Archinect - Features

DATA-AND-MORTAR; Will the Technological Revolution Render Architects Obsolete?

2018-11-10T11:43:00-05:00

Globally, multinational tech companies are moving beyond the digital realm to enter the physical domains of where, when, and how we will produce our cities in the future. Grounded in the interdependency between us (citizens) as “users” and tech corporations as “providers,” we have no other choice than to open the doors to the core of our cities if we wish to remain “connected.” However, rather than simply accepting the imposition often dictated by tech companies and political policy-making, how can architecture’s response move beyond the current trends of uncritically adapting technology and, instead, begin to reclaim agency over architectural and urban development? What role can architects play in this seemingly-inevitable technical evolution, with their knowledge and sensitivity to the relationship between the body and space? It is undeniable that architecture will have to run much faster to catch up (with Silicon Valley) or the design of our cities will remain in the territory of...

Social Soup

2017-11-21T09:00:00-05:00

It’s been thought for some time that life emerged from the primordial soup. It now seems that humanity is the product of social soup.

Social soup is the bio-cultural-environmental complex of opinions, beliefs, desires, truths, values, myths, grudges, inventions, histories, conspiracies, rumors, plans, protocols, archetypes, dwellings, art, jokes, taboos, and other complex vectors of life woven through our mysterious emotional organic wetware. This mesh is our habitat. We don’t dwell in nature; we live amongst each other.

Architects: If You Don't Start Disrupting Urbanism, Silicon Valley Will Do It for You.

2016-11-07T12:33:00-05:00

When Mountain View start-up incubator YCombinator announced this June that the company would be creating an initiative around designing new cities, it was easy for architects and urbanists to laugh.

Site/Context: Cupertino's rate of change

2015-10-14T11:34:00-04:00

The Deans List: David Gissen of California College of the Arts

2013-11-21T13:27:00-05:00

The Deans List is an interview series with the leaders of architecture schools, worldwide. The series profiles the school’s programming, as defined by the head honcho – giving an invaluable perspective into the institution’s unique curriculum, faculty and academic environment.

For our first installment, we spoke with David Gissen, the Director of Architecture at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.