Archinect - News

Elon Musk is planning a utopian Hoovertown outside of Austin

2023-03-10T11:36:00-05:00

In meetings with landowners and real-estate agents, Musk has reportedly described his idea for the estate — which he envisions building on thousands of acres of property he purchased on the Colorado River — as a utopia, so that his employees can live, work, and play without ever leaving.

The community, named “Snailbrook” after the Boring Company mascot, would be the first new town in Texas since Ellinger was incorporated in 2020. Pre-fab homes are the most likely housing option, with rents as low as $800 and a Montessori school campus to serve employees' children, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Musk, who owns some 3,500 acres in Bastrop County, reportedly gave disgraced antisemite Kanye West and his new architect beau a tour of the site last year as part of a ramp-up that included internal employee discussions as to who among them should be elected mayor. The entrepreneur had previously mentioned his desire to build a “starbase city” in the area.

If it ever gets up and running, it would join the new BIG-planned Telosa in an alarming trend of new billionaire-funded Utopian cities in the American west.

This is just the beginning. America's new oligarchs are focussing on "cities." And are actively seeking to create alternatives to cities which they provide ser...

Facebook hires Gehry again for next two buildings in Menlo Park

2015-04-07T20:10:00-04:00

The same week Facebook employees moved into a new Frank Gehry-designed building with a massive green roof, the social media giant submitted plans to Menlo Park for the construction of two office buildings on 58 acres it purchased last year. [...] Also designed by Gehry, the two office buildings would total 985,719 square feet and have a similar look, feel and height to the new Facebook building across from its main headquarters.

Previously: Gehry's new Facebook campus opens for business and much more

Facebook's "Zee Town" and the rocky history of corporate urbanism

2015-03-16T12:52:00-04:00

In founding a town for some 10,000 of his employees to call their own, the Facebook mogul is following generations of entrepreneurs, from the Dutch East India Company to Walt Disney. [...] Zuckerberg’s version is to take the form of a 200-acre private municipality adjacent to Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, masterplanned by long-time collaborator Frank Gehry and ever-so-humbly dubbed “Zee Town”.

Previous news from Gehry's work with Zuckerberg:

Facebook, Gehry Build Idea Factory for RipStik Geeks

Frank Gehry about his Battersea Power Station project, Norman Foster, Mark Zuckerberg

How North Adams became "a 'company town' for art"

2014-12-18T13:48:00-05:00

a $25.4 million state grant that, matched with upwards of $30 million in private funds, will allow the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) to renovate another 140,000 square feet into gallery space on its 13-acre campus. While this expansion will make it the largest contemporary art museum in the U.S., MASS MoCA has also been pioneering new economic models, civic engagement strategies and urban design interventions that are relevant for museums in much larger cities.

Paradise lost? The enduring legacy of a Soviet-era utopian workers’ district

2014-12-04T14:36:00-05:00

Architecture critic Owen Hatherley travelled to Nizhny Novgorod to visit Avtozavod, a purpose-built “workers’ paradise”. The idealism may have gone, but its legacy remains strong