I LOVE YOU is a social sculpture and place of encounters to celebrate friendship and camaraderie at the Alexandria Waterfront. The project is conceived as an emotional monument and portable square composed of two elements — a rose-hued neon and metal sign standing 15 feet above a pink ground-mural emulating a giant, 36′ x 76’-carpet, rendered with blossoming flowers.
More »Design Forum’s Cazú Zegers: Ecocentric not Egocentric
Changing our egocentric culture to an “eco-centric” one, says the Chilean architect Cazú Zegers, is when we see ourselves as part of a complex system that needs to be treated with humility. It’s a message she shares as founder and director of Cazú Zegers Architecture and Foundation +1000. Named among the Latin American architects who break down barriers by Forbes Magazine in 2020, Zegers is a featured speaker for Design Forum: South is Up! June 3-4 at the Ballston Center at Marymount University in Arlington. Register and join her at aiava.org/design-forum-2022.
In a recent Madame Architect interview, you said “The territory for America is just like monuments for Europe,” and yet student sketchbooks are still not filled with topographies and river paths today. Why are we still stuck on architecture’s monuments elsewhere to contemplate a vernacular future here?
More »Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France
The newly-opened exhibition Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is exponentially more than an opportunity to see Impressionist paintings. Rather, it is an opportunity to dive deeper into timeless and ubiquitous questions creatives ask themselves throughout their careers.
More »Bamboo Contemporary
Bamboo is a perennial grass that grows rapidly and rivals steel, concrete, and wood in strength. In “Bamboo Contemporary: Green Houses Around the Globe,” author William Richards shows readers the many ingenious ways in which bamboo, one of the most renewable building materials on the planet, can be employed in residential design.
More »Blooming Building Exposition Adds Five Pavilions to UVa
Five temporary pavilions have been constructed at the University of Virginia that uniquely address how design and function can respond to contemporary needs. They’re part of the Biomaterials Building Exposition, curated by Katie MacDonald, AIA, and Kyle Schumann, principals of After Architecture and instructors at the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture. They’re also part of an important global research effort to decarbonize design and construction with the use of rapidly renewable materials, which many experts see as advantageous to reducing embodied carbon and reducing the costs associated with climate positive design.
More »Discarded Spikes Become the Defining Element
I had lunch over the holiday break with Nick Cooper — now leading Hanbury‘s Richmond office — and SMBW’s An Liu. With a modest grant from the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design, An created the piece of experiential art called “Helper.”
More »“Homegrown” Creates Less by Using More of What’s Around
The name of Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann’s firm After Architecture suggests architecture’s demise, which is probably an unwelcome prospect for many architects. The name also suggests that architects might collectively be able to choose their fate, for what comes after. For Le Corbusier, the choice was architecture or revolution. For Mies van der Rohe, the choice was between less or more. For Venturi, it was also between less or more (more or less). What comes after architecture, then? A both/and plurality of architecture and whatever it isn’t. Obviously. (Venturi would approve.)
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