YOUNG ARCHITECT OF THE YEAR SHORT LIST; ARCHITECT FILES LIEN
The short list for this year’s Young Architect of the Year award has been announced. Tom Dykhoff writes in The Times that the favorite for the prize is AOC, a British architectural firm that worked on a garden pavilion for film director Stephen Daldry, a “house to stimulate different modes of thinking” for Alain de Botton, a performance tent for the Lift festival, and a redevelopment of the main spaces of Leeds’s Royal Armories Museum. Feix & Merlin, also on the list, has ties to the press, according to Dykhoff: Partner Tarek Merlin is a columnist for Building magazine, and the firm’s design to extend St. Paul’s Cathedral by fifty stories (to protect views of it in a city increasingly crowded with high-rise buildings) garnered splashes in the papers. Kraus Schönberg Architects is another short-listed firm, based in London and Germany and responsible for warehouse conversions in the area of Bradford, UK, known as Little Germany. Ian McChesney Architects has previously won the Civic Trust award and is known for a take on Victorian promenade shelters in Blackpool, UK. Hackett Hall McKnight, based in Northern Ireland, completed a joint winning design for a large arts center in Belfast. Finally, the London- and Bombay-based Serie Architects has garnered critical attention with its Blue Frog lounge bar in Bombay, designed to maximize acoustic performance.
In other news from the Chicago Sun-Times_, the architect for the 150-story “Chicago Spire,” Santiago Calatrava, has filed a lien on the project. Calatrava says the developer hasn’t paid him $11.34 million for his work. The Chicago architectural firm Perkins & Will, hired as a local overseer of the design, filed its own lien, claiming it is owed $4.85 million. The spire’s developer, Shelbourne Development, has begun underground construction of the building at 400 North Lake Shore. But it has acknowledged slowing the pace of the work because turmoil in financial markets has limited access to credit. The liens reflect a contract dispute and do not indicate the project is in financial trouble, said Kim Metcalfe, a spokeswoman for Shelbourne. Metcalfe said Calatrava and Perkins & Will filed the liens because of the economic slowdown. “These companies obviously want to protect themselves,” she said. Nevertheless, Calatrava’s action is unusual because of his vested interest in the building’s success. Any sign of trouble could keep buyers from putting down deposits.
