Raise the Hammer

"Gehry floats iconic building proposal for west harbour site."

Does Hamilton need 'Star architect' power to create its identity?

Sole sourcing has continued to hurt Hamilton's growth for decades.

International design competitions for many sites in Hamilton can bring the sizzle we crave so much in our city.

But instead of focusing on innovative planning and design, Hamilton is once again setting itself up to lose its way with an easy fix—by attempting to recreate the 'Bilbao Effect', to buy grace in an election year.

Design expert John Thackara argues that Richard Florida’s 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class “has had an enormous influence on cities’ design aspirations. They are often obsessed with attracting the creative class,” he continues. “The problem with this thinking is that it creates a monocultural view. I’m actually predicting an anti–design-city movement. A No Logo kind of cultural backlash against the idea of a ‘design city’ is very likely. The more insightful architects and designers I meet think the city is too designed—there isn’t enough space for people, for spontaneous creativity. The danger with an overdesigned city is that it squeezes out the space for spontaneous bottom-up creativity and social innovation.” ~ The Bilbao Effect, Dwell Magazine

How Toronto Plans for Failure

Hard Times For Star Architects

You are so wrong Frank Gehry

"Hyping the power of one building to revive an area is also a distraction from the real business of putting up good buildings, Gehry said. “I don’t think you start out to make a marquee development. They talk about “spectacle architecture” and I think people jump on these kind of things but from my point of view I don’t start out to do that." ~ Frank Gehry: The Bilbao Effect is Bulls##t.

The field of Design is moving far beyond the static iconic form making of the 1980's and 90's.

Neri Oxman: on Designing Form

Neri Oxman: Performance-Driven Design

Towards a Biological understanding of Archtiecture and Urbanism

Hamilton with its engineering research base can leapfrog the 'politics of designer icons' of the last century to develop a new Canadian architecture—if it chooses to.

Mahesh P. Butani