Archinect - News

Tesla’s EV-charging drive-in concept is under construction in Los Angeles

2024-01-17T18:44:00-05:00

Construction on Tesla's new Stantec-designed drive-in diner and electric vehicle charging concept is making progress in Los Angeles, as the local NBC station reports.

The project, which wasn’t approved until last April, is currently taking shape at 7001 W Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. Once it is completed, the retro-inspired dining space and rest area will offer drivers 32 total electric charging stations while serving classic American roadside fare wrapped in a two-story and 9,300-square-foot faux Streamline Moderne package.

Elon Musk developed the idea after thinking out loud on his Twitter account in 2018. Tesla says the station will operate on a 24-hour capacity once it opens later in the fall.

Previously on Archinect: Tesla's diner & drive-in theater supercharger station concept gets approved for West Hollywood

The development is significant as other fast food chains across the country are preparing their own EV charging station plans, according to Axios. A two-scre...

14 to 1: Post-Katrina Architecture by the Numbers

2016-07-13T15:44:00-04:00

The thousands of new old houses in New Orleans reveal the ethos of a people in a place nearly destroyed. New Orleanians have embraced their city’s architectural heritage as they’ve rebuilt for an uncertain future.

What does post-Katrina architecture look like in New Orleans? And what does it reveal about its society? In their survey in Places, Richard Campanella and Cassidy Rosen discover that historical styles are 14 times more popular than contemporary styles in the rebuilt city, despite the focus of media coverage on experimental projects like Make It Right. The retro revival pays homage to 19th-century New Orleans and a past that has become both a refuge from the present and a cicerone to the future.

Another bittersweet look at Hotel Okura's legacy, as redesign is underway

2016-01-07T14:18:00-05:00

The company promised to “faithfully reproduce” several beloved artifacts in the lobby, including wall tapestries, paper lanterns and sliding doors, the lacquered furnishings and map of time zones...But those plans have done little to assuage the concerns of preservationists, many of whom contend that Tokyo is destroying its greatest postwar architectural assets to accommodate the 2020 Olympics and a recent surge in tourism.

The New York Times profiles the historic Hotel Okura Tokyo, which began reconstruction last September, much to the dismay of preservationists worldwide. The Times covers its modernist legacy and the pressures of the real estate and tourist market that Tokyo can't avoid.

Previous news about the Hotel Okura:

Hurry if you want to own a piece of Tokyo's iconic modernist Hotel Okura

It's lights out at the old Okura: reconstruction of the iconic Tokyo hotel starts next week

As the Okura says sayonara, Tokyo doesn't seem to care much

Pyongyang's inner Wes Anderson shines through in its architecture, then and now

2015-11-03T13:24:00-05:00

'Let us turn the whole country into a socialist fairyland,'...Throughout the city, you now encounter the recurring colour schemes of salmon and teal, or pink and baby blue...These new spaces look like they have been assembled from crisp, unreal planes of colour and exude an anaesthetising aesthetic, candy-coloured decoys that distract from a reality of mass poverty across the country.

This Wes Anderson-designed bar is retro with a capital R

2015-05-08T13:53:00-04:00

Filmmaker Wes Anderson has a knack for creating fictional spaces with attention paid to the last excruciating detail. His latest space is real, though, and even better, you can get a drink there. [...] Three new buildings, which were part of a century-old distillery and transformed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, will now house art rather than alcohol. But for the thirsty there’s also a new bar, called Bar Luce, that Anderson designed himself.

Detroit's P. Funk-inspired Mothership is ready to get the party started

2015-03-31T20:24:00-04:00

Most people would probably be envious of the lucky DJs that got to spin tunes in The Mothership (I know I am). Ann Arbor-based practice Anya Sirota + AKOAKI looked to legendary funk collective P-Funk and their iconic album Mothership Connection to design the swanky modular DJ and broadcast booth for Detroit's North End neighborhood and its local music scene.

Akoaki created The Mothership to mark the start of the collaborative O.N.E. Mile initiative, which brings together architects, designers, and artists to revive the public spaces along historic Oakland Avenue for a series of experimental cultural events all year long. The Mothership made its debut during O.N.E. Mile's free (and unprecedented) Mothership Launch event this past October, where 12 honorary members of Parliament-Funkadelic did a special live performance in an empty garage on Oakland Avenue. The mobile unit is still stationed there but has more future public appearances in tow.

The Mothership is constructed by an aluminu...

What The Future Looks Like To North Koreans Who Have Never Left

2014-07-28T17:47:00-04:00

[...] One of its latest projects: Inviting a North Korean architect to imagine the future of local design for travel. The Jetsons-style results include hovercraft hotel rooms and cone-shaped mountain villas connected by ski slopes. Nothing looks like it would be that out of place in a 1950s magazine, down to details like an old-fashioned rotary phone. This is what the future looks like to someone living in a place that's been cut off from the rest of the world since 1948.

The project Utopian Tours, initiated by English-born landscape architect turned Beijing-based North Korea tour operator Nick Bonner, was part of the Korean Peninsula’s “Crow’s Eye View” pavilion for the 2014 Venice Biennale (previously on Archinect).

MVRDV Completes the Glass Farm

2013-01-18T14:42:00-05:00

MVRDV just completed the Glass Farm, a multi-purpose building in the village square of Schijndel, the Netherlands. The exterior is printed glass with a collage of typical local farms; a monument to the past but 1.6 times larger than life. The architects see this concept as a possible contemporary response to retro-architecture whilst respecting the public's wish for vernacular authenticity.