Archinect - News

New York's Penn Station Makeover Faces Arena-Sized Obstacle

2013-04-10T13:06:00-04:00

Every day, more than 600,000 thousand rail commuters navigate the crowded maze of tunnels and tracks that is Penn Station. Mass transit advocates would like to replace the aging station with a world-class transportation hub. But there's a big obstacle: Madison Square Garden, the arena that sits directly on top of Penn Station. And the Garden's owners show no signs of moving.

Previously: Municipal Art Society Challenges Architects for New Penn Station Vision

100 Years of Grand Central Terminal

2013-03-18T13:20:00-04:00

and I watch everybody, every move. It's nerve-wracking, your blood pressure goes up ten points going through the door... - Jim Fahey (Assistant Chief in the Operation Control Center)

On March 1st, in celebration of it's centennial, Charlie Rose hosted a discussion on Grand Central Terminal. Gathered for the discussion were: Peter Stangl former president of Metro-North railroad; Kenneth Jackson of Columbia University; Sam Roberts of The New York Times and architect James Sanders.

Construction Update of Reading Station Area Redevelopment by Grimshaw Architects

2013-02-06T12:59:00-05:00

Major construction is currently under way in Reading, England as part of the Reading Station Area Redevelopment. In this new construction update video, Mark Middleton, partner at Grimshaw Architects, is on site at Reading Station and explains how the redevelopment will double its capacity and relieve a major bottleneck in the rail network west of London.

Dedicated Bike Lanes Can Cut Cycling Injuries in Half

2012-11-01T15:34:00-04:00

As it turns out, infrastructure really matters. Your chance of injury drops by about 50 percent, relative to that major city street, when riding on a similar road with a bike lane and no parked cars. The same improvement occurs on bike paths and local streets with designated bike routes. And protected bike lanes – with actual barriers separating cyclists from traffic – really make a difference. The risk of injury drops for riders there by 90 percent.

15 of the world's most bike-friendly cities

2012-10-11T13:59:00-04:00

Grab a helmet and check out these 15 cities where drivers use all five fingers when they wave at you.

Top cities include Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, Boulder, Chicago, Davis, Ottawa, Portland, San Francisco, Beijing, Cape Town, Bogota and Perth.

California Legalizes Driverless Cars

2012-09-25T20:34:00-04:00

On Tuesday at Google’s headquarters, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, signed into law a bill to legalize driverless cars. The bill had overwhelmingly passed the State Legislature. Google, which has been building the cars, says they are safer because they nearly eliminate human error. They could also be more fuel-efficient, the company says, and place California and the United States at the forefront of automobile innovation.

SkyCycle: Artist's impression gives vision of Boris' planned elevated London bike network

2012-09-05T13:11:00-04:00

Drawings showing a futuristic raised glass open-top tunnel, that have drawn comparisons with New York's High Line, could become a reality as soon as 2015. Sam Martin, 43, the landscape architect who came up with the idea with a colleague two years ago, said discussions between the Mayor and Network Rail were 'going well' since an initial meeting in May and that feasibility studies over potential sites were already underway.

The New Architectural Wisdom of Airports: Ikea, iPads, And Ice Skating Rinks

2012-07-31T17:55:00-04:00

Take Korea's Incheon International, for example. Built on top of a landfill 40 miles outside of Seoul, it features its own skating rink, cultural museum, and an assortment of other lavish amenities — all worthy investments for an airport that transported 34 million passengers and 2.5 million tons of cargo last year.

In Denmark, Pedaling to Work on a Superhighway

2012-07-19T15:00:00-04:00

The cycle superhighway, which opened in April, is the first of 26 routes scheduled to be built to encourage more people to commute to and from Copenhagen by bicycle. More bike path than the Interstate its name suggests, it is the brainchild of city planners who were looking for ways to increase bicycle use in a place where half of the residents already bike to work or to school every day.

The Real iPod: Elon Musk's Wild Idea for a 'Jetson Tunnel' from S.F. to L.A.

2012-07-16T13:39:00-04:00

...how would you like something that can never crash, is immune to weather, it goes 3 or 4 times faster than the bullet train... it goes an average speed of twice what an aircraft would do. You would go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes. It would cost you much less than an air ticket than any other mode of transport. I think we could actually make it self-powering if you put solar panels on it, you generate more power than you would consume in the system.

