Archinect - Features

For Host Cities, the Olympics Are No Game

2021-08-03T13:27:00-04:00

With the 2020 Olympics underway in Tokyo, we reflect on the urban and environmental impacts of the Olympic Games on its host cities. Whether Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024, or Los Angeles 2028, the Olympics suffer from a legacy of fragmenting existing urban environments, accelerating gentrification, and alienating local citizens. Meanwhile, the environmental cost of hosting the Olympics, driven by the construction of new venues and infrastructure, serves as a visible embodiment of our failure to adequately address climate change. Among the challenges, however, there are meaningful steps for improvement.

For Los Angeles' Future, See Tokyo's Present

2020-02-03T12:00:00-05:00

Writer Colin Marshall presents a case for seeing Tokyo, Japan and Los Angeles, California as sibling cities, two places that have much in common formally, visually, and materially while remaining distinct and uncategorizable all the same. The two megalopolises possess a deep similarity," according to Marshall: They sprawl in similar ways, are multi-nodal in similar ways, and present vexing formal and urban realities that run counter to some of the more traditionally urban cities located within their respective countries.

Los Angeles, Tokyo, or both?

Making space (and a business), one thread at a time

2016-01-12T18:39:00-05:00

I met with Samira Boon earlier this year at her studio in Amsterdam, while on a trip around Europe and Asia to talk with people who are carrying the profession of architecture in new directions. I admit this is a bit of a red herring, because practice is always changing, but we are now witnessing a period where outliers are becoming a bit mainstream, even rewarded for their efforts. Which makes it absolutely the best time to talk with them.

Showcase: A’ House by Wiel Arets Architects

2015-01-05T22:58:00-05:00

Wedged between the narrow alleys and razor-sharp property lines of Tokyo's Nishi-Azabu neighborhood, A' House fits in its dense context like a shiny puzzle piece. Bold yet familiar, expansive yet compact, transparent yet opaque, open to dialogue yet impenetrable like an oyster shell.

Designed by Wiel Arets Architects, the building's innovative system of immense sliding windows responds to varying desires for privacy, air flow, light intake and participation in the neighborhood's social life.

Turns out, where Dutch and Japanese practicality intersect, one might discover concrete poetry.

Interview with John Szot of "Architecture and the Unspeakable" film series

2014-04-04T17:45:00-04:00

Architecture and the Unspeakable is a triptych of short, magnificently animated films, each exploring a different symptom of architecture’s vulnerabilities. Produced by Brooklyn Digital Foundry and directed by architect John Szot, the films feature architecture proposals from John Szot Studio, imagining distinct fictional buildings in New York, Tokyo, and Detroit -- all animated in striking digital realities.