“If you cut off a spider’s leg, it’s crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish’s leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.

What’s the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women’s rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths? How could winning a Supreme Court case be the biggest mistake MGM could have made?”

A wonderfully quick read, this quirky analysis of organizational systems cuts right to the chase and puts out the relatively old theory of evolution: evolve or die, but in a much cooler and updated way, and with references and examples that you won’t expect.

Admittedly, this book doesn’t contain the illuminating metaphors that philosopher and intellectual Isaiah Berlin put forth with his ‘fox’ and the ‘hedgehog’ essay, but in a new wired age, the starfish and the spider are their closest relatives.

Review by Ed Hatcher

Continue reading " Article / The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by By Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom "

Call for Architects
Athletes Village, Stratford City, London

47 practices appointed to Athletes’ Village Panel

The Lend Lease led consortium and the Architecture Foundation have announced the panel of 47 practices from which architects will be chosen to design the Athletes’ Village for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. The village will include 4,000 residential dwellings, related accommodation and additional structures in a ?2 billion development.

The list includes some of the most exciting up-and-coming architects in the UK including Amin Taha, 6a, Plasma, Sergison Bates, Peter Barber and Piercy Connor. Also included are more established firms such as Fielden Clegg Bradley and Denton Corker Marshall, as well as outstanding practices from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Australia and the US.

From the overall panel of 47, a series of short lists will be prepared to choose architects to design each of the individual elements of the new high-density residential district. The first commissions are set to be awarded in September 2007 and initial designs released in December 2007. It is expected that there will be 20 ? 30 individual commissions.

The 10-strong judging panel was chaired by Frank Duffy, Chairman of the Stratford City Design Review Panel. 434 submissions were received from around the world and the judging process took place over a month.

Lend Lease Europe Chairman Nigel Hugill commented: “The judges faced a daunting task in selecting the practices, given the overwhelming response to the call from talented practices of all sizes. We are however confident that the panel we have selected will deliver truly world class architecture.”

Rowan Moore, Director of the Architecture Foundation, adds: “The opportunity to work on the Athletes Village will enable a range of emerging practices to demonstrate their talent on the world stage. We now look forward to awarding commissions and realising the potential of the design talent we have assembled on the panel.”

Lend Lease and its partners First Base and East Thames were selected by London & Continental Railways and the Olympic Delivery Authority in March 2007 as preferred Development Partner for Zones 2-7 of Stratford City ? a remit which includes the Athletes Village.

The masterplan for Stratford City Zones 2-7 is being designed by Fletcher Priest Architects along with West 8 and Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. This team will have an ongoing role in the selection process and will continue to work on the project at a strategic level alongside the selected architects and other stakeholders.

The selection process for the Athletes Village is managed by the Architecture Foundation.

Selected practices:

6a Architects
Alison Brooks Architects Ltd
Amin Taha Architects Ltd
Architects In Residence

Block Architecture
Brendeland & Kristofferson Architects AS (Norway)
Camenzind Evolution (Switzerland)
Caruso St John Architects
C.F. Moller Architects (UK) Ltd
Cottrell and Vermeulen
Denton Corker Marshall (Australia)
De Rijke Marsh Morgan Ltd
DSDHA
Eric Parry Architects
FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste)
Featherstone Associates
Feilden Clegg Bradley Architects
FLACQ
Gianni Botsford Architects
Gigon/Guyer Architects (Switzerland)
Glenn Howells Architects Birmingham
Haworth Tompkins Limited
Heneghan Peng Architects (Ireland)
Ian Ritchie Architects Ltd
Klein Dytham
Levitate Architecture and Design Ltd
Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands
McChesney Architecture
Munkenbeck + Marshall Urbanism
Niall McLaughlin Architects
Nissen Adams
NL Architects
Panter Hudspith Architects
Patel Taylor LLP
Penoyre & Prasad LLP
Peter Barber Architects
Piercy Conner Architects and Designers
Plasma Studio
S333 Architecture and Urbanism
Sauerbruch Hutton (Germany)
SeARCH, Netherlands
Sergison Bates Architects
Shop Architects PC (USA)
Studio Egret West
Surface
UN Studio (Netherlands)
Walter Menteth Architects

For more information contact:
Philip Clark, Lend Lease 020 7182 9206
Sue Brown, FD Tamesis 020 7269 9341 / 020 7831 3113

Village Architects Panel

Posted by Chris Warren

Continue reading " Article / Athletes Village, Stratford City, London : Call for Architects by "

Most residents of the southwest are well-aware that the desert is hardly ‘deserted’. It is, in fact, being increasingly developed and at quite a rapid pace. The desert offers many the opportunity to start anew, providing a tabula rasa of sorts. Developers plan “ideal” cities from scratch, importing lifestyles and landscapes to a climate and topography that doesn’t easily accept these foreign ideals. Large, water-thirsty lawns and golf-courses abound, recklessly demanding irrigation in drought-prone areas.

The perceived isolation of the desert provides cover for an array of typically illegal activities such as gambling and prostitution. These are the lifeblood of Las Vegas.

What isn’t common knowledge however are the multitude of uses beyond recreation and habitation that the desert has accommodated. A large military presence pervades the region in the form of missile testing and combat training facilities. Underground nuclear missile launching stations, now relics of the Cold War, reside in the Arizona desert floor awaiting the curious gaze of tourists. The dry, arid climate of the Arizona desert provides an ideal resting place for retired commercial and military aircraft. Here, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, often referred to as “The Boneyard”, is believed to hold the highest concentration of aircraft in the world.

The book manages to plot out quite nicely, the full spectrum of uses and facilities in the American desert. The large panoramic photos are generally of excellent quality and are effective in demonstrating the matter at hand. The text is a bit thin for most of the sites but provides a good starting point for further research.

Actar

Review by Mario Cipresso

Continue reading " Article / Desert America : Territory of Paradox by Ramon Prat, Michael Kubo, and Irene Hwang "