Archinect - News

Is momentum building to revitalize Rust Belt cities?

2019-10-07T12:32:00-04:00

To local leaders, a row of abandoned redbrick buildings in the heart of this Rust Belt city’s ailing downtown presents the best hope to spark a citywide revival. The buildings—stripped down to their plaster walls, tin ceilings and worn wood floors—are part of a $150 million plan to draw more people to live and work downtown.

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the resurgent efforts being undertaken by local, state, and federal entities aimed at revitalizing Erie, Pennsylvania, a city that has suffered through persistent economic and population decline over the last 60 years.

John Lettieri, CEO of the city's Economic Innovation Group tells WSJ, “One of the biggest questions policy makers, economists and pundits are asking now is, ‘What do we do for places like Erie?’ Is there a future for these places when the industry they were built around has withered?”

Meet Platform, a new digital venue centered on buildings, spaces, and landscapes

2019-07-02T21:54:00-04:00

Platform, a new website dedicated to hosting conversations, writings, and perspectives on the built environment, has taken off.

The venture, billed as an "open digital venue for exchanging ideas about working with, researching, teaching, and writing about buildings, spaces, and landscapes," is being launched by a collection of scholars, architects, and researchers that includes University of California, Santa Barbara professor Swati Chattopadhyay, City College of New York professor Marta Gutman, Newcastle University lecturer Zeynep Kezer, and Hunter College faculty member Matthew Lasner.

Platform will publish "timely short-form essays and digital content that engage with contemporary culture and politics" online, according to a welcome announcement published by the group.

The publication's initial explorations cover a variety of provocative topics, including an essay covering American efforts to intervene in Global South housing markets by Nancy Kwak, a collection of photographs d...

A binge-worthy YouTube channel about abandoned architecture

2019-01-02T16:21:00-05:00

Are you an architecture buff who has traveling at the top of your list this year? Many travel all over to view and capture beautiful sites on camera. However, what about the places that have been forgotten and abandoned over time? These places, once filled with life and activity, have laid silently, overgrown with remnants of the past. Many would decide to skip on such a place for several reasons. However, two friends decided to take exploration into their own hands and document their journey as The Proper People.

Image © The Proper People

Bryan and Michael of the Proper People used their love for film, photography, and architecture to explore forgotten places that exist all over the world. Beginning in 2014, the avid travelers set out on a journey to explore and photograph their findings. Having made over 135 videos, these architectural cinematographers have developed a rather large fan base thanks to YouTube. With over half a million subscribers, The Proper People, have allowed fo...

Activating vacant land: a conversation about Detroit's potential and challenges

2018-07-13T15:34:00-04:00

Maurice Cox grew up in Brooklyn, a borough whose name has since become a global shorthand for gentrification. An urban designer, architectural educator, and former mayor of the City of Charlottesville, VA, in 2015 Cox became head of the planning department of Detroit, where he hopes to prevent the forces that have reshaped his childhood home from taking over the Motor City. [...] Cox is using design to catalyze growth that’s incremental and closely in line with the city’s strong sense of self.

Urban Omnibus presents an insightful conversation between Maurice Cox, Director of Planning and Development for the City of Detroit, and Marc Norman, founder of the consulting firm “Ideas and Action” and Associate Professor of Practice at UMich's Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Discussed issues range from tactical preservation, vacant land as asset, smooth growth, gentrification, and preserving Black spaces:

Detroit still has capacity for a population of 1.8 million, and we’re at less than 700,000. So part of our challenge is, how to prevent buildings turning into blight, to the point of having to demolish them?

On the other hand, if it does make sense to tear some things down, what do we put in their place? The architect’s mindset is often that the only thing that can replace a structure is another structure. But in Detroit, that makes no sense financially; it makes no sense in terms of the population. So we have to turn to other disciplines for an answer.

That’s...

Reimagining Detroit: A+D Museum’s The Architectural Imagination

2017-10-09T23:43:00-04:00

Architecture is a creative media that analyzes what is, while imagining what could and should be. Located in Los Angeles’ Art District, A+D Museum's current exhibit, The Architectural Imagination, is a showcase of re-imagining and rebuilding the outdated industrial urbanscape of Detroit, Michigan. Before coming to Los Angeles, the exhibition premiered during the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.

During the mid-20th century, Detroit was a booming urban center bursting with blue collar and white collar families benefiting from the automotive industry. However, as automotive industries began to move their factories to cheaper markets and with the rather recent American automotive bankruptcies and government bailouts, Detroit has been challenged with repurposing the remnants of an abandoned era. The projects showcased in the exhibit present ideas for compelling modern design along with appropriate programming (think atriums, markets, and green spaces) to regenerate existing neighborh...