That’s it. Blame architecture. As if things weren’t bad enough in the profession, here’s RedOrbit jumping on the pile (what the frak is RedOrbit?):

The devastating earthquakes in central Italy this week have tragically revealed the architectural vulnerability of many of its buildings…

Rome-based architect [and preservationist] Paolo Rocchi has called the partial collapse of a 15-year old hospital in L’Aquila “absurd…” Rocchi told reporters that the L’Aquila hospital should have been built in accordance with modern safety standards.

What’s worse is that it wasn’t always thus.

Giorgio Croci, an expert in ancient architecture, says that there are so many ancient Roman ruins still standing in Italy today because Romans [sic] architects preferred to build massive stable structures and used only the best quality building materials.

As opposed to architects nowadays, who prefer papier-mâché and Bazooka bubblegum. Way to go, gang! Just so you know, you’ll probably all be sued for this.

Disaster Reveals Italy’s Lack Of Quake-Proof Architecture [RedOrbit]

Now you can: Sez the Guardian’s Hans Kundnani, “it is now possible to stay in the rooms once occupied by Bauhaus students.” The (as previously noted) 90-year-old Dessau school is now open for guests, at the alarmingly affordable rate of $60.00 for a double. It’s less a hotel, however, than a “boutique youth hostel,” which sounds less than optimal. (Dismal memories of sodden floors, filthy showers, solicitous bunk mates.)

Still, Kundani reports that Dessau itself abounds in old-world charm as well as modern design, and that his stay in the Bauhaus made him feel “almost like” a Bauahus student himself. It may be just as well that it was only “almost”: visitors today are spared the mysterious specter of Johannes Itten, the intimidating omnipresence of Mies van der Rohe, the political ravings of Hannes Meyer. But we wonder: When will we be able to book a room in Paul Rudolph’s Yale School of Architecture? Now that’s luxury accommodations.

Grand Designs at Bauhaus B&B [Guardian]

We haven’t heard much from Slick Willy McD. since Danielle Sacks’ meticulous dismemberment of the Godfather of Green last October in Fast Company. So much the worse: as Sacks discovered, McDonough is good for a laugh, schmoozing his way across southern California, struggling with parasols, artfully dodging blame for the catastrophic failures that have attended most of his eco-minded development projects. But the kid stays in the picture. Here he is at England’s ParkCity Conference, acting the scold:

“I’m amazed there’s so much focus on carbon, yet [architects are still] using toxic materials,” he said. “It’s a nightmare—you’re effectively delivering a killing machine. We have to put as much focus on materials as on energy.”

Killing machines! You hear that, architects? Your green buildings are unleashing hellfire and you shall reap the whirlwind! There is, however, a solution—adopt McDonough’s “Cradle-to-Cradle” process (patent pending, whether or not it actually belongs to McDonough) by using ecologically sound materials that are safe and efficient over their whole life-cycle. The nettlesome thing, of course, is that he’s got the right idea, even if it’s not his. But he still relies on the huckster rhetoric of the Fuller Brush Man: “Ma’am, were you aware of the dangers lurking in your own home from millions of lung-clogging dust mites? A lifetime of allergies for your children! But I have a solution right here…”

Architects Are Creating Toxic ‘Killing Machines’ [BD]
Image [Martien Mulder, FC]

Inga Saffron, architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer and among the last of the staff writer mastodons, had an interesting piece in the paper on Friday. It began by remarking something that we’ve largely failed to note about the City of Brotherly Sandwiches.

In Philadelphia, the default material has always been brick… While Philadelphians were willing to work in glass towers, they preferred to come home to brick and stone.

She’s right: how many curtain wall residential building are there in P-town? Well, there’s more of them now, and Inga is glad that Philly has finally caught up. She’s gladdest of all to see the Murano, a 42-story condominium tower in City Center designed by the Chicago firm of Solomon Cordwell Buenz. The Murano’s strength, writes Saffron, “is the way its architects avoided the placelessness inherent in many glass towers.” The Chicago Tribune’s Blair Kamin appreciated the endorsement of his hometown troupe, and talked up Saffron’s article on his Skyline blog. It’s a vicious cycle!

