This summer at the almost defiantly unhip South Street Seaport, there shall be pop-up boutiques housed in shipping containers. There shall be outdoor film screenings with lounge-chair seating. There shall be SmorgasBar. And, the lords of artificial weather willing, there may be glitter rain. — cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
The unbending axis of architectural apologetics made for Speer is a double one...This defense, of course, is exculpatory only if it fails to make any distinction within the field of this expression or to consider any integral relationship between form and function. The more outré defense of Speer insists that he is not simply tarred with modernism’s anti-classical brush but that he was an excellent architect, full stop. — The Nation
In the June 10-17, 2013 edition of The Nation, Michael Sorkin asks Why is Léon Krier defending anew the work of the Third Reich’s master builder? View full entry
The Heron’s architect was N. D. Austin, a 31-year-old artist known for what he calls “trespass theater.” “It’s about making the invisible visible,” he said of his philosophy.
Mr. Austin located a suitable water tower by scouring Buildings Department records for violations with egregious scaffold fines. That can indicate a neglectful landlord, he said, which meant it might be a vacant building ripe for adopting as one’s own.
— nytimes.com
One Saturday night last month, 12 guests squeezed through the trap door into the space. “The great thing about the upright bass is how it got up here,” said Dirby Luongo, one of Mr. Austin’s collaborators who played the doorman. “It’s like a ship in a bottle.” View full entry
Sears Holdings, the 120-year old retailer (which now includes Kmart), plans to start converting its struggling and defunct department stores into data centers, Data Center Knowledge reported today. A new unit of the company, Ubiquity Critical Environments, will lead the charge.
Thanks to Walmart, specialty shops, an economic downturn and—the sweet irony—online shopping, department stores are heading toward extinction, and Sears is feeling the pain particularly hard.
— motherboard.vice.com
Three skyscrapers are to be demolished in Istanbul's Zeytinburnu district for interfering with city's historical silhouette. Decision reached by the 4th. Administrative Court of Istanbul and the use licences of the buildings were revoked. Hürriyet View full entry
B2, a 32-story tower that is part of a 1,500-unit, mixed-use complex designed by SHoP Architects for Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards, will soon be the tallest modular building in the world. nARCHITECTS recently won adaptNYC’s competition to design a micro-unit apartment building, and will see its concept transformed into a 10-story building by 2015. It will be the first multiunit building in Manhattan to be built with modular construction. — opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
Though indebted to conventional artistic methodologies, the vibrant, playful works of Jorge Prado lack traditional notions of artistic autonomy, with multiple uses straddling sculpture, furniture and architecture. Over espresso and a cigarette in the kitchen of his Los Angeles home, Pardo shares with Oscar Tuazon his processes of transforming built environments into functionally fluid sites designed to facilitate a diversity of experience. — youtube.com
“Project approval delays are having an adverse effect on the design and construction industry, but again and again we are hearing that it is extremely difficult to obtain financing to move forward on real estate projects,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “There are other challenges that have prevented a broader recovery that we will examine in the coming months if this negative trajectory continues... we’re hopeful that this is just a short-term dip.” — aia.org
Last week, Broad Group announced it has received approval from the Chinese government and will break ground on the project next month, though according to Quartz's Lily Kuo, Broad Sustainable Building has pushed the building's schedule to a more modest seven months. — theatlanticcities.com
Not every director studied the greats at film school. Joseph Kosinski spent more time with Wren than Welles. "I went to graduate school in New York to get a degree in architecture… but never got my licence." Instead Kosinski, 38, has applied his skills to virtual worlds such as "the Grid" -- the digital setting of Tron: Legacy. Now, in Oblivion, he gets to imagine Earth 60 years after an apocalyptic war. — wired.co.uk
Related, see Archinect's interview with Joseph Kosinski about his Art of Speed project for Nike. View full entry
The BioIntelligent Quotient House, which opened in March, is the first to use external tubes of algae to help heat, shade and generate power for the building. But Khoury Levit Fong (KLF), the Toronto firm in which el-Khoury is a partner, came up with the idea six years ago, and incorporated it into a design that won – then lost – an international competition for a huge new museum in Shenzhen, a major Chinese city near Hong Kong. — theglobeandmail.com
Civil society has to get things done here - Kurt Dillon, architect, Urbio — New York Times
"In recognition of its historic role in the development of modern international trade and transportation, as well as its cultural and environmental value, the Historic Center of Colon was declared a historic monument in 2002. Despite its protected status, the center continues to suffer the effect... View full entry
Civil society has to get things done here - Kurt Dillon, architect, Urbio — New York Times
Photo by Meredith Kohut for NYT "In recognition of its historic role in the development of modern international trade and transportation, as well as its cultural and environmental value, the Historic Center of Colon was declared a historic monument in 2002. Despite its protected status, the... View full entry
Unconscious perception represents the automated processes the body goes through to take in the surrounding environment and its metaphysical status. While our five senses help us perceive the physical world, unconscious perception connects us to the realm of intuition.
To shed light on how we are influenced by this dimension of our minds, artist Dan Graham spoke about his practice, which challenges our perceptions of space through performance, installations, video, sculpture, and writing.
— bmwguggenheimlab.org
The finalists of the 2013 Radical Innovation in Hospitality competition recently gathered during Hospitality Design Expo in Las Vegas to present their ideas for the next big hotel concept in front of a jury of top industry judges. [...] the Copenhagen-based international architecture collective PinkCloud.dk took home the $10,000 grand prize for its Pop-Up Hotel concept, which utilizes empty Class A office spaces in urban centers, turning them into temporary hospitality spaces. — bustler.net