News:
Call for Entries | Fairy Houses & Forts: An Enchanting Garden Adventure
Coming to Powell Gardens: Summer 2012
Inspire an awe of the great outdoors by contributing your talents to “Fairy Houses & Forts: An Enchanting Garden Adventure” this summer at Powell Gardens. Kansas City’s botanical garden, set just east of Kansas City on Highway 50, wants to ignite children’s interest in exploring and learning about the natural world. This special exhibit will invite kids to imagine, dream and play in magical spaces you can help create!
The major regional exhibit of at least seven fairy houses and/or forts will be displayed at Powell Gardens from May 19 through October 7, 2012. Your work will be enjoyed by thousands of visitors of all ages and from all over the region, plus we’ll include your name in press releases, our newsletter, our website, social media and on signs posted next to each exhibit.
Design finalists will be selected in mid-January by a panel of judges. Each winning designer will receive a stipend of $4,000 (or the equivalent in building materials) and be responsible for construction, installation and removal of each structure. Collaboration between individuals and businesses is encouraged!
Required: Predesign meeting at 3 p.m. Nov. 16 at Powell Gardens. You will receive full design and entry information plus a walk-through of available sites. Please RSVP by Nov. 15 by calling 816-697-2600 ×236.
Design due date: January 9, 2012. There is a $35 application fee.
Questions? Call Callen Fairchild Zind, 816-697-2600
x236 or learn more at http://ht.ly/77oe7.
ARCHITECT | The 50-Year-Old Intern
Meet Hana Kolton, an architecture school graduate with a successful career designing laboratories for high-profile clients such as AstraZeneca and Novartis. Kolton never got a license—never needed one, she says. With recent graduates pursuing other fields as the economy falters, or deciding like Kolton not to get licensed, she may well represent a worrying trend—a decline in registered professionals. Will there be a lost generation of architects? And should we care?
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS | The Historic Kansas City Foundation’s Annual Preservation Awards
The Historic Kansas City Foundation is accepting nominations for our annual Preservation Awards. This year our award categories cover a vast array of preservation issues in order to encourage nominations from a wide range of professionals and disciplines. Students are also encouraged to apply.
Nominations are due November 18th. The nomination process is very simple—it will just take a few minutes of your time. The awards ceremony will take place in Katz Hall, 5005 Rockhill Road, on Wednesday, December 7th from 5:30pm-7:30pm. Mark your calendars!
Historic Kansas City Foundation
2011 Preservation Awards
Awards:
Best Adaptive Re-Use: Awarded to a project that is an exemplary example of a creative, innovative and appropriate re-use of a historic structure. The current use of the building must differ from its historical use.
Best Application of the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards: Awarded to a project that has undergone work in preservation, rehabilitation, restoration or reconstruction. For more information visit http://www.nps.gov/hps/tps/standguide/
Contemporary Design in a Historic Context: Awarded to a project that displays appropriate and innovative contemporary design in a historic context.
Community Catalyst: Awarded to a project, individual, business or group that has greatly contributed to the reinvestment in or revitalization of a historic neighborhood.
Innovation in Preservation: Awarded to a person, group, project or idea that displays innovation in the field of preservation.
Richard Nadeau Award: Awarded to an individual or group willing to go the extra mile and be a tireless advocate for preservation. Embodies and embraces the idea that “advocacy is the willingness to annoy people.”
Jane Flynn Award: Awarded to an individual or group whose actions have greatly impacted preservation in Kansas City—has fought a preservation battle, worked tirelessly to preserve a structure or neighborhood, or has promoted preservation through planning and public policy.
George Ehrlich Award: Awarded to a group or individual for an outstanding publication in preservation, history, urban design or a related topic.
Nomination Criteria and Guidelines:
The individual, group or project must be located in the greater Kansas City area.
The project must have been completed or the activity must have taken place in the calendar year 2010 or 2011.
HKCF will accept both self-nomination and nominations without the knowledge of the nominee.
Awards may not be given in all categories and, in special cases, more than one award per category may be made.
Students are encouraged to apply.
Nominations will automatically be considered for all applicable categories.
To Nominate:
Nominations are due November 18, 2011
Email (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) the following:
• Nominee (also include whether it is an individual, group, project or other)
• Nominee and Nominator contact information
• Project location, if applicable
• Paragraph describing why the project, individual or group is deserving
• Up to 5 pictures, as applicable
• Category for consideration (optional)
PDF format is preferred. It doesn’t have to be fancy—we care more about the nomination than the application!
Happy Halloween
Incredible Carved Pumpkins by renowned sand and pumpkin sculptor Ray Villafane: …makes the hard pumpkin flesh look soft and malleable, like a real human face. [slide show] – Flavorwire
Monsters of Design Winners
AIA Kansas City would like to congratulate the recipients of the 2011 Monsters of Design Awards. Awards were given out during a celebration on October 14th.
