Monthly Archives: March 2014

Cool Spaces!

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Steven Chung, AIA, interviewing Frank Geary, FAIA.  Photo courtesy of Cool Spaces!

Steven Chung, AIA, interviewing Frank Geary, FAIA. Photo courtesy of Cool Spaces!

If you receive the AIArchitect emails from the AIA, you may have seen this article from March 21, 2014, entitled “Cool Spaces! Premiers on PBS in April.”  You can view the article here: http://www.aia.org/practicing/AIAB102008

The show will investigate the design process through specific building types.  “Cool Spaces!, hosted by Stephen Chung, AIA, will explore how architects and their clients use innovative technology and practiced design traditions to shape the world around us. Equally interested in the design process and the design product, the program will demystify the work that architects do for a general audience, helping to build awareness of how an architect’s hand can improve and refine nearly every aspect of the built environment.”

Intrigued, I looked to see when we can watch in Nebraska, but there are currently no air dates set for NET Nebraska (http://www.coolspaces.tv/cool-spaces-season-1-air-dates/).  We’ll keep an eye out and post an update when we hear more.

In the meantime, you can watch the trailer here: http://www.architectmagazine.com/videos/detail/ar-2014-02-11-cool-spaces-exclusive-premiere/2114509

And, you can visit the Cool Spaces! website here: http://www.coolspaces.tv/

 

Historic Architecture – which side are you on?

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Joslyn MuseumArchitecture plays a significant role in defining our culture.  From the first known buildings on earth over 5000 years ago and in the US over 1200 years ago, we have a sense of cultures lived in the past. 

Architecture designed today, in the current culture we live, will become the historical fabric of the future.  Today we are building the history of tomorrow.

It is the understanding of the past and creativity of the present that allows us to move ideas forward, to advance our culture.  People tend to be more comfortable with a familiar environment, detail or material.  It is human nature, literally.  Our first experience of shelter existed within the natural elements, which is why even today most people resonate with stone, wood and daylight. 

We are at an exciting point in design.  Innovation and creativity are experiencing a new age with an increased rate of interactions and technologies which simplify complexities in structures.  At the same time, the built environment is becoming more and more significant considering the move of the population to urban spaces. The opportunity exists today to create spaces that touch our spirit, just as they have in the significant structures completed hundreds of years ago.

As a culture, we should both embrace our historic structures of the past and appreciate the concept that design ideas conceived for the built environment today will become the historic structures of the future.