Hasta La Ideas

A big start to 2011 for the architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Late last week they unveiled, to much fanfare, the long-awaited plans for Eli Broad‘s new museum in Los Angeles, adjacent to Frank Gehry‘s Walt Disney Concert Hall. Now they’ve made another big splash closer to home, in their native New York, with the announcement by Columbia University that the institution has selected the firm to build two buildings to serve as the new home for their business school. The structures will go up in West Harlem in an area called Manhattanville, in which Columbia has been cultivating the 17 acres they have there. It’s still early days, given that the commission is just being announced now, so no word yet on what the buildings will look like or when construction will start or (plan to) end, but word will undoubtably come soon enough. Where the money for the project is coming from, however, is known. University board member, alumnus, private equity firm founder, and War on Greed documentary fodder, Henry Kravis, has pledged $100 million for the project, which surely has to be a nice way to start. Here’s from Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, about the commission:

“Diller Scofidio + Renfro have repeatedly demonstrated a deep understanding of how people live and work in a dynamic urban environment,” said President Bollinger. “They have achieved beautiful, important architectural successes that have been thoughtfully integrated into the surrounding urban fabric. This is the essence of what we are trying to create on Columbia’s new, open campus — bringing together different areas of teaching and research, and enhancing the connections between the University and surrounding community.”

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Despite all the hurdles this year, from becoming a semi-independent non-profit to their recent plans to join forces with the equally struggling Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the UK’s Design Council is already proving that these recent changes aren’t going to affect their getting quality design-based civic work done. Following their great, high-profile moves earlier this year with designs for safer pint glasses for bars and commissioning Ben de Lisi to design for them a better hospital gown, the Design Council is now looking how to combat bike theft in England. Joining up with a number of universities and government agencies, the organization is pushing forward on a project set up back in 2004 called the Bikeoff Research Initiative, which was established to promote safer biking and to curb theft. The first update is the Council’s launch of this survey, which they’re asking cyclists in the UK to fill out in hopes of getting an idea of how bike theft happens, where it happens, and from there they’ll be able to start thinking of ideas on how to stop it. Nice to see that, after a strong start in 2010, followed by some rough patches there in the middle, that the Design Council is ending the year on a strong note. Judging from earlier projects, we can’t wait to see what’s born out of it.

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“What I really want to do is change the lives of a group of people using the material they use everyday.” From the mouth of a another world-famous artist, this statement could come off as conceited, calculating, and delusional, but when uttered by Vik Muniz, it’s a matter-of-fact description of his next project: journeying to the world’s largest garbage dump, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to collaborate with the catadores that pick the recyclable materials from the mounds of trash. Waste Land, which opens today at New York’s Angelika Film Center, follows Muniz from his Brooklyn home base to his native Brazil and the Jardim Gramacho landfill. Immersing himself in the community of catadores, he finds a way to make work about work and learns the difference between garbage and junk.

Director Lucy Walker (Devil’s Playground, Blindsight) wanted to make a movie in a garbage dump since an eye-opening visit to New York’s Fresh Kills landfill during her grad student days at NYU, she explained (dressed in a trash bag frock of her own design) at the film’s premiere this week at the Paley Center for Media. Jardim Gramacho was one of few landfills where drug traffic was under control and the workers were being organized into a co-operative by a charismatic young leader. “We were all very nervous—there were so many things to be afraid of, from dengue fever to kidnapping—but we all wanted to go,” she said. Muniz, Walker, and co-producers Angus Aynsley and Peter Martin arrived in Rio (with kidnap insurance) in August 2007. Filming stretched over almost three years.

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From left, Guggenheim curators Maria Nicanor and David van der Leer, architect Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow-Wow, and graphic designers Sulki Choi and Min Choi of Sulki & Min at today’s press conference announcing the BMW Guggenheim Lab (Photo: UnBeige)

It’s official: the Guggenheim is taking its curatorial program on the road. In what Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, described at this morning’s press conference in New York City as “one of the most exciting projects the Guggenheim has ever undertaken,” the museum has partnered with BMW to launch a global initiative that will bring “labs” that are part architectural installation, part think tank, and part event hub to nine cities around the world over the next six years. “The BMW Guggenheim Lab is the largest and most ambitious cultural collaboration in the history of our company,” said Frank-Peter Arndt, member of BMW’s board of management. “It will develop solutions and concepts for cities of the future.”

Conceived as a vast and deliberately open-ended R & D project, the program will consist of three globe-hopping mobile structures, each with its own distinct theme, architecture, and graphic identity. The first 5,000-square-foot BMW Guggenheim Lab will be designed by Tokyo-based architecture firm Atelier Bow-Wow, which David van der Leer, co-curator of the project, praised for its “very witty way of dealing with everyday design challenges.” The Seoul-based firm of Sulki & Min will create the graphic identity of the first lab. It will be installed late next summer in North America, where it will present its programming (site-specific workshops, public discussions, performances) through the fall before moving on to cities in Europe and Asia. The structure will also present the responses of the BMW Guggenheim Lab Team (four early- to mid-career professionals identified as emerging leaders in their fields) to the first theme: “Confronting Comfort: The City and You.” At the conclusion of each structure’s three-year world tour, it will be the focus of an exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York City.

Many details remain sketchy, but here’s a handy diagram of how the first cycle will go and (posted below) a video explaining the project.

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Starting off a bit light this morning, just to ease you into the day. In what seems like a move designed by the government solely to provoke those who complain about wasteful spending and in turn get those who might see it as a good move yelling back at them, the Federal Highway Administration has announced that, per last year’s changes in their Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, they will be replacing every street sign throughout New York City, moving from upper-case to lower-case. The NY Post reports that changing each of the more than 250,000 signs, at $110/per, will “cost the state $27.6 million.” The change is being made after studies had found that drivers couldn’t read as well in all-caps as they’re able to in lower-case. While apparently the city fought the new plan, they backed down once the government agreed to give them until 2018 to get it all done. Crews have been working on the replacements since the spring, but apparently someone just recently noticed and now it’s a big to-do (well, to everyone but Mayor Bloomberg). We’re entirely grateful for the whole business, because it resulted in us finally seeing the website for the New York division of the Federal Highway Administration. If you want lens flare and a transparent Statue of Liberty just hanging out at a weird angle over Albany, here’s the site for you.

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