The Navigation Center is one of the most innovative homeless-help experiments being undertaken in the U.S. — meaning that when it opens the week of March 16 at an old high school at 16th and Mission streets, it will be watched not just by every homeless camper in the vicinity, but by aid agencies around the nation. [...]
The Navigation Center will be doing this as a pilot project for eight to 18 months, depending on its success.
— SFGate
My name is Abdallah AlQassab, nearly 50% of us are unemployed and we are very available to show you around — Theguardian
In response to graffiti artist Banksy's Make this the Year YOU Discover a New Destination Gaza tourist video, the territory's parkour team show us what real life is like there and their dreams beyond the border. To the sounds of Palestine's biggest female hip-hop artist, Shadia Mansour, join... View full entry
If you conceive of Los Angeles as having three distinct historical periods – as Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for the L.A. Times and the driving force behind The Third L.A. series, does – then the first period encapsulated the 1880s to the 1940s, the second the 1940s to the new... View full entry
Google’s choice of BIG and Heatherwick Studios to design their Mountain View campus expansion is true to form: big, brash, debatably realistic, with a dash of techno-utopianism. The critical response to the proposal – a series of webbed glass shells covering reconfigurable utility spaces... View full entry
Florida is largely seen as the U.S. state that is most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. But even uttering the term global warming in official communications can get employees at the state’s Department of Environmental Protection in trouble...“We were told not to use the terms climate change, global warming, or sustainability,” said Christopher Byrd, who worked at the DEP from 2008 to 2013. — Slate
On Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott, an open skeptic of climate change (who is also openly, "not a scientist") denied the allegations. "Well, first off, that's not true," Scott told reporters. "At our Department of Environmental Protection, there's lots of conversation about this issue. From my... View full entry
Leading scholars from around the world will convene in Chicago, April 15–19, to present new research on the history of the built environment at the 68th Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians. But the conference isn’t just for academics. SAH aims to engage... View full entry
After investing five years and $50 million in an attempt to bring an NFL team back to Los Angeles, AEG is abandoning plans for its Farmers Field football stadium downtown.
The sports and entertainment conglomerate is no longer in discussions with the NFL or any teams about the project, company officials said Monday. [...]
In recent weeks, competing stadium proposals in Inglewood and Carson, backed by NFL team owners, have overshadowed the AEG plan.
— latimes.com
Previously: How to shop for an NFL stadiumIs LA Finally Going to Get a Football Stadium?Farmers Field: Bringing Football Back on a Need-to-Know Basis View full entry
thresholds 44: workspaceeditors: christianna bonin | nisa ariCALL FOR SUBMISSIONSWhen an employee at Google’s Mexico City office takes a post-lunch plunge into the on-site ball pit, is she working or playing? And when an employee in one of Foxconn’s factory sites in China leaps from his... View full entry
Beneath the vertiginous LED-strip lighting of Michael Maltzan's Billy Wilder Theater, a diverse audience gathered last Tuesday for a talk entitled "The Next Wave: Urban Adaptations for Rising Sea Levels." Co-presented by the Hammer Museum and UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and... View full entry
There aren’t many architects you would believe could hold back seas and save the world from being drowned by Biblical floods. But when you meet Bjarke Ingels, anything seems eminently possible. [...]
If New York has to build 10 miles of flood defences to protect the city from another Hurricane Sandy, why not conceive the barrier as a brand new waterfront park? Climate security as leisure amenity. You can almost hear the standing ovation and all-American whooping in the background.
— theguardian.com
Previously: A closer look into “The BIG U”, BIG’s winning proposal for Rebuild By Design View full entry
Zaha, you have said that architecture is not for people who want an easy life. Is this not the case for anyone who wants to excel in his or her job?
There are other professions that are very difficult, but architecture is particularly difficult because your career is reliant on the people you work with, and that's the first hurdle. The second hurdle is the people you work with as a client. You have no control over the developer or the economics.
— huffingtonpost.com
Syria’s largest city was home to more than two million people before the war. Now most of its residents have left, and the city is divided between pro-government forces and rebels — NYT
Sergio Peçanha and Jeremy White reveal satellite image analysis by Unitar-Unosat, showing vast devastation in 4 cities across Syria from the civil war that started nearly four years ago. View full entry
The rest of the buildings came naturally, if gradually. The idea of having a slew of small houses for different activities, moods and seasons, complemented by decorative 'follies,' was Johnson’s conception for the site from early on. He called it a 'diary of an eccentric architect," but it was also a sketchbook, an homage to architects past and present — NYT - T Magazine
Alexandra Lange explores the 49 acre grounds and architectural neighbors of Glass House. Ranging from; the "bunkerlike Brick House" and "postmodern Library" to the more historic structures of Calluna Farms and Grainger. View full entry
Nicholas Korody recapped Michael Maltzan’s recent talk at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles, in which Maltzan explained "the relationship his projects hold to their infrastructural, urban and social contexts". Justine Testado reported in from the WUHO Gallery in Hollywood... View full entry
A UC Berkeley research team led by Ronald Rael, associate professor of architecture, will unveil today (Friday, March 6) the first and largest powder-based 3-D-printed cement structure built to date. The debut of this groundbreaking project is a demonstration of the architectural potential of 3-D printing. It will close the fifth annual Berkeley Circus, which celebrates the research and accomplishments of the College of Environmental Design (CED) community. — UC Berkely
