Archinect - News

Kate Wagner: Rescinding progress means architects must become the agents of change

2024-08-12T12:23:00-04:00

Organizing at the community level and putting pressure on politicians can go a long way, but it’s not enough. Architects have to start seeing themselves as political actors with high stakes in the same way communities and unions do. Architects are workers and they depend on work. The fight for climate justice, resiliency, and workers’ and tenants’ rights are only going to get harder in an era of political decay, cronyism, and systemic crisis.

The fight over congestion pricing and residential building retrofits in New York City are just a couple of the many flashpoints architects should involve themselves in heavily in order to better advocate for the profession, critic Kate Wagner writes. Rightly, she states, “The field’s most meaningful efforts to combat climate change are actually quite mundane.” Progress on a number of fronts, including the decarbonization of the building sector, is being either stalled or eroded at the hands of real estate and other interests. Now professionals face the choice of further subjecting their labor or pushing back via activism or other means.

Angry letter from Architects Climate Action Network ignites controversy over 'greenwashing' and the 2022 Stirling Prize shortlist

2022-07-29T12:35:00-04:00

A public rebuke from the UK-based activist group Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) has triggered an enlivened debate online around greenwashing and the 2022 RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist after the initial group of projects was revealed last week.

Two London area residential projects included in the six-project shortlist — Panter Hudspith’s Orchard Gardens and Hopkins Architects’ 100 Liverpool Street — were given as examples of what the environmental group called “architecture that pollutes the planet.”

ACAN called out the former over its involvement in the demolition of the Heygate Estate as part of developer Lendlease’s Elephant Park ‘regeneration’ scheme, which helped displace some 80 percent of council housing residents in the SE17 postal code. In response, Panter Hudspith said: “It’s the job of the RIBA to judge buildings on their architectural quality with environmental credentials being an ever-increasing criteria in their assessment. So it seems unreasonable to suggest...

Forensic Architecture has been named a 2022 Peabody Award winner

2022-03-30T18:30:00-04:00

The activist community can rejoice today on the news that groundbreaking London-based collective Forensic Architecture (FA) has been given an Institutional Peabody Award for its continued public service and contributions to electronic media.

The group was cited for their work documenting the use of Israeli spyware called Pegasus, the ongoing exhibition Cloud Studies, and myriad investigations into police brutality, war crimes, surveillance culture, environmental racism, and the illegal occupation of Palestine.

FA’s use of various forms of data, 3D visualization technology, photogrammetry, lidar, and citizen videos was likewise commended for its innovation and incorporation into what the awards jury deemed “sophisticated architectural techniques.”

The twelve-year-old group founded by Israeli academic Eyal Weizman is coming off of another banner year in which its pursu...

Forensic Architecture is now combating an Israeli spyware giant with the help of Edward Snowden

2021-07-12T15:11:00-04:00

Two giants of activism have acquired a new target in their ongoing fight for online privacy rights in the digital age.

Forensic Architecture is pairing with Edward Snowden to take on an Israeli spyware company called NSO Group that has been behind hacks of journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists across the globe since its founding in 2010.

Courtesy of Forensic Architecture.

Decrying a campaign of “digital violence” resulting from a spyware product authored by the company called Pegasus, Forensic Architecture, which has targeted NSO in the past, is once again taking aim in the form of an open-source investigation meant to raise awareness of the ongoing abuses that have been allowed to continue despite a slate of legal challenges.

The group’s lead researcher Shourideh Molavi pointed to the psychological toll taken by hacking victims as the reason behind the group’s condemnation of Pegasus and other similar technologies it charges as having an outsized role in a system of “sta...

Pratt School of Architecture announces Quilian Riano as its new Assistant Dean

2021-07-07T19:12:00-04:00

Pratt Institute has announced the appointment of its new Assistant Dean Quilian Riano. As an architect, urban designer, researcher, and writer, his work explores architecture's relationship to design justice, anti-racist pedagogy, and urban design strategies that address socio-political issues. Riano’s decade in academia as a teacher in graduate and undergraduate studies in architecture, urban design, and interdisciplinary design has aided in the development of leading studios and design collectives that interrogate architecture and its current pedagogy.

Architecture Lobby members Quilian Riano and Peggy Deamer stage a performance of the organization’s 10-point manifesto at the 2014 AIA National Convention. Courtesy Quilian Riano 2016.

As the Assistant Dean, Riano will be working closely with Pratt School of Architecture Dean Dr. Harriet Harriss. His focus will be on "all four of the school's departments to help develop and amplify the research-driven, spatial outcomes with real-wor...

