News: Boston's public transport authority has launched a competition to redesign the city's subway map.

From now until the end of April, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is accepting submissions to transform the map's cramped layout into a more user-friendly design.

The competition has already proved controversial due to the terms and conditions of entry stating that the transit authority owns the entire copyright of all submissions – a detail criticised as "insulting" by Australian graphic designer Cameron Booth.

"If the MBTA likes my ideas for their map — and they've surely seen enough of my body of work to know that it's good — then they can bloody well pay me for it," wrote Booth in a blog post, as reported by online magazine The Atlantic Cities.

Booth's extensive portfolio of map designs includes a diagram of the American interstate road system in the style of the London Tube map.

Above: the current "spider map"

Entries to the competition will be judged on their creativity, aesthetic quality, clarity and usefulness, and the winning designs will be announced in mid-May as part of National Transportation Week.

We've featured lots of map designs on Dezeen, including dinner plates that collectively form a map of France's Michelin-starred restaurants and a London Tube map redesigned to be geographically accurate – see all maps.

Projects in Boston we've published include Renzo Piano's wing for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and a branch of skin and haircare brand Aesop that uses wooden cornices as shelving.

The post Boston invites designs for new
public transport map appeared first on Dezeen.

Designed by architect and university professor William O’Brien Jr, the Aesop Newbury Street's interior was inspired by the nineteenth century ornamental architecture that originated in Paris and is common in the neighbourhood.

The oak mouldings are arranged in horizontal rows across each of the walls, as well as along the edges of the counter.

"The display shelves are formed through the accumulation of several different custom crown mouldings to produce an unexpected texture, one that defamiliarises the moulding and transforms its role from an architectural element that conventionally highlights edges to an element that produces a rich and varied surface texture," explained O’Brien Jr.

A staircase leads down into the store from the entrance and features a wrought iron balustrade with an oak handrail.

Like all of Aesop's stores, a wash basin is included, while reclaimed oak covers the floors.

Aesop regularly commissions designers to come up with unique concepts for its stores. Others we've featured recently include a London shop modelled on a medical laboratory and a Paris shop with iron nails for shelves.

See all our stories about Aesop »

Here's some more information from Aesop:

Aesop takes pleasure in announcing the opening of its first Boston signature store at 172 Newbury Street, Back Bay. Nineteenth-century planners fashioned this borough to be the ‘ornament of the city’, inspired and influenced by Hausmann’s redesign of Paris. The impressive architectural legacy is richly reinterpreted in the new store.

For the interior, William O’Brien Jr., Assistant Professor of Architecture at Boston’s MIT School of Architecture, recast several historic design elements deeply characteristic of the area. The space is dressed in a combination of new and reclaimed antique white oak – the former used for highly articulated display shelves, the latter for flooring. The ingeniously conceived shelving is formed through the accumulation of several different custom crown moldings – a shift from colonial ornamentation to contemporary functionality that defamiliarises and transforms, producing a rich and varied surface texture.

The entry stair presents a delicate balustrade of wrought iron bars topped by an ornamental white oak rail that effects a second form of defamiliarisation – here, as a tactile experience. As its profile twists on descent, the rail announces via the hand a gentle transition from the exterior bustle of Newbury Street to a calming and intimate environment that characterises the spirit of Aesop.

The post Aesop Newbury Street
by William O’Brien Jr. appeared first on Dezeen.

Architect Renzo Piano has completed a new wing at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, which opens next week.

The extension comprises four connected new blocks that are fully glazed at ground floor level but are otherwise clad in pre-patinated copper panels.

One block, named Calderwood Hall, houses a 300-seat auditorium that will host music performances, while another contains a temporary exhibition gallery with a retractable ceiling.

The extension also includes a new glazed entrance lobby for visitors to the museum, which is furnished with sofas, lamps, plants and bookshelves to create the impression of a living room.

The Shard, a skyscraper also by Renzo Piano, is under construction in London and will complete this year - see renders of it here.

Photography is by Nic Lehoux.

Here's some more information from the museum:

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Opens a New Wing and Restored Historic Galleries to Public on January 19, 2012

Extension Designed by Pritzker Prize-Winning Architect Renzo Piano

On January 19, 2012, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will open to the public a new addition to its original building, kicking off an inaugural season of exhibitions, performances, and events that highlight the Museum’s wide range of programming.

