Archinect - News

Lipstick on anti-terror infrastructure

2019-05-14T13:28:00-04:00

Urban designers are increasingly being tasked with an emergent ‘design challenge’ for public spaces: how best to deliver anti-terror infrastructure while generating a pleasant urban environment. By allowing themselves to be drawn into this challenge, and by dutifully working to respond with creative and constructive solutions, they are inadvertently helping to normalize a creeping ‘fortification’ of our cities that in turn contributes to a wider process of ‘bordering’ across the world.

Urbanist Alice Sweitzer and Failed Architecture editor Charlie Clemoes share their thoughts on a booming new design task, "making an increasingly aggressive urban situation more palatable to an ever more anxious citizenry."

International Criminal Court issues ruling in first case of cultural destruction as war crimes

2017-08-31T15:08:00-04:00

The International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled on 17 August, that an Islamic extremist caused €2.7m in damages when he destroyed shrines in Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012. This is the first time that the ICC has made a ruling solely on cultural destruction, setting an important precedent. [...] Islamic extremists used pickaxes and bulldozers to destroy nine mausoleums and the centuries-old door of the Sidi Yahya mosque, built during a golden age of Islam [...].

By ruling that "the destruction of the protected buildings has caused the suffering of people throughout Mali and the international community," the International Criminal Court in The Hague acknowledged the demolition of cultural heritage as a war crime — potentially treating recent acts of violence against historic sites in Palmyra and Mosul as such as well.

Barcelona terrorists were planning a bombing of Sagrada Família

2017-08-23T13:50:00-04:00

The terror cell that brought carnage to north-eastern Spain, killing 15 people and injuring more than 130, was planning attacks on a much larger scale, including the bombing of Barcelona’s Sagrada Família church, a suspect has told a court. Mohamed Houli Chemlal made the admission after being brought before a judge in Madrid, Spanish media reported, quoting court officials.

As the hearing progressed, police were attempting to reconstruct the final 96 hours in the life of the member of the cell who killed 13 people and injured more than 130 others when he drove a hired Fiat van along the crowded Las Ramblas last Thursday.

A wall of bulletproof glass will soon enclose the base of the Eiffel Tower

2017-02-09T17:16:00-05:00

Following a spate of terror attacks including a machete attack last September, Parisian officials are making moves to protect the city’s many monuments. Most recently, they’ve announced that they’ll enclose the base of the Eiffel Tower with a glass wall. Currently, the area is cordoned off with a series of metal grills, which were put in place in advance of the Euro 2016 football tournament. The new, permanent wall will be 2.5 meters high and made of bulletproof glass. It will run along the Quai Branly and the Avenue Gustave-Eiffel, as well as bisect the parks on either side of the Tower. Whereas, not long ago, visitors could simply stroll through the iron legs of Paris’ most iconic monument, now they will have to pass through security checks. In total, the wall is expected to cost around €20 million.

via the Local

Geoff Manaugh takes a look inside LAX's impressive airport security apparatus

2017-01-16T20:43:00-05:00

In the summer of 2014, Anthony McGinty and Michelle Sosa were hired by Los Angeles World Airports to lead a unique, new classified intelligence unit on the West Coast. After only two years, their global scope and analytic capabilities promise to rival the agencies of a small nation-state. Their roles suggest an intriguing new direction for infrastructure protection in an era when threats are as internationally networked as they are hard to predict.

Being the world's fifth-busiest airport (74,937,004 travelers passed through LAX in 2015) makes this infrastructure megaproject one of the top-ranked terrorist and aviation targets in the country. With billions of dollars spent on the usual airport expansion and modernization projects in recent decades came also the need for enhanced anti-terrorism capabilities that gave birth to its own classified intelligence unit.

"Under the moniker of “critical infrastructure protection,” energy-production, transportation-logistics, waste-disposal, and other sites have been transformed from often-overlooked megaprojects on the edge of the metropolis into the heavily fortified, tactical crown jewels of the modern state," Manaugh writes. "Bridges, tunnels, ports, dams, pipelines, and airfields have an emergent geopolitical clout that now rivals democratically elected civic institutions."

Trump's properties have suddenly become potential targets for terrorism

2017-01-03T13:56:00-05:00

Even before Donald Trump became president-elect, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for his name to be scrubbed from Istanbul’s Trump Towers. Erdogan pinned his plea to Trump’s Islamophobia, saying that the candidate “has no tolerance for Muslims in America.” Now that Trump is weeks from assuming the presidency, cities that host his many branded properties have an additional concern to consider: the potential terrorism threat brought by his name.

International Criminal Court hears first case of cultural destruction as war crimes

2016-08-22T15:38:00-04:00

In the first case of its kind, the Islamic extremist Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi has today (22 August), pleaded guilty to war crimes for destroying historic monuments in the ancient city of Timbuktu in northern Mali. Al-Mahdi is accused of ordering the razing of nine mausoleums and the 15th-century Sidi Yahia mosque. It is the first time the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has heard a case about the demolition of cultural heritage.

Learn more about Timbuktu's outstanding value as a world heritage site on UNESCO's website.

France moves to block Tor, ban free and public Wi-Fi

2015-12-07T15:00:00-05:00

According to leaked documents France's Ministry of Interior is considering two new proposals: a ban on free and shared Wi-Fi connections during a state of emergency, and measures to block Tor being used inside France. The documents were seen by the French newspaper Le Monde. According to the paper, new bills could be presented to parliament as soon as January 2016. These proposals are presumably in response to the attacks in Paris last month where 130 people were murdered.

According to the report published by Le Monde, the French Ministry of Interior has developed two frightening new security proposals that may be presented to parliament early next years.

The first, as reported by Ars Technica, would block free, public WiFi during a state of emergency. On November 20, France extended its state of emergency – implemented in the immediate aftermath of last month's terror attacks – to three months. Blocking signals could be difficult to implement, if still possible, and have potentially massive implications, leaving many without internet access for extended periods of time.

The second proposal is to block and/or forbid use of Tor. Originally developed by the US Government to protect intelligence communication, Tor is a free software that enables anonymous communication and internet access. While often used for illicit purposes, notably access to the darknet in order to purchase black market items, it's also vital for whistleblowers, journalists and politic...

Architecture of paranoia

2015-04-22T21:19:00-04:00

Since terrorism has become one of the guiding forces in urban design, the incorporation of immense fortifications into everyday streets has spawned an entire industry of defensive architecture [...] The latest developments in this rising tide of urban paranoia are on display this week at the Counter Terror Expo in west London’s Olympia, a sprawling trade show that proudly claims to showcase “the key terror threat areas under one roof”. It is an enormous supermarket of neuroses [...].

Investing in risk: How the Gherkin became a British icon

2013-10-23T20:50:00-04:00

Architecture is stuck between past and future -- years of anticipatory planning designs a structure that, once constructed, is stuck referring to all that came before. A building can't actually predict the future, although it seems like the best ones always run the risk of trying. Jonathan Massey's essay "Risk Design", perceives architecture as a mediator and optimizer of risks, using Foster + Partner's fantastically phallic skyliner in London's financial district, known as the "Gherkin", as a case study. Massey turns the Gherkin inside out, mapping details of its design onto local and global concerns such as terrorism and global warming, in an attempt to understand how architecture negotiates risks, and whether it succeeds. That the Gherkin's major tenant, Swiss Re, is a reinsurance company adds no small irony to his study.

Archinect is proud to feature Massey's piece in full, in line with our ongoing investigation of architectural accountability. "Risk Design" was originally ...

Shortlist announced for Norwegian July 22 Memorial Sites

2013-10-11T20:11:00-04:00

Eight finalists were revealed for the international competition to design two memorial sites in the Norwegian Goverment Headquarters in Oslo as well as the island of Utøya. The public art memorial sites will commemorate the victims of the Oslo bombing and the Utøya massacre on July 22, 2011 — Norway's shocking day of terror when 77 people tragically lost their lives.

Below are the candidates who will advance to the second and final stage of the competition:

Jonas Dahlberg (SE)
Jeremy Deller (UK)
Estudio SIC (ES)
Goksøyr & Martens and Snøhetta (NO)
Olav Christopher Jenssen and LPO arkitekter (NO)
Haugen/Zohar arkitekter (NO)
Paul Murdoch Architects (US)
NLÉ & Kunlé Adeyemi (NL/NG)

Remembering Architect Ross Langdon, partner and unborn child - victims of Nairobi terrorist attack

2013-09-24T12:20:00-04:00

It is with great sadness that we report that Australian/British architect and public interest designer Ross Langdon, 32, was among those killed in the terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in recent days. He was killed alongside his partner, Elif Yavuz, who worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Kenya, and was just two weeks from her due date to give birth to their first child.

Court OKs Forfeiture Of New York Building With Ties To Iran

2013-09-17T20:35:00-04:00

A decision by a federal judge paves the way for the forfeiture of a 36-story Manhattan building that the U.S. alleges is secretly owned and controlled by the government of Iran. The court agreed with the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York that the owners are a front for the Iranian government and therefore in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which restricts commerce with Iran.

Security in Norway: Terrorism strikes Scandinavia

2011-07-22T14:45:19-04:00

A POWERFUL bomb explosion ripped through central Oslo on the afternoon of July 22nd, in the most devastating attack on a Scandinavian country since the second world war. Centred on the heart of Norway’s political apparatus, it killed at least seven people, injured many more, and shattered windows in offices, shops and homes as far as one kilometre away.