Archinect - News

New York's population drain heads for smaller regional cities

2020-09-08T12:32:00-04:00

Instead of a house with a picket fence and a front yard, many urbanites have opted to rent in newly developed apartment buildings or to buy condominiums in denser, walkable suburban communities, where apartments tend to be bigger and offer more outdoor space than comparable units in the city.

Sydney Franklin of The New York Times highlights the growing demand for dense—but not too dense—urban developments located in secondary cities by those fleeing New York City as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Franklin highlights a collection of recently completed low- to mid-rise apartment and condominium developments across the region, including the new Allure Harbor Point development in Stamford, Connecticut, a 435-unit multifamily tower fronting the city's harbor, as projects that could shape the region's near-term urban future.

A Look Back at Some Articles Celebrating American Architecture and Architects

2019-07-04T14:01:00-04:00

Who and what comes to mind when thinking of American architecture? In practice, academia, and culture, America's influence on the built environment has undergone moments of triumph as well as moments of reflection. In celebration of the nation's independence from British monarchy in 1776, Archinect rounds up a selection of news coverage discussing American architects, architecture, and discourse.

Notable American Architects

Paul Goldberger to present Ballpark at Archinect Outpost, June 1st

2019-05-15T12:20:00-04:00

Join us in celebrating Ballpark, the latest book by Paul Goldberger, at Archinect Outpost on Saturday, June 1st, 5-8pm.

The doors will open at 5 and will close promptly after 6 as the conversation begins between Paul Goldberger and Paul Petrunia, the founder and director of Archinect, on the content on his newest book.

Ballpark can be preordered here for pickup at the event, or shipping immediately after the event. Please go here to RSVP for the event.

1962 view of a completed Dodger Stadium. Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive. Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

From Penguin Random House: "From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was a 'saloon in the open air'), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit’s Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati’s Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums we fill today, Paul Goldberger makes clear the inextricable bond between the American city and America’s favorit...

Bloomberg Wonders Why America’s New Apartment Buildings All Look the Same

2019-02-19T20:03:00-05:00

Cheap stick framing has led to a proliferation of blocky, forgettable mid-rises—and more than a few construction fires.

"These buildings are in almost every U.S. city. They range from three to seven stories tall and can stretch for blocks. They’re usually full of rental apartments, but they can also house college dorms, condominiums, hotels, or assisted-living facilities. Close to city centers, they tend toward a blocky, often colorful modernism; out in the suburbs, their architecture is more likely to feature peaked roofs and historical motifs. Their outer walls are covered with fiber cement, metal, stucco, or bricks."

Not to forget, these apartment buildings also have commercial centers that are the same everywhere. Everyone in this country knows what a Best Buy store looks like and which shelf has what they need. You can go miles and miles and chances are you'll be traveling in the same built environment.

Los Angeles' urban core is full (unlike most other major U.S. cities)

2016-08-25T13:39:00-04:00

This isn't your grandfather's urbanization: population figures in major U.S. cities, which on the whole are on the uptick after declining in the 1960s, are adding residents not to their already built urban cores but rather in the form greenfield sprawl, which makes use of farmland and lightly developed suburban housing tracts. The big exception? Los Angeles, whose urban core Slate pronounces full. Here's more detail from the piece:

A new and illuminating analysis by Yonah Freemark, a project manager at Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council and the author of the Transport Politic blog—well worth reading in full—reveals some important trends in the past half-century of city-building...

“The average of the 100 largest cities grew by 48 percent overall,” Freemark notes. “Yet the average city also lost 28 percent of its residents within its neighborhoods that were built up in 1960.” That’s not just true in Youngstown and Detroit, post-industrial Rust Belt cities that have struggled with...

Seven U.S. cities competing to be the "smartest" in urban transit systems

2016-03-22T13:50:00-04:00

The seven American cities that made the shortlist in the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Smart City Challenge are now deciding their strategies for winning the $40m prize fund...Transportation is the focus, so judges will be interested in self-driving and 'connected' cars, as well as 'smart streets' fitted with sensors. The aim will be to cut accidents, reduce pollution and increase commuter convenience.

The DOT shortlisted seven finalists instead of the originally planned five. They are:

Austin, Texas
Columbus, Ohio
Denver, Colorado
Kansas City, Missouri
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Portland, Oregon
San Francisco, California

The winning city is expected to be announced in June.

More related to transportation technology on Archinect:

U.S. says computers qualify as drivers in Google's autonomous vehicles; won't even have to go to the DMV

Google's self-driving car hits bus and causes its first crash

A first look at the Hyperloop's real tubes and imagined winged terminals

"In LiDAR We Trust" – Poking the subconscious of autonomous vehicles with special guest Geoff Manaugh, on Archinect Sessions #43

158 finalists revealed for the second Knight Cities Challenge

2016-01-12T12:41:00-05:00

The second Knight Cities Challenge is ready to create a bigger impact in neighborhoods across the U.S. The Knight Foundation announced today a hefty shortlist of 158 Challenge finalist initiatives, which were selected out of a staggering 4,500 applicants who responded to the national call for ideas last October. Open to anyone, the Challenge posed one question: "What’s your best idea to make cities more successful?"

The winners, who will share a $5 million prize to launch their projects, will be announced in the spring. Check out the full list of finalists on Bustler.

Architecture of Segregation

2015-08-16T19:27:00-04:00

After the dramatic decline in concentrated poverty between 1990 and 2000, there was a sense that cities were “back,” and that the era of urban decay—marked by riots, violent crime, and abandonment—was drawing to a close. Unfortunately, despite the relative lack of public notice or awareness, poverty has re-concentrated.

The Century Foundation publishes a Paul Jargowsky paper laying out the facts and statistics of decline and poverty's impact on American cities.

Paul Jargowsky is a fellow at The Century Foundation where he writes about inequality, the geographic concentration of poverty, and residential segregation by race and class.

This work was support by The Century Foundation and the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University–Camden. The author received helpful comments and suggestions from Marie Chevrier, Natasha Fletcher, Straso Jovanovich, Lucy Muirhead, Jason Renker, Christopher Wheeler, and Zachary David Wood and production support from Abigail Grimshaw.

This Archinect editor thinks architecture must pay much more attention to this issue and start producing solutions instead of getting shamelessly high on celebrating star architect designed luxury condominiums for the globally rich clientele and elitist minimalist lakeside homes, and teaching their renderings in schools.

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