Archinect - News

Carlo Ratti wants to remake New York into a ‘Playground City’

2023-05-15T17:09:00-04:00

Carlo Ratti and Harvard's Economics department chair Edward Glaeser recently detailed their vision of New York as a “Playground City” in an interactive opinion feature for the New York Times. The six-point plan calls for a number of radical solutions — including the widespread (but not windowless) conversion of “deep core” office buildings favored in comments by Mayor Eric Adams — and apparently has parallels to life in 17th- and 18th-century London.

“In a Playground City,” they describe, “mixed-use neighborhoods that tie life, labor and leisure together generate what the New York urbanist Jane Jacobs calls the 'sidewalk ballet,' a productive and playful dynamic in which a diversity of different users come and go at all hours.”

The plan centers on increased social interaction and a revival of street life, fueled by small businesses, green space, and recreation. They say we must “view the city as a for-profit real estate development company wholly owned by a nonprofit poverty-allevi...

OpenSea is now hosting a Nakagin Capsule model NFT auction

2022-08-17T18:29:00-04:00

Tokyo’s beloved Nakagin Capsule Tower may be getting its speculated second digital life after all thanks to a new metaverse project from the firm of its original designer Kisho Kurokawa Architect and Associates (KKAA) and the NFT platform OpenSea.

In an exclusive collaboration with the LAETOLI Corporation’s KABUKI-X venture, the firm is now auctioning off the rights to reconstruct their founder’s most famous Metabolic work in both the physical and digital realms only a few months removed from the neglected tower’s ongoing demolition, which began formally at the end of April. Bidders will have the chance to reconstruct the tower inside the metaverse and at the global site of their choice using CAD data and a digital model of the tower produced in Revit by design partners BDP.

Image courtesy OpenSea

Restrictions are limited to the local zoning laws and regulations of the country the holders of the ‘real space’ rights select to build in. This otherwise allows for the potential resale ...

Toronto's new multi-use social nexus fosters recreation and education

2021-02-04T13:24:00-05:00

The new Canoe Landing Campus designed by ZAS Architects in Toronto introduces a social and educational offering that was missing in CityPlace, one of Toronto's most populated residential developments.

The new project houses a $65 million community recreation center, public and Catholic elementary schools, and a childcare center within one campus. "Canoe Landing Campus has been embraced as a place that builds a real sense of ‘neighborhood’ for this vertical community," says Peter Duckworth-Pilkington, Principal, ZAS Architects, in a statement "We started by listening to the residents and the result is a unique architectural response not previously seen in the city."

The schools on the site share indoor play spaces, a learning commons, gymnasium, and educational areas. The outdoor park and community rooms are also accessible to the public sector. Additionally, the two-story community center is bisected by a pedestrian corridor and connects the three-sto...