The police in Bangladesh filed formal murder charges on Monday against 41 people accused of involvement in the 2013 collapse of a building that housed several clothing factories, leaving more than 1,100 people dead in the worst disaster in garment industry history. — The New York Times
More:How concrete floors can prevent child deaths in Bangladesh"The trauma of rebuilding": After Kathmandu's earthquake, what can architects do? We talk with a Nepalese architect on the ground for Archinect Sessions #27L.A. Mayor Calls for Mandatory Earthquake RetrofittingChina Quake Renews... View full entry
CoContest allows customers wanting to refurbish an existing space to put their project out to architects and designers, who in turn submit their design proposals [...]
Nine lawmakers – eight of them architects – have issued a parliamentary proposal urging the Economic Development and Justice Ministries to crack down on the crowdsourcing website, which they said was carrying out an illegal intermediation activity and denigrating professional architects in its publicity
— goodgearguide.com.au
Any business that's praised for being "disruptive" is bound to cause controversy – or else that establishment probably wasn't worth disrupting. CoContest, an Italian startup that aims to connect homeowners to a competitively-priced international roster of architects and designers, has received... View full entry
Construction in Los Angeles may have exploded during the postwar era, but as a new interactive map shows, the wide age range of its buildings might surprise you.
Using open data from local governments, built: LA visualizes the age of roughly 3 million buildings across L.A. County constructed between 1890 and 2008. Drag your mouse to explore the vast web of communities and neighborhoods, hover over individual properties to discover birth years, and double click to zoom in further.
— citylab.com
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
A 56-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of arson in connection with a fire that destroyed a downtown Los Angeles apartment complex last year, causing tens of millions of dollars in damage to the unfinished structure and a nearby city-owned building [...].
Abdulwali’s arrest followed an intense investigation that began even before firefighters fully extinguished the Dec. 8 blaze at the seven-story Da Vinci complex.
— latimes.com
Previously:Bad news for good taste - burnt Da Vinci apartments expected to be rebuilt in 10 monthsL.A. fire officials reveal new details about potential suspect in Da Vinci arson caseDowntown LA fire determined to be arson... Architecture hate crime?Huge downtown Los Angeles fire burns towering... View full entry
Cooper Union students pinned red felt squares to their graduation gowns and refused to acknowledge president Jamshed Bharucha, in the latest protest against the school's instatement of undergraduate tuition. The protest took place at the 2015 Commencement Ceremony yesterday, and was... View full entry
Inadvertently, this episode is all about food – where it comes from, where we eat it, and how it shapes national identity. Our discussion on food and design starts in Los Angeles, where Norm's Restaurant recently received "historic and cultural" landmark status, and a tamale-shaped... View full entry
Julia Ingalls spoke on the phone with Paul Goldberger about the relevance of criticism in the social media age. davvid was at least somewhat pleased "Its about time we start talking about this stuff. I'm not convinced that Goldberger has a good handle on it, but at least he's trying". Later... View full entry
Whether you think Alex Garland's film "Ex Machina" is a mind-bending classic or a future camp hit (the Dancing Scene, anybody?), one thing is certain: the architecture of the real-life Hotel Juvet is stunning. Designed by Jensen & Skovdin Architects, the hotel is located in northwestern Norway... View full entry
Olafur Eliasson, Charles Rice and Iwan Baan are among the artists, scholars, photographers, and other architecturally-oriented professionals who are being awarded individual grants by the Graham Foundation this evening. The awards ceremony and reception, which is being live streamed as of 6 PM... View full entry
Understanding the nuances of city stories, and tracing those tensions, requires immersion and patience. Whether we are writing about police work, protests, squatting, free parties, banking or parkour, the best socially engaged journalism – like the best university research – is rooted in participation, spiked with empathy, and resists being reduced to spectacle fodder.
As any war correspondent will tell you, immersion can also be dangerous...
— the Guardian
Bradley Garrett recounts his own infiltration into urbex (urban exploration) communities, and provides a list of the "five most influential 'gonzo' ethnographies." If you aren't familiar with Garrett's work, be sure to check it out. In particular, Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City is a... View full entry
In a press release issued today, the Istanbul Design Biennial announced that powerhouse architectural historians, theorists and educators Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley will curate the 3rd Biennial, taking place in 2016. Both are based in New York City (and happen to be married) – Colomina... View full entry
Between 925 and 1,960 units citywide have been removed from the housing market by hosts renting out entire units on Airbnb for more than 58 days, the [San Francisco Budget & Legislative Analyst's] report estimates. [...]
The report draws a comparison between the number of evictions in neighborhoods with the most hosts, though notes there is no way to draw a direct connection. In the Mission, for example, there were 315 hosts last year and 323 evictions.
— m.sfexaminer.com
Floating cities and high rise farms are also predicted to shape Britain’s landscape for future generations, according to some of the country’s leading experts.
In new research they outline the future form of the places where people will live and work.
Spaceports for travel to the Moon and Mars are also expected to become a reality within the next 100 years, they say.
— independent.co.uk
Instead, he lives on Buena Vista Terrace SE, a grim stretch of low-rise apartments pushed up against the Maryland border. And on Buena Vista Terrace, just standing outside can get you in trouble. [...]
The law is meant to fight disorderly conduct, but some lawyers and the people arrested for the “crime” say it’s routinely used to harass people seen as undesirable: protesters, the homeless, and black men.
— washingtoncitypaper.com