Rethink Architecture: What a Waste? Disposable Architecture

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is expanding, which means the American Folk Art Museum will be razed. But AFAM is only 13 years old and a critically acclaimed building. Rising real estate values and MOMA’s new programmatic plan override the feasibility of renovating it. Is this wasteful? What determines value in design, and what’s the measure of architecture’s relevance?

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Rethink Architecture: A Pioneer Among Us

Architects are usually measured by the number, type and quality of design projects in their careers. What’s unique about Ming, however, is that his incredibly broad and diverse influence exceeds any usual way of measuring. Share with us some valuable things you’ve done that typical means of benchmarking wouldn’t necessarily capture.

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Rethink Architecture: How Many Architects Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

How a store is designed is contingent on a lot of things, from the position on its site, all the way down to whether maintenance staff can reach the light bulbs. What universal tips can you share, big or small, that have helped you create better things faster in your line of work? 

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Rethink Architecture: Retail Design Is Retail Business

What’s your story? And, importantly, does your customer “get” that story as soon as they walk in? Even more importantly, do they feel that story when they walk in? These are questions every retailer asks of their stores. Yet designing a place that strategically and immediately conjures a feeling is no easy task. What’s an example of a space that triggers a feeling to tell a story? 

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Rethink Architecture: Taking Big Boxes to Net Zero

There’s a specific range for annual energy consumption—a “sweet spot”—that should be reached before you set your sights on net zero. That range is 30-to-25 ktBus/sf/year. How far are you from that range, and what building strategies sound feasible for getting there?

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Rethink Architecture: Are Architects Funny?

While architects aren’t known for being funny, MulvannyG2 Principal Patrick Kruger last month landed on CNN, Good Morning America and Today for his sense of humor. Kruger thinks humor—as an aesthetic—isn’t used enough in architecture. Beyond a literal sense of playfulness, great humor entertains—which is key to successful retail and destination design.

Think back: Where have you been that was either playful, or played to your senses so well, that it immediately made you smile?

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Rethink Architecture: Who needs architecture, anyway?

How can more citizens join the discussion about the built environment?

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Rethink Architecture: Mind Your Business!

How do you balance the design and business needs of a project?

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Rethink Architecture: Disrupt or Be Disrupted

What are your disruptive design ideas?

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Rethink Architecture: Looking for the Best Project Manager?

What differences have you noticed between how men and women lead projects and teams?

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Rethink Architecture: We Built These Cities

MulvannyG2 opened its Shanghai office 10 years ago and to celebrate, we're reflecting on how China's development markets, our design approach, and our client relationships have evolved in that time.

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Rethink Architecture: Cutting the Crap About Innovation

Here are four ways we've benefitted by finding innovation in the ordinary: Don't sell yourself short, roll with technology's punches, let strategy win, and keep it simple.

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Retail Gets No Respect, I Tell Ya

Retail design gets no respect. But despite the design world's presumptions about it, retail architecture is indeed relevant to time, place, and culture. Here are ways MulvannyG2 and others have done new things new ways to lend more respect to the Rodney Dangerfield of our industry.

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Rethink Architecture: Delightful Ways Technology is Changing Architecture

What other ways is technology changing how we engage with the built environment?

At Millennium Park's Crown Fountain, you can make a 50-foot tall video of someone's head "spit" at you by pushing a button for a large squirt of water. It's a new, interactive take on what gargoyles have done for centuries. And in New York, journalists can operate window louvers to control daylight and heat at The New York Times Building. Then, the building calibrates mechanical systems accordingly and records the changes. The records provide information to tweak that building's performance and inspire future building design. These two examples are also fun ways for users to control their comfort and impact the built environment. Have you seen other examples of how technology is making our every day experience with architecture more fun or meaningful?

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Rethink Architecture: Psst…Chinese Retailers Want to Ask You Something

What Would You Say to Chinese Retailers to Help? Right now Chinese retailers need to address both market and operational changes as retail development continues to expand rapidly. What's been your experience meeting these challenges, in Asia or the U.S.? Tell us what you think!

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Learning from Repeatability

We've reframed a core expertise to meet clients' current challenges in a different market. How have you co-opted an idea, a perspective, or an approach? What do you think about this in general? Let's talk about it!

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Rethink Architecture: Dancing with our Clients to Make Better Design Decisions

Have you "danced" to make decisions with others?

Tell us how you've managed a relationship to make a product or a process better!

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Here's another idea!

Test market opportunity. What if these components were considered as a means to introduce a brand new market, to test the water? It offers a lower threshold of risk: Instead of creating an 180,000-square-foot store and experimenting with that, first establish a component in a new market and tweak from there.

Now, let's hear your ideas -- join the conversation!

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Rwanda Rising, One School and One Girl at a Time

Have you contributed to projects that have helped the human condition, in ways great and small?

Share with us your own stories of using architecture and development to advance a cause.

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Are you going 'Country?'

Have you used simple, down-to-earth but highly effective methods that have made a difference to architecture, design or development? If so, what?

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