Archinect - News

Groundbreaking conceptual artist Robert Irwin dies at 95

2023-10-26T15:35:00-04:00

Robert Irwin, a pioneering conceptual artist and leading figure of the Light and Space movement whose work had significant influences in architecture, passed away last night in San Diego. He was 95.

Irwin helped push the boundaries of American post-war art with his understanding of the principles of design. Along with a cohort of artists like James Turrell, Richard Serra, Larry Bell, and Donald Judd, Irwin worked to constantly challenge the perception of his viewers. He left behind painting to pursue a “conditional art” that espoused a further shift away from pictorial composition and towards the responsiveness of art objects to the context of a site.

Irwin’s collaborative site-conditioned work with institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Dia Art Foundation, and LACMA set new precedents for the inclusion of living artists in a museum’s program, the influence of which today can be seen in the careers of Marina Abramović and Isaac Julien, among others. Irwin was also ...

San Diego engineering firm seeks an architect to help its clean water initiatives

2023-05-24T12:38:00-04:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Manager of Climate Action & Design Excellence at the American Institute of Architects, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Staff Architect - Wastewater Division at Parsons Corp.

The role calls for an individual to lead the company’s design efforts supporting their San Diego pure water project for wastewater and water treatment systems. Among the responsibilities will be to coordinate and manage design efforts for the company’s overall San Diego Pure Water project, and to manage specific design efforts for wastewater and water treatment facilities in San Diego City and County.

Why the role interests us

The open position at Parsons Corp offers us the opportunity to review the many initiatives underway across California with regard to water management. In March, we r...

World’s tallest full-scale building earthquake test takes place at UC San Diego

2023-05-10T15:09:00-04:00

UC San Diego has hosted the tallest full-scale seismic building test on an earthquake simulator. The LEVER Architecture-designed 10-story building, made of cross-laminated timber, was tested on what the organizers say is the world’s largest outdoor shake table.

Image credit: UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

Tests on the structure began in late April, where a shake table simulated earthquake motions recorded during prior earthquakes covering a range of magnitude 4 to magnitude 8 on the Richter scale. The range also included various iterations of the 6.7 magnitude Northridge Earthquake which struck Los Angeles in 1994.

Image credit: UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

The shake table used in the test has been designed to “reproduce the full 3D ground motions that occur during earthquakes” including a movement of up to six degrees of freedom. Atop the table is what the team has dubbed the Tallwood building: A 116-foot-tall cross-laminated timber structure roughly one-fifth...

Designing for disaster in an increasingly fire-burdened California

2023-04-19T11:45:00-04:00

Each home was considered to be built to shelter-in-place standards, with ignition-resistant construction and materials—a cutting-edge approach for the time, though the standards have since been adopted into state and local codes. They are little fortresses of tile roofs, stucco walls, hardscape patios, and covered eaves. [The] heavy fortification gives the communities—both the structures and the people who shelter in them—an extra chance to survive.

The state is in a bind caused by its dire need to quickly enact affordable housing and the movement of populations into liminal wildland-urban interface zones, both of which are placing more people in the fight or flight predicament that’s leading to more innovations in residential design surrounding the concept of defensible space.

Experts point to homes in the Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood in San Diego as exemplars of fire safety that the rest of the state is still lagging to catch on to, hemmed in by costs that are making defensive evacuation plans harder to execute. “Shelter-in-place really was a theory,” local fire protection specialist Brandon Closs told the MIT Technology Review, “it’s still a work in progress.”

Foster + Partners selected to design San Diego Museum of Art expansion

2023-03-08T17:32:00-05:00

Foster + Partners has been announced as the Design Architect of a new renovation of the 97-year-old San Diego Museum of Art following a comprehensive search.

Located in Balboa Park, the museum will add a new education center and welcome pavilion through the delivery of the project, which focuses on its west wing. Renovations will make it more sustainable and better suited to serve San Diego’s increasingly diverse population while enhancing the museum’s facilities and visitor experience overall. LPA Design Studio, which has an office in San Diego, has signed on as the Architect of Record.

“I have always admired San Diego’s rich cultural diversity and deep sense of community. We are delighted to be working with The San Diego Museum of Art to strengthen its roots in the area, reinvigorating a much-loved landmark with the ultimate aim of making art more accessible to the community.”

