Archinect - News

Coworking real-estate empire We Company announces smart cities initiative

2019-03-19T17:17:00-04:00

We Company, formerly known as WeWork, has announced plans to launch a smart cities program. Since its founding in 2010, the real-estate empire has collected an enormous amount of data on how people work and live, using that information to shape its more than 600 spaces. As the global coworking company expands its brand to tackle residential real estate (WeLive) and education (WeGrow), it is hoping to use its aggregated information to reenvision the future of our cities.

To do so, We Company has hired Di-Ann Eisnor, the former Waze executive, and Dror Benshetrit, the designer and futurist whose eponymous studio is known for their pioneering object and installation designs. Together, the two (alongside engineers, architects, data scientists, biologists, and economists) will use their innovation of the tech sector to address problems of urbanization and climate change.

WeGrow NYC, We Company's first elementary school; designed by Bjarke Ingels Group. Photo by Dave Burk.

In recent years,...

New Museum appoints V. Mitch McEwen as curator of IdeasCity initiative

2018-07-24T18:04:00-04:00

The New Museum announced today the appointment of V. Mitch McEwen as Curator of IdeasCity, the museum's initiative exploring the future of cities. McEwen is the principal and cofounder of A(n) Office, a collaborative of design studios in Detroit and New York exploring the intersection of architecture and exhibition.

IdeasCity is a creative and collaborative enterprise operating through conferences, workshops, commissions, projects, and exhibitions in order to investigate key issues and proposes solutions. The Curator is a two-year appointment linked to the biennial presentation of IdeasCity in New York and is responsible for the two-year cycle leading up to this presentation.

As Curator of IdeasCity, McEwen will head up the 2018–19 cities and launch an open call for cities around the world to apply for the 2020–21 cycle. The next IdeasCity will take place in Toronto on September 15, 2018, in partnership with the Bentway.

Since 2017, McEwen has been Assistant Professor at Princeto...

The city must become adaptable

2016-05-30T06:39:00-04:00

For the moment, we remain largely wedded to superficial visual futures. The likelihood is that the prevailing chrome and chlorophyll vision of architects and urbanists will become as much an enticing, but outdated, fashion as the Raygun Gothic of The Jetsons or the cyberpunk of Blade Runner

Darran Anderson peers into the near future, at the intersection of climate change, technology, megacities and "survivability".

Bruce Sterling remarked "It's pretty good" and #ArchitectureFiction #BigCities #AfraidofSky #OldPeople

World's first climate-controlled domed city to be built in Dubai

2014-07-13T12:48:00-04:00

Some have already joked about the city's future three million square foot "wellness district,” saying it is being designed for those who shop not only for new outfits, but also for new bodies. According to the project's press release, the domed wellness area "will offer a holistic experience to medical tourists and their families, ensuring access to quality healthcare, specialized surgical procedures and cosmetic treatments."

And thus we have the blueprint of the 0.1%'s vision of the future. An 'ideal' world existing inside a bubble, safe from the starving, diseased masses.

What if we could rebuild New York City?

2014-04-02T14:37:00-04:00

Mitchell Joachim; New York has, over the last few centuries, become one of the world’s most densely packed cities. But what if you could redraw the city’s map – and build it from scratch?

The article features both the High and Low lines, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Vision 42, Million Trees NYC, and Vertical Farms.

Architecture publication CLOG releases gorgeous "SCI-FI" issue

2013-08-30T19:48:00-04:00

Rod Serling, creator of the 1950s television series "The Twilight Zone", defined science fiction as "the improbable made possible." The same might be said for the practice of architecture. After all, architects by trade conceive of spaces, places, and worlds that do not (yet) exist. Furthermore, the ability to make the improbable possible is held in especially high regard today and is oftentimes what defines an architectural practice as “innovative” in the first place.

Contemporary architecture publication CLOG has released its seventh issue, SCI-FI. In the digital glow of the internet age, architectural discourse has become both bountiful and ephemeral, oftentimes muddling the lay of the land. In response, “CLOG slows things down. Each issue explores, from multiple viewpoints and through a variety of means, a single subject particularly relevant to architecture now. Succinctly, on paper, away from the distractions and imperatives of the screen.”
With its precise curation and focused content, CLOG’s SCI-FI examines the mutually-affecting relationship between architecture and science fiction in a variety of ventures. SCI-FI honors this “two-way artistic influence between architecture and science fiction” while provoking readers to consider future architectural aesthetics and the aesthetics of futurism. Previous issues have showcased themes surrounding BIG, Apple, and Brutalism. SCI-FI features over forty contributors from the architecture world ...

The Real iPod: Elon Musk's Wild Idea for a 'Jetson Tunnel' from S.F. to L.A.

2012-07-16T13:39:00-04:00

...how would you like something that can never crash, is immune to weather, it goes 3 or 4 times faster than the bullet train... it goes an average speed of twice what an aircraft would do. You would go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes. It would cost you much less than an air ticket than any other mode of transport. I think we could actually make it self-powering if you put solar panels on it, you generate more power than you would consume in the system.

Information Center for Little Tokyo Design Week: Future City

2011-07-11T19:55:11-04:00

LA architecture office INABA and NYC graphic designers MTWTF have shared with us their design for the information center for Little Tokyo Design Week: Future City. The festival, which opens this Thursday, July 14, celebrates the intersection of Japanese design and technology with experimental architecture in Southern California. The event in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo will feature exhibitions, panel discussions, and other public activities that explore future approaches to urbanism.

The information center displays a video that introduces the festival and which features participating designers and scholars. The exterior of INABA and MTWTF’s project borrows graphic elements of the LTDW theme logo to create a new font. The word ‘info’ is spelled out and repeated as a black and white pattern on three sides. Along the two long interior walls letters of the info font are scaled up into a large graphic that appears to change in form and color as the visitor moves through the space.

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