great project and fantastic drawings. Color and whimsy. I miss Archigram.

http://www.dezeen.com/2012/02/22/red-bull-music-academy-by-langarita-navarro-arquitectos/

Update. Parametric columns and cable truss system. need to get the northern glass facade going.

This is where I am at at this point. I think definitely going with a linear scheme, 20 ft wide. The axon explains the formal parti of the project. time to start detailing and figuring out framing member sizes/weights. 500 pound beams are a no go. and time to start giving all these things values in Revit.

Also, is there anything more relaxing than putting together a topo model? I find it so Zen.

Click link below to sign a petition to save this building. Description follows

The mission of the Save "Old" Prentice Coalition is to convince key decision makers to protect this modern masterpiece from demolition by designating it a Chicago Landmark. This effort is being led by a coalition of organizations that includes: docomomo, Landmarks Illinois, The National Trust and Preservation Chicago.

The building is in imminent threat of demolition by Northwestern University (NWU), which plans to landbank the site until funds are eventually found to build their own purpose-built research lab facility. A reuse study by Landmarks Illinois has demonstrated that there are reuse options for the building that would allow NWU to incorporate it into their plans.

Prentice Women’s Hospital, designed by noted Chicago architect Bertrand Goldberg and completed in 1975, was groundbreaking for its cutting-edge design, advanced engineering and its progressive plan for the organization of medical departments and services. Its column-free floor plates makes this building especially adaptable for reuse.

Please sign this petition, which will be presented to City of Chicago officials to demonstrate the broad-range recognition that Prentice is an irreplaceable modern masterpiece that deserves Landmark protection.

Happy 100 years Arizona! AZ's B Day is by far the best part of St. Valentines Day, and today its even more special as Arizona turns 100 years old. Wish I could be there for it. Few people here in Chicago understand my love for my state, but I just tell them to come and let me show them around and they will fall in love too. I know we have a LOT of problems, but hey, who doesn't, right? And the possibilities and inherent diversity and greatness already there far outweigh them. So, to the 5 C's, the mighty Saguaro, and the Grand Canyon, happy 100!

For the first time I feel like I am actually using Revit for what it was intended. I am building the Phoenix Public Library as an exercise for my 434 class and I tackled the sails on the north facade today. After about a 3 hour battle figuring out just how Revit wanted me to tool it with reference lines and adaptive points and all, I made a completely adaptive component family of the sail assembly. You can change the height, depth, width and direction of the undulating sails just using parameters. Small victory, but my first parametric family none the less!

I have heard Elliott is really wrapping up pretty soon. I went up there during winter break and everything looked amazing, with just a few things (oh, just an electrically-actuated moving dining/coffee table) to be buttoned-up. Congratulations to everyone that worked on the project, to Merlin for staying sane(ish), to Wendell and Tommy for the vision, and to the Leavitt Weaver crew as well. And thank you to CZ and the Elliott's for letting me be a part of it.

Every so often there will be an explosion of undergraduate students inside crown hall. If you have ever seen a time lapse nature video of fungi the scene will be very familiar to you: for a while there is a whole lot of nothing, then the surface of the ground will suddenly be covered by messy conglomerations of, um, stuff, and then for a very short time the multicolored and extravagant fruiting bodies will rise into the air, release their spores (undergraduates have these too), then wither and die. So it goes with the undergrads. In this case its their color studies, a holdover of the Bauhaus curriculum, but still pretty cool to see.