Archinect - News

Blue Check Homes installs Twitter-style blue checks on houses for "authentic public figures"

2021-02-09T14:02:00-05:00

According to its satirical official website, BLUE CHECK HOMES offers clients a verified blue badge on their homes. "The blue verified badge on your house lets people outside know that you're an authentic public figure. To receive the blue check crest, there must be someone authentic and notable actively living in the house," the site explains.

Simply provide your first name and all of your social media accounts and BLUE CHECK HOMES wait for a review and interview with the company's board. If you are approved, pay the fee and get a crest installed.

Pricing? For verified homeowners, "the BLUE CHECK HOMES installation team will secure your home's very own plaster baronial crest for a fee of $2999.99."

The jokester behind this is artist Danielle Baskin. In a postscript on the website, she writes, "If you thought this was a full-fledged service, please investigate the things you read on the internet! And if you're an artist making jokes on the internet, we should consider adding disclaim...

300-mile wall "proposed" for the Bay Area to exile Burning Man festivalgoers, forever

2015-08-07T18:26:00-04:00

Comedy troupe Cultivated Wit takes a humorous jab at megaprojects, outlandish crowdsourcing, and how much San Franciscans loathe Burning Man in a cheeky mock campaign that would support the construction of a 300-mile wall around the Bay Area to keep Burners out, forever. And all at a reasonable cost of $7 billion. Set up like a Kickstarter page, Cultivated Wit's MegaGoGo — "the funding platform for large-scale infrastructure"— is complete with those much-needed backer rewards and a satirical campaign video.

The host of the campaign video details the world-changing benefits of a Burner-wall: "We can make a whole new way of life, as long as we just adhere to a couple principles, like inclusion. If this project is anything, it's about bringing people together — together to lock people out...We've got to be mindful of the environment. That's why we can't leave a single trace, aside from the giant wall."

You can check out the entire video below.

h/t sfist.com

Guggenheim Spoof Site Targets Abu Dhabi Controversy

2014-03-28T12:37:00-04:00

A spoof Guggenheim website, globalguggenheim.org, went live this morning with a satirical “Sustainable Design Competition” for the global museum’s embattled Abu Dhabi branch. The website, a slightly modified replica of the official Guggenheim version, features images of Saadiyat Island, where the museum is to be built, overlayed with the hashtag #futureguggenheim, as well as references to Gulf Labor’s ongoing 52 Weeks campaign.

Is that a luge in Times Square?

2014-02-06T16:34:00-05:00

Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s vision of new sporting venues across the boroughs fizzled, and New York lost its bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. But what if the city had tried to get the Winter Olympics instead? It would probably take more hubris than even this city can muster, but the exercise provides some telling measures of scale.