Honorable Mention(s):
Brian Kelley for perfor(M)ations (slide 1)
Dominique Davison, Sarah Thompson, Ryan Warman for Urban Barn (slide 2)
Awards:
Object Design:
Casey Roberts for 7DEGREE Table (slide 3)
Urban Design:
Tyler Cukar for Scenario Planning: Streetcar City Fayetteville, Arkansas (slide 4)
Student Design:
Chase Pitner for Pod Hotel (slide 5)
Environmental Design:
Fletcher Hamel, Tucker Trotter, Max Younger, Stephen Hopkins, Jeremy Williams, Brian Mirakian, Scott Dawald, Wyatt Beard, Spencer Branham, Meghan Perlow, Chris Stauffer for HyVee Hot Zone (slide 6)
Built Design:
Brian Murch, Miranda Kumler for Joplin Interim High School (slide 7)
Board Design (People’s Choice)
Allison Gould for clutch (slide 8)
Free Webinars from AIA National
Just in case you hadn’t heard AIA National offers several free webinars from AIA Knowledgenet. Click here for a listing of upcoming webinars.
AIA Missouri Political Update
Several AIA Kansas City delegates to the AIA Missouri board, along with AIA Kansas City Executive Director Dawn Taylor, met with Sen. Jolie Justus and Rep. Jason Holsman on October 14 to hear about issues in the MO state legislature that might impact our industry in 2012. We also asked for guidance from these elected officials regarding effective involvement from our chapter, both collectively and as individuals. It was also nice to be able to present them each with a check from MoPAC.
Sen. Justus encouraged AIA members to write thank you notes to House members who voted No on the elimination of the historic tax credit issue. There were 117 No votes, so constituents need to express their approval and ask legislators from this area to continue supporting tax credits that sustain the building industry and foster jobs creation. We will ask AIA Missouri’s lobbyist to provide a list of the legislators to contact and will post the list on a future issue of Building Blocks.
Sen. Justus also recommended getting to know key Kansas City-area legislators who would likely support a number of our initiatives.
She suggested a new strategy for supporting statewide building codes, which has been a long, hard battle at the state level: consider working with counties. If enough counties adopt the building codes, it will pave the way for future statewide adoption.
Rep. Holsman, who was named AIA Kansas City Architectural Advocate of the Year in 2010, talked quite a bit about re-districting and the impact it will have on his district and in general. He discussed his commitment to green building, especially for housing, and suggested ways to change the lack of momentum on green building for housing issues. The lobbyist can help us research the legislators who oppose to sustainable building initiatives, and AIA Missouri can work on strategies to help them see the value in these types of investments.
Your AIA Missouri representatives from our chapter are: Marsha Hoffman, Galen Lif, Matt Nugent, Tony Rohr, Debra Smith, Brady Spencer, and Ryan Warman (AIA Missouri President-elect). Scott Sayers is coming on board to replace Albert Ray, who moved to Texas earlier this year. Our thanks to this team for the good work they are doing to advance AIA’s voice in the state legislature.
Dawn Taylor
Executive Director
AIA National | Another Drop for Architecture Billings Index
Following the first positive score in four months, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) reversed direction again in September. As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the September ABI score was 46.9, following a score of 51.4 in August. This score reflects a sharp decrease in demand for design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 54.3, down from a reading of 56.9 the previous month.
ARCHITECT | Zahner Cloud Wall
Powerful CAD software has given architects the ability to create mind-boggling forms. But it still takes the resourcefulness and ingenuity of fabricators such as the A. Zahner Co. of Kansas City, Mo., to make them constructable.
Zahner’s machines laser-cut and rolled the angel hair–finished stainless steel sheets covering Frank Gehry’s 2004 Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago. The company’s presses punched the hundreds of thousands of holes and dimples that texture the solid copper face of Herzog & de Meuron’s 2005 de Young Museum in San Francisco. And semis laden with its prefabricated, perforated panels braved the urban lanes of New York City to clad Morphosis’s 2009 Cooper Union New Academic Building.
KCUR “Up to Date” | Steve Paul discusses his new book on Kansas City architecture
Tune in to KCUR’s “Up to Date” show with Steve Kraske on Friday, October 21 for an interview with Steve Paul about his new book on Kansas City architecture.
Kansas City Star writer and arts editor Steve Paul’s Architecture A-Z began as a Star Magazine feature based on a simple concept: What can we learn and share about Kansas City’s history and contemporary scene if we take a simple walk through the alphabet?
So we put Steve Paul to the test.
Today we visit three structures featured in Steve Paul’s new book, Architecture A-Z: An Elemental, Alphabetical Guide to Kansas City’s Built Environment, as he and others tell us what makes these buildings unique in our city, the features that differentiate them from other structures in the area, and describe their history and their place in time.
Paul’s book contains more than 200 photographs and detailed descriptions of Kansas City’s architectural scene.