“Genetics, early experiences, family relationships and social settings can’t be addressed through urban design,” McCay explains. “But urban design can and should play a role, just as it does for physical disorders, which have equally complex causes.” [...]
But experts believe guidelines for healthy urban environments are currently failing to take this growing awareness into consideration. [...]
“understanding of these issues is not yet mainstream” in the architectural community.
— theguardian.com
Layla McCay, director of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, outlines the various ways urban design and mental health intersect:Check out more videos from UDMH on their website.For more news on urban psychology:Measured Genius: One-to-One #29 with Pierluigi Serraino, author of 'The... View full entry
This week’s picks come with an energy and collaborative passion which is so characteristic of this time of year. With the London Design Festival raging on and the anticipation of a new season hanging thick in the air, it seems as though London has started afresh, seemingly recovering from... View full entry
Exhibitions from our founding in 1929 to the present are available online. These pages are updated continually. — MoMA
Go ahead and dig in! All there, including architecture. Now, that's a museum service. View full entry
This post is brought to you by Alucobond® A big compliment to architects is hearing that one of their building designs has become a recognizable landmark. That’s the case for architects at the Los Angeles office of Arquitectonica International Corp. who designed the Olume residential building... View full entry
Finland is the only European country where homelessness has decreased in recent years. At the end of 2015 the number of single homeless people was for the first time under 7,000 and this number includes people living temporarily with friends and relatives, who constitute 80% of all homeless people [...]
The main explanation for this success is quite simple: when the national programme started housing first was adopted as a mainstream national homelessness policy.
— the Guardian
The housing first model is quite simple: when people are homeless, you give them housing first – a stable home, rather than progressing them through several levels of temporary and transitional accommodation.In related news:How 4 US cities are applying architectural solutions to... View full entry
We once knew the world was flat. We once knew earth was the center of the universe. We once knew the sun was the center of the universe. We once knew the Milky Way was the center of the universe. Maybe the 3rd is not so far off in the end. The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) officially... View full entry
"Humanity went through stone age, went through ice age, and today, going through plastic age. We need to find solution,” explains Robert Bezeau, the man intent on amending the global reach of plastic waste by building houses out of it. A transplant to Panama from Montreal, he has started... View full entry
In a landmark decision last month, Columbia University graduate students won the right to unionize in a case filed against the National Labor Relations Board. As a result, graduate students in private universities across the U.S. now have the right to collectively bargain. What effect does this... View full entry
The undergraduate major at Yale is made up of 28 students, just 12 of whom are male. The Yale School of Architecture, with over 200 graduate students, is 42 percent female [...]
But despite the near gender parity in the classroom, discrepancies persist in the professional field, with very few women serving as partners or leaders of firms. According to a 2012 American Institute of Architects survey of 2,805 member firms, only 17 percent of firm partners and principals are women.
— Yale Daily News
Related:More women joined the profession in 2015 than ever beforeHow sexist is architecture? Female architects share their experiencesWhy International Women's Day matters (for architects)"Women in architecture" vs. "now in architecture": Mimi Zeiger on gender and... View full entry
In OMA and artist Taryn Simon's "An Occupation of Loss," professional mourners create unique performances of grief into an enormous sculpture of eight 45 foot concrete inverted wells that act as "a discordant instrument." It's not just for professional criers: during the day, visitors are... View full entry
During my ride, along a few miles of road near Uber’s testing facility in an old industrial neighborhood, the car performed admirably in many difficult situations...and I mostly felt pretty safe. However, several times the person behind the wheel needed to take control [...]
it will take time for Uber and others to perfect fully automated driving. In fact, it remains unclear what needs to be done before it can be considered safe to remove humans from the driver’s seat.
— technologyreview.com
More on Uber and autonomous vehicles:Japan gunning for Tokyo to take on driverless vehicles by 2020 Olympic GamesTesla Model S driver suffers fatal crash while using autopilot, in first known death involving an autonomous vehicleGoogle, Uber, Lyft, Ford and Volvo join forces to lobby for... View full entry
Sydney architect Robert Harwood is apparently fed up with being compared on price point and capability to building practitioners who aren’t registered architects.
The director of Harwood Architects and founder of My Architect is petitioning the Australian Institute of Architects CEO Jennifer Cunich to do more to protect the architecture profession from non-architects passing off their work and capability as that of an architect.
— architectureanddesign.com.au
"Harwood is particularly concerned with non-architects using the title ‘architect’ in their name or the words ‘architectural services’ in advertising."Related stories in the Archinect news:New York man tries to weasel out of architectural malpractice suit with "I'm not an architect"... View full entry
Following the Olympics’ closing ceremony, and as September’s Paralympic Games continue, international attention has begun to shift to the future of Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic sites. These buildings must be built to evolve to accommodate Paralympic and future athletes, and the success of this... View full entry
According to estimates by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, up to 60,000 people will seek asylum in Norway this year alone, most of them from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of these newly-arrived people have little knowledge of where to go to find basic resources, not to mention where... View full entry
During his time in power, as head of state and as leader of the all-powerful, secularist Ba’th party, Saddam would oversee an unprecedented program of monumental development across the historic city of Baghdad. This was not limited to monuments of war and hollow bronze shells, but enormous palatial complexes, museums, art galleries, and civic squares [...] marshal it, awkwardly, unevenly, into the post-industrial age, a modern city shaped by the aspirations and egotistical tastes of a despot. — failedarchitecture.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Iraq honors Zaha Hadid with commemorative stamp — which features rejected Tokyo stadium designDestruction of Iraq’s oldest Christian monastery by ISIS militants went unreported for 16 months View full entry