Allianz Arena will not display rainbow colors in support of LGBTQ activists following a controversial UEFA ruling

2021-06-22T21:01:00-04:00

UEFA has rejected a call from activists to convert the Allianz Arena in Munich into a rainbow-covered light scheme in unison with protests ahead of Germany’s final European Championship group game with Hungary that it is slated to host on Wednesday.

The city council’s proposal was rejected by Europe’s governing soccer body after a ruling cited the effort’s political motivations as the reasoning behind the denial.

Activists are looking to shed light on the recent passage of a bill they say is meant to target LGBTQ education in Hungary’s public school system. The Herzog and de Meuron-designed stadium would have joined other Bundesliga pitches across the country in a show of solidarity that will now be expressed by fans inside the stadium, at Town Hall, and on the city’s nearby Olympiaturm as support for the protest grows.

Aerial photo of Allianz Arena. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user Chumwa.

“We in Munich certainly won’t let ourselves be discouraged from sending a clear signal to...

Multi-talented architect and academic advocate Lesley Lokko is awarded the 2020 RIBA Annie Spink Award

2021-01-04T14:00:00-05:00

Since 2000 RIBA has presented the Annie Spink Award to individuals for their outstanding work and contributions to architectural academia. This year the prestigious biennial prize has been awarded to the multi-talented architect and academic advocate Lesley Lokko. Growing up in Ghana and Scotland, her journey towards a career in architecture has led her to become an impactful practitioner, best-selling novelist, and long-time architectural educator. Her dedication to the profession and academia has deemed her notoriety and praise.

Upon receiving the award, Lokko shares in a statement, "I am deeply humbled by the jury's decision. This award is for everyone who came out in support of the Black Lives Matter protests, which put such difficult and challenging questions on the table for us all. It is also dedicated to the teachers and students at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, whose tenacity and inventiveness have charted a new path for architectura...

DAP: Design Justice for Black Lives initiative seeks to streamline professional activism

2020-06-12T13:25:00-04:00

A new initiative focused on leveraging designers' "professional connections and privileges in the name of advancing justice" offers an easy and effective way of reaching professional organizations, leading architecture firms, political entities, and academic institutions via email.

Hosted on the website of architecture and urban design studio Colloqate, the DAP: Design Justice for Black Lives initiative, which is aligned with the design justice movement and is undertaken in solidarity with the Movement of Black Lives, automatically generates email messages preloaded with contact information for industry and academic leaders that individuals can send out to advocate for change within the design fields. The effort is the latest installment of Colloqate's Design As Protest (DAP) effort, an ongoing series of projects that instrumentalize "design as a means to speak out in support of the disinherited and marginalized communities" by exposing and working against the injustice, discrimina...

How do you critique a city? What is city criticism, and why is it important?

2019-10-29T11:18:00-04:00

Criticism: Everyone in architecture experiences it regularly. The importance of this consistent facet of the profession provides ongoing possibilities for discourse and improvement. However, like other areas where criticism plays a necessary part of establishing a significant impression or progression within society, it’s not always easy to have others detract or contradict the ideas embodied by your work.

Colin Marshall of the Guardian brings up a specific category within criticism that has particular relevance today, "the city critic." Marshall argues, "In our increasingly urban world, perhaps city criticism should be recognized as distinct and necessary." So, where does "city criticism" differ from "architecture criticism," and why should it be recognized as an integral part of understanding the built environment?

Jane Jacobs. Image via Wikipedia Commons.

Marshall speaks with critics and editors alike to help further understand and decipher what this distinct subject of criticis...

This artist trolls investors with fake real estate billboards

2019-10-22T15:47:00-04:00

A Berlin-based artist who put up billboards advertising fake real estate projects in protest against runaway property development received more than 200 calls from would-be investors who didn’t get the joke. [...] At a distance, the adverts look plausible but closer inspection of the images visualising what the new properties would look like reveals odd details.

Treptown Visions, billboard in public space, Treptow, Berlin, 2019 by Dorothea Nold. Image: Dorothea Nold/aussenwelt

"Citizens are not being asked for their permission when investors make
such drastic changes in their city, that’s why I thought it is okay to
put them without permission up to give attention to this issue," Berlin-based artist Dorothea Nold, the creative mind behind the anonymous aussenwelt billboards, said in a recent Pop-Up City article.