Deference for the historical importance of Balboa Park was reportedly a main factor in the firm’s unanimo...

San Diego-Tijuana selected as the World Design Capital for 2024

2023-02-21T17:41:00-05:00

The World Design Organization (WDO) has announced a cross-border combination of San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico as the official World Design Capital for 2024.

The designation was bestowed “as a result of their commitment to human-centered design and legacy of cross-border collaboration to transform the region’s natural and built environments,” according to the WDO. Their selection marks the first time in history that a binational urban region will share the honor that was first established in 2008.

Both cities boast their own stock of significant architecture (The Salk Institute and Geisel Library in San Diego; various monuments and the CECUT Cultural Center in Tijuana) and will leverage the title in order to pursue a slate of dispositive investigations into issues impacting the built environment in both communities under the banner HOME2024.

“In today’s socio-e...

Annabelle Selldorf goes inside her long-awaited Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego design

2022-04-29T12:06:00-04:00

“People always think we do sensitive historical renovations, but that’s not all we do,” “It matters a great deal because it’s new,” Ms. Selldorf said of the San Diego museum. “It’s my biggest new-built institution. And it stands on its own two feet.”

NYT writer Ted Loos went to San Diego for a visit to the just reopened Museum of Contemporary Art with the doyenne of the typology who talked about the renovation’s overarching mission to “greater clarity across the history of all the building types” and her personal desire to leave Irving Gill’s original 1916 structure “completely unencumbered.”

Image courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Selldorf acknowledged the early preservation effort championed by Denise Scott Brown indicating that it was a major focus not to alter her 1996 design as much as possible, adding that it was her “only regret” that they didn’t meet before the project was inaugurated in 2015. She described the end result as “a space that is well-balanced, well-proportioned, calm, focused and not about gesture” and closed by mentioning its intention in the context of the development of the museum's audience.

“I thought about how I can bring people in, and make them feel like they are welcome there,” she said...

San Diego wants to scrap residential density limits in latest pro-housing plan

2019-12-09T14:57:00-05:00

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer is opening another salvo in his administration's efforts to address the city's housing affordability crisis by proposing the so-called "Complete Communities Housing Solutions Initiative," a scheme that looks beyond simply building new housing to embrace holistic urban development.

The proposal was endorsed unanimously by the San Diego City Council's Land Use and Housing Committee last week, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. The proposal presents an effort to refocus certain key elements of the city's zoning code to incentivize the development of smaller units, including one-bedroom and studio homes, and by allowing housing developers to offer community amenities that are decoupled from auto-oriented uses.

Describing the plan, San Diego planning director Mike Hansen tells The San Diego Union-Tribune, "We want to meet the needs of everyone in every neighborhood with an integrated land-use management approach that looks at not just housing, but ...

100 MPH commuter rail plan could modernize San Diego's highways

2019-10-22T12:47:00-04:00

The San Diego Association of Governments’ ambitious rail plan includes laying hundreds of miles of track throughout the county to connect residential areas to these job centers. Agency experts are analyzing the region’s commuter patterns in an attempt to design rail service that lures commuters off the most congested highway corridors. The lines, many of which are planned as subways, will go through existing residential areas with the added aim of encouraging dense development along the routes.

The ambitious plan could be funded by a series of sales tax increases, which would have to be approved by local voters.

SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “I think this region is more suited to follow-up with transit-oriented development than any other region in the country,” adding, “All California and the U.S. is designed around the car, around the interstate system. It took 50 years to have the land-use we have. It’s going to take 50 years to reverse it with the rail.”

Lawsuit could stop (or slow down) Horton Plaza demolition in San Diego

2019-10-17T09:15:00-04:00

Last week, Macy’s West Stores, Inc. filed suit against Stockdale, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm that took over the downtown property from Westfield in August 2018. The department store is asking a San Diego Superior Court judge to block the developer’s plan on grounds that it violates Macy’s lease agreement and an even more substantial contract, known as a reciprocal easement agreement. The latter document gives the retailer veto power over major property improvements.

A new lawsuit brought by Macy’s, a tenant at Horton Plaza, the spectacular postmodern shopping mall in San Diego designed by Jon Jerde in 1985, has cast doubt on plans for a significant re-do of the property.

