The Architect Newswire is an aggregation of news from media outlets around the world, intended to keep you abreast of all of the industry’s important developments. The stories we feature are not reported, edited, or fact-checked by Architect’s staff.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Hotel back on track with alternate financing
Developer Richard Heyman plans to use federal EB-5 program financing to restart a proposed $45 million hotel in Hollywood. “We fought hard to find conventional financing,” Heyman says. “But conventional doesn't exist anymore, so we turned to finding alternative sources of capital.” Roger Vincent reports that the nine-story, Killefer Flammang Architects–designed project was originally approved in 2008, when it was known as the Selma. The 148-room hotel with a rooftop swimming pool is now expected to open in the fall of 2013 under the Dream Hotel branding.
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THE MIAMI HERALD
Miami area to get Porsche Design Tower
Sunny Isles Beach City, Fla., has approved designs for the $560 million, 57-story Porsche Design Tower. Lidia Dinkova reports that the 132-unit condominium will feature glass elevators that will park residents and their cars on the same floor as their home. “You don’t have to leave your car until you are in front of your apartment,” says Porsche Design Group CEO Juergen Gessler. Local developer Gil Dezer expects similar buildings to be constructed elsewhere, but he plans to keep this the only one of its kind in South Florida. “We want to keep this really exclusive and not have this become a McDonald’s kind of style,” Dezer says. “The tower is going to change the skyline of Miami Beach.”
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STAMFORD ADVOCATE (CT)
Adding hotel at Harbor Point
The Developer Building and Land Technology (BLT) plans to build a pair of 22-story towers in the new Harbor Square project overlooking Stamford Harbor. Elizabeth Kim reports that the design will include a 130- to 140-room boutique hotel and 60 condominium units. BLT is asking the Stamford, Conn., Zoning Board to change the project’s zoning from a previously approved 13-story, 257,805 square foot design. “We think it will be a signature building for Harbor Point,” says project spokesman John Freeman. Pending approvals, the developer hopes to open the hotel in the summer of 2013.
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AUSTIN BUSINESS JOURNAL
Austin to get “shop houses”
Austin-based Catellus Development Corp. has hired the firm Canadian Homes by Avi to build 14 “shop houses” at their Mueller project. Cody Lyon reports that the units put “a modern spin on an urban lifestyle once common in older towns and cities around the world where merchants often lived above the store or restaurant they owned or operated.” Two blocks of attached units will face a small urban park, with ground floor commercial space ranging from 500 to 600 square feet per house.
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Under DC
Construction at the White House has kept reporters guessing for months as to its scope—the official explanation is utilities work—but Christian Davenport reports that the President’s house isn’t the only structure in the nation’s capital that hides extensive underground structures. The Metro, the Smithsonian’s Sackler Wing, the Capitol Visitor Center, and the National Aquarium are all primarily below grade. The city’s longstanding height restriction isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It “puts out of sight stuff that doesn’t need to be on the street—like lots of parking garages, which are deadly to the urban experience,” says U.S. Commission of Fine Arts secretary Thomas Luebke.
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BBC NEWS
Choreographer using Gehry’s buildings
Canadian-born choreographer Noemie Lafrance regularly uses existing architecture and urban spaces for her work. Irina Khokhlova reports that a 2008 commission for the piece “Rapture” required her to use Frank Gehry’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College as part of the performance. She’s now working on a “Rapture series,” which will use nine Gehry buildings over the next five years. “They feature dancers travelling across the roofs and walls using custom rigging systems and video mapping projections to reveal the dynamics of the architecture's curves in motion,” Khokhlova writes. Sites will include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Spain, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
Legacy of a failed Olympics
New York City’s losing bid for the 2012 Olympics was meant to transform the far West Side of midtown into a complex that would have included the games’ main stadium. Charles V. Bagli reports that the site hasn’t sat empty since the games went to London in 2005—it’s now the site of the fast-growing Hudson Yards project. “It’s ironic that the Hudson Yards was born out of the loss of the Olympic bid,” developer Jeffrey S. Katz says. “At the end of the day, it turns out to be better for the city that the Olympic stadium is not there. We’re building a new, vital part of the central business district.” In twenty years, the neighborhood is expected to have more office space than Baltimore or Portland, Ore., and as many apartments as Stamford, Conn. “We thought the Olympics would be the catalyst to get a lot of things that many people thought the city needed,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg says. “In fact, many got done.”
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GIZMAG
“Flight Assembled Architecture”
Orléans, France’s FRAC Centre is about to host an exhibit, “Flight Assembled Architecture,” that will be built by flying robots. Bridget Borgobello reports that the design by Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler and Italian robot designer Raffaello D'Andrea will be made of 1,500 prefabricated polystyrene foam modules and stand 19.7 feet tall. It’s intended to exhibit architecture as the “physical process of dynamic formation.”
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CURBED NY
LPC dislikes townhouse
Architect David Helpern is batting 0-for-2 with the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Curbed NY reports that he’s presented two schemes in two months for a row of new townhouses at 145 Perry Street. Three of the façades would be identical, but it’s the different one—on the corner—that drew the LPC’s ire. Curbed NY writes, “LPC members were unimpressed by the corner townhouse, which drew comparisons to a prison, a bank, and a ‘very unfortunate government building.’”
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GIZMODO
Philippe Starck’s towering kitchens
German manufacturer Warendorf is introducing a set of two “towers” and a table that house a complete kitchen by designer Philippe Starck. Andrew Liszewski reports that the “hot” tower conceals an oven and microwave, the “cold” tower a refrigerator and freezer, and the table hides a sink and cooktop. “While it looks like a practical solution for struggling students and starving artists who live in cramped apartments, I'm fairly certain the collection is going to come with a price tag well above what its ideal target market can afford,” Liszewski writes. “So maybe this idea is another affordable IKEA hack waiting to happen?”
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