Archinect - News

26-story building in Brazil collapses after massive blaze

2018-05-01T13:29:00-04:00

An abandoned 26-story building in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, caught fire and collapsed early Tuesday, showering the surrounding streets with fiery embers and killing at least one person, firefighters said. About 150 firefighters were battling the blaze, which started at about 1:30 a.m. local time. It is thought to have been caused by a gas explosion, according to reports.

Though officially abandoned as the former São Paulo headquarters of the federal police, about 50 families were believed to have occupied the building as squatters. Most people have reportedly managed to get out, however at least one person died in the building collapse, firefighters said.

Meet A.N.A.L., the Anarchists Squatting a Russian Oligarch's London Mansion and Housing the Homeless

2017-01-30T17:27:00-05:00

A veteran group of squatters has occupied an empty £15m central London property purchased by a Russian oligarch in 2014 and opened it as a homeless shelter. [...] The squatters – Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians, known as ANAL – said they entered the building through an open window on 23 January and have accommodated about 25 homeless people so far, many of whom had been sleeping rough around Victoria station.

DIY Space, After Ghost Ship: Safety, community and informal venues after Oakland's tragic fire, ft. S. Surface and David Keenan on Archinect Sessions #91

2016-12-08T19:22:00-05:00

Last Friday night, a fire broke out during a concert at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, California, killing (at present count) 36 people. While the precise cause of the fire is still unknown, the building was rife with code violations that accelerated the fire's damage, many related to its adapted use for living and work-spaces. While criminal investigations are just beginning, local artists worry that the city will use the tragedy to crack down on other adaptive and DIY venues in the Bay Area, restricting access even further to affordable spaces in an already tight housing market.

Within the architecture community, the tragedy has prompted discussions surrounding the safety and vitality of DIY venues, and the long-term effects of such building code violations for gentrification and zoning. To discuss on the podcast, we're joined by two guests who have personal and professional experience with forming community spaces: designer, curator and organizer S. Surface, and David Keenan...

Herzog & de Meuron to redevelop Berlin’s infamous Tacheles cultural center; locals fear gentrification

2015-06-24T14:15:00-04:00

Herzog & de Meuron, the Basel-based architecture studio that designed London’s Tate Modern, is due to redevelop Berlin’s famous art squat Tacheles. The massive warehouse, in the now fashionable Mitte district, was occupied by artists after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A symbol of the city’s subculture, Tacheles became a major tourist attraction. In 2012, the authorities closed the art centre amid widespread protests by artists and anti-gentrification campaigners.

The many lives of Johannesburg’s notorious Ponte tower

2015-06-19T17:48:00-04:00

The Ponte saga is a classic South African story. Once a Jacuzzi-filled playground for the segregated white elite in the apartheid era, then falling into chaos in the 1990s as the wealthy fled to the suburbs, then the object of failed luxury-condo schemes, the tower is now undergoing a renaissance as an icon of Johannesburg’s urban revitalization. [...] The hollow core began to fill with garbage and rubble – several stories high.

The Uncertain Future of Slab City, California

2015-03-13T20:52:00-04:00

An unregulated squatter settlement, Slab City is home to perhaps 150 year-round residents — refugees from mortgages and bill collectors, former hippies, rebels and self-identified misfits — who live in personal camps made from old trailers, truck campers and crude lean-tos, and call themselves Slabbers. From October to April, the population swells to perhaps 2,000 as snowbirds, attracted by the guaranteed sunshine and zero fees, arrive in sometimes majestic motor homes.

But now, as the New York Times article documents, the residents of Slab City are divided over the fate of their shared home. After news began to percolate that the California State Land Commission might sell the land, the "Slabbers" began to debate what to do. Should they band together to try to buy the land? Should they form a residents' association? Would that make them, for lack of a better word, sell-outs, replicating the very structures they came to Slab City to escape?

Located on top of the abandoned foundations of an old Marine base, Slab City began has been undergoing changes for some time now. After cameos in different media, in particular the film "Into the Wild," the ad-hoc city began attracting more people, some of whom are less committed to a communitarian or anarchist ethos. The Times quotes one resident: “Nowadays, a lot of people are just coming to hang out for the party.” Apparently, this has historically created problems with methamphetamine.

The article gives fair ...

Airbnb host forced to evict squatter in Palm Springs rental

2014-07-22T13:49:00-04:00

A woman rented her 600-square-foot Palm Springs, California, condo to someone for a little over a month, and now she says the guy won't leave and is threatening to sue her. She's had to hire a lawyer and go through the entire eviction process, which could take 3-6 months, the same as if he were a long-term tenant. It's "been a nightmare," the host, Cory Tschogl, told Business Insider.

Editor's Picks #317

2013-05-28T19:03:00-04:00

In the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect interviewed Larraine Henning who is currently seeking funding for A Practical Guide to Squatting on Indiegogo. @bawshaw commented "@LandMass - agreed. although the thesis is interesting, this is not out of the box in terms of a career"...Yet Connely Farr disagreed "@ LandMass - yep. you sound like an ass".

In the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect interviewed Larraine Henning who is currently seeking funding for A Practical Guide to Squatting on Indiegogo. Buy a copy of the book “A Practical Guide to Squatting”, and help support independent art and promote the squatting movement! During the interview, she reflected "I think the most valuable thing architecture school bestowed upon me was tolerance and persistence...School taught me to bear conviction and purpose with whatever project I take on, to be earnest and to take judgement in stride"...

@bawshaw commented "@LandMass - agreed. although the thesis is interesting, this is not out of the box in terms of a career. half of my graduating class ended up taking similar paths; more as a product of the recession than anything else. these paths may be alternative to the modern career, but not to architecture specifically. i do applaud her for doing what she believes in".

Yet Connely Farr disagreed "@ LandMass - yep. ...

Unused water tower in Chelsea converted into a one-time exclusive party venue

2013-05-24T16:35:00-04:00

The Heron’s architect was N. D. Austin, a 31-year-old artist known for what he calls “trespass theater.” “It’s about making the invisible visible,” he said of his philosophy. Mr. Austin located a suitable water tower by scouring Buildings Department records for violations with egregious scaffold fines. That can indicate a neglectful landlord, he said, which meant it might be a vacant building ripe for adopting as one’s own.

One Saturday night last month, 12 guests squeezed through the trap door into the space. “The great thing about the upright bass is how it got up here,” said Dirby Luongo, one of Mr. Austin’s collaborators who played the doorman. “It’s like a ship in a bottle.”

Anywhere but Here: Deserted Banking Empire turned Skyscraper Slum

2013-05-13T14:04:00-04:00

It was built for stockbrokers and bankers in their thousand dollar suits to make million dollar deals, but for nearly two decades it has held the less impressive title of the world’s tallest squat. Welcome to the Centro Financiero Confinanzas, more commonly known as the Torre David (the Tower of David) in Caracas, Venezuela, an unfinished skyscraper which has now been colonised by an ad hoc community of over 700 families.