The most interesting thing about Saffron’s article, however, is her split decision on the relative virtue of glass in the urban environment. Plainly she recognizes that the glass tower can be “placeless” as well as “sleek”, but she speaks warmly of certain of New York’s recent vitreomaniacal buildings—even as many in New York have started to wonder if, in the end, glass is really all it’s cracked up to be. How long before Chicago wonders the same thing?

Brick City Accepts Glass [Inquirer]
Chicago Architects Get a Thumb’s Up in Philly [Tribune]

Whoops! Guess who we forgot to call on their birthday?

On March 20, 1919, [Walter Gropius] submitted an application to establish an academy in the city of Weimar. The permit for the “National Bauhaus in Weimar” arrived on April 12. In the meantime, the architect had written a sweeping manifesto. It was to mark the beginning of a virtually worldwide aesthetic upheaval—in short, a true revolution.

(Blowing into tuning pipe.) Happy birthday dear Bauhaus, happy birthday dear Bauhaus, happy birthday dear Bauhaus… Wait a minute. The permit didn’t arrive until April. So was the Bauhaus birthday Friday, or is it next month? (It’s a tough call, analogy-wise. How many babies you know get stuck in the birth canal for three weeks?) Meh, we’ll hold the party favors until Bergdoll’s show goes up at MoMA in November.

Celebrating 90 Years of Bauhaus [Spiegel]

You ever get that nagging feeling that design these days is just a bit too unconstrained, too free-floating, too whatevs, dude, it’s awesome so it’s awesome? Being of orderly nature and rigorous nurture, we’ve been getting a little confused around Edificial HQ with the surge in viewpoints like transdisciplinary design and interactive design and integrational design and perfume design and design design and design-is-puppies and design-is-how-you-drink-your-coffee and design-is-the-end-of-Battlestar.

As we always learn on the internet, we are not alone. The U.S. National Design Policy Initiative is there to watchdog where we sleep, to have power where we have movable type. And they’re asking for videos of CEO’s (what-what) talking design policy. Despite our best skepticisms, we had to stop when we stumbled across this sphene of a design definition, delivered by Policy Policer Dori Tunstall:

Design is what translates human values such as sustainability, innovation, delight, ease of use, even sublime beauty into things and experiences that people can see, hear, taste, touch, smell.

And we’re out. Been trying to come up with a definition for this here universe we spiral around in for years, and Tunstall’s got at least one. What Tunstall doesn’t have, and Core77 does, is a more populist approach (and we’re back to square whatever-you-want-it-to-be), inviting just about anyone to come up with a National Design Policy (Video). Taking action towards moving forward in the direction of an initiative-type questions get asked. Let’s all help them have better answers. It’s spring, after all. Let’s put one back in our steps.

Star Search — U.S. National Design Policy video [Core77]
U.S. Design Policy’s Necessity viral video campaign launches [U.S. National Design Policy Initiative]

The whole world loves a rebrand. Except when they don’t, and you have to un-rebrand. If it happened to Pistol Pete Arnell, it could happen to Landor Associates, who’ve come up with a new name and logo for the Sci Fi Channel, “Syfy”. Landor’s less designy than Arnell (case in point, their very conventional logo for Super Bowl XLIII) and that’s apparent again in their washed-out-looking Syfy logo at left. It reminds us a little of Alvin Aronson’s digital/analog clock, only, you know, boring. Again we ask: Why do companies bother with this kind of identity tinkering? And when they do, why do they have to commit gross crimes against design or grammar or both?

SyFy is the New Sci-Fi [Gawker]

Hum dee-dee. Oh! Why, hello there. Nice to see you again. Say—did you hear the news?