Horton Plaza in San Diego, Image By Sandy Huffaker, Jr. Photography - The Jerde Partnership, Inc., CC BY 3.0

Under the proposed project, which has gained wide support among the city’s political leaders, the mall’s postmodern stylings would be ripped away and replaced with curtain wall glass, while the property itself would be reoriented toward co-working uses with the remaining retail spaces filled with tenants that might better serve those new users.

According to The San Diego Union Tribune, “interior demolition” of the project is already underway.

San Diego forges ahead with urban densification plan

2019-08-14T14:30:00-04:00

San Diego approved new growth blueprints Thursday that allow for mid-rise housing and dense urban villages in neighborhoods near new trolley stops in Linda Vista and the northeast corner of Pacific Beach. City Council members said the new zoning will simultaneously help solve San Diego’s housing crisis, reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change and revamp blighted areas where bicyclists and pedestrians face major challenges.

The YIMBY-inspired plan will more than quadruple the number of housing units allowed in areas surrounding a forthcoming $2 billion transit line slated to run through San Diego's northwest quadrant.

Matt Adams, vice president of the local chapter of the Building Industry Association., told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “This is an essential component to addressing our housing crisis.”

Critics of the plan argue that the inclusionary zoning requirements packaged with the increased density bonuses will bring an insufficient number of affordable housing units to the area.

BIG proposes 500-foot observation tower for San Diego

2019-07-23T13:11:00-04:00

A proposed observation tower at the edge of Pacific Highway is a polarizing symbol of change that could make or break the larger, $2.4 billion redevelopment effort planned for downtown’s Central Embarcadero.

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and developers 1HWY1 have proposed a 500-foot cylindrical observation tower for San Diego's waterfront Central Embarcadero as part of a massive $2.4 billion Seaport San Diego project.

The part-hotel, part-theme park development could include 385 hotel rooms, a 170,822-square-foot "vertical aquarium," and other retail, office, and leisure spaces, according to a recent report from The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The proposal, which will have to undergo extensive environmental review and be approved by the California Coastal Commission, is not without controversy, however.

Ground-level view of the proposed observation tower. Image courtesy of Seaport San Diego.

Melody Lasiter, a San Diego coastal planner, told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “We have concerns about the bulk and scale of the project in general."

Lasiter added, “Our major concern is that the existing development down at Seaport Village right now is easily accessible for a wide range of incomes. The...

Plan to redevelop Jon Jerde's Horton Plaza moves forward in San Diego

2019-05-23T13:30:00-04:00

The San Diego City Council voted unanimously to approve “Campus At Horton” on Monday. It's a redevelopment plan that would turn Horton Plaza into a tech hub. Stockdale Capital Partners, an LA-based real estate firm, bought Horton Plaza from Westfield back in August with known intentions of redevelopment. When Stockdale announced the purchase, the firm said their new tech hub plan for Horton was expected to create 4,000 jobs, and generate $1.8 billion each year.

With the iconic Jon Jerde-designed Horton Plaza mall in San Diego poised for transformation, one of Southern California’s key works of postmodern urbanism is soon to be lost.

Horton Plaza in San Diego, Image ©Coolcaesar

In designing the superblock mall in 1985, Jerde, who was referred to as the Frank Gehry's “evil" twin in the Rem Koolhaas-produced Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping, sought to reintroduce the communal act of shopping back into the city center. Designed as pop-pup historical context, Horton Plaza is organized around a central shopping courtyard framed by classically-inspired, multi-story facades.

Those colorful facades will soon give way to expanses of curtain wall glass and other contemporary finishes. Developer Stockdale Capital Partners aims to start construction later this year.

Trump border wall prototypes demolished

2019-03-01T19:47:00-05:00

And the prototypes came tumbling down. [...] They have been used most dramatically as a backdrop for a presidential visit last March and for protest art. [...] On Wednesday, slabs from seven out of the eight prototypes fell in clouds of dust in under two hours, no match for a jackhammer. At the point of destruction, an owl fled from a steel tube atop one section.

And just as quickly as they came, they're gone again: seven of the eight prototypes for a lofty 1,954-mile border wall project to Mexico were bulldozed and turned into piles of expensive rubble on Wednesday morning.

The Guardian writes that "according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, the eight model sections were riddled with design and construction flaws. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) tested the slabs and found they could be breached."

In light of such grave design flaws, Mexico will likely not want to pay for the wall anymore.

What will be the fate of Jon Jerde's iconic Horton Plaza?

2019-02-22T14:31:00-05:00

Preservation advocates, including Docomomo US, have come out in strong support of retaining the site's unique postmodern elements, writing letters and urging the new owner, Civic San Deigo, the local economic development entity, and the San Diego Historical Resources Board to evaluate the project further and consider its historic significance.

To some Horton Plaza may appear to be an odd mix match of colors and structural directions, but to others, this postmodern complex is an architectural relic that should be preserved. Opening its doors in 1985, the plaza was designed as a place that would help revitalize San Diego's downtown Gaslamp area during the mid-'80s. Although its overall appearance may not have screamed the traditional shopping center look, the plaza's opening drew in over 30 million visitors in its first year alone. With the success of the plaza's engagement, this allowed for the project's architect Jon Jerde and supergraphic designers Deborah Sussman and Paul Prejza to launch their careers in shopping mall design.

Horton Plaza in San Diego, Image By Sandy Huffaker, Jr. Photography - The Jerde Partnership, Inc., CC BY 3.0

Aerial view of Horton Plaza, Image © Phil Konstantine

Horton Plaza in San Diego, Image © prayitno.hadinata

Jon Jerde, a Los Angeles based architect, was commissioned by developer Ernie Hahn to...

A 1950's replica town in San Diego aids patients with memory therapy

2018-09-17T14:12:00-04:00

On August 13, a brand-new town in Southern California welcomed its first residents [...] on a light-industrial stretch of Main Street in Chula Vista, a San Diego suburb. Then they emerged in Town Square®—a 9,000-square-foot working replica of a 1950s downtown, built and operated by the George G. Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Centers. Unlike the businesses around it hawking restaurant supplies and tires, Town Square trades in an intangible good: memories.

The new 50's replica town in San Diego is the largest US investment in reminiscence therapy for dementia and age-related cognitive impaired patients. The industrial warehouse has been transformed into a fake town of 14 storefronts complete with a diner, a movie theater, a pet store, a park-like square, and a city hall. Patients are aided in therapy by props from the years between 1953 and 1961. Several other locations are forthcoming, the next planned for a former Rite Aid in Baltimore.

Trump's design feedback on border wall prototypes: "We have to have a see-through wall"

2018-03-13T18:40:00-04:00

President Donald Trump took a firsthand look today at the eight massive border wall prototypes that he had commissioned in San Diego for the “big, beautiful wall” he wants to build along the Southwest border, favoring a mixture of see-through capability topped with rounded concrete to make it impassable by climbers.

It's been a busy Tuesday morning for Donald Trump today: after firing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via a 5:44 AM Tweet, he traveled to San Diego to personally inspect the 8 border wall prototypes that had been erected last fall mere yards away from the actual U.S. border with Mexico.

One of the four "other materials" prototypes. Image: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Upon visiting the 30-foot-tall structures, Trump's initial design feedback seemed to strongly favor the four non-concrete "other materials" prototypes over the solid, opaque versions: "You have to have see-through," he said. "You have to know what's on the other side of the wall." Trump gave more specifics, adding: "You could be two feet from a criminal cartel, and you don't even know they’re there."

Another "other materials" prototype. Image: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

In an unexpected, almost admiring tone, Donald Trump praised the athletic abilities of immigrants trying to enter the United States, sayi...

Facing backlash, companies building Trump's wall prototype seek protections

2017-11-06T20:02:00-05:00

The prototypes for Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico have been completed, and the six participating companies, whose names have been publicly released, are beginning to face some serious pushback.

Since the bidding process began, companies vying for the construction contract have received nonstop calls and criticism, been the site of protests, have received countless death threats, and according to one company, have even had their tractors stolen. Accused of betraying their own community, Hispanic-owned construction firms participating in the bidding process have faced the most backlash.

Security work along the border has always been contentious and companies that have worked on the border fence as well as related roads and lighting have always experienced various levels of harassment. However, things are more charged nowadays.

Beyond public criticism, companies competing to bid Trump's wall are facing legislative opposition on both the local and state level. Berkeley...