Occupying institutional space with light: The Illuminator

2018-10-31T16:29:00-04:00

Enter the Illuminator, a New York-based art activist collective, whose shifting membership has mastered the legal grey zone that regulates projection in public. [...] the Illuminator takes the normally stationary technology out of the classroom and onto the streets, affixing a high-powered, 12,000-lumens projector atop a van — or, when special nimbleness is required, a trolley — to ignite urban façades with political statements that are as bold as they are temporary.

Image: The Illuminator Collective.

For this recent Urban Omnibus feature, digital media scholar Eli Horwatt interviews art-activist collective The Illuminator. Since capturing the public attention with their Occupy-inspired 99% Bat Signal projection in 2011, the collective has been, quite literally, making headlines with large-scale interventions on institutional facades such as the "We’re all sitting ducks" slogan beamed on the outside of the United Nations building during a Nuclear Non-Proliferation conference in 2015 as well as smaller installations like the Edward Snowden hologram.

Image: The Illuminator Collective.

"When we project directly onto the facade of an institution whose policies and actions we stand against, we know that we are working within a set of constraints that require precise planning and rapid adaptability. We know that if they become aware of our actions, institutions will work quickly to remove any type of critical messaging from association with their buildi...

Currently at WUHO, “Now What?!” spotlights 50 years of overlooked history of activist architects

2018-09-05T19:20:00-04:00

In looking to the past at professionals in the design and architecture professions, they found that alliances, networks, groups and affiliations were the mechanisms through which architects could become the activists they yearned to be. “[...] we want to show that architects are important allies to activists,” Rafson says. “Those alliances where architects are working as a critical part of the team is what we emphasize.”

The Los Angeles Times takes a closer look at ArchiteXX's “Now What?! Advocacy, Activism and Alliances in American Architecture Since 1968” exhibition currently at the WUHO Gallery. It examines the little-known history of architects and designers who were — and still remain — at the forefront of the profession's participation in the larger civil rights, women's, and LGBTQ movements over the last 50 years.

Ai Weiwei's Beijing studio has been demolished without prior warning

2018-08-06T18:23:00-04:00

Chinese authorities are razing one of the Beijing studios of dissident artist Ai Weiwei. He said that demolition crews showed up without advance warning, and have begun the process of tearing down the studio. Ai has been a longtime critic of the government, and on Saturday, he began posting videos to his Instagram feed of the studio's destruction. "Farewell," Ai wrote. "They started to demolish my studio 'Zuoyuo' in Beijing with no precaution."

Ai, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Berlin since Chinese authorities returned his confiscated passport in 2015, responded to NPR about the sudden demolition of his Zuoyou studio in Beijing:

We didn't receive any advance warning or announcement of the demolition. We were required to move by a certain date, which we have not yet reached. [...] The demolition came as a surprise. Works were damaged due to the unannounced attack on the studio. There was no caution taken. However, compared to the memories which have been lost, compared to a society which has never established trust in the social order, a trust in the rule of law, or a trust in any kind of unity in defending the rights of its people, what has been lost at my studio is insignificant, and I don't even care. There are profoundly deeper and wider ruins in this deteriorating society where the human condition has never been respected.

Meet the "Social Design Circle": the 100 architects awarded this year's Curry Stone Design Prize

2017-01-04T12:18:00-05:00

Each year, the Curry Stone Design Prize is awarded to projects that “use design to address pressing social justice issues.” To mark the 10th anniversary of the award, the Curry Stone Foundation will award 100 projects—“the most compelling social design leaders from across the world.” Dubbed the Social Design Circle, the group was selected by a jury of Foundation members and invited international experts. Every month, a new set of winners will be introduced on the Curry Stone Foundation website, with some of them participating in a new podcast hosted by Eric Cesal and Emiliano Gandolfi. For January, the winners are Arquitectura Expandida, City Repair, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman, Ctrl+Z, Pico Colectivo, and Recetas Urbanas.

Find out more about the winners here.

For more on the Curry Stone Design Prize, check out past coverage:

Carrying a racist legacy, highways today play a central role in civil rights activism

2016-07-13T12:59:00-04:00

Block a highway, and you upend the economic life of a city, as well as the spatial logic that has long allowed people to pass through them without encountering their poverty or problems. Block a highway, and you command a lot more attention than would a rally outside a church or city hall — from traffic helicopters, immobile commuters, alarmed officials.

The article notes that, historically, highway construction decimated black communities, such as in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Oakland, and many other cities. In New York, Robert Moses explicitly used highways to clear "slums," in the process devastating parts of the Bronx and other black neighborhoods.

