- Former Innova, Koch Industries Building in Greenway Plaza Getting $5M Renovation, Adding 3 Tenants [Prime Property]
- Diller Scofidio + Renfro Designing New Opera Theater at Rice University between Shepherd School and Rice Stadium [Rice News; more info]
- Suzanne Sellers’ Houston Club Mural Disappearing as Skanska Clears Site for New Capitol Tower Building [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- Williston Holding Acquires Parent Company of Mission Burrito, Casa Olé, other Chains for $20M, Plans To Expand Its Brands [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Hobby Airport Closes EcoPark 1 Parking Lot To Make Way for Parking Garage [Houston Business Journal]
- TxDOT Scheduled To Complete Shepherd/I-45 Ramp Project by Early 2015 [The Leader]
- City Starts Relocating 8 Trees for Levy Park Project in Upper Kirby [Click2Houston]
- Pleasure Pier Makes USA Today List of Most Beautiful Piers, Promenades and Boardwalks [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- That Yellow Dust on Your Car Right Now Most Likely Isn’t Causing Any Allergies [Houston Public Media]
Photo of Houston Ship Channel at East Loop: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
I’m sure everyone at the RSA is going gaga. For the next several years, it’ll be “Diller Scofidio this,” and “Diller Scofidio that.” They’re great architects, true, really nice work, but the students and faculty at the RSA tend to get obsessed when a starchitect builds something in this town. At least, they did back when I was there, when Rafael Moneo’s Beck Building was going up at the MFAH. For two years it was Moneo Moneo Moneo Moneo.
One assumes that by ‘west of the Shepherd School’ the author means the parking lot. Rather less glamorous wouldn’t you say?
.
Whatever space vehicle of a building DSR design will be quite isolated on that side of campus, and the attempt to have the opera house book-end a linear progression of ‘modern’ design emanating from the library’s new-fangled western exit to Brochstein on ahead to the Turrell Skyspace will be rudely interrupted by the Shepherd School in all it’s bricked and columned glory. Unless the University are planning a further build-out of ultra-modern parking garages and a bubble dome over the stadium, this could look a bit odd.
A good landscape plan will be key to integrating the opera house into the Rice campus. I hope they come up with a good design for the building. The recent Robert Stern and Lake/Flato buildings at Rice are pretty bad.