Trump border wall prototypes completed, prepare for sledgehammer testing

2017-10-30T14:23:00-04:00

[...] prototypes for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico have been completed and will be subjected to punishment to test their mettle — by workers wielding sledgehammers, torches, pickaxes and battery-operated tools. The testing lasting up to two months could lead to officials concluding that elements of several designs should be merged to create effective walls [...]. That raises the possibility of no winner or winners.

The six companies that were awarded contracts to build prototypes of Trump's border wall with Mexico earlier this year have completed their full-scale models on a site near San Diego and will see their creations undergo rigorous testing for nonclimbability, nonunderdiggability, and resistance to tools like sledgehammers and pickaxes (no word on battering rams or poisoned arrows).

While funding for the lofty idea of equipping all 1,954 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border with 30-foot-tall fortifications is still up in the air, the contractors erecting the selected prototypes were awarded between $300,000 and $500,000 for each model.

Here are a few of the prototype designs — some cast in concrete and some built of other materials to allow border patrol agents to peek through the wall into Mexico and prevent passersby on the northern side from being hit on the head by large sacks of drugs that reportedly keep flying over the wall.

All images via U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

...

DAZZLE, new interactive installation at the San Diego Airport, is inspired by a camouflage technique used on ships during WWI

2017-09-14T14:39:00-04:00

Ueberall International, an LA based design firm, in partnership with E Ink created DAZZLE, an interactive work of public art at the San Diego airport's new rental car station.

DAZZLE. Image: E ink

The interactive facade is created with e-paper, a technology similarly used in e-readers, but applied here on an architectural scale. Made with over 2,000 interactive tiles, the installation spans a third of a mile. The design is inspired by Norman Wilkinson’s “Razzle Dazzle” camouflage technique used on ships during World War I.

Razzle Dazzle on WWI ship. Image via Wikipedia.

Watch the video of the instillation bellow:

Get Lectured: Woodbury University, Fall '17

2017-09-14T14:16:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2017

Ready or not, it's the start of a new school year. Back for Fall 2017 is Archinect's Get Lectured, an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back regularly to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

The Woodbury University School of Architecture's Fall '17 lecture series is “Emerging Practices”, which brings together rising practitioners, theorist, venture incubators, and strategic designers who explore “divergent ideas to reorient the profession to more integral and interdisciplinary roles”.

LOS ANGELES - BURBANK CAMPUS: 7500 N Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank, CA 91504

Sept 5
Kevin Bethune & Lamer Walker / BCG Digital Ventures

Sept 26
Ana Herruzo / Woodbury School of Media, Culture & Design

Oct 3
Edwin Chan / EC3 Archit...

Trump administration to waive environmental rules and other laws to expedite border wall construction

2017-08-02T18:04:00-04:00

The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will waive environmental reviews and other laws to replace a stretch of border wall in San Diego, moving to make good on one of the president’s signature campaign pledges. Critics including the Center for Biological Diversity criticized the move as overreach and a threat to the environment.

"Last week, the House of Representatives approved the administration’s request for $1.6 billion to start building Trump’s border wall," PBS NewsHour reports, "which would include replacing 14 miles (22 kilometers) in San Diego covered by the latest waiver and building 60 miles (96 kilometers) of new barriers in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley."

And the Rio Grande stretch, as we all know, will require some (costly) construction magic.

The Department of Homeland Security plans to start building prototypes for Mexico border wall this summer

2017-06-28T14:55:00-04:00

Congress may not have agreed to President Trump's $2.6 billion budget proposal for his much-touted border wall, but that has not stopped Customs and Border Protection from preparing for the first stage of the project; testing prototypes for the border protection.

According to Ronald Vitiello, Customs and Border Protection’s acting deputy commissioner, $20 million, allocated from other programs, have been used to pay four to eight companies that will be contracted to produce prototypes for the border wall with Mexico. To be completed within 30 days in San Diego those prototypes will then serve as models for the roughly 2,000-mile border. More than 600 companies submitted designs for the wall before a March deadline.
“Think of it,” Trump told a crowd at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “The higher it goes, the more valuable it is. Pretty good imagination, right?”

Get Lectured: Woodbury University, Spring '17

2017-02-01T13:10:00-05:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter & Spring 2017

Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session for Winter and Spring 2017. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss. Mark those calendars!

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Based in Burbank and San Diego, the Woodbury University School of Architecture has plenty of events in store for the Spring '17 semester. Here are some of the upcoming events at both campuses. All lectures begin at 6:30 p.m.

