London’s red-hot housing market of late is by now an international legend, drip-feeding the media with tragicomic stories of insane pricing on a weekly basis—from the $710 cupboard to the one-bedroom flat on sale for $37 million. Now a new report out this week details some of the harmful social effects that this boom in housing costs has wrought. Unsurprisingly, they are many. — CityLab
This research, conducted by the think tank Centre for London, shows that the city's housing crisis is creating a massive gulf between the city's rich and poor. It's also creating an "inequality chasm" between London and the rest of the United Kingdom.The report identifies three major trends... View full entry
A group of fourth-year Ball State architecture students are refurbishing a former meth house in the Thomas Park-Avondale neighborhood in Muncie as a studio project.
The studio class is working with ecoREHAB, a local nonprofit that provides sustainable rehabilitation of housing and neighborhoods. “The whole goal is to revitalize the community more so than to earn money,” said Taylor Sheppard, a senior architecture major.
— The Ball State Daily
For more on drugs in architecture:Narquitectura: Inside the Fortified Palaces of Mexico's Drug LordsPowering Mumbai with Magic Mushroomsa new memorial to the victims of [drug war] violence View full entry
After Alejandro Aravena accepted the Pritzker Prize yesterday, his firm Elemental released four open source plans for low income housing that, according to the firm's website, balance the constraints of "low-rise high density, without overcrowding, with possibility of expansion (from social... View full entry
7:31 am
Ugh, forgot I’m working for a dude.
7:34 am
I wonder if the dude has a family.
7:36 am
Weird how I know all the female architects’ parental statuses but I don’t know the dudes’.
7:37 am
I should stop referring to GREATEST ARCHITECT OF ALL TIME as “dude,” even in my head. Begin referring to him as GOAT. (Greatest Of All Time.)
8:00 am
Why is the subway late? Should I walk? If I walk I’m gonna get sweaty.
— CommonEdge
While this fictional young architecture intern may confuse pandas with penumbras, she doesn't seem to have any problems affording her new internship for the "Greatest Architect of All Time."That's not the case for all interns, however. For a look at the economics of... View full entry
[nuTonomy's] Level 4 autonomous vehicle "is designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip;" all you have to do is provide a destination and (possibly) open and shut the doors.
Google's autonomous cars, in contrast, are currently at Level 3, with limited self-driving automation [...]
[nuTonomy] is building into [its] decision-making engine the ability for cars to actually violate the rules of the road when it's necessary to do so
— spectrum.ieee.org
More from the autonomous vehicle beat:The "Impossible" Car – Faraday Future's lead designer, Richard Kim, on One-to-One #17"In LiDAR We Trust" – Poking the subconscious of autonomous vehicles with special guest Geoff Manaugh, on Archinect Sessions #43This startup hopes to bring autonomous... View full entry
The Information notes that building a city could allow Sidewalk Labs to “rethink government, social policy, and data-driven management.” [CEO Dan] Doctoroff explained that “thinking about a city from the Internet up is really compelling,” while also noting that “cities are hard. You have people with vested interest, politics, physical space…But the technology ultimately cannