Archinect - News

Canada's traditional shopping centers are turning into mall cities

2023-06-07T14:00:00-04:00

“It’s less about e-commerce than it is about how people want to live and what they want to experience [...] People want to connect, they want to be social, so we’re trying to give them more reasons and more opportunities to do that.”

The movement is not without its detractors, however, as planning experts like the University of British Columbia’s Dr. Penelope Gurstein balance the media’s mostly effusive coverage for such projects with criticism that they are marketed towards affluent retirees and wealthy overseas buyers whose apartments are vacant much of the year.

The government has attempted to mitigate this via a new ban on foreign property ownership. Still, most feel the industry is well-positioned to adapt, as evidenced by the 420 units of below-market-rate units that were included in the 28-acre Henriquez Partners master-planned Oakridge Park development in Vancouver.

“Ten years ago, I was expanding malls, 20 years ago I was building malls, five years ago we were talking about demolishing malls,” one developer tells the Globe and Mail. “You can’t predict the future.”

New details emerge for Norman Foster's Kharkiv rebuilding plan

2022-12-29T12:27:00-05:00

New details are emerging on Norman Foster’s proposed master plan for the besieged Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Popular German outlet DW has some information on the plan, which Foster and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov have yet to make publicly available following an initial announcement in April.

For now, the plan reportedly entails at least five “pilot projects” and an interior overhaul of the city’s destroyed House of Regional Administration building that is similar to the firm’s reconstruction of the Reichstag by leaving only its existing facade remaining over a modernized interior.

Among the pilot projects, a new science and technology center will be enacted in addition to an unspecified “architectural landmark” at the city’s center and new 6-kilometer (3.72-mile) pedestrian park at the confluence of the city’s Kharkiv and Nemyshlya rivers. Further “Industry” and “Housing” pilots will involve the adaptive reuse of surviving residential buildings and a coal-fired power plant, provid...

Disney plans to build 1,300 units of affordable housing in Orlando

2022-04-07T17:00:00-04:00

Now, more than 50 years later, a more urban part of Disney’s utopian idealism is taking shape. The company is announcing a new project to augment its vast theme park and resort development with 1,300 units of affordable housing, set on 80 acres of land right next to Disney World.

The Walt Disney Company is hoping to work with an unnamed third-party affordable housing developer to build the project. The units will be available to income-qualifying candidates from the general public and Disney employees. This initiative comes as Orlando-area rents are increasing, with the number of residents paying more than a third of their income on rent among the highest in the country. As noted by Fast Company, a 2019 National Low Income Housing Coalition report named Orlando the worst city in the country for affordable housing.

Previously on Archinect: 'Storytelling to storyliving': Disney unveils designs for a new master-planned community in the Coachella Valley

This is just one of several planned developments Disney has recently slated. Last year, the entertainment company announced plans to build a regional Orlando campus called Lake Nona for relocated employees from California. And, earlier this year, they unveiled designs for a master-planned community in the Coachel...

Master-planned community set to rise near Austin Tesla factory

2022-01-03T13:53:00-05:00

Austin can’t get enough of Tesla, it seems. Developers of a master-planned community near the electric vehicle factory under construction submitted plans for 300 new apartments and 200 single-family homes to the city this month, according to the Austin Business Journal.

Canadian company Brookfield Residential Properties wants to build the homes on vacant land in a 3,200-acre planned community in Southeast Austin called Easton Park. Brookfield is partnering with Houston-based Hines investment group on the project, and civil engineering firm Consort submitted the plans for the new apartments.

Previously on Archinect: Plans for Tesla's $1.1 billion Cybertruck plant advance

As reported by The Real Deal, real estate data firm Zonda ranks Easton Park the fourth most active area for construction in Austin. It is set to have 12,000 new homes in the next eight to ten years.

LA's Union Station is getting a multi-billion dollar makeover

2017-07-25T15:16:00-04:00

When built, Union Station was called the "Last of the Great Railway Stations." Designed by father and son team John and Donald B. Parkinson, the landmark opened in 1939 at a time when railway service was already beginning to wane. Combining Art Deco, Spanish Colonial, and Mission Revival styles, the site has perhaps become better known for its beauty as an architectural gem—it has starred in movies such as Blade Runner—than for being a site of major transport despite its designation as the largest railroad passenger terminal in the Western United States.

However, Los Angeles' population continues to grow, more and more people are ditching cars, and a high-speed rail line is potentially on the horizon, all of which are expected to cause patronage of the station to explode by 2040. In preparation for the expected growth, LA Metro has been working on a massive master plan alongside Gruen Associates and Grimshaw Architects for the 78-year old transit hub. Visions for its future include...

Arckit launches a Kickstarter for its detailed Cityscape and Masterplan kits

2017-05-11T15:15:00-04:00

Arckit is expanding from house models into entire cities and master plans, or at least will if they meet their Kickstarter goals.

The Kickstarter showcases a series of models with various components including contoured top pieces, textured walls and even transparent, glass-like modular elements.

Contribute to the campaign and check out the video of their new implements here.

Reverting from an industrial base to "social capital"-driven economy in Chelyabinsk's winning master plan

2017-02-02T13:12:00-05:00

How can architects transform the driving economy of a preexisting city? The team of de Architekten Cie. + Felixx Landscape Architects & Planners won The City Administration of Chelyabinsk's competition to redesign the historical center of their formerly industrial town based on a scheme that fosters "the city as a breeding ground for social capital." According to a press release, the team's plan transforms the city of approximately 1.5 million people in three principal ways:

1. Grid: Inclusive realm

Streets are the main public realms in the city. Apart from being spaces for car traffic, they serve as linear public spaces. The redevelopment and upgrading of streets allows for the integration of environmental infrastructure, the organization of slow traffic and public transportation.

2. Blocks: Mixed-use program

The existing blocks in the city leave a lot of empty space yet to be developed. The new masterplan proposes gradual transformation of the existing grid by replacing deteriorated ...

"Our architecture works harder than your architecture": Inside the city of Arcosanti

2016-10-06T13:03:00-04:00

Can cities be built not only to be harmonious with their environment, but to outperform traditional architecture? The residents of Arcosanti, Arizona, which is profiled in this video excerpt from the Atlantic, seem to think so. Part campus, part permanent dwelling, Arcosanti embraces the concept of "arcology," or the blending of ecology and architecture, to create a holistic, tightly engineered mini-metropolis:

The City of the Future

Steven Holl working on master plan study for Williams College

2016-04-07T14:08:00-04:00

Who better to master plan the campus of the The Williams College Department of Art and Museum of Art than daily watercolorist (and architect) Steven Holl? In addition to expanding William College's art presence in the region, the study's goals include shaping the campus space to connect interior to exterior as well as making "architecture in complementary relation to the picturesque campus" according to a press release.

Steven Holl Architects has interviewed museum staff, students, and faculty members to get an idea of how they interact with the current campus, and what they'd like to see in a new plan. The stakeholder-intensive process has already apparently inspired notions for possible new building sites on the college's 223-year-old grounds. Holl is no stranger to academic design, having already completed projects for Columbia University, MIT, and the Glasgow School of Art (pictured below in its 19th-century setting), among others.

As Steven Holl noted, "Historically one of the mo...

Historic community facing eviction in Bangkok

2016-04-01T14:15:00-04:00

The fort community houses 59 families, and is well-known for its wooden houses in the early Rattanakosin-style. Faced with strong resistance from the community, and academics and activists, City Hall the plan but dusted it off early last month amid a public outcry.

The Pom Mahakan community on the edge of Rattanakosin Island in Bangkok has been there for more than 150 years. Many of the old teak houses remain behind the last piece of the original wall of the city. The people of this community have faced many eviction threats in the past 20 years as the Bangkok Metro Administration attempts to move them out in order to implement the Rattanakosin Master Plan, part of which calls for this small strip of land between the klong and the old city wall to be turned into a tourist park. NGOs and academics have, over the years called for the protection of this piece of vernacular architectural history and for the community with the intimate knowledge of that history and culture (see, for example, the 2007 UN Global Report on Human Settlements - Strategies for Survival). A short video of the Pom Mahakan community was done in 2004 when they were facing yet another threat of eviction. That eviction notice was postponed with the help of KMUTT architect...