According to a report published by the Hill, President-elect Trump is planning significant cuts to federal programs, including the departments of Transportation, Commerce and Energy. What else is on the chopping block? The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the... View full entry
Designed as an easily accessible community center that, according to its architects, would preserve "a logical continuity and preservation of the existing landscape as well as construct synergies with the surrounding buildings," the Maison de Quartier de Chatelaine-Balexert benefits from a... View full entry
Now in its third edition, the Knight Cities Challenge asks one question: “What’s your best idea to make cities more successful?”. Every year the Challenge's national call for ideas attracts a staggering number of applicants, who submit their strongest written ideas that they believe can improve everyday living in cities across the U.S. — particularly the 26 Knight communities. Out of more than 4,500 hopeful ideas, the jury narrowed down the competition pool to 144 finalist ideas. — Bustler
Check out the full list of finalists on Bustler. View full entry
The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) concluded the year in positive terrain, with the December reading capping off three straight months of growth in design billings. [...] (AIA) reported the December ABI score was 55.9, up sharply from 50.6 in the previous month. This score reflects the largest increase in design services in 2016 (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 57.2, down from a reading of 59.5 the previous month. — AIA
“The sharp upturn in design activity as we wind down the year is certainly encouraging. This bodes well for the design and construction sector as we enter the new year”,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD. “However, December is an atypical month for interpreting trends... View full entry
Donald Trump has chosen Richard LeFrak and Steve Roth, “two of the wealthiest men in real estate” according to Forbes, to head a “council of builders and engineers”. This new council will be tasked with overseeing Trump’s plan to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure. As Archinect... View full entry
Nine glassed-in, metal-fin bearing stories make up the new Deborah Berke Partners-designed Cummins Indy Tower, which officially opens this month. With its "projections and inflections," the building simultaneously juts and struts through the metropolis, creating a slender and ecologically... View full entry
Almost singing the refrain, "What do awards have to do with it?" writer Ben Willis investigates the disconnect between the plethora of architectural awards, both those that recognize aesthetics and those that focus on data-driven technical specs, and the public's (and for that matter, other... View full entry
For the tenth year in a row, RIBA and Norman Foster are offering a traveling scholarship in the form of €7,000 (an increase over last year's €6,000) to the destination of the winning student's choice. Students can't enter directly: RIBA and CAA validated schools are allowed to submit only one... View full entry
The last year has seen a dramatic political shift to the right in the Western world (and elsewhere), marked in particular by Brexit and the election of Donald J. Trump. Alongside the former, the Tories secured a firm grip on the UK, with Prime Minister Theresa May stepping in to fill the void left... View full entry
In the summer of 2014, Anthony McGinty and Michelle Sosa were hired by Los Angeles World Airports to lead a unique, new classified intelligence unit on the West Coast. After only two years, their global scope and analytic capabilities promise to rival the agencies of a small nation-state. Their roles suggest an intriguing new direction for infrastructure protection in an era when threats are as internationally networked as they are hard to predict. — The Atlantic
Being the world's fifth-busiest airport (74,937,004 travelers passed through LAX in 2015) makes this infrastructure megaproject one of the top-ranked terrorist and aviation targets in the country. With billions of dollars spent on the usual airport expansion and modernization projects in recent... View full entry
Never one to bore, Karim Rashid has announced that he’s formed a new vertically-integrated firm that will incorporate architecture, investment, and development of new projects across New York City. Rashid has teamed up with his namesake firm’s director of interior design, Alex Loyer Hughes, to form Kurv Architecture D.P.C. [...]
Although there’s overlap between Rashid’s namesake firm and Kurv at the moment, Kurv will focus more on ground-up production rather than design alone.
— Curbed New York
"We are foremost, a design-development firm, specializing in the increased return of tangible added value through the implementation of unique award winning design," the mission statement on Kurv's website reads. "The word design is used in the broadest sense to describe the full scope of the... View full entry
Building industry professionals are taking note. Since the National Association of Home Builders started to offer a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist program in 2002, nearly 7,000 contractors, architects, interior designers and occupational therapists have become credentialed by attending a three-day course, according to Elizabeth Thompson, a spokeswoman for the association. — NYT
Kaya Laterman examines designing for an aging population. Renovations focused on age-in-place fixes, along with rise of NORCs (Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities) in NYC, are creating new market opportunities. See also re: AARP’s livability index, multi-generational architectures... View full entry
Antarctic stations have become the equivalent of embassies on the ice.."They are showcases for a nation's interests in Antarctica - status symbols" says Prof Anne-Marie Brady, editor-in-chief of the Polar Journal and author of China as a Polar Great Power. — BBC News
Matthew Teller reviews some of the latest designs for Antarctic research bases. At first, they were simple wooden huts, then later, "a few wooden huts inside giant steel tubes." The aerodynamic triple-arm design of South Korea's Jang Bogo station. Image: EPA View full entry
Its architecture is painfully lost in its own time and its updates only confuse by neither integrating well into the original structure or standing out as truly contemporary. The pink kiosks, orange tiles, teal chairs and green paneled rooms, the purple plush seating in the JC Penny dressing room, and the bright blue tiered entryways are, along with other decor flourishes, seemingly random, with no coherent pattern. — NewCo Shift
Declaring that "the dying mall narrative" already peaked a few years ago, Tag Hartman-Simkins decides to photographically zero in on the details of an old mall in Galesburg, Illinois that is about to be torn down and replaced with an updated, outdoor mixed-use space. His careful observations of... View full entry
Depending on the level of surreality you favor in your coloring book exercises, The Brutalist Colouring Book from Belgian graphic designer Marc Thomasset allows you to create wildly imaginative or strictly literal renderings of various famous brutalist landmarks, including works by William Pereira... View full entry