In an article published by the New York Times, Philip Nobel laments the time taken to construct architecture. As architects, we have the passion to shape space and craft environments. For most, that translates into physically constructing such visions, but the path from drawing board (or computer screen) to realization is often times a long and arduous path.
In the past few years, such difficult financial times have challenged architects to fight for their buildings; namely, asking the designer to find ways to make the buildings work – whether with a changed material palette, smaller footprint, or shortened height. Yet, apart from finances, we’ve also reported dozens of projects which narrowly clear other obstacles, such as attaining community consent. And, of course, we have seen scores of great awarded competition proposals that do not incur the same luck, and slowly dwindle to non-existence.
