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A while ago KieranTimberlake Associates founder James Timberlake, FAIA, told me something that made simple economic sense at the time, yet represents perhaps the most definitive and calculable sea change in architecture and urban planning today: “As we see the economy change, people are going to demand less space.”
Continue reading "Trading Down for a Suburban Intervention" »
by Stephanie Stubbs, Assoc. AIA, LEED-AP
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to satisfy a 30-year-old jones: I finally made the architectural haj to Arcosanti, Paulo Soleri’s urban vision-come-reality in the Arizona desert. The anticipatory road trip and resulting tour, guided by construction worker Jeff Buderer, lived up to decades of anticipation, and—for a brief shining moment or three—I reveled silently in a private fantasy of chucking Washington, D.C., packing up the cats (they’d have lots of new friends there), and becoming an Arcosanti construction worker myself.
Did you buy a house you couldn't afford in the last five years? Did you believe that 0% down and zero principal ARM loans would be a good idea? Probably not. But apparently a lot of people did. And now you and I have to pay off on those loans.
But wait, it's okay because the government will bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and lend billions to AIG. But wait again, that's your money and mine.
Here in Washington, the United States Institute of Peace, designed by Moshe Safdie, FAIA, is under construction, and, to read the description that appears on the architect’s and the agency’s Web sites, you’d think they were risking duplicating the work other agencies are supposed to be doing. It’s “envisioned to serve as a national center for the prevention, management, and resolution of international conflicts.”
It’s possible I’m an optimist, but I had hoped this was at least part of what the Department of State (conveniently located right across the street) keeps themselves busy with.
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