In addition to a bubble-gum story about hot new twenty-somethings and an almost-too-thorough play-by-play of the fall of Bear Stearns, this month’s Vanity Fair has an exploration of the feats of architectural genius and engineering prowess on display at Olympic sites in Beijing.

Accompanied by some really breathtaking shots by Stephen Wilkes and Todd Eberle, the article fawns over Beijing’s “daring commissions” and “creatively humanistic design.”

An interesting point made by Kurt Andersen in the piece: The Olympics often bring a flood of outstanding architecture to its host city, but in the case of Beijing, that effort has bled into buildings that could otherwise be mundane. These type of additions are usually hastily erected, while the gloss is turned elsewhere.

Like Foster + Partners’ new $3.8 billion terminal at the Beijing airport and Rem Koolhaas’ China Central Television office building, building types that Andersen says “very seldom turn out better than mediocre.”

Andersen embarks on an exploration of the architecture and the phenomenon, complete with comparisons to turn-of-the century New York, Koolhaas “snarling” and the author finding himself an “apologist” for the authoritarian regime and its role in the transformation. A fun read.

A master plan for London’s Battersea Power Station reads like a utopian post-industrialist fantasy and a developer’s dream: a power plant reborn as dense community center by 2020.

It’s a non-local story of adaptive reuse that should result in an interesting addition to London’s skyline.

The power plant itself (you may know it from Pink Floyd’s Animals album cover) will serve as more than art deco centerpiece, with a new biofuel-powered co-generation plant in its basement sending water vapor through the 1933 plant’s chimneys. Other buildings of the plant will be converted to offices.

A transparent solar canopy will cover some of its buildings and plazas and, combined with an “eco-chimney,” will reduce the need for air conditioning.

The master plan, conceived by Rafael Vinoly Architects and Real Estate Opportunities Ltd., also features luxury apartments, a waterpark and connections to the tube. (Rendering shown above is by Rafael Vinoly Architects)

The relics of industry can tell a very important story about a city’s past glory and gloom.

Seattle’s Gasworks Park was landmarked, letting us marvel at its grotesque beauty without condos or a waterpark ever competing for our interest (though free concerts by local legends like Pearljam have offered some distraction).

It’s interesting to look at the different tools cities employ to keep these industrial beasts alive.

The Southwest Design Review Board will check in tonight on a strangely familiar West Seattle development.

The project is at 3811 California Ave. W. The developer initially proposed tearing down the Charleston Court building to build an entirely new project. Then, partway through design review, Charleston Court was nominated for landmark status. The project went on hold for a year.

The landmark board voted in April against landmarking the 1927 building, designed by William Whiteley, clearing the way for demolition. (Original building shown above.)

But the developer is back with new plans that will give the neighbors deja vu.

The new design (seen at left) proposes retaining the wings of the original building and the building’s courtyard.

The rear portion of the old building would be torn down, but the developer wants to use that brick to create a new building front between the wings.

Steven Butler and Paul Cesmat bought the building in 2007. Project architect is Nicholson Kovalchick.

Crosscut’s Knute Berger wrote an interesting column today about the animosity between historic preservationists and green building proponents.

Too often, he says, green building techniques and density goals are used as justification for tearing down Seattle’s usable buildings and squandering their embodied energy and inherent greenness.

Meanwhile, historic preservationists get sidetracked by the historic and architectural significance of the buildings they are trying to protect. They don’t put that same effort into making a sustainability case for keeping those buildings.

If Seattle really wants to be sustainable, Berger says, the two groups need to form an alliance. Both need to embrace the environmental value of the existing building and build from there.

I think things get complicated when density concerns are added into the mix.

But some cities, like Portland, have done a great job of encouraging adaptive reuse of historic building stock. These aren’t the landmarked buildings that allow only minimal changes, but the buildings that serve as mainstay to new floors of condos or offices above or around.

The federal government even offers a 10 percent tax credit for adaptive reuse of certain historic buildings. There are a few caveats, like making sure the addition can be removed and the historic building is left largely intact.

It could be painful for preservation purists to see some buildings getting such a drastic face-lift. It will likely be even harder for those greenies who like to start from scratch and leave their fingerprints.

The townhouse situation in this city has gotten so bad that a Seattle City Council committee is holding a special meeting Saturday on the matter.

The Seattle City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will hold a special meeting on townhouse design at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Capitol Hill Arts Center at 1621 12th Ave.

The meeting will feature a presentation by Tom Eanes of the Seattle Planning Commission, and a forum discussion with various neighborhood groups and organizations.

The meeting is free and open to the public.

Saturday’s discussion of townhouse design follows council’s decision in April to make fewer multifamily projects subject to environmental review. It comes before its formal discussion of proposed  multifamily code changes that seek in part to lay out better design standards for Seattle townhouses. Rooflines, fence heights and other design guidelines are included.

The committee has already discussed its concerns with garages that are too small for cars, driveways that can’t be easily accessed, and townhouses built on single family property lines that dwarf neighboring houses.

Every architect dreams of redesigning the strip malls that pepper America’s landscape, says Mike Jobes of the Miller/Hull Partnership. The mass homogeneity of the medium means vast applicability of design, and far more impact than could ever come from a single building or project, no matter how exceptional.

