Archinect - Features

The People’s Place in the City of Bits and Atoms

2024-03-06T07:34:00-05:00

The city of the 21st century represents a confluence of bits and atoms; an organism in its own right that relentlessly spawns information and data about itself, its people, and the invisible flows that support them. What is the relationship between humans and the city in this new condition? What is its future? To explore these questions, we speak with architect, TED founder, and father of information architecture Richard Saul Wurman, 2025 Venice Biennale curator Carlo Ratti, and MIT Media Lab researchers Naroa Coretti and Ainhoa Genua.

This article is part of the Archinect In-Depth: Artificial Intelligence series.

Exhibit Columbus’ University Design Research Fellows Showcase Proposals That Activate the 'Invisible Spaces' of Columbus, Indiana

2023-04-07T12:16:00-04:00

How do you activate invisible spaces, and what does it mean to design for the public? These were the themes that sparked important conversations at Exhibit Columbus’ 2023 Design Presentations organized by the Landmark Columbus Foundation. Each Exhibit Columbus cycle focuses on a new theme along with a hand-selected team of curatorial partners, community advisors, and participating designers. Selected designers are chosen by the curatorial team and are recognized as J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize winners, University Design Research Fellows, and High School Design Team winners. As media partners, Archinect visited the city of Columbus and listened in as architects, designers, artists, urban planners, and academic researchers pitched their design presentations to guests and the local community of Columbus.

During our coverage, we focused on seven projects presented by the 2023 University Design Research Fellows. Each year, the Foundation releases an open call to university profess...

Investigating the Relationship Between Public Art and Public Space with LAA Office

2021-12-13T15:25:00-05:00

When public art is incorporated into a design space, how does it interact with its surrounding architecture and landscapes? For Lulu Loquidis and Daniel Luis Martinez, the importance of bridging the gap between public space, community-driven design, and the built environment is essential. The duo are co-principals of the multi-disciplinary design studio LAA Office based in Columbus, Indiana.

After living and working in New York City for several years, their move to the Midwest helped foster an eye-opening opportunity for creating positive design interventions. They explain: "Some of the biggest issues that need to be addressed relate to social, economic, and cultural inequities that privilege certain groups over others. Specifically, in our work, we're hoping to find ways of making art and design accessible to folks that can't normally afford it or who see themselves removed from the processes that shape the built environment around them."

To learn more about LAA Office's path to s...

Private Interests and the Public Good: Could an Office of Public Space Management Fix New York’s Chaotic and Unfriendly Public Realm?

2021-08-12T09:00:00-04:00

Cities express the tension between private interests and the common good, between buildings and public space. New York, the most populous city in the US, enjoys an abundance of impressive, exclusive structures (and quite a few impressive public ones, most of them built in the mid-20th century) while lacking high-quality, accessible open space.

This is despite a stock of undervalued public space: streets.

Beyond the Street: ODA Proposes a Zoning Regulation To Expand the Public Space in New York

2021-07-24T09:00:00-04:00

ODA has released a new video advertising Beyond the Street, which promises to hack New York’s infamously rigid gridiron to unlock hidden courtyards New Yorkers never knew they were missing. The proposal, which has no official client, aims to create new privately owned public space by opening the interior of city blocks to pedestrians and street-level retail.

The speculative project by the New York-based firm is being promoted through a glossy animation depicting the potential change to Manhattan’s Flower District, where the architects keep an office space.

'Architecture as Provider Instead of Shelter': Matter Design's Brandon Clifford Discusses Architecture and Speculative Design as a Catalyst for Social Good

2021-04-14T08:25:00-04:00

Learning how a design studio begins its journey into professional practice is an eye-opening experience. For Matter Design, they started with a mission to build projects they designed themselves. While this response may seem simple in its approach, they explain, "we were much more interested in the means, the methods, and communication between design and materials." Yet, four years after our Studio Snapshot interview with co-founders Brandon Clifford and Wes McGee, the practice has grown into a catalyst for bridging architecture, speculative design, and interdisciplinary social missions.

Archinect re-connected with Clifford to discuss recessions, running a speculative design studio, and how the firm's latest project AquíAquí is more than just a public space project. Clifford shared, "I can say that we have built Matter Design on a series of speculative built works that serve as individual challenges to default practice." In response to the development of AquíAquí, he explains, "we t...

People Over Cars: What does it mean to pedestrianize a quarter of NYC streets?

2021-03-23T10:34:00-04:00

Over the past year, since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, urban life has been transformed. This seems especially true in New York where the pressure of the lockdown was released in a burst with last summer’s uprising against racialized police violence in May and June. With people anxious to spend more time outside, the city launched a series of programs including Open Restaurants and Open Streets. Intending to buoy the struggling foodservice industry and alleviate crowding in New York’s congested public spaces, with the stroke of the Mayor’s pen, restaurants could construct semi-enclosed structures—little cabanas—atop once-precious street parking, and city officials deployed temporary wooden barriers—essentially saw horses—at intersections to create new pedestrianized corridors. Overnight, New Yorkers could dine out in sheltered sidewalk cafes and stroll car-free lanes.

It's a Great Time to Invest in the Maintenance of Public Lands

2020-07-27T13:11:00-04:00

Last month, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass an amended version of the Great American Outdoors Act (S.3422), legislation originally introduced in the House of Representatives under a different name by the recently departed, legendary Congressman John Lewis. The bill — which passed in the House last and will now head to the desk of the president for his signature into law — would secure $900 million annually in permanent, dedicated funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, as well as money to tackle the $12 billion backlog of deferred maintenance for our National Parks, National Forests and other public lands. According to advocacy group Preservation Action, about 43% of the backlog includes valuable historic structures, too.

Ball-Nogues Studio revives public space at Cedars Sinai hospital with their "Healing Pavilion"

2017-08-18T12:21:00-04:00

It's rare that underused structures in Los Angeles get a second chance at life, with most developers opting for the wrecking ball instead of an innovative redesign. In the case of an underused public terrace at the Max Factor Building at Cedars Sinai, Ball-Nogues Studio (who spoke to Archinect about this design at the Arroyo Seco Festival) has transformed the space into a destination spot with their signature blend of eye-catching aesthetics and nuanced materialism in the form of the "Healing Pavilion."

Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects pumps up the volume with "Amplified Urbanism"

2017-01-24T13:15:00-05:00

According to Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects’ new monograph Amplified Urbanism, not only has Los Angeles arrived as a city with its own idiosyncratic urbanism, but that urbanism deserves bolder, louder expression through architecture.

"Work on Work" exhibition turns public space into office space

2015-07-31T11:55:00-04:00

If the current exhibition at Los Angeles’ Architecture + Design Museum was titled by a sarcastic person, it would be called "Work/Life Balance: Pshaw!" As it is, the infographic-laden collection of vinyl banners loosely mounted to stacks of brown boxes, co-organized by Gensler and UCLA’s cityLAB, is called "Work on Work", and it is both the history of and the proposed future for society's daily grind. And man, what a grind it is.

ShowCase: Archaeological Pavilion by kadawittfeldarchitektur

2014-02-07T09:39:00-05:00

ShowCase is an on-going feature series on Archinect, presenting exciting new work from designers representing all creative fields and all geographies.

We are always accepting nominations for upcoming ShowCase features - if you would like to suggest a project, please send us a message.