For those of you familiar with John Maeda, you may know that since he became president of the Rhode Island School of Design last June, he has been upping RISD’s profile and expanding its presence both offline and online. As an outside observer (I go to school up the hill), I can’t help but envy RISD’s tech renaissance and wish that my school would follow suite. The school’s latest project involves Posterous.com and RISD’s brilliant faculty. The new blog was started by Daniel Pelz with Maeda’s encouragement, and 3six0’s very own Kyna Leski is among the first contributors. Continue to check back to RISDspeaks for more insights on design and the world.

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On December 17, 2008, the AIA New York launched its Not Business as Usual initiative in an effort to unite the architecture and design community around issues relating to the current economic crisis: a slowdown in new projects, downsizing of firms, current projects put on hold, a lack of positions available to recent graduates. An “Opportunities Fair” to be held on February 25 will bring together representatives from community organizations, non-profits, schools, and training programs to share information about volunteer opportunities, continuing education, and other opportunities. This made me think, how can architects and architecture firms contribute to our communities during this economic crisis? Certainly we can offer our professional services pro bono, but we can also offer non-professional skills that would still greatly contribute. Might we volunteer at a food bank or repair a rundown school? Could we clean up our parks or run for the cure? Could we get inventive and create volunteer opportunities that might also draw on our skills as designers and experts of materials?

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Sometimes we only learn that we’ve been written up in a newspaper or magazine after a call or an email from a friend of the firm. This morning, we received a tip that 3six0 appears in the most recent issue of Providence Business News. It’s a recap of the Rhode Island AIA awards from December (3six0 won two!), but we still highly value PBN’s coverage because it introduces our work to those outside of the architecture community. Thank you PBN for your coverage and for keeping architecture relevant in the business community.

Graphics from Snap2Object.com

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Today Shepherd of the Valley is featured on Archinnovations. Back in November, the site also featured our work on STIX Restaurant and Lounge in Boston.

For more on Shepherd of the Valley check out these posts:
ProJo Finds Treasure in 3six0
Maeda on 3six0 and 3six0 on Maeda
Connecting Architecture and Spirituality

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According to Trendhunter.com, 3six0 is a trendsetter in restaurant design. The site features a unique set of tables our firm designed for STIX Restaurant and Lounge in Boston: the tables fold up into the walls allowing the space to easily transform from a dining area into a dance floor. This is just one of three restaurants that 3six0 designed around the theme of motion. Achilles, also in Boston, transforms from a boutique into a restaurant, and Circa, located in Memphis, uses wine racks that double as screens and create optical illusions as visitors walk through the space.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNOp2VaUoQ4]
Some of you might be wishing that he had taken this path, while others are just as thrilled that he did not. Setting aside the politically motivated opinions, my colleagues and I at 3six0 think that being an architect is one of the best professions out there even if it is not as high-profiled as the presidency (you might remember our post on architects being among America’s happiest workers). Even in these challenging times, we still love our profession and take pride in our contribution to the world.

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Today is Martin Lurther King, Jr. Day, and I decided to dig through 3six0’s archives and dust off a project we submitted to a competition for the National Martin Lurther King, Jr. Memorial back in 2000. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate the specific details of the project online, but the competition ran from February 15, 1999 until a designer was selected on September 12, 2000. It attracted over 900 submissions from 52 countries. 3six0 was proud to submit a design to this competition and contribute to memorializing one of America’s greatest leaders.

Paths from all directions take one through a “foundation of great building”. Dr. King’s message is carved sequentially into the vertical faces of the foundation stones and leads the visitor into the memorial and up a ground swell. As one ascends, one “surfaces” through the tops of the stones along with others from other paths. From this level, the stones present a continuous surface of water that reflects the sky: an event horizon of sight and sound. A statue of King arriving stands at the summit.

The winning design is available on the MLK memorial’s website.

Unfortunately, the memorial has faced numerous delays over the last 8 years and is still not complete. You can help by donating to the memorial at MLKmemorial.org.

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While exploring the intersections of faith and design this week, I came across this article from Theooze.com, “The ‘Body Art’ Of Emerging Church.” The article explores the relationship of architecture to spirituality, and intrigued by this, I emailed the author, Paul Fromont, about 3six0’s Shepherd of the Valley project. Paul replied with a gracious email and offered to include us on his blog, Prodigal Kiwi. Check out his latest post, “Architecture, Space, Spirit and the Journey of a Church Community,” which highlights Shepherd of the Valley and links to his reflections on architecture, the church, and spirituality.

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As you may know, both Kyna and Chris are faculty at RISD in addition to being the principals of 3six0. Recently, the Shepherd of the Valley project was featured on RISD’s blog, which is written by RISD president John Maeda and staff.

Maeda was also recently interviewed by Dezeen, a magazine featuring architecture and design. Click below for the full interview.

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While researching architecture and design publications a couple weeks back, I stumbled upon the occasional defunct site: “current” stories marked for 2006 and footers bearing the words, “last updated January 31, 2000.” I didn’t think anything of it at the time, except recently I came across the exhibition A Few Zines: Dispatches from the Edge of Architectural Production. The text for the project says,

In the 1990s, zines such as Lackluster, Infiltration, loud paper, Dodge City Journal and Monorail subverted traditional trade and academic architecture magazine trends by crossing the built environment with art, music, politics and pop culture—and by deliberately retaining and cultivating an underground presence. Much has been made of that decade’s zine phenomenon—inspiring academic studies, international conferences and DIY workshops—yet little attention has been paid to architecture zine culture specifically, or its resonance within architectural publishing today.

A Few Zines: Dispatches from the Edge of Architectural Production does both. Rather than attempting to present an exhaustive retrospective of architecture zine culture, it highlights complete runs of several noted zines that began in the nineties. The exhibition also features contemporary publications that continue to draw inspiration from the self-publishing tradition, such as Pin-Up, Sumoscraper, and Thumb.

The zine movement has come and gone, but in its place has arisen a vibrant culture of blogging – not quite as underground as the zine but still in the vein of self-publication. It is still too early to say what influence the blogosphere will have on architecture, but its influence is growing and 3six0 is glad to be a part of it.

For those interested, A Few Zines runs January 8-February 28 at Studio-X in New York.

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