For months, three architects would meet at the waterfront of Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. [...] Eventually it came to them – if you really wanted to bring people in Izmir together, transform the waterfront. But the very idea was daunting: Turkey’s bureaucracy is infamous, and a large-scale project to redevelop the waterfront seemed impossible.
So the friends [...] built eight floating docks out of plywood.
— theguardian.com
Julia Ingalls argued for The Genius of David Byrne who she likens to "the deadpan docent of the infrastructural realm". vado retro dropped by and chimed in "most of these lyrics were written before i ever attended architecture school and that was a very long time ago. i read a similar essay... View full entry
What do Robert Ivy FAIA, EVP/CEO of the AIA, and Jimenez Lai, of Bureau Spectacular, have in common? Other than they're both architects, not so much! What better way to celebrate a profession at the crossroads than featuring interviews with both in our latest podcast episode. Paul, Amelia, Donna... View full entry
Construction work on 'Aladdin City', a project inspired by the tales of Aladdin and Sindbad, will start next year, Dubai Municipality chief told Emirates 24|7. [...]
The project, which was announced in April 2014, will have three towers, comprising commercial and hotel space, with the towers spread over a distance of 450 metres on Dubai Creek. The total cost has not been revealed.
— emirates247.com
We caught a glimpse behind the curtain of Oyler Wu Collaborative’s hand-over-hand process in Anthony Morey’s latest piece, where the principal’s meticulous and dogged drawing exercises helped push the firm’s formal development. Taking a look back at one of their earlier pavilions, “The... View full entry
Towns and cities across France will soon be able to boost their culture offerings by hosting pop-up branches of the Centre Pompidou. The Paris museum is expanding its empire, and aims to establish domestic temporary outposts. “We will soon launch an open call for candidates [to select a French city],” says a spokesman for the Centre Pompidou. These pop-ups will remain open for four years. — theartnewspaper.com
“This corridor of shame that I call Van Ness and Market is just a spectacular example of failed urban planning.” [...]
“In the built environment, as one writer puts it, all our warts and our glories are there,” says Paul Groth, an architectural historian at UC Berkeley. “You can tell how we’re treating our fellow humans in the built environment. It really is an autobiography.”
So, what does Groth think our current architecture says?
“Greed.”
— KQED
Related: San Francisco is quick to poke fun of Snøhetta's new One Van Ness tower design View full entry
Curated by Spela Videcnik, Rok Oman, and John T. Dunlop (Design Critic in Housing and Urban Development), the "Habitation in Extreme Environments: Alpine Shelter" exhibition currently at the Harvard GSD presents a prototypical alpine shelter that students designed in an option studio this past... View full entry
Manhattan may be a bustling metropolis filled with busy people rushing off to work, the theatre, restaurants and the myriad attractions the city has to offer. A replica in China, complete with knock-offs of Rockefeller Center and the Hudson River, is missing that one key element that makes New York, New York: the people. [...]
“All of these tall buildings just appeared,” one local man recently told CTV News.
— ctvnews.ca
Previously: China’s replica of Wall Street is full of half-built, deserted skyscrapers and floods regularly View full entry
Gimme Shelter has learned exclusively that developer The Related Companies has hired Rem Koolhaas to design their new High Line project on W. 18th St. — nypost.com
Thirty-seven years after Delirious New York, Koolhaas may finally have a building in New York City. While OMA has worked on a variety of commercial interiors in NYC before, as well as being a part of HUD's Rebuilding by Design, the High Line residence will be the firm's first "ground-up" building... View full entry
Archinect Sessions is proud to have Brian Newman of Dykema Gossett PLLC as our official legal correspondent, offering insight into the legal quagmire of architectural practice. Brian is a regular guest on the podcast, dishing out advice to make every architect better informed and protected... View full entry
For 70 years, Mr. Wu has ridden out the country’s political storms, including one that killed his mentor, to establish himself as the most influential architect, urban planner and éminence grise of China’s cities. But looking out the window of his apartment in this city’s northern suburbs, he can only shake his head at the dim building emerging from the haze.
“Our environment is unfit for daily life, and the responsibility is very heavy on our shoulders,” he said.
— nytimes.com
Burlington’s switch to renewable energy will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save $20 million over the next 20 years and keep energy prices stable [...]
The move is only one part of a solution for climate change, according to Taylor Ricketts, professor of Environmental Science at the University of Vermont. “Climate change is the biggest problem we face, maybe the biggest problem we’ve ever faced. But there’s no silver bullet to fix it,” he said.
— pbs.org
Robert Ivy, CEO of the American Institute of Architects, has just announced that the organization will begin placing 30-second ads on national cable networks and news channels. The ads will begin airing on February 8th and will feature their recent "Look Up" campaign. The campaign is a 3 year... View full entry
A year before discovering the Higgs boson, aka “God”, particle, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) established its own arts residency. Formed in 2011, the Collide@CERN program pairs artists with CERN physicists in Geneva to collaborate on art and research projects, banking... View full entry
