flexiblefullpage
billboard
interstitial1
catfish1
Currently Reading

Architectural leaders join Gehry to form strategic alliance

Architectural leaders join Gehry to form strategic alliance


By By BD+C Staff | October 18, 2011
This group will work collectively with GT to realize and demonstrate better ways of achieving project outcomes: higher quality,

Gehry Technologies (GT) announced that co-founder and chairman, Frank Gehry, has brought together architects and designers to form a strategic alliance furthering his vision to transform the building industry and the practice of design. As part of today’s announcement, this core group of renowned architects will also serve on Gehry Technologies’ board of advisors.

The alliance intends to enable new approaches to design through technology, to create more effective industry processes and a higher quality built environment. By applying and innovating new technology solutions to old problems such as waste, delay, and miscommunication, this new alliance will lead the process change that the AEC industry needs to confront future challenges. The group represents a new type of professional organization for the 21stcentury, one which embraces the possibility of technology to empower design. The alliance will work together to drive technology innovations that support the central role of design in the creation of culture.

This group will work collectively with GT to realize and demonstrate better ways of achieving project outcomes: higher quality, more efficient, and cost effective projects. Most importantly, the alliance wants to ensure a context for professional work where the best designs and the best facilities can be realized. GT’s management team—led by CEO Dayne Myers—will be bolstered with the unprecedented experience and strategic guidance of the world’s leading architects, builders and visionaries. They will test, use and support emerging GT innovations and high-profile projects; participate in marketing and public relations initiatives; and catalyze AEC industry change.”

Initial alliance and board members include:

  • David Childs, the Chairman Emeritus of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) 
  • Massimo Colomban, the Founder of Permasteelisa.com Group
  • Zaha Hadid is founder of Zaha Hadid Architects  
  • Greg Lynn, known for designing the New York Presbyterian Church in Queens, New Yor
  • Laurie Olin, a distinguished teacher, author, and one of the most renowned landscape architects practicing today
  • Wolf D. Prix, a co-founder, Design Principal, and CEO of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU
  • David Rockwell, founder of Rockwell Group
  • Moshe Safdie, a renowned international architect, urban planner, and author 
  • Matthias Schuler, one of the managing directors of TRANSSOLAR Energietechnik
  • Patrik Schumacher, a designer at Zaha Hadid Architects since 1988
  • Ben van Berkelis the co-founder of UNStudi
  • Richard Saul Wurman, described by Fortune magazine as an “intellectual hedonist” with a “hummingbird mind".

The advisors will come together today for their inaugural meeting, which will take place at the Freedom Tower in New York. Discussion topics will include: demonstrations of new GT technologies and initiatives; the future of design; and the role of technology in design. BD+C

Related Stories

| Apr 5, 2011

Top 10 Buildings: Women in Architecture

Making selections of top buildings this week led to a surprising discovery about the representation of women in architecture, writes Tom Mallory, COO and co-founder, OpenBuildings.com. He discovered that finding female-created architecture, when excluding husband/wife teams, is extremely difficult and often the only work he came across was akin to interior design.

| Apr 5, 2011

What do Chengdu, Lagos, and Chicago have in common?

They’re all “world middleweight cities” that are likely to become regional megacities (10 million people) by 2025—along with Dongguan, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Wuhan (China); Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo); Jakarta (Indonesia); Lahore (Pakistan); and Chennai (India), according to a new report from McKinsey Global Institute: “Urban World: Mapping the economic power of cities”.

| Mar 30, 2011

China's low-carbon future city

In 2005, the Chinese government announced its target to reduce energy consumption per GDP unit by 20% by the year 2010. After a multi-billion investment, that target has been reached. The Chinese Climate Protection Program’s goal to increase energy efficiency, develop renewable energies, and promote energy savings while reducing pollutant emissions and strengthening environmental protection is reflected in the “Future City” by SBA Design.

| Mar 30, 2011

Is the AEC industry at risk of losing its next generation leaders without better mentoring?

After two or three horrifying years for the AEC industry, we are finally seeing the makings of a turnaround. However, data developed by Kermit Baker as part of the AIA Work-on-the-Boards survey program indicates that between 17% and 22% of design firms are eliminating positions for interns and staff with less than six years of experience. This data suggests the industry is at risk of losing a large segment of its next generation of leaders if something isn't done to improve mentoring across the profession.

| Mar 29, 2011

City's design, transit system can ease gas costs

Some cities in the U.S. are better positioned to deal with rising gas prices than others because of their design and transit systems, according to CEOs for Cities, a Chicago-based nonprofit that works to build stronger cities. The key factor: whether residents have to drive everywhere, or have other options.

| Mar 29, 2011

Chicago’s Willis Tower to become a vertical solar farm

Chicago’s iconic Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) is set to become a massive solar electric plant with the installation of a pilot solar electric glass project.

| Mar 29, 2011

Read up on Amazon.com's new green HQ

Phase IV of Amazon’s new headquarters in Seattle is nearly complete. The company has built 10 of the 11 buildings planned for its new campus in the South Lake Union neighborhood, and is on-track for a 2013 grand opening.

| Mar 29, 2011

Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura wins Pritzker Architecture Prize

Portugese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, whose precisely-honed buildings reflect the influence of the late Chicago modernist Mies van der Rohe, is the 2011 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field's highest honor.

| Mar 25, 2011

Qatar World Cup may feature carbon-fiber ‘clouds’

Engineers at Qatar University’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering are busy developing what they believe could act as artificial “clouds,” man-made saucer-type structures suspended over a given soccer stadium, working to shield tens of thousands of spectators from suffocating summer temperatures that regularly top 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

boombox1
boombox2
native1

More In Category


Urban Planning

Bridging the gap: How early architect involvement can revolutionize a city’s capital improvement plans

Capital Improvement Plans (CIPs) typically span three to five years and outline future city projects and their costs. While they set the stage, the design and construction of these projects often extend beyond the CIP window, leading to a disconnect between the initial budget and evolving project scope. This can result in financial shortfalls, forcing cities to cut back on critical project features.



Libraries

Reasons to reinvent the Midcentury academic library

DLR Group's Interior Design Leader Gretchen Holy, Assoc. IIDA, shares the idea that a designer's responsibility to embrace a library’s history, respect its past, and create an environment that will serve student populations for the next 100 years.

halfpage1

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021