The new 70,000-square-foot wing was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano to preserve the historic 1902 building and alleviate pressures caused by years of use. Situated behind the original building on its site along the Fenway, the new addition provides purpose-built spaces for concerts, exhibitions, and classes, along with enhanced visitor amenities.

Following special advance previews for Museum members on January 15-18, the grand opening celebration will begin with a ribbon-cutting ceremony with City of Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino on January 19, followed by three days of free Bank of America Community Opening Days from January 19-21.

“This new wing is an extraordinarily elegant workshop, a bustling counterpoint to the historic building’s serenity. Here, the thinking and the work of the Museum is performed, so that the Palace, which had been put to uses for which it was not equipped, can once again give visitors the experience Isabella Stewart Gardner intended: a personal confrontation with art,” said Anne Hawley, Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Museum.


The Design

The design of the Museum’s new wing incorporates glass and natural light to create an open and welcoming entrance, as well as to provide uninterrupted views of the historic building and gardens. The building features four volumes clad in green pre-patinated copper and red brick that appear to “float” above the transparent first floor. Key features of the new wing are a cube-shaped performance hall and an adjustable height special exhibition gallery, which are the Museum’s first purpose-built spaces to accommodate such functions.

Visitors enter the Museum through a new entrance facing Evans Way Park into the glass-enclosed Bekenstein Family Lobby. A new space, named the Richard E. Floor Living Room, welcomes the visitor in an intimate domestic-like setting where hosts, books, and touch screen monitors on easels offer information about Isabella Stewart Gardner, the collection and its unique installation, and the Museum’s Artist-in-Residence Program.

Calderwood Hall, the Museum’s new performance hall, is the largest space in the new wing at 6,000 square feet, and is designed in collaboration with acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota of Nagata Acoustics. With 300 seats configured in three balcony levels surrounding the central performing area on all four sides, the hall preserves the intimate experience that has long characterized the Gardner Museum’s music program.

The Special Exhibition Gallery, which will present three major exhibitions each year, is a flexible space featuring a retractable ceiling and a full wall of windows overlooking the historic Museum and the Monks Garden. The addition also houses working greenhouses, a landscape classroom and expanded outdoor garden spaces; two artist apartments; conservation labs; the Claire and John Bertucci Education Studio, which will offer hands-on art workshops for students and families; a new store, called Gift at the Gardner; and a new restaurant, Café G, with indoor and seasonal outdoor seating.

“Isabella Gardner’s Palace, with its treasured collection and inimitable installations, its verdant courtyard and mesmerizing corridors, will always be the focus of the Museum, but it could only remain so with the construction of a companion building. With housing for resident scholars and artists, labs for the conservation of the collection, and room for public assembly and school partners, the new wing frees up the historic building to fulfill its historic purpose,” added Hawley.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is seeking LEED gold certification by the United States Green Building Council. Primary components of the sustainable design are a geothermal well system, daylight harvesting, water- efficient landscaping techniques, and the use of local and regional materials, which reduces the environmental impact associated with transport.

Restoration of the Palace

Since 1990, the Gardner Museum has completed significant restoration work on the historic palace building to stabilize its structure and help accommodate increased programming and attendance. Projects have included replacing the skylight over the courtyard with thermal pane glass and installing a climate-control system. Construction of the extension complements preservation work that is ongoing within the historic building, including a decade-long lighting project to protect sensitive artwork and improve the visitor experience.

A centerpiece of the Museum preservation project is the Tapestry Room, which has been restored to its original glory after being used for 85 years as a temporary concert hall. As the Museum’s world-class concerts will now take place in the new wing’s Calderwood Hall, the Tapestry Room has been returned to its former configuration to be experienced as a grand tapestry hall. Conservation treatment of the space included the cleaning of its Mercer-tiled floors, restoration of the French medieval stone fireplace, reinstallation of select art and furniture objects, replacement of historic textiles with reproductions, and new lighting.

The post Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
extension by Renzo Piano appeared first on Dezeen.

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, the new waterfront cultural centre designed by New York architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, has released images of the development by photographer Peter Vanderwarker. ICA Boston opens to the public on Sunday 10 December. View image sheet

The post ICA Boston images released appeared first on Dezeen.