Highways were also used as weapons in the arsenal of segregation. For example in Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley separated traditionally white Irish neighborhoods from black communities in the South Side with the Dan Ryan Expressway.

Today, highways carry additional symbolic weight for Black Lives Matter protestors. Many of the black men killed by police over the past few years – Philando Castile, for example – were stopped in routine traffic checks.

Infrastructure also has symbolic resonance in the larger history of the civil rights movement. The article mentions as examples the Selma March, the Freedom Rides, and Rosa Park's refusal to sit at the back of a public bus.

For more on th...

Ai Weiwei documents life in Greek refugee camp on social media

2015-12-30T14:12:00-05:00

The Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is visiting Lesbos to document the plight of thousands of refugees who arrive daily on the Greek island by boat from Turkey. For the past two days, Ai has been photographing orange rubber dinghies coming into shore, families huddled around fires, people queuing to register at the Moria refugee camp and piles of discarded lifejackets, among other scenes [...] It is understood Ai will be creating a work in response to the refugee crisis.

Here are just a few of Ai Weiwei's recent photos from the Lesbos refugee camp; giving a human face to people and entire families escaping war and persecution in their home countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, as well as documenting humanitarian workers, such as the Norwegian group, Drop in the Ocean.

All photos by Ai Weiwei via @aiww on Instagram.

Susan Surface, the "humble pioneer" for socially responsible design

2015-12-28T12:49:00-05:00

"'Are you going to do beautiful architecture or do-gooder architecture?' I want to do neither and both." [...] "It's not like you're going to design some single product that revolutionizes the way people shape the world around them," Surface said. "You have to change fundamentally how your organization is structured, how your resources are allocated, stop thinking of yourself as a gatekeeper. It's about redistributing how power and decision making and resources are divided between people."

Prompted by her work with Design in Public in Seattle, this profile of Susan Surface dips into her professional and personal background to designing like she gives a damn, covering the diversity of ways she seeks to question the power structures that perpetuate socially irresponsible or discriminatory designs.

Susan joined us on episode #42 of Archinect Sessions, where we address issues of gender inclusive design in public restrooms.

Cooper Union graduates stage tuition protest at Commencement ceremony

2015-05-28T18:17:00-04:00

Cooper Union students pinned red felt squares to their graduation gowns and refused to acknowledge president Jamshed Bharucha, in the latest protest against the school's instatement of undergraduate tuition. The protest took place at the 2015 Commencement Ceremony yesterday, and was organized by student activist group Free Cooper Union, which has directed a variety of informational and protest actions in response to the landmark tuition decision.

On May 27, the day of the Ceremony, Free Cooper Union posted the following on Facebook:

At the ceremony, graduates receiving their diplomas refused to shake hands with President Jamshed Bharucha, who oversaw the school's decision to begin charging undergraduate tuition. Many students in the audience turned their backs on Bharucha during his presidential address. The protest echoed similar actions staged at 2014's Commencement, the year Cooper Union officially began charging.

In an effort to mitigate a lawsuit filed against the schoo l by a stud...

Open data's potential & challenges to boost tenants’ rights activism

2015-05-11T17:54:00-04:00

Open data, and the interactive mapping and data visualization that can come of it, has become a de facto engagement and storytelling tool among contemporary journalists, social justice activists, and civic-minded technologists. But despite its allure, open data’s potential for fostering civic engagement and creating transparency and dialogue is plagued by issues of usability, access, and quality control.

The Year 2014 in Architectural Activism

2014-12-29T10:00:00-05:00

Let's admit it, we architects much too often get lost in narcissistic own-horn-tooting, passionate ego-inflating, disillusioned navel-gazing, vile shit-flinging or simply in the mundane day-to-day operations for the paying clientele.

But all is not completely lost thanks to the tireless work and burning passion of individuals and groups around the world seeking the greater good, putting humanity first, improving this planet one initiative at a time.

Topics we had the honor of reporting about on Archinect & Bustler this year ranged from the Israel-Gaza conflict, Syrian refugee crisis, Ukrainian revolution, climate change, historic preservation, #folkmoma, abortion clinics and affordable housing all the way to still very recent issues like the Ebola epidemic and Ferguson protests.

Following is my personal (and hopelessly incomplete) list of noteworthy and much-discussed examples of architectural activism on Archinect & Bustler in 2014:

Exhibition Explores the Design of Protest Movements...