Despite the plunge in real-estate values, most Americans remain very proud of their homes. So interest in home decorating and interior stories is fairly strong, even with the slumping economy and the closure of Domino magazine.

Thank you, David Ward of PR Week, for giving us hope in these excremental times. But aren’t there any, you know, trends, such as design writers like ourselves can look out for? Coming right up:

…home decor media is shifting away from aspirational coverage toward cost-effective projects.

Design editors and writers, be on the lookout for the following pitches: flacks will “highlight the eco-friendly features of [their] client’s products”; they will deploy “high-quality images with every pitch”; and they will assault us with samples so that we can see how easy it is to be green with the splendiferous econo-trinkets they’re hawking. But can we really bemoan the PR-ization of recessionary design if it’s necessary to promote quality products that suit the times? Yes, but let’s do it nicely.

Home Design Coverage Still on Solid Ground [PR Week]

Scrunchies eventually—unfortunately, tragically, misguidedly—go out of style. So, too, do pegged acid-washed jeans, too-short jeans, too-mom jeans, too-black jeans, too-long jeans, and too-too jeans. But there’s hope for all you that went to the dark and high-waisted side. Courtesy Edifave Transracial (run by esteemed traveler David Kaufman) comes the news that you can turn your old jeans—you’re gonna need to find three pairs of Wranglers—into a classy stool, simply by sending them over to the Japanese (of course!) company NOyes. (Oxymoron check, check check.) We encourage you to wallow in the brilliance that is the video. And then, to say goodbye.

Big in Japan: Recycled Jeans Furniture [Transracial]

Another day, another Pepsi branding debacle. Following the tedious hooplah over Peter Arnell’s new design for Tropicana, the corporate princes at Pepsi-Cola have decided to follow the redo of their flagship brand with two entirely new lines of soda. Pepsi Throwback was announced a couple weeks ago, a real cane sugar soda in an old timey lookin’ bottle expected to hit stores in April; yesterday came news that it would be joined by Pepsi Natural, which is, um, a real cane sugar soda in an old timey lookin’ bottle (left). What the difference? And, most importantly, is this Arnell’s doing, or did this idea predate his reign of terror? Retro design isn’t typical Arnell, who tends to be more forward looking, but the manifest belief that branding alone can make two sodas out of one is classic Pistol Pete. Thoughts? tips(at)edificial(dot)com

Pepsi Tries Throwback Branding—with a Premium Price [Fast Company]

With the acknowledgement that discussing money is so terribly, terribly gauche (for William Norwich told us so), we bring you Coroflot’s 2008 Design Salary Survey. Bear in mind that was before the crash, so it’s all a portrait of a reasonable time, a softer time, a time in which architects and interior designers and even graphic designers made fair-to-quite-fair livings from their sketches and drawings and models and ideas. A time in which—wait a second—the low income average for architects was $15K, the high $240K (!), in comparison to the high mark of $970K for industrial designers and a cool mil for interaction designers. Most surprising is that only 58% of architect respondents hold a BA, as opposed to 74%, 79%, and a whopping 84% for interior design, industrial design, and graphic design, respectively. And while we are certain that correlation in no way implies causation, there seems to be a link between being an interaction designer and being a hotshot. In the meantime, WASPs, step away from the post.

Coroflot Design Salary Survey [Coroflot, via Core77]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have an icon. Since he took office, President Obama has been pressed between two seemingly irreconcilable imperatives: on the one hand, to create a system of images that can communicate his policy message to the American people; and on the other, to do so without appearing grandiose or downright authoritarian. For all our obsession with images (an obsession facilitated by electronic media [good morning!]), ours is an iconoclastic culture, and even the least informed of us possesses an innate grasp of mass-psychology sufficient to recognize when we’re being manipulated. WIN buttons and war bond posters just won’t make the grade anymore.

