ReInvention AIA, DC

Robert Gurney Associates Glass House

City Center Washington DC

Four Pavillion House

SeaUA

E/L Studio

E/L Studio

Salt and Pepper House

Salt and Pepper House

City Center rooftops

Robert Gurney Associates Glass House

Robert Gurney Glass House

Izzo here: Jose and I recently took part in the the AIA's Reinvention housing convention in Washington, DC where we toured some good residential architecture and sat in on some informative lectures.  Highlights of the event were the awesome tours of housing by local architects.  SeaUA, a shipping container multifamily project by Travis Price Architects started the day.  Pretty interesting.  Next up was a huge housing project on the site of the former DC convention center right downtown.  A massive project, it had some of the most awesome roof decks I had ever seen. These were half apartments and half condos with over 300k sf of retail on the ground level which is already leased up! An amazing feat in and of itself. This project was designed by Shalom Baranes and Foster Partners. A single family house by KUBE Architects dubbed the Salt and Pepper house (no relation to  Salt n pepa) started the single family dwellings. Not a huge house, but it certainly had a lot of fun surprises around every corner. Another live work house by E/L Studio was on the tour. A small architecture office on the first floor, and a small living quarters on the second floor.  Really nice use of tight quarters and really cool ceiling details.  The Four Pavillion house by esteemed architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen designed in the mid 1970s and restored recently by Richard Williams, AIA.  Another great small house within a very private suburban lot.  Really well done. And last but certainly not least, an over the top mansion in Georgetown by Robert Gurney Associates. I mean, check out that kitchen and wine cellar!

WINDOW, Charette

One of the participants presenting her team's design

Some of our sketches

Laura here: Mike and I competed in a design-build competition, “WINDOW,” by AIA Philadelphia Associate Committee yesterday.  The Charette took place at the Philadelphia Center for Architecture, and the competition was to design a window display for Save Some Green, an eco-friendly store on 20^th and Chestnut.  The store owner told us about his business and his goals for the display, and then we were given an hour to come up with our initial ideas.  After presenting to a panel of judges, we had a final half hour to make adjustments based on feedback given to us.  Although we were not selected as the winners of the competition, the owners were pleased with our design, and are interested in working with us for a window display in the future.  We also had fun sketching our vortex of reclaimed wood and eco-products and got some free food.

Check out the winning design in a few weeks! 

Tiff...Architect superstar!

Tiff is not only an awesome architect and author. She's won game shows on tv, MC'd AIA national events, and now is on her way to becoming an international Tweet Chat superstar. If you're like me, you're thinking, "what the hell is a tweet chat?" Well, it's like a more sophisticated chat room.  For the real definition, click this Anyway, she was so good last year when she mc'd at the AIA convention that she was asked by AIA National to host this tweet chat titled Women in Architecture last week.   Clicking that link will allow you to see the whole conversation.  It was a big success with 525 tweets, by 69 unique twitter users, reaching 35,912 twitter accounts! You can follow her at @architektmuse

AIA Golf Outing, and Jose Got Robbed!

JKR Partners manhandled the annual AIA golf outing at Huntingdon Valley Country Club on Monday. G-dubs, P.Georges, Jason Wistreich, Hoser Hernandez and Shizzle my Izzle represented the JKR squad. I can speak for my foursome, we played really well and impressed our clients; We even won something-or-other for the course we played.  Jose pretty much got robbed on the straightest drive contest though. Someone had to have moved the rope.  But I gotta say, that rope wasn't straight. It just so happened that Jose hit the crookedest drive that lined up with the straight rope.

Constructing Play Exhibit

NM: The Center for Architecture on 1218 Arch has a great exhibit on the history of construction toys starting from 17th century alphabet blocks to today's ultra-contemporary versatile modules, and everything in-between. Anyone with a somewhat decent childhood would not be left indifferent to seeing all the former longings and possessions assembled together at last, side-by-side, in one room. The displays are a pure joy. So much joy it can make one forget the purpose of actually going to the Center of Architecture which could in fact be a highly important and urgent task trusted upon by the authoritative forces of the architectural industry. And if that’s not enough, an overly enthusiastic staff will be thrilled to point out that John Locke was the one who invented the alphabet blocks in the late 1600’s. Not the guy from Lost, the actual John Locke.

JKR Partners AIA exhibit boards

This year JKR Partners is featuring two projects Penn IMAX and Presser Senior Apartments for the 2011 Design Excellence Exhibit. The boards are on display at The Rotunda, The Shops at Liberty Place, 16th and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia. October 10 through October 23, 2011.

BENCH!

Natalya Here: A giant cast arm, rusty plumbing pipes and concrete amoebas were among 18 unique entries for a city bench competition hosted by AIA. The Friday night opening reception had assembled an uncomfortable social scene combined with the complimentary industrial-strength cocktails. Mike and I generated a lot of positive feedback from the jurors for our “quasi-futuristic design and clear visual solution”. The entries will be on display through September 3^rd at the Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street.

Mighty Mississippi

Jerry Here: While attending the AIA National convention in New Orleans, we had a steady dose of rising river reports. My cousins, who live in Baton Rouge, thought we ought to see things up close, and they took us to see the Bonnet Carre spillway. This is one of the flood control devices used to divert water from the Mississippi to Lake Pontchartrain and thence to the Gulf of Mexico. The spillway is the wide swath of land shown in this picture. Apparently, in normal times, there should be no water in this picture and everything should be green.

Matt Koenig Receives AIA Volunteer of the Year Award

Last night, Matt and Tony Naccarato from O’Donnell & Naccarato were co-recipients of AIA’s 2011 Volunteer Award at their Annual Meeting. Matt and Tony were honored for developing the AIA Golf Outing into one of the most successful annual events and raising over $500K total in the past 12 years. This year’s sold out event is expecting very few excellent golfers and 160-plus hackers. Congratulations Matt and Tony!         

AIA Golf Outing

Matt and Jason have been working on organizing the 12th Annual AIA Golf Outing this year at Huntingdon Valley Country Club. Matt chairs the event with Tony Naccarato from O'Donnell & Naccarato, and together they hope to raise upwards of 35,000 bucks for the AIA. The event is a great way of networking with other professionals in our industry. There is still space available for the May 2nd event. For information, contact Pat Gourley at pat@aiaphila.org or 215-569-3186.