Have you heard? There’s this game called Pokémon Go, and it’s responsible for a radical new relationship to the city!Think pieces are clogging Twitter and Facebook expounding the virtues of the augmented reality game that has lead distracted pedestrians off cliffs, into muggings, and... View full entry
Architects might be known for wearing black, as if in permanent mourning for the lives they once had, and for spending months searching for the perfect shade of grey. But judging by this year’s student shows, that monochromatic hegemony is under threat: the next generation appears to be plotting a psychedelic revolution. — The Guardian
Incorporating influences drawn from popular media and gaming, architecture is increasingly reflecting the multi-faceted world in which we live, at least if you take a look at this new UK-based student work. Students from The Bartlett at the University College London, The Royal College of Art, and... View full entry
What do you do with a sad, funky, abandoned trolley terminus? Well, if it's the former Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal under Delancey Street in New York City, you make the world's first underground park by virtue of adding some mirrors, skylights, and vegetation. One acre in size, the freshly... View full entry
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D), the senior Senator from Massachusetts, has co-signed a letter requesting that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigate the degree to which short-term lodging services are composed of "persons or firms acting in a commercial manner by renting out entire... View full entry
The thousands of new old houses in New Orleans reveal the ethos of a people in a place nearly destroyed. New Orleanians have embraced their city’s architectural heritage as they’ve rebuilt for an uncertain future. — Places Journal
What does post-Katrina architecture look like in New Orleans? And what does it reveal about its society? In their survey in Places, Richard Campanella and Cassidy Rosen discover that historical styles are 14 times more popular than contemporary styles in the rebuilt city, despite the focus of... View full entry
What makes a person creative? What are the biographical conditions and personality traits necessary to actualize that potential? These were driving questions behind a 1958-59 study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, which attempted to divine the elements of creativity by... View full entry
Malaysia has too much sewage sludge and not enough concrete, a problem which naturally prompted an "aha!" moment among researchers. By burning and drying wet sewage sludge cake and then grinding and sieving the dry cake to produce Domestic Waste Sludge Powder (DWSP), the Malaysian researchers are... View full entry
Block a highway, and you upend the economic life of a city, as well as the spatial logic that has long allowed people to pass through them without encountering their poverty or problems. Block a highway, and you command a lot more attention than would a rally outside a church or city hall — from traffic helicopters, immobile commuters, alarmed officials. — the Washington Post
The article notes that, historically, highway construction decimated black communities, such as in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Oakland, and many other cities. In New York, Robert Moses explicitly used highways to clear "slums," in the process devastating parts of the Bronx and other black... View full entry
Debates are rubbish. We've all been there: a panel of similar people with similar views taking it in turns to talk at length about their similar work - too polite, too deferential, too dull. At best they are lukewarm love-ins, critically impotent, elitist and stuffy. Turncoats is a shot in the arm. — Turncoats statement
Turncoats, a provocative architectural debating society that originated in London last year, has expanded to Scotland, the USA, Canada and Serbia, with more cities in the pipeline. The London originators have turned the premise into a franchise, inviting cities to apply for free and start a... View full entry
It’s that time of year again…On Thursday 14th July the nominees for this years Stirling Prize will be announced. For anyone who doesn’t know the UK’s most prestigious award, it was founded in 1996 and recognises “the architects of the building that has made the greatest contribution to... View full entry
Taking and recording measurements on the fly can be tricky—getting all the right tools to measure different surfaces and distances, and having a place to scribble them down for later, can easily lead to imprecise or inefficient measurements. The mouthwateringly-named Bagel digital tape measure... View full entry
The ninth cycle of the prestigious 2016 Fuller Challenge is well underway, and competition is as fierce as ever. Following the expert jury's rigorous evaluations, 19 semi-finalists were announced today...Multi-disciplinary teams work hard for a chance at winning the $100,000 grand prize that will help implement their initiative. — Bustler
A few of this year's semi-finalists include:Cooperación Comunitaria, which works with marginalized communities in Mexico's most seismically active region to build housing that is affordable, seismically sound, sustainable, and culturally appropriate.The African Design Center “aims to... View full entry
The founders and board members of Architecture for Humanity (AFH), the influential and accoladed non-profit organization, is being sued for $3M for alleged mismanagement of funds, according to an exclusive report published by Architectural Record. The report helps shed light on the circumstances... View full entry
A mass shooting scenario changes the function of every object in the built environment. [...]
The buildings themselves, the fabric of the city, ends up not mattering so much. In fact, sometimes it becomes a kind of enemy. [...]
Americans aren’t going to rebuild their cities to accommodate the possibility of violence. The people who protect the people in those cities will just have to learn to see them differently.
— wired.com
Related on Archinect:Guns in the Studio: Texas' new campus carry law prompted Architecture Dean Fritz Steiner to resign. He joins us to discuss the law's effect on architecture education, on Archinect Sessions #55The Architecture of Loss: How to Redesign After a School ShootingHow Jeanne Gang... View full entry
It’s shaping up to be one bummer of a summer for Marina City, where some residents have been banned from their balconies.
City inspectors discovered trouble with nearly 2,000 balcony railings [...] While crews work to fix 1,920 handrail posts, 1,300 balusters and 1,020 bottom rails, some residents have been banned from using the balconies for four months or longer. [...]
“What’s worse is that we’re not allowed to open the door to the balcony to let the breeze in.”
— DNAinfo
The iconic Marina City towers—now officially a city landmark—recently in the Archinect news:Chicago's Marina City designated official landmark status — it's about time!Only one vote left before Marina City can become official city landmarkChicago's famed Marina City seems destined for... View full entry
