sunburn caused by a building

It's hard to imagine this sunburn problem exists...but it does...in Dallas.

museum tower, image: brandon thibodeaux for new york timesRenzo Piano and Peter Walker designed the Nasher Sculpture Centre, which opened in 2003 and houses works by Rodin and Matisse among others. The Centre is intended to serve as something of an economic driver for the area and, in due course, developers began erecting Museum Tower across the street.

Problem? The glass of the tower is reflecting sunlight into the Centre through its glass roof to the extent that plants in the museum are burning and the artwork is in danger of being damaged.

It is an intriguing conundrum: economic development fueled by a cultural institution which potentially harms the institution. That's the angle of the New York Times story about this back in May.

Apparently, this is not the first time such a problem has arisen. According to the Times story, Frank Gehry has similar issues with the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

My take on all this? Did it not occur to the Museum Tower architect that all that glass could be blinding? It's Dallas for heaven's sake, not Detroit or Buffalo. Context strikes again.

got any good ideas?

The good folks at GOOD (pun intended) and BMW Guggenheim Lab are challenging people the world over to come up with ideas of how they would transform a public place. This "Call for Ideas" wants to know how you would make a place in your city more comfortable.

city hall from west (before)Project details are on the GOOD website and I would say there are opportunity challenges, if you will, right here in Bermuda's City of Hamilton. Of course the new and slightly odd grass lawn in front of City Hall - who expected them to literally just fill in the pond without actually removing the pond surround? - is a great place to start! (See my March blog post on the topic of City Hall's pond.)

Check out these 'before' and 'after' pictures and see for yourself. Surely we can do better? city hall from west (after)

keep 'em or knock 'em down?

The good folks at California Home and Design, together with 15 architects, selected examples of buildings they believe should be eliminated from the landscape. Buildings that forgot concepts such as proportion and balance. As I took a long walk around Bermuda over the weekend, I, too, noticed structures that our island's landscape could live without. (Decorative block, anyone?)

Have a look at the selected 25 buildings over which CA Home+Design's sword of Damocles hangs. What do you think?

 image: mr bill, flickr at&t building, houston tx