Archinect - News

Designing around gun violence

2016-08-04T12:48:00-04:00

Our culture of fear has changed the role of architecture in the United States. In just 2016 alone, the country has seen 221 mass shootings, and we struggle to keep up with the stream of international terrorism attacks by groups like ISIS and Boko Haram. If you listen to the news for too long, every building we enter seems compromised, from malls and movie theaters to schools.

So while legislators falter over gun control laws, architects and building designers are working to rethink the concept of a safe space.

For more architectural responses to public health issues, check out these links:

“It's not the kids, it's their environment”: The tragic story of a young aspiring architect who died too soon

2016-06-16T15:51:00-04:00

Too often children from low-income neighborhoods are called broken...That needs to stop. “You keep telling kids that, and they actually begin to believe they are broken, that there is something wrong with them,” she said. “When in reality, it’s not the children that are broken, it’s the environment and area around them that is not working properly.”

Ananias Jolley was a high-school student in Baltimore who had a knack for building things with his hands, and he had dreams of becoming an architect. Living in a low-income neighborhood wrought with violence, his life was tragically cut short at age 17 when he was killed by a classmate. The story above is yet another grave reminder about the social and economic inequalities that persist in many U.S. cities (and in the world), as well as the dangers of stereotyping kids — who, more often than not, are POC — from low-income neighborhoods.

What are the world's most violent cities?

2016-03-30T13:11:00-04:00

The thorny task of comparing crime rates across the world is tricky because legal interpretations vary. Sweden's definition of rape is not the same as America’s, for example. Murder however should be easier to record because there is an identifiable victim, something that can be counted. But the way in which this is done in poorer, often more corrupt countries makes truly comparable statistics hard to pin down. Where there are inefficient public health systems or police, it is even harder.

"Latin American and Caribbean countries suffer disproportionately compared with elsewhere, mainly because of inequality, poor rule of law, impunity and corrupt institutions that are infiltrated by drug cartels. Only two countries outside the region feature on either chart, South Africa and the United States (the list’s only rich-world country)."

The article notes the difficulty of accurately ranking cities based on crime statistics; this chart is a revision of an earlier one. But the overall picture remains the same: the world's most violent cities are in the Americas, with the one notable exception being Cape Town, South Africa. The statistics exclude war zones.

For more on crime and the city, take a look at some Archinect articles from the archive:

Curbing violence through better architecture

2015-04-01T13:50:00-04:00

Alastair Graham hopes Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading, an initiative of the government of Cape Town, South Africa, will end better. He calls the effort, which has been revamping areas around train stations since 2006, part of “a package of potential solutions … either improving safety, or improving socioeconomic situation, or improving quality of life.” The project is aimed at curbing violence by augmenting the public spaces in which violent crime frequently occurs [...].

Bed-Stuy In Memoriam

2014-11-10T15:46:00-05:00

Neighborhoods of contemporary New York are primarily defined by the choices and actions of the people who call them home. They are collages fashioned from layer upon layer of small accretions that we plaster and paint onto our environments. Sometimes, this paint is literal [...] rich diversity of murals in memoriam found throughout Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn — public artworks that reflect a particular history of violence, racial prejudice, and, in some cases, the mixture of the two.

Related: Bed-Stuy Prices Soar

What can ‘forensic architecture’ reveal about the conflict in Gaza?

2014-09-02T13:25:00-04:00

Weizman has also made a name for himself as the chief proponent of “forensic architecture”, by which he analyses the impacts of urban warfare for clues about the crimes that were perpetrated there. To Weizman, buildings are weapons. When he looks out across the landscape of the occupied Palestinian West Bank [...] he sees a battlefield. “The weapons and ammunitions are very simple elements: they are trees, they are terraces, they are houses. They are barriers.”

The tragedy of Tampico, Mexico: a city of violence, abandoned to the trees

2014-06-02T14:00:00-04:00

As a result of the violence, the local real estate market has bottomed out. Those who flee the city usually can’t sell their homes and businesses, so more and more buildings, including some of Tampico’s largest and most impressive ones, lie abandoned. Buildings that could easily survive for another century are mere empty shells, with huge trees growing through the roofs and out of the windows. Such levels of abandonment are rarely seen in the centre of a major city.

Graham T. Downes, San Diego Architect, dies following fight with employee

2013-04-29T16:19:00-04:00

San Diego architect Graham T. Downes died on April 21 from injuries following a late-night fight two days before with an employee outside his San Diego home. He was 55. Downes suffered blunt force head and neck trauma, including numerous skull fractures, from the altercation with Higinio Soriano Salgado, according to the San Diego County coroner's report.

What a tragic story. Here's a letter from letter from his firm.

12 Architecture Students Killed in Syrian Mortar Attact

2013-03-28T13:17:00-04:00

At least 15 Syrian students were killed on Thursday when rebel mortar bombs landed on the canteen of Damascus University's College of Architecture, state-run media reported.

Mortar shells landed on the canteen of Damascus University's College of Architecture killed at least 15 students and wounded 30 others on Thursday, state television reported, blaming rebels who have stepped up attacks in the heart of the Syrian capital.

CNU 20 leader Buzz Anxiety and Isolation: How Gated Communities Enable Vigilantes

2012-03-23T11:43:00-04:00

Though the setting of the [Trayvon Martin] tragedy may not have much bearing on the criminal investigation, the issue of place is something that should not evade public scrutiny. Martin was deemed “suspicious” while walking in a gated community.

BMW, Guggenheim Cancel Berlin Lab Project on Violence Threats

2012-03-21T11:21:00-04:00

Threats by left-wing activists in Berlin prompted New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to cancel a planned stop in the city’s Kreuzberg district for its mobile laboratory, the BMW Guggenheim Lab.

Pinkberry co-founder/ex-architect is arrested after brutally attacking homeless man

2012-01-19T17:50:00-05:00

The co-founder of Pinkberry frozen yogurt attacked a homeless man with a tire iron after the panhandler flashed a sexually provocative tattoo in his direction, Los Angeles police said Tuesday. Lee and the other man chased and beat the homeless man, according to witnesses. The homeless man required hospitalization with a broken left forearm and cuts on his head.