But if anything can work, this might. In a press conference yesterday, the president unveiled the official emblem for recovery.gov, which is to be posted on all projects being constructed under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. If the logo seems to fit perfectly with the routinely excellent visual language of Obama’s campaign, well, that’s ‘cause it’s done by the same guys: Chicago’s Mode Project, headed up by creative director Steve Juras with the able assistance of designers Aaron Draplin and Chris Glass. It’s simple, it’s hopeful, but most importantly it’s disarming. Its rounded sections and subdued colors should help take the teeth out of the argument that the Administration’s trying to browbeat us or gull us with images. What they’re trying to do is explain things to us. And unite us.

You New Hippie Stimulus Logo [Gawker]

Last week, we brought you the story of branding guru to the stars Peter Arnell of the Arnell Group. ‘Twas he that done the redesign that done in orange juice—until Tropicana changed its mind and canceled the new packaging. What did we learn from this episode? Two things: 1. Arnell is one part whiz to two parts WTF and 2. We have to listen to our own commentatorizers. Noted designage last Thursday: “Arnell is also responsible for the much-maligned GOOP newsletter ‘written by’ Gwyneth Paltrow.” Now this might have been clairvoyance, or it might have been common knowledge. But either way we would like it entered into the books that we knew it before other folks did. Or anyway, designage knew, and thus so did we. Oh, and to the other commentatorizer—if you think the image to the left is spooky, just look at Arnell before the weight loss…

Gwyneth Has No Real Friends [Gawker]

Attracting attention at Archinect is a brief article from Popular Mechanics posted for some reason in MSN’s real estate section. Writes Joseph Truini: “Regardless of what your [home improvement] dream entails, all major remodeling projects can benefit from the expert design help of an experienced, licensed architect.” But isn’t that money-costly? Truini outlines five (5) reasons why it’s worth it to hire a pro. Then come the commentatorizers: “Anyone who knows an architect will vouch for the fact that they are incapable of sensible and valuable advice…” “Hire an architect? HA!…” It only gets worse over the course of 100-plus comments. The folks at Archinect are riled—but a good bashing can be character-building. Most of the complaints are aimed at architects’ ignorance of nuts-and-bolts, design/build work. It’s a critique different only in tone from the holistic, let’s-do-everything gospel of no less a figure than Prince Joshua Prince-Ramus.

Architects Are Worth the Money [MSN]

Half of us cannot wait to see The International, the new Clive Owen-is-grizzly-and-hot-and-so-hot-and-seriously-it’s-become-a-problem-for-us-and-we-sortof-understand-stalking oh-shit-we’re-off-track a-bank-battling-world-saver movie. But while we wait, we have our friends at Dwell to entertain us with a more, well, parent-appropriate look at the film. We’d read here and there about the Guggenheim shoot-out—filmed in a life-size replica somewhere near ja very cool Berlin—but Aaron Britt really gets into it, and explains why the baddies live in glass houses and the Clives want to kill them:

All told, this film feels like a kind of comeuppance for modern architecture, with the literal desecration of a hallowed modern edifice as a surrogate for the destruction of the headquarters of the IBBC. That the film’s final vengence comes atop the terra cotta-tiled roof of a building in Instanbul only adds to the notion that modernism istelf is a kind accomplice to the treachery of those at the bank, and only outside of it’s flourescently-lit walls can any justice be done. It’s a hoary old canard that movie villains admire Mies, but it appears to be alive and quacking.

We’re off into the darkness of the February night to find someone to go with. We’ll be reporting back. On Clive. And, fine, the buildings.

The International: Lousy film, Evil Architecture [Dwell Daily]

Wh-what? Reporteth UPI: “The owners of the Sears Tower are considering painting the Chicago skyscraper silver instead of its classic black color.” Wh-why? “The Sears Tower owners may be eyeing a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating of silver through the paint job.” Fellas! LEED silver doesn’t mean the building has to be silver. Of course, these guys ain’t dumb: one of the owners is Jumpin’ Joseph Moinian, the real estate mega-mind behind Gwathmey’s (LEED-rated?) downtown W residences. This is the same whiz who gave Lindsay Lohan a free apartment to help drum up business at Atelier—just in time for Lohan to get thrown in the clink. Obviously some brain-case from the head office showed Moinian an environmental study that says silver’s more heat deflective, making the building easier to keep warm or cool or both. Say it ain’t so, Joe! Next up, painting the Seagram Building fuchsia.

Sears Tower May Receive Silver Paint Job [UPI, via Architect]

Kanye knows hip-hop. Kanye knows design. And Kanye knows video games. Or knew them. Apparently, the music producer turned soi-disant cultural icon designed video games for fun when he was a wee kinder. But not just any video games. “My game was very sexual. The main character was, like, a giant penis. It was like Mario Brothers, but the ghosts were, like, vaginas.” Given his declared taste for high-end home appliance design, the admission that he also made digital penises as a twelve year old can only incite further suspicion. Though maybe the vaginas thing balances that out? Geez. We’re not sure. This is just one of those questions you never really think you’re going to be asked.

Kanye West’s Failed Attempt At Pornographic Game Design [Cinema Blend]

A couple weeks back, we were chatting it up with the rest of the blabbering classes all about Pepsi’s re-branding, courtesy of the “geniuses” at Peter Arnell’s (left) eponymous group. It’s a fine design, but its creators were a touch grandiose. (“Emotive forces shape the gestalt of the brand identity.”) What’s more, Arnell came up with a rotten re-design for Tropicana that made every red-blooded American go apesh*t from one end of the internet to the next. But behold! The skies have opened and a corporate hand reached down to pluck the offending juice container from our grocery shelves, restoring the old design to its rightful place. Pepsi execs have rescinded the re-design; the conclusion reached by all and sundry is that re-branding is a load of horse-hockey. We would amend that to: Peter Arnell is a load of horse-hockey. He’s also rumored to be a terror of a boss…

Pepsi Pulls Tropicana Packaging [FC]

Is it possible to be green in Las Vegas? It’s a desert city, afloat on an inefficient water and power system and fed by a stream of cars pouring eastward from Los Angeles. And yet 50 million square feet of green resorts was en route to completion as early as last fall, and the largest LEED-rated building in the country is the Palazzo Resort Hotel. You can’t say they haven’t tried—and what’s more, they’re still at it, despite the Economic Pigfu*!k that took a bite out of Lordless Norm’s (LEED-seeking) Harmon Hotel. The local press is hot on the story, talkin’ about all the new eco-spiffy projects goin’ up, God love ‘em. Their reward is in heaven—but don’t they see the irony of trying to do green in the middle of nowhere? And what about all the greenish expos that have rolled through town recently? Don’t those earnest conventioneers ever look out the window? We’re lookin’ at you, Inhabitat.

Casinos Pursue Green [Review-Journal]

Sorry, dudes and dudettes, but it looks it like the virtual kegger is all tapped out. Unless it’s just getting started.

AIArchitect has posted a timely how-to on architecture in Second Life, coming a scant two frackin’ months after Sam Lubell’s exposé in T on the selfsame subject—and just two days before Gawker heralded “The End of Second Life”. The bad news, reports the latter post, is that the online imaginary wonderland is underfunded, underused, and undergoing rapid re-population by institutional users, making the whole scene a lot more academic and a lot less lively.

Frankly, we saw this coming. (Hooray for Caroline Stanley!) Second Life has always seemed to us a shade creepy; now it’s likely to become acutely boring. The AIArchitect piece, post-dated as it may be, is probably indicative of the same trend that Gawker picked up on: the conversion of Second Life from a bizarre alternative universe to an innocuous educational tool, a place for student architects to hone their talents and for their professors to noodle around after hours. Of course, there are still plenty of good design ideas that could come from Second Life. It’s a nice place to visit, architecturally—but you wouldn’t want to set up a satellite office there.

Architecture in Second Life Is a World All Its Own [AIArchitect]
The End of Second Life [Gawker]
Original Sim [New York Times]