Peter Zumthor released new renderings for his LACMA redesign last week, and boy are people not impressed! We talk about the "undercooked" look of Zumthor's snaking concrete inkblot plan for the museum, and experiment with a new segment devoted to ranting on the podcast. You've been warned.Listen... View full entry
A young man attempted to scale the Trump Tower in New York using suction cups on Wednesday afternoon, creating a social media frenzy in the process. The NYPD attempted to wrangle the urban climber by following him atop window washers' scaffolding and removing entire windows — deconstructive... View full entry
“if augmented reality really catches on, and an internet environment overlaid on our real world surroundings becomes common, what will be the rules around using that augmented space?" [...]
Could you sell, lease, or subdivide the digital rights to your own home, yard, or lobby? Could you extract a toll, tax, or commission from virtual usage?
— bldgblog.com
Referencing multiple, international cases of private property disputes over the mega-popular Pokémon Go game, Geoff Manaugh floats the idea of zoning regulations for virtual and augmented reality instances.As players wander through public and private spaces alike to catch 'em all, they inevitably... View full entry
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump may have a lot of differences in temperament and policy, but common to both campaigns are promises to invest heavily in the country’s crumbling infrastructure. It’ll be a hard task to get the bill through a Republican-controlled, miserly House — particularly... View full entry
Why place individual solar panels on top of a pre-existing roof when you could just build an entire roof with solar technology integrated into it? Elon Musk, CEO of the financially underperforming Solar City and Tesla, sees it as an obvious solution. According to CNNMoney, he said that "If your... View full entry
Pretty much every element of MAD's design for the Xinhee Design Center factors in sustainability: water features, full-blown gardens and offices commingle on the six star-shaped floors that sprout from the central atrium, while an envelope of PTFE provides ventilation and shade.Solar panels occupy... View full entry
Part of the challenge throughout California and plenty of other communities...is that we tend to make local policy — and housing policy in particular — as if the only people who matter in a community are the ones who go to bed there at night.
We don't think of people who work but don't "live" there, or who'd like to live there but can't afford to, or who once lived there but had to leave, or who could access better jobs if only they could move there, or who commute through there...
— the Washington Post
You may effectively live your life within, say, San Francisco or Washington, D.C., going to school there, working there, dropping your children at day care there, spending your money and your waking time there. But if, at the end of the day, you go sleep somewhere else, you are invisible to the... View full entry
computer vision and artificial intelligence are the keys to a debate behind a door that’s been locked for a long time: the social impact of design in cities. [...]
"Now that we have new tools to measure aesthetics, we can estimate its consequences" [...]
[MIT Media Lab associate professor Cesar Hidalgo] wants to develop more empirical ways to study cities and the way they’re perceived—and, in turn, provide better science to the policy-makers who shape legislation.
— fastcodesign.com
More on neural networks and aesthetic quantification:Mark Zuckerberg's resolution for 2016: build an at-home AI "like Jarvis in Iron Man"Further strides made in Nobel-winning research on the neuroscience of navigationArchinect's Lexicon: "Neuromorphic Architecture""Sculpting the Architectural... View full entry
Nicholas Korody interviewed a class of SCI-Arc students who led by faculty member Darin Johnstone got to design and build their IVRV House in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity. While acknowledging that "it's always easier to build affordable housing when stuff is donated like money, time... View full entry
Richard Herber, owner of the [Frank Lloyd Wright-designed] home at 3901 N. Washington Road, said he wanted the [historic] distinction pulled because he wanted to sell the house for the best price.
Getting the property off the historic list was the only way to “cast a wider net to the widest number of people,” he said. [...]
Not everybody is a candidate for buying a home that’s historic, ... but those who are know exactly what they’re doing.
— journalgazette.net
More on the sticky business of historic preservation:The Seagram Building after the Four Seasons: maintaining a costly landmarkFrom Minnesota to Pennsylvania: moving a Frank Lloyd House halfway across the countryRIP: Bruce Goff's Bavinger House demolishedNo guarantees for historic residential... View full entry
Amid everything that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to recklessly spew, one of the milestones in his circus of a campaign is his apparent plans to build the U.S./Mexico border wall...
Competition creator Reality Cues turns the tables in their newest installment: Good Walls Make Good Neighbors, Mr. Trump.
The objective is pretty straightforward: Design a wall that separates Mr. Trump from the rest of the U.S.
— Bustler
“We want to ask questions more than produce answers,” Reality Cues emphasizes in the brief. Curious? Learn more about their latest snarky competition on Bustler.More on Archinect:Donald Trump, usher of America's postindustrial urban blightDonald Trump is architecture's nightmare... View full entry
“Everybody in China has been moved to a new location or a new city, new town, new apartment... But with such a big movement, or revolutionary change, there is very little discussion or very little meaningful challenge — intellectual challenge — about what architecture is in this fast developing society.”
Despite the country's building boom, Ai says that the state of China's architectural philosphy has largely remained stagnant because conversation is stifled.
— asiasociety.org
Ai Weiwei, along with former ambassador to China Uli Sigg, journalist Martin Meyer, and Jacques Herzog, discussed architecture's role in contemporary Chinese society as part of a panel hosted by Asia Society Switzerland. Weiwei referred to architecture alongside any aesthetic discussions, as... View full entry
In September 2017 Ben Derbyshire will officially become RIBA President-Elect, taking over from the current President Jane Duncan. Commenting on the announcement on HTA's website he said:“Once again we find ourselves in turbulent times. In winning this election I am conscious of a great sense... View full entry
Now after escalating complaints, New York City transportation officials said on Monday that something would finally be done to solve the riddle of what they call “Times Square in the Sky.”...That something — if the crossing can take it — could be building a new path to alleviate congestion
But...any expansion of the promenade would most likely be complicated. “I have to tell you, every time we touch this 133-year-old bridge, it tends to be costly and complex.”
— The New York Times
The New York Times states that Aecom will begin a seven-month $370,000 engineering study this month to analyze how much weight the bridge can carry and explore expansion options.More on Archinect:The NYC that could have been – 'Never Built New York' to be released this fallCall it the Brooklyn... View full entry
Minimalist furniture. Craft beer and avocado toast. Reclaimed wood. Industrial lighting. Cortados [...]
The interchangeability, ceaseless movement, and symbolic blankness that was once the hallmark of hotels and airports, qualities that led the French anthropologist Marc Augé to define them in 1992 as "non-places," has leaked into the rest of life. [...]
This confluence of style is being accelerated by companies that foster a sense of placelessness … Airbnb is a prominent example.
— theverge.com
Nicholas Korody previously explored this phenomenon, of supposedly idiosyncratic Airbnb styling converging on the generic.Related on Archinect:Airbnb turns to urban planning as it looks towards the future of home-sharingAfter allegations of racial discrimination and #AirbnbWhileBlack fallout... View full entry