BURBANK CAMPUS
7500 N Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank, CA 91504

Feb 3
“Womanhouse and WomEnhouse: A Twenty-Year Perspective on Feminism and Architecture” panel discussion
Annie Chu, Christina Magar, Pat Morton, Paulette Singley (moderator)
at Helms Bakery

Feb 7
Doris Sung / Principal, DOSU ...

Get Lectured: Woodbury University, Fall '16

2016-09-02T13:35:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2016

Gearing up for another eventful school year this fall? Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss. Mark those calendars!

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

The Woodbury University School of Architecture Fall '16 lecture series kicks off on September 27. See what events they have in store at their Los Angeles and San Diego campuses, as well as the WUHO and Wedge galleries.

LOS ANGELES CAMPUS
All lectures start at 6:30 p.m.

Sept 27
John Winston / Principal of John Winston Studio
at Ahmanson Main Space

Oct 5
“Calibrating Viscosity” panel discussion
at Helms Bakery District

Oct 25
Mitchell Squire / Iowa State University
at Ahmanson Main Space

Nov ...

Newschool President Marvin Malecha about his big plans for the school and San Diego

2016-03-31T17:46:00-04:00

“San Diego is no longer a backwater to Los Angeles and San Francisco,” he said. “San Diego is becoming its own thing, its own place... a thought leader on its own, an innovation community.” Malecha, the former dean at Cal Poly Pomona and North Carolina State University’s design schools, has big plans for Newschool, starting with more than doubling the 500-student enrollment by 2025 and taking over more space at the current location at Park Boulevard and F Street.

What is a physical bookstore without that many books?

2016-03-09T13:45:00-05:00

Called Amazon Books, the store will be located at Westfield UTC mall near UC San Diego...The store will presumably resemble the Seattle location, which sells a limited selection of Amazon's best-reviewed books. That venue also doubles as a showroom for the e-commerce brand's expanding hardware lineup, which includes its Kindle, Fire TV, Fire tablets and Echo. The Echo, the company's latest gadget, is an in-home personal assistant powered by artificial intelligence.

Although small, independently-owned bookstores have been thriving lately, national chains—such as Borders Books, which shuttered its doors in 2011—have not adapted as well to Amazon's disruptive online model of cheap, on-demand books. Now the online retailer is reversing its brick-and-mortar-be-damned strategy once again by opening another physical bookstore in San Diego (its first, in Seattle, opened in 2015). The faceless behemoth can delight in the realities of face-to-face retail while likely primarily pushing its non-book, book-reading devices.

Get Lectured: Woodbury University, Spring '16

2016-01-05T13:49:00-05:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter/Spring 2016

Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

The next featured poster comes from the Woodbury University, School of Architecture with their eye-popping poster for Spring 2016.

Listed below are upcoming events. Free and open to the public.

LOS ANGELES/BURBANK CAMPUS - All lectures start at 6:30 p.m. in the Ahmanson Main Space.

Jan 12
Kiel Moe / Harvard Graduate School of Design

Jan 26
T. Kelly Wilson / Indiana University, Bloomington

Feb 16
The Drawing Symposium: Heather Peterson, Gerard Smulevich, Heather Flood, Mark Ericson

March 22
Cathrine Veikos / California College of the Arts

April 5
David Giss...

There's now a pedestrian bridge on the U.S.-Mexico border that let's you fly into Tijuana, and walk out into San Diego

2015-12-11T13:35:00-05:00

A purple pedestrian bridge between two terminals that link Tijuana International Airport and San Diego over the U.S.-Mexico border opened to passengers Wednesday morning. The Cross Border Xpress is the first project to join a site in the U.S. with a foreign airport terminal. [...] The $120-million private venture aims to serve about 2.4 million fliers each year who usually would have to queue up in busy border crossings at San Ysidro and Otay Mesa on the California side.

How one California prison is betting on architecture to decrease recidivism rates

2015-10-21T13:05:00-04:00

this San Diego County jail, which houses everyone from petty criminals to accused murderers and was once known for its sickening decrepitude, is at the forefront of a new and, of course, controversial movement in prison design, one that manifests a counterintuitive idea: You could build a lockup so pleasant and thoughtfully devised that inmates would never come back. [...] Welcome to Las Colinas Women’s Detention and Re-entry Facility.