Joshua Prince-Ramus

Former Rem Koolhaas architect Joshua Prince-Ramus (now of Ramus Ella Architects) spoke at this year's TED conference. Many of the talks from the conference were just posted. Ramus spends his talk covering the design of the Seattle Library and two other projects. Can't say I like the architecture too much but I do like the pushing of boundaries and interesting approaches to solving clients requirements.

For example, for the Seattle Library their analysis identified the social responsibility of the library to act as a public space and pushed to design for it. Initially, the librarians weren't at all interested in the public meeting place aspect of the project. That surprised me especially given all the public funds allocated to the library system. You'd think the city would have put some guidelines on how the library funds were to be allocated. Glad the architects were paying attention.

Since the debut of the Seattle Library, I've found I now enjoy bold architectural statements in some of the structures in our city even if I don't totally agree with the design direction. Viva le difference! Video of his talk here.