Last January, Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, did something that no other city its size had done before: It made all public transit in the city free for residents. [...]
One year later, this city of 430,000 people has firmly established itself as the leader of a budding international free-transit movement. [...]
What’s less clear on the first anniversary of free transit in Tallinn is whether it has actually changed commuting behavior all that much.
— Citiscope
As it turned out, Tallinn's bold move last year to offer free-transit to its residents did not have a very dramatic effect on its own ridership. But the experiment has clarified some subtle issues in public transit:Free-transit as a "second-best pricing scheme": if a city wants to curb... View full entry
"All great public squares have a monument with a statue, right? ... Everyone in town can agree about that. But whenever we discuss which historical figure should go up on that column, it turns into a fight. We can’t come to a consensus. So we’ve decided to leave it empty. One day, this person will come. And when they do, we will have a place waiting for their statue. This will bring great pride to Anse-à-Pitres.” — Places Journal
On Places, artist and filmmaker Joseph Redwood-Martinez shares photographs and anecdotes from a research project investigating examples of incomplete architecture around the world: "buildings and structures that are activated or inhabited even though their construction is not complete." View full entry
Can a museum collect architecture?
The answer, say the curators of Hong Kong’s museum of visual culture, is yes.
Though it won’t open its doors until 2017, M+ has already staged a number of exhibitions across the city, from 2012’s multi-site “Yau Ma Tei” to last year’s “Inflation!,” a collection of inflatable sculptures displayed on the grounds of its future home, the West Kowloon Cultural District.
— blogs.wsj.com
Previously: Herzog & de Meuron / TFP Farrells Win M+ at West Kowloon Cultural District View full entry
Creating a cohesive connection between a shingle cottage and Richard Meier-designed contemporary house in Mount Kisco was the goal of the current owners, who have owned the property for 25 years — The Wall Street Journal
The controversial plans to demolish the American Folk Art Museum in service of MoMA's expansion rumbled along last night, at a panel discussion hosted jointly by the Architectural League, the Municipal Art Society, and the AIA's New York chapter.Catch-up on news surrounding MoMA's expansion... View full entry
[Adèle Naudé Santos] has decided to step down and return to the faculty, effective at the end of this semester. She is the ninth dean of the school and the second woman to hold the position of school dean at MIT. [...]
“I have loved this appointment, because I have loved this school,” said Santos. “The excellent faculty and students I’ve had the honor to collaborate with are more MIT than they’ve ever been: they’re intent on doing interesting research, crossing aisles, and pushing boundaries.”
— MIT News
A debate has raged over the future of Tempelhof Airport in the south of the city since its closure in 2008. Its open space is currently used for concerts and city gardening. [...]
Architect Jens Oberst, whose library was among two winning designs selected by Berlin's Senate for the site in December, told The Local that the referendum would not influence his plans.
He said: "We’re of the opinion that it is precisely our project which fits with a desire to have an open public space [...]"
— thelocal.de
Related: New Central Library of Berlin State by FAR frohn&rojas View full entry
vado retro is moved to wonder "with the rash of notable building demolition that has and continues to occur, is there a checklist of what makes a building valuable enough not to demolish?...is it because buildings are more about image and visuals than spatial experience that we are willing to rid ourselves of award winning pieces of architecture/art?...maybe buildings don't really matter that much"
The latest edition of ShowCase: features Pocinho Rowing High Performance Center by Alvaro Andrade. Mohammad Hadi Ataei really liked it commenting "Great minimalist work". Additionally, - Mike "The Poet" Sonksen, @mikethepoetLA published Take a Walk: on L.A.'s Grand... View full entry
Less than five months before Brazil's World Cup kicks off, 6 out of 12 venues are still unfinished -- including a complex in the northern city of Manaus, where construction workers have died and pay for laborers is an issue. Fifa has warned Brazil's World Cup 2014 host city of Curitiba that it could be excluded unless work speeds up. — marketplace.org
Previously: Three killed after partial stadium collapse at 2014 World Cup venue View full entry
Richard Meier is returning to his roots with two new developments in New Jersey, where he grew up. — The New York Times
Today we released a teaser for the last installment of the Architecture and the Unspeakable video series. The full video is set to premiere in Chicago on April 8th as part of the MAS CONTEXT Spring talks for 2014. See this for more details. View full entry
San Francisco is practically the reductio ad absurdum of gentrification: It’s already land limited on three sides by water, and the massive rise of the tech industry over the last few decades has dramatically increased both the population of the area and its wealth. [...]
But the blame shouldn’t go to the tech companies or their employees moving to San Francisco, however despicable some might be. Blame San Francisco for being pleasant, and its policymakers for being foolish
— Quartz
Istanbul is still a very pretty city but that is not all. It is also a city in transformation under the impacts of neo-liberalism via the global age of unjust changes. Ekumonopolis looks at these conditions site specifically in Istanbul, called by George Brugmans as one of the oldest and, in the... View full entry
Chicago would be turned into a Midwest version of Paris — La Ville Lumiere, the City of Light — under a mayoral plan showcased Wednesday to boost tourism by spotlighting the city’s architectural wonders. [...]
It will start with an “international design competition” that invites teams of artists, architects, engineers and designers to envision ways to light up Chicago’s “buildings, parks, roads and open spaces.”
— suntimes.com
Microsoft researchers have enabled elevators in a company building to detect the likelihood that a person walking by will want to board it. The camera in a Microsoft Kinect — positioned in the ceiling — tracked for months the behaviors of people who got on the elevators vs. those who bypassed the elevators on their way to a nearby cafeteria. That data fed an artificial intelligence system, which taught itself to identify the behaviors indicating who wanted to board an elevator and who didn’t. — washingtonpost.com