A Miller/Hull design is one of 10 finalists in a national competition on rethinking strip malls.

In the Miller/Hull vision, movable aeroponic plant trays shade parking and reduce the heat island effect at a Scottsdale strip mall. Biofuel and textile-quality plants take irrigation from a treated city sewer line. Rainwater capture waters plants that could be harvested on-site at a lot-side farmer’s market.

A portion of the strip is reoriented to face houses at its current backside, and rezoning residential space for street-level retail and live-work space remakes an alley as a pedestrian street.

All this, and Famous Footwear and Subway are still in business.

Read the full story at DJC.com.

You’re not the only one being asked to recraft that building just a teensy bit smaller.

Architectural Record reported this week that the Atlantic Yards, a controversial $4.3 billion, 8 million-square foot Brooklyn development designed by Frank Gehry, is scaling back its buildings.

New renderings were released for the project, showing Gehry’s designs altered to shrink the space of the project’s signature building and accommodate a change in use from residential and office to commercial.

Gehry’s work is distinctive and powerful, but it’s rarely compact.

An interesting function of our shrinking economy, rising fuel costs and fears of global warming might be to see some striking architecture come from doing more with less.

Of course, it’s going to have to get a lot smaller before it really turns heads.

SDOT and Sustainable Ballard are looking for good designs for new bike racks to adorn the streets of Ballard.

The design should be tailored to one of these spots: along Ballard Avenue near the Farmer’s Market, next to the Ballard Public Library, on Market Street between 22nd and 24th Avenue Northwest, at The Locks, or next to Bergen Place.

The design must meet SDOT guidelines. Check out the contest rules and the contest Web site for more information. The deadline is July 15.

Key Seattle landmark staff are advising the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board against preserving the former Denny’s on the corner of 15th Avenue Northwest and Northwest Market Street.

The board voted in February that the building’s prominence for the Ballard neighborhood makes it a historic landmark worth protecting. But what that actually means for the building and plans to build a multi-use development on the site has been up in the air.

Over the past several weeks, board staff and site owner the Benaroya Co. have been negotiating over controls and incentives for the building. That will establish what the owners and developers can and can’t do with the site.

The board meets at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Seattle Municipal Tower in Room 4060 at 700 Fifth Ave. to go public with their decision.

As first reported on Crosscut, Historic Preservation Officer Karen Gordon and Landmarks Coordinator Beth Chave say in the memo that they can envision no scenario that preserves the building’s “character defining features” while allowing the developer “to realize a reasonable return on their investment.”

The Seattle Monorail Project bought the one-acre site for $7.5 million in 2005, before voters rejected the monorail plan. Benaroya paid $12.5 million for the site in 2006 and said the price reflects the high-density development planned there.

Just six months ago, Denny’s was still operating in the building. But Benaroya said in February that the building is not up to code and Denny’s does not pay enough rent to justify using the space as a restaurant. Denny’s paid $5,295 a month for rent in 2007 and covered the site’s $26,485 property tax bill.

The building was designed by San Francisco Architect Clarence Mayhew in 1964 for the Manning brothers in the flamboyant roadside “googie” style. The original oversized sign and glazing are gone. Denny’s remodeled the interior to add modern mechanical equipment when it took up the lease in 1984.

Board members said in February that the building still conveys its architectural significance through its unique roofline, and is a visual marker for Ballard.

Some still argue the building can be kept without depriving the developer.

Above is a rendering Grace Architects submitted to the landmarks board that envisions denser development while keeping the 1964 building on the site.

“The only way that a reasonable financial return can be realized at this site is by embracing a creative
approach to the site, allowing additional density on the remaining site area to compensate for the
lower retained height at the landmarked structure,” writes Ralph Allen of Grace Architects in a May 19 letter to the board.

In Seattle, we have a lot of serious development players. We’ve got our own big guys and we’ve got the big guys who come here from all over. We’ve got billions of dollars that trade hands every month and cranes all over town.

It’s serious business. But we’ve still got our funky side too. We have our shadow development community. It’s small but it’s still here. And sometimes you get a glimpse of it.

Tom Flood is a teacher and sculptor who owns two funky falling-apart structures on the corner of 34th and Pike in the Madrona neighborhood. For years, he taught kids how to sculpt and weld and build Go-Karts at the building that used to say Madrona Auto in front.

He has plans to build seven super-sustainable live-work units on the site. They will all have green roofs with solar cells and natural ventilation. There will be a central courtyard and rainwater will be used in toilets and washing machines.

A “living fence” in front will let passersby watch graywater being treated as it passes through a transparent planter filled with soil and plants.

The project will cost about $3 million. Flood works as a part-time teacher and his wife, Diane, is a switchman for BNSF Railroad, but they joined forces with small developer Shilshole Development to make it happen.

In the end, the Floods and their kids plan to move into two of the units, gardening on the roof alongside their neighbors.

Flood knows it will be hard for Madrona to accept the loss of his iconic structures. But with a big central courtyard and tenants running small businesses at street level, he hopes to add to the pedestrian landscape. And he plans to salvage the old structures and keep their parts visible on the new.

The project is in design review. Construction will likely start early next year.

Read other bloggers weigh in on other developments planned along 34th in Madrona here and here.