In this eye-candy survey of Iran's newest architectural projects and prevailing trends, Architectural Digest takes a closer look at how the country's architects and architecture is shifting to not only attract more media attention, but to create a new visual identity:"Right now, the massive trend... View full entry
What better way to teach high school-age students how to tackle the problems of urban planning than with Legos? This was the thought of the Urban Land Institute, which according to this article in Metro News put on a workshop for an 11th grade class in Toronto to help them plan a city that, while... View full entry
[Empty Gallery] is entirely black—black walls, black floors, black fittings. When you first enter, it is completely, utterly dark. It is only when you reach the first of the main art spaces that dim lighting illuminates the works on display.
“Hong Kong is so fast; the language of advertising is so strong and loud and intense. We’re amped up all the time... It helps you give art a chance to communicate.”
— theartnewspaper.com
Related on Archinect:Boyle Heights activists want all art galleries to GTFO of their neighborhoodNew Kulapat Yantrasast-designed Gagosian Gallery to open in San FranciscoSANAA chosen to design NSW Art Gallery expansionPrepare to soon spot the blackest of black materials in architecture View full entry
In a robot-proof education, we have to focus on what humans do that robots cannot do: think creatively, work with others, think about ethics. For instance, suppose a scenario where a self-driving car can either hit three people and hurt the passengers, or save the passengers but hit 10 people. What is it going to do? Who’s going to program that? Who’s going to decide? You. — Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun
In a Q&A between Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun and George Thrush, founding director of the School of Architecture, the two educators touched on the implications of automation for architectural education, among other things. "Creative thinking and innovation... View full entry
Shortly after Grafton Architects won RIBA's inaugural International Prize for their UTEC campus in Lima, Peru, I spoke with the firm's director, Yvonne Farrell, to get the backstory to the project and discuss how the award might affect the firm in the long run. As an academic building, UTEC... View full entry
The tiny house is just one example of the lengths to which people will go to create a sense of home even when they lack the means for it. It’s just one symptom of a much wider and intensifying search for belonging, which makes home as important to politics as the idea of class or rights – especially now, when so many people feel displaced, both literally and figuratively, by life in innovation-driven, high-tech, networked capitalism. — Aeon
Related stories in the Archinect news:Humans and other things that nestHow Tadao Ando defines his own "home for the spirit"The downsides of the charming "holdout" houses View full entry
Taking the view that the owner of the Philharmonie had modified and thus defiled his architectural work, Jean Nouvel had sued ... asking the court to order the owner to perform all works necessary for the restoration of his work so as to comply with the architectural plans he had initially drawn. [...]
The case at hand renews the debate on the difficulties of granting remedies which constitute an acceptable way to balance the proprietor's rights and the moral rights of architects.
— lexology.com
Get caught up on Nouvel's dispute with the Philharmonie:Jean Nouvel loses court case over 'sabotaged' Philharmonie de ParisJean Nouvel files for court order against Philharmonie de Paris disputeJean Nouvel boycotts opening of his Philharmonie de Paris View full entry
Among scholars and many city dwellers, urban renewal is remembered for its vast destruction of minority communities, when entire neighborhoods were razed for housing, highways and civic projects. [...]
Is Mr. Trump knowingly or accidentally embracing historical conflict? The answer depends, in part, on how much we think Mr. Trump, a real estate developer and son of a real estate developer, knows about the history of the conflict over the shape of the American city.
— nytimes.com
Related on Archinect:5 housing experts offer opinions about Ben Carson's direction as HUD headFrank Gehry on Trump: "I'm very worried about him"America's 'inner city' dichotomyPresident-elect Trump offers HUD post to Ben CarsonTrump pilfers Clinton's plan for an 'infrastructure bank' View full entry
Last Friday night, a fire broke out during a concert at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oakland, California, killing (at present count) 36 people. While the precise cause of the fire is still unknown, the building was rife with code violations that accelerated the fire's damage, many related to its... View full entry
One good thing to come of the substitution of a hospital serving the whole downtown community with homogenous housing for the wealthy is St. Vincent’s Triangle Park, [...] home to the nearly completed New York City AIDS Memorial [...]
Real estate plays an outsize role in most New York stories. In the story of AIDS, it has become crucial to understanding both the way that the city handled, or mishandled, the crisis in its early days and the way that the crisis forever marked the city in return.
— New Yorker
To mark the opening of the new New York City AIDS Memorial designed by Studio ai, Alexandra Schwartz reflects on the complicated relationship between the epidemic, the gay activist community, and real estate."The disease started charting its course through the city just as the bearish real-estate... View full entry
water would bubble again in Isamu Noguchi’s green marble fountain in the Ambassador Lounge, softly masking the tik-a-tik-a-tik-a-tik-a-tik chatter of a Solari di Udine split-flap display board announcing flight departures and arrivals [...]
The architects of the hotel project are Beyer Blinder Belle and Lubrano Ciavarra Architects. Beyer Blinder Belle was responsible for the sumptuous restoration of Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan.
— nytimes.com
The $265 million TWA Hotel project, slated to open in late 2018, would be connected to Saarinen's Trans World Flight Center and Terminal 5 through tubes that used to guide passengers from TWF to their aircraft. As reported by the Times, the Hotel plan has been hailed by... View full entry
New World Design Ltd. has shared a hypothetical proposal that would partially obscure the view of the infamous Trump Tower Chicago sign with four giant, gold-colored balloon pigs. [...]
the pigs would be tethered to buoys in the Chicago River and provide “visual relief to the citizens of Chicago,” many of whom are presumably tired of seeing Trump’s name everywhere.
— consequenceofsound.net
More acts of architectural protest:Architects Respond to the AIA’s Statement in Support of President-Elect Donald TrumpTaking a stand against privately-owned public spacesHawaii protesters block construction of giant telescope on sacred mountain Mauna KeaCooper Union graduates stage tuition... View full entry
The Royal Institute of British Architects announced today four winners of the 2016 President's Awards for Research, which recognizes top-quality architectural research from academics and practitioners...This year's competition received 75 applications from 14 countries on five continents, making it the most competitive to date... — Bustler
The winning research projects this year are:History and Theory: Dr Edward Denison, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, UK; Medhanie Teklemariam and Dawit Abraha, Asmara Heritage Project, EritreaProject: “Asmara – Africa’s Modernist City: UNESCO World Heritage Nomination”Cities and... View full entry
After his firm Vincent Callebaut Architectures was awarded the bid to create the building in 2010, Callebaut decided to erect a structure that was "like an inhabited tree," that could create a green urban landmark for the city with a minimal carbon footprint.
Slated for a completion in September 2017, the tower will stand 20 stories tall with a 90 degree twist that is achieved with a 4.5 degree turn per floor as the building ascends.
— taiwannews.com.tw
Vincent Callebaut, the Belgian architect known for audacious, ecologically-minded design proposals now has a project under construction in Taipei. We previously featured Callebaut's "LILYPAD, A Floating Ecopolis for Ecological Refugees" in 2008.Related on Archinect:Architecture Dean Poh says... View full entry
What are the likely policy goals of a neurosurgeon appointed secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development by a man who can't stop disappointedly tweeting at Alec Baldwin? "There’s not a dearth of qualified Republicans for that job, so if you choose somebody with no background in... View full entry