Saving Buildings with Social Media (Or Not)

2014-11-19T14:56:00-05:00

We call it “destructoporn” (since 2007, according to Urban Dictionary) and it comes, unbidden, via digital media. Where did I see that Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s Folk Art Museum, just thirteen years old, was down to steel and rubble? The art critic Jerry Saltz’s Instagram. [...] The dailiness, even hourliness, of social media makes it a perfect vehicle for documenting each thump of the wrecking ball, each crunch of the backhoe. Its visual slant is ideal for activism wrapped up in pictures.

Robert Moses vs. Jane Jacobs: The Opera

2014-04-24T16:27:00-04:00

It's the urban planning equivalent of Rinaldo. Except instead of the siege of Jerusalem, it's the battle for Greenwich Village. The legendary 1960s struggle pitted planning czar Robert Moses against neighborhood activist Jane Jacobs. Moses wanted to make the city easily navigable by car [...] But the powerful planner met his match when he proposed an expressway through Lower Manhattan. Though she had little institutional support, Jacobs built a citizen coalition that ultimately defeated Moses.

MoMA pulls back from original plan to destroy award-winning American Folk Art Museum building

2013-05-11T22:08:00-04:00

Thursday, MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry sent a memo to MoMA's trustees and staff announcing the museum had retained Diller Scofidio + Renfro to "work with us to design a plan that will integrate the Museum's current building with the property of the American Folk Art Museum. . . . We readily agreed to consider a range of options, and look forward to seeing their results."

A statement from Diller Scofidio + Renfro said the design firm would explore all possibilities, "which include, but are not limited to, integrating the former American Folk Art Museum building, designed by our friends and admired colleagues, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien."

"My sense is they will try to save at least some of it. I can't imagine good designers destroying a great building for no good reason," said Quilian Riano, acting professor of design at Parsons The New School.

Riano helped lead a digital battle to offer MoMA "alternative visions" to destroying the 12-year-old building that swept world arch...

Outside the Citadel, Social Practice Art Is Intended to Nurture

2013-03-25T18:15:00-04:00

As the commercial art world in America rides a boom unlike any it has ever experienced, another kind of art world growing rapidly in its shadows is beginning to assert itself. And art institutions around the country are grappling with how to bring it within museum walls and make the case that it can be appreciated along with paintings, sculpture and other more tangible works.

Manuel Castells on the rise of alternative economic cultures

2012-11-12T11:45:00-05:00

We live in a culture of not virtual reality, but real virtuality because our virtuality - meaning the internet networks - are a fundamental part of our reality. All the studies on the internet show that people who are more social on the internet are also more social face-to-face.

U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Announces Participating Projects

2012-06-22T21:04:00-04:00

The U.S. Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, organized by the Institute for Urban Design on behalf of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will be devoted to the theme Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good. The exhibit features 124 urban interventions initiated by architects, designers, planners, artists, and everyday citizens that bring positive change to their neighborhoods and cities.

Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

IluminAction by UrbanoActivo Selected for Venice Architecture Biennale

2012-06-19T13:45:00-04:00

The project IlluminAction by UrbanoActivo, an open design collective from Puerto Rico, has been selected to represent the island in the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy this fall (August 29 – November 25). The selection was narrowed from 450 project submissions nationwide and will be presented as part of the Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good exhibition by The Institute for Urban Design.

This exhibit will be part of an archive of actionable strategies around U.S. cities to improve the public urban realm.

Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

Art & Agenda: Political Art and Activism

2011-04-28T17:50:15-04:00

Life has become significantly more political in the new millennium, especially in the aftermath of worldwide financial crisis. Art is both driving and documenting this upheaval. Increasingly, new visual concepts and commentaries are being used to represent and communicate emotionally charged topics, thereby bringing them onto local political and social agendas in a way far more powerful than words alone.

In the light of politically active artists facing more and more opposition and oppression (Ai Weiwei remains under Chinese arrest), the just released book Art & Agenda is an important documentation of current urban interventions, installations, performances, sculptures, and paintings and also points to future forms of political discourse.

Activists respond to sit-lie with handmade benches

2011-04-19T11:43:28-04:00

Sometime before 1 a.m. on April 11, a group of activists installed handmade benches at 10 different locations throughout San Francisco as a political statement against the city's sit-lie ordinance. The law, approved by voters last November, prohibits sitting or lying down on city sidewalks.

A spokesperson from the group offered to share images of the benches with the Guardian on condition of anonymity. The person noted that the benches were built by hand using wooden pallets found on the side of the road. The images were sent in an email with the subject line, "Angry queers protest sit/lie with public art."