Paris: "the bus stop of the future"

2012-06-20T14:41:00-04:00

Yes, it's still a bus shelter, but the idea is to make it both more useful and more of a social space. People may come here for a range of things other than catching the bus, so that social interaction and the life of the street intermix with waiting to produce a more vibrant, interesting, and safe environment.

Houston's Trafalgar Square? Big name architects vie to design futuristic METRO Central Station

2012-01-28T18:05:00-05:00

Some of the names might already sound familiar to Houston design aficionados. Interloop principles Mark Wamble and Dawn Finley are professors at Rice. Denari received his undergraduate architecture degree from UH. Snøhetta is a finalist for the upcoming contemporary galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and SHoP Architects are behind the current renovations for the Blaffer Art Museum.

New York's JFK ranked the worst airport in the world

2012-01-18T12:33:00-05:00

BEST RANKED TERMINALS: 1. Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) Hajj Terminal 2. Leifur Eriksson Air Terminal, Keflavik, Iceland 3. Seoul (South Korea) Incheon Airport 4. Wellington (New Zealand) “Rock” Terminal 5. New York JFK Airport Terminal 5 6. Singapore Changi International Airport Terminal 3 7. Marrakech (Morocco) Menara Airport Terminal 1 8. Madrid (Spain) Barajas Terminal 4 9. Carrasco International Airport, Montevideo, Uruguay 10. Bilbao (Spain) Airport Main Terminal

A New Cycling Superhighway. Not in the U.S.A.

2012-01-17T19:00:00-05:00

The proposed bicycle superhighway would, in addition to four lanes (2 in each direction) have exits but no intersections, two types of wind protection (low bushes as well as solid fencing) periodic bicycle service stations, and would take eight years to complete. Total cost of the superhighway is estimated to be about 50 million Swedish crowns (US$ 7.1 million).

Asics Makes NYC Commute Faster for 60 Feet

2011-11-16T12:44:57-05:00

Hard proof that we are living in the future: To promote the recent New York City marathon, Asics hooked up a 60-foot video wall in Manhattan's Columbus Circle subway station, inviting commuters to race against life-sized footage of Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall. Hall zips by at his average pace while you see if you can match it.

Close the Gap Winners Announced: Envisioning a Completed East River Greenway

2011-10-27T15:40:03-04:00

d3 and Transportation Alternatives have announce the winners of the “Close The Gap” design competition, which invited architects, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers and students worldwide to envision the completion of New York City's East River Greenway. Submissions from pla.net Architects and the design team of James Stokoe & Madeline Stokoe were selected by the jurors for a shared first prize.

Carsten Höller Is Installing a Slide at New Museum

2011-10-07T12:28:13-04:00

If all goes as planned, the New Museum’s five-year-old building on the Bowery will become something of an amusement park beginning Oct. 26, with visitors hurtling through a giant plastic tube from the fourth floor to the second

Officials endorse tunnel to link Alaska and Siberia by train

2011-08-31T20:40:36-04:00

Russia appears to be edging closer to giving the go-ahead for an underwater tunnel which could one day allow vacationers in Alaska to take a day trip to Siberia in Russia.

5 Cities, 5 Congestion Solutions

2011-08-25T19:07:07-04:00

Once the definitive bicycle city, Beijing is responding to growing congestion and ongoing smog by setting a new target: for 23% of commuters to pedal to work by 2015. To achieve this target, new infrastructure for cyclists is to be wheeled in, with improved bicycle lanes, more parking facilities and a rental scheme to put a further 50,000 bikes on the roads by 2015.

405 Freeway closure exposes the limits of Los Angeles' mobility

2011-07-12T02:37:04-04:00

...doesn't the general freakout over the shutdown suggest, in and of itself, its fundamental folly? It hurts to lose the 405 even for a weekend not because freeways are so valuable or because we love them so much but because we've painted ourselves in a corner in terms of mobility. We have left ourselves no escape hatches or viable alternatives.

LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne eyes impending automotive doom.

Follow the link for a thoughtful piece on "the city's great synecdoche" and how its future might impact architectural landmarks.