Archinect - Features

Screen/Print #62: A Year After Ghost Ship Fire, Writer and Activist Jaime Omar Yassin Reflects on City's Response

2017-09-22T09:00:00-04:00

In December of 2016, a fire broke out during a show at Oakland's Ghost Ship, a DIY-venue located in a two-story warehouse. The incident tragically took the lives of 36 young concert-goers and prompted national discussions (including one on our podcast) of the safety and vitality of DIY venues and the long-term effects of such building code violations for gentrification and zoning.

Beyond hype and gentrification: Designing studios for artists

2017-06-30T04:15:00-04:00

The production of art has been present in our work since we started the practice nearly 8 years ago. One of our first projects was the studio of photographer Ori Gersht and painter Nogah Engler, which was for us a seminal work not only in terms of establishing some of the key principles that remain fundamental in our design approach until now, but it also marked the start of a body of work in the realm of arts and culture that has evolved into a wide range of projects, from collaborations with artists to exhibition design and gallery spaces. This was a natural consequence of the strong affinity we feel towards the process of artistic production, particularly when it comes to art from the 1960’s onwards when the ideas became as important as the making and production moved away from the artist, which brought it closer to the process of making architecture. Like some forms of art, our work often emerges from an idea of how the space or building will be experienced, and this idea ends u...

Can good design cure LA’s homeless problem? We asked Mike Alvidrez, CEO of Skid Row Housing Trust

2017-06-23T14:30:00-04:00

For Skid Row Housing Trust, a nonprofit developer in Los Angeles that builds housing for LA’s homeless population, good design is a basic civil right. Understanding that the environment plays a vital role in their residents’ recovery, the organization consistently teams up with renowned architectural firms such as Michael Maltzan Architecture and Brooks+Scarpa to design buildings for the homeless that stand out.

Invasion: A First-Hand View of Gentrification in San Francisco

2014-11-24T10:13:00-05:00

A recent Bay Area transplant sees old and new duke it out over the Bay Area's shifting public-private fault line.

"LA's Grand Central : The Gentrification of the People's Market": Interview with director Dylan Valley

2014-08-27T17:47:00-04:00

Dylan Valley is a filmmaker from Cape Town who recently completed a master’s degree at the University of Southern California. While in Los Angeles, Valley produced a short documentary film about downtown’s Grand Central Market, and its continuing transformation.

"This incredible, derogatory, racialized way people talk about the space": director Kelly Anderson's Cutting Room interview on gentrification and activism in her doc, "My Brooklyn"

2014-06-12T11:53:00-04:00

My Brooklyn takes a close look at the guiding forces behind Brooklyn’s gentrification, from the highly personal perspective of documentary filmmaker (and self-identifying gentrifier), Kelly Anderson. Pivoting around Anderson’s and producer Allison Lirish Dean’s investigation of redevelopment efforts for downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall, the documentary carefully considers both the personal and historical factors behind gentrification’s economic shifts, outlining (if not simplifying) the complexity of the gentrification debate.