Archinect - News

Inga Saffron on Philly’s decade of “smartphone urbanism”

2019-12-27T11:17:00-05:00

The urban changes that Philadelphia experienced in the first years of the 21st century were gentler and more likely to enhance the city’s existing 20th-century form. The tech-induced trends from the last 10 years have challenged that physical form by radically reconfiguring the way we move through, and interact with, the city.

Inga Saffron, architecture critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer provides a tech-focused decade-in-review highlighting the impact of smartphone technologies on the city’s urbanism.

Highlighting the proliferation of “fast-casual” food, buildings, and development approaches, Saffron writes: “once millennials (and their parents) got those smartphones in their hands, they promptly began moving into cities, buying fixer-uppers in working-class neighborhoods like Point Breeze and Fishtown, and transforming them into upscale enclaves.”

In particular, Saffron highlights the Foster + Partners-designed Comcast Technology Center, which some have likened to a giant middle finger; Weiss/Manfredi’s Singh Center for Nanotechnology from 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania; and Snøhetta‘s new Charles Library at Temple University as some of the decade’s best architectural works in the city.

Christopher Hawthorne, LA Times architecture critic, reviews Harvard's first online architecture course

2017-05-04T14:42:00-04:00

[K. Michael Hays] represents an approach to teaching architecture and architectural theory that has held sway in the American academy for at least a generation. This approach doesn’t simply treat architecture as a discipline separate from the rest of the world, with its own passwords and protocols. It guards that separation with its life.

A spirited Christopher Hawthorne reviews Harvard GSD's first online course as taught by K. Michael Hays, who appears to prize obfuscation and condescension as teaching methods (Hawthorne does explain the history behind this autonomous pedagogy, which resulted from architects of the 1970s needing to break away from corporate/political control). Still, the question of whether online courses are actually any different than the level of instruction you would receive in a classroom appears to be trending toward no, at least in substantive terms. The medium isn't the message, especially if you're taking instruction from a lecturer who thinks speaking at you, rather than engaging with you, is the way to go.

Two Million Swedes Can't Be Wrong: Populace Helps Design Ideal Home Via Mouse Clicks

2015-05-20T19:59:00-04:00

Although analyzing 200 million data points and 86,000 top-ranked online properties may not sound like the sexiest way to begin residential concept design, this is precisely how Swedish property site Hemnet began the statistically-oriented process for designing the ideal "Swedish home." An estimated two million Swedes participated in the survey by clicking on their favorite design features and ideal property types. Hemnet gave the user-generated information, such as preferred number of rooms, bathrooms, ideal room size and overall price, to architects Tham & Videgård, who took the data and transformed it into a tangible, livable design.

In addition to utilizing the popularly derived statistically-oriented data (Swedes prefer 1.5 floors, 120 square meters, three bedrooms, and an open kitchen, among other amenities), the architects blended iconic Swedish aesthetic concepts to create the final design. The red wooden exterior is meant to recall a traditional Swedish cottage, while the w...