Orchids & Onions

Gerding Edlen on the left, Hines on the right

Proposals are in from the two developer teams vying to revamp the Civic Center.

The Union Tribune are running a poll - in true Orchids & Onions style.

Currently the results are:

For Gerding Edlen: 60.2% (1606 votes)

For Hines: 32.2% (858 votes)

For leaving it be: 7.6% (202 votes)

View the Union Tribune story here 

More images are available here

The full proposals are available here

Take a look and tell us what you think!

Check out the nomination we received for the interior design of the children's ward at Kaiser Hospital on Zion Ave. This project not only beautifies the hospital, but it inspires the kids to create artworks of their own.

Kids spending time in the hospital can participate in the Children's Rainforest Art Explorer program. In conjunction with the San Diego Zoo and the SUCCESS Optimist club, groups of young patients and their families visit the zoo to sketch and paint the animals.

Artwork produced by the children can be seen here.

Find out more about this inspirational program here.

Preservation Idaho, the Idaho Preservation Council will name their 2008 Orchids and Onions awards on Saturday June 27 in Rupert, Idaho. With a name like that – the event has to be a success!

This year the organization will promote the protection of historic buildings and neighborhoods across Idaho in naming 15 recipients of its annual Orchid Award for the best in preservation efforts.

Among the Orchids to be handed out this year – the award will go to the Idaho Transportation Department's restoration of the Rainbow Bridge on Highway 55 and a history program at Timberline High School in Boise that teaches students about local architecture.

This year's sole Onion recipient is the Buhl, Idaho school district for tearing down a 1920s-era school.

San Diegans are not the only ones able to express their approval of excellent new architecture.

For the first time, the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) included a Public Choice category in their annual architectural awards. Almost 5,500 people voted in the online public choice. The contenders can still be viewed on the voting website, although voting is obviously closed.

A private house overlooking Lough Swilly in Co Donegal is the first winner. The house is rooted in the landscape, with its zig-zag roof angled to catch both the rising and the setting sun. From the sea, it is virtually invisible. See more images of the house here.

Architect Tarla MacGabhann, who designed the house with his brother Antoin, said the public award was “profoundly more important” to them than awards they have won from their peers. “What we do as architects must be experienced and encountered by the public on a daily basis. That’s what really matters. This is a public endorsement,” he said.

See television coverage of the 2008 RIAI awards here.

Even Prince Charles weighed in on the discussion about the London skyline. A notorious and colorful critic of modern architecture, his recent comments echoed his famous 1984 speech when he described a planned extension to the National Gallery as "a monstrous carbuncle" - shredding confidence in modern architecture.

He expressed concerns that the London skyscraper boom would result in "not just one carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend, but a positive rash of them that will disfigure precious views and disinherit future generations of Londoners".

Going head to head with Lord Richard Rogers, the architect of numerous London towers and the chief architecture adviser to the London mayor, the prince complained that architects were indulging in a "free for all [that] will leave London and our other cities with a pockmarked skyline".

Leading architects rebutted the prince's claims and claimed Britain was leading the world in skyscraper design.

"He's wrong," said Ken Shuttleworth, lead designer of 30 St Mary Axe, also known as the Gherkin. "London is not a museum. It has to be renewed for the next generation, especially as it attempts to become the world's leading city. We can't leave it as it is in medieval times."

The prince's remarks generated sympathy among some architects who have grown quietly concerned that tower proposals have spread to the traditionally low-rise areas and even to suburbs, breaking the unwritten rule that towers should be built in clusters to limit their impact.

"There is no great clarity about where we build towers and where we don't," said Sunand Prasad, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. "What we need is a policy that supports principles like building towers in clusters and next to major transport interchanges."

Read the Prince's speech here