huaxi city centre in Guiyang, China. (more…)

London firm Sarah Wigglesworth Architects have completed a bike store in Bermondsey, London. (more…)