Boldface

People and projects in the news

And the winners are...

In July, Christian de Portzamparc was announced as the 2018 laureate of the Praemium Imperiale arts award for architecture. The French architect is the creative visionary behind such bold and imaginative projects as the City of Music in Paris and the Philharmonie Luxembourg. The annual prize, from the Japan Art Association, has previously gone to top talents such as Zaha Hadid, Peter Zumthor and David Chipperfield.

The renovation and reimagining of Skanderbeg Square, in Tirana, Albania, has earned Brussels-based architecture firm 51N4E the European Prize for Urban Public Space. The 97,344-square-metre pedestrian square is styled as a flat pyramid, built from local stone and wrapped in a series of 12 connected gardens that separates the space from the heavily trafficked area surrounding it.

Movers and shakers

For the first time since its founding in 1896, Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning will have a female dean at its helm. Höweler + Yoon co-founder J. Meejin Yoon will step into the role at the New York school on January 1, 2019. Currently head of the architecture department at MIT’S School of Architecture and Planning, Yoon earned her Bachelor of Architecture at Cornell in 1995 before moving on to Harvard for her master’s.

A group of 20 of the U.K.’S top architecture firms has come together to establish the nation’s first architecture apprenticeship standards. The group, led by Foster + Partners, collaborated with RIBA and several

U.K. universities to create a paid-internship program to help students transition between academia and practice and to ease the financial burden of the U.K.’S seven-year accreditation process. Launching this fall, the apprenticeships accredit participants as either an architect or an architectural assistant.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize has a new head juror: U.S. Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, who has been a jury member since 2011 and succeeds Glenn Murcutt. Considered architecture’s highest honour, the Pritzker celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, with Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi receiving the 2018 award at a ceremony in Toronto.

An updated Model Rules of Conduct from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards suggests new ethical standards for the U.S. industry. Intended for adoption by regional licensing boards, the code was structured by an ethics task force assembled in 2015 by then-president Dennis Ward. In the wake of the #Metoo movement, harassment is a key focus in the document. “It’s affirming to see that the ethical guidelines our volunteers have crafted over the past three years will help address the issues highlighted by current social movements,” says Ward.

Award-winning Canadian architect Omar Gandhi has been named the Louis I. Kahn visiting assistant professor at the Yale School of Architecture for the 2018 fall semester. A public lecture meant to launch his stint at the school was rescheduled until November 8 to allow him to receive a 2018 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture on September 13.

On the boards

Members of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada will have access to a new insurance program beginning this fall. Professional liability insurance is mandatory for practicing architects in many regions of the country; this new member benefit will provide comprehensive and cost-effective options, the organization says. The policies will be available beginning October 1. Details are available at raic.org.

The Mackintosh Building will again be rebuilt, said Glasgow School of Art director Tom Inns in a statement released by the school in July. The 110-year-old campus building suffered significant damage last June in a fire while undergoing a major restoration after a previous fire, which destroyed one-third of the building in 2014. Though it is not known how long the next round of repairs will take or how much of the existing structure is salvageable, many of the fixtures and fittings that were saved from the original building remain safe, as they were stored off-site during the renovations.