1. Giant Jernigan
How many of us can claim they’ve spent half of their career in any one place? Robert Jernigan, AIA, can—having piloted Gensler’s Los Angeles office since 1998. Under his watch, the L.A. office has become the fastest growing in the firm’s sizable empire, and this year ranked first on the Los Angeles Business Journal’s list of largest architectural firms and largest commercial design firms. On Dec. 5, Jernigan will give an overview of his shop and what’s made it a success in his lecture at L.A.’s SCI-Arc.
Learn more at sciarc.edu.
2. Domo Arigato
The Association for Robots in Architecture may be based at the Vienna University of Technology, but its big mechanical arms extend to 16 partner firms and universities across Asia, Europe, and North America. Its goal? To make industrial robots accessible for the creative industry, artists, designers, and architects. Find out more about applied research in this growing field at Rob|Arch2012 workshops, which run from Dec. 14–16 concurrently in Vienna, Graz, Stuttgart, Zurich, and Rotterdam, and at a follow-up conference from Dec. 17–18 in Vienna.
Learn more at robarch2012.org.
3. Live/Work
Artists’ communities—live/work havens for fellowship and production—have a rich tradition that includes guilds, colonies, and communes. Dozens of them appeared in the late-19th and early-20th centuries in places such as Peterborough, N.H.; Saugatuck, Mich.; and Saratoga Springs, N.Y.—occupying grand houses, sprawling farms, and lakeside estates. It has been a decidedly rural movement with few contemporary startups, but Cincinnati may change that. This month, AIA Cincinnati and the Over-the-Rhine Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corp. is accepting entries for the LIVE•MAKE Industrial Arts Center Cincinnati design competition, which will add more than 47,000 square feet of residences, studios, and workshops to the Queen City. Registration closes Dec. 6, and the winner will be announced on Jan. 26.
Learn more at acsa-arch.org.
4. Doubleheader
Can high-performance structures and profitability exist in the same sentence? They will have to if sustainability is going to thrive as a business strategy as well as an environmental mandate. From Dec. 3 to 7, the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., will host two conferences that aim to advance sustainability to those ends. Join AEC Science & Technology for Ecobuild America, sponsored by the National Institute of Building Sciences, as well as the 2012 National BIM Conference.
Learn more at aececobuild.com.
5. Vanishing Vanguard
Since 1992, British photographer Richard Pare has captured more than 15,000 images of buildings designed and constructed within the former Soviet Union between 1922 and 1932. Long before modern architecture was co-opted by Corporate America or downtown civic boosters, these buildings fulfilled Modernism’s original social mandate for communal living and the collective good. From Azerbaijan to Georgia to Russia, Pare covered thousands of miles to produce “The Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture, 1922–1932,” which is on view in Chicago through Feb. 16, 2013, at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
Learn more at grahamfoundation.org.
