Archinect - News

A 'crypto-city for tech bros and tastemakers'

2023-12-18T20:27:00-05:00

Our mission is to accelerate technological progress to create a more vital future for humanity. To this end, we are developing cities designed to support those solving the world’s hardest problems.The Steel Visa is your entry point to the Praxis Community. It will evolve into an official Visa within the broader immigration framework of our host-country.

Joseph Bernstein writes about Dryden Brown and his plans for Praxis. Bruce Sterling was surprised (?) "People can still somehow raise money with an offshored islands-in-the-net racket".

A first look at Saudi Arabia's new 400x400x400-meter Riyadh tower proposal

2023-02-18T07:00:00-05:00

A massive new proposed structure purporting to be “the largest inner city building in the world” is on tap for the Saudi capital of Riyadh, according to local news reports.

The so-called “Mukaab” will form the centerpiece of a new downtown core for the city called New Murabba, which is expected to add 104,000 residential units, 9,000 hotel rooms, 980,000 square meters of retail space, 1.4 million square meters of office space, an 80-venue entertainment and cultural program, another 1.8 million square meters of community facility space as well as a technology and design-focused university.

At 400 meters (1,312 feet) cubed, the Mukaab tower bills itself as being able to contain 20 times the volume of the Empire State Building. Its design is said to be inspired by vernacular Najdi architecture.

Still from New Murabba promotional video.

Inside, 2 million square meters of floor space for various mixed-use programs will be stacked in a biomimetic ...

California's hippie architecture is disappearing

2021-09-13T13:46:00-04:00

The movement wasn't about living in isolation. Residents of these communes didn't seek an escape from society so much as the chance to create it anew: a generous, civic-minded, highly social culture with regular potlucks and solstice blowouts.

Unfortunately, society went the other way to greed and ignorance.

"Constructing a home with next to no money demands feats of creative resourcefulness. Back in the 1970s, free building materials were everywhere—if you knew where to look. Jon Turner's house, a two-story, gable-roofed structure in Mendocino County, is fabricated from 2,000-year-old redwood logs he pulled out of the Albion River. His ceiling is the height of a gymnasium because he couldn't bring himself to trim the ancient logs, he explains. He never put a single architectural sketch on paper."

To sum it up, these are "architecture without architects" grade.

10 unbuilt architectural designs for your Friday inspiration

2021-01-29T18:25:00-05:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Unbuilt.

Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles.

↑ Futian Civic Culture Center (competition entry) in Shenzhen, China by Mecanoo

↑ Buddhist Retreat Concept in Tianjin, China by GROUNDWORK Architects + Associates Ltd.

↑ XYZ House in Wengen, Switzerland by Axis Mundi

↑ ANATOLE FRANCE in Polanco, Mexico City by Dellekamp / Schleich

↑ Reveal the absence, the un-built (competition entry) in Novosibirsk, Russia by Guillaume Mazars Architecture

↑ Allegories of Home (competition entry) by Zabie Mustafa in collaboration with Neda Kakhsaz

↑ Arizona House in Tubac, AZ by WORKac

↑ Rend, Mend by Jack Stewart-Castner

↑ Detroit Series by John Szot

Click here to see more "Ten Top...

How patients would redesign the psychiatric ward

2016-07-25T21:04:00-04:00

[James] Leadbitter called it “a playful and exciting space for redesigning madness, a utopian attempt at what a mental health hospital could be like.” Each structure...is an abstract interpretation of the feedback from the workshops, designed to offer varying levels “of privacy and intimacy ranging from total isolation to complete togetherness.” “This is only a small glimpse of a project that has huge potential to influence the way we think about the design of mental health care environments,”

More than 300 patients, architects, and psychiatrists pitched their ideas on how they would redesign the psychiatric ward for “Madlove: A Designer Asylum”, a collaborative project conceived by artist and activist James Leadbitter, who has suffered from mental illness and has stayed at several psychiatric wards himself. Leadbitter wanted to address the direct negative effects that terribly designed wards have on patients.

A history of ideal cities

2015-12-11T18:40:00-05:00

The question is especially important now, given the world’s rapidly increasing population and the accelerating drift of people from countryside to cities. Should we tinker or somehow revamp existing cities to cope, or should we build new places to dwell?

Jonathan Glancey looks back through history, at attempts to create the ideal town. Given the many failed attempts, can architects succeed in shaping a truly habitable ideal city? He believes the answer is yes.

Cap d'Agde: a naked city in the south of France

2015-08-27T14:15:00-04:00

In the mid-1960s, the De Gaulle-instigated Mission Racine to develop Languedoc-Roussillon’s tourist economy created six modernist seaside resorts from scratch, each a day’s boat ride apart – still one of the largest state-run development schemes ever. ...there was some ideological overlap between the purifying doctrines of naturism and modernism: Le Corbusier himself enjoyed airing his bits on the Cote d’Azur and shared the same teacher as Cap d’Agde’s chief architect, Jean le Couteur.