United States

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It’s hard to miss the On Leong Tong Chinese Merchants building on the corner of Mott and Canal Streets. With its pagoda façade and ornamented balconies, this iconic building designed by Chinese American architect Poy Gum Lee reveals the distinct hybrid modern architectural style often referred to as “Chinese modern.” Through Poy Gum Lee’s body of work in Chinatown and in China, guest curator of "Chinese Style: Rediscovering the Architecture of Poy Gum Lee, 1923-1968", Kerri Culhane illuminates Lee’s influence on the architectural aesthetics in Chinatown, the cultural and political impulses behind this architecture style, and the role of the built environment as an expression of identity.

The UO John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape presents Climate Change and the Willamette Valley The fears. The possibilities. The necessities.

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New Horizon_architecture from Ireland, a series of presentations of the work of emerging Irish practices in three high-profile venues around the world, opens at Chicago Design Museum on October 3rd and runs until January 3rd, 2016 as part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Urbanization is more than the growth and physical expansion of cities. It is a process that transforms territories, changes existing reciprocities and establishes new relationships between different places. In the Shadow of the Megacity will address the wider impact of urbanization, both within and beyond the city, in an attempt to trace the present contours of the urban and imagine its future.

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On September 24, the National Academy Museum will present a conversation on architecture between 2015 AIA Gold Medal Recipient Moshe Safdie and acclaimed architectural writer and critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. This public event—presented in conjunction with the National Academy Museum’s exhibition Global Citizen: The Architecture of Moshe Safdie (September 10, 2015 – January 10, 2016)—invites audiences to enjoy a spirited discussion on art, architecture, culture and context with two leaders in the field of architecture and architectural criticism. More information and tickets are available here: http://www.nationalacademy.org/museum/programs-artalks/.

From Trinity Church to Boston’s “high spine” of skyscrapers, explore how architectural photographers see the cityscape in this dynamic session suitable for beginner and intermediate photographers alike. During this intimate exploration of Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, you will learn to produce memorable images that convey a sense of place and a connection to landscape and surroundings. Professional photographer Emily O’Brien will help you and other enthusiastic photographers see Boston in a whole new way.

Pershing Square Renew, a public/private partnership formed by Los Angeles City Council member José Huizar, has launched an international design competition to re-imagine the five-acre urban park at the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

Un/fair Use is an exhibition of research and proposals related to copying and copyright in architecture.

Appropriation is as much a part of architecture as the expectation of novelty, and so it is at the very core of the discipline. Architecture advances via comment, criticism, parody, and innovation, forms of appropriation that fall under the umbrella of fair use. But what about when appropriation is deemed unfair? Where and how are the lines drawn around permissible use? Un/fair Use probes that legal boundary.

Launching the 2015–2016 BSA Space Film Series: Keeping it Reel is Sukkah City. Go behind the scenes of a national design competition that challenged contemporary architects to design a radical sukkah, a small Jewish hut used for the holiday of Sukkot, using new and inventive materials and forms. Inspirational and compelling, Sukkah City is an in-depth chronicle of how architects approach design challenges and creative processes. Arrive early and engage your senses in Bigger than a Breadbox, Smaller than a Building, an exhibition that explores art installations and architecture. The exhibition closes October 4.

Gather this Friday, September 18, for Threshold, the 2015 Architectural League Beaux Arts Ball at the Knockdown Center, a former doorframe factory turned artist/performance space in Queens.

This year’s theme, Threshold, celebrates the building’s specific industrial history, while nodding to the Ball as a kick-off to the cultural year, not only for The Architectural League, but for the entire New York design community. Inside the restored factory’s 50,000 square foot, 40-foot high spaces, the design teams of Alibi Studio, MODU, and Moorhead & Moorhead will create site-specific “threshold” installations. The Ball will take place 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. with drinks, light fare, and dancing. Proceeds from the event help to support the League’s annual series of programs.

Hear the story of Gather restaurant and how it became the seaport’s most inventive eatery in the heart of the Innovation District. Designed with dual functions in mind, Gather is the resident full-service restaurant and bar at District Hall and supports the flexibility of the building by connecting to The Brew Café and the larger assembly space for public or private events. Operator Tom Shea of The Briar Group, and architect David Hacin FAIA and project designer Matthew Arnold Assoc. AIA of Hacin + Associates will discuss the unique challenge of designing a restaurant inside the nation’s first public innovation center. Included in your ticket is a tour of District Hall and a Q&A with the owner and designers over appetizers and a drink.

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Videos

A Poetry of the Ordinary: Life in Alison and Peter Smithson's Robin Hood Gardens, 1972

Set within the wider framework of “Living Anatomy: an Exhibition about Housing,” currently on view at Harvard Graduate School of Design, this exhibition focuses on ‘Robin Hood Gardens’ - Alison and Peter Smithson’s housing project in East London, completed in 1972. Threatened with demolition yet again, despite an ongoing campaign that still hopes to secure its preservation, Robin Hood Gardens stands today with broken windows, vandalized corridors, crippling facades, and a fractured public reputation. While deteriorating with neglect barely 50 years after its completion, this project’s architecture is still striking in its sense of livelihood and innovation.

Utah-based community project Summit has announced Mountain Architecture Prototype (MAP), an SPM Design Competition, "to select the design of a cabin prototype in an effort to push forward the conversation around what it means to build responsibly at 8,400 feet in the Wasatch [Mountain] Range.”

The competition seeks submissions for a structure of up to 2,500 square feet, which will be located on a 12 degree sloped site at Summit Powder Mountain. Sustainable designs are highly encouraged, particularly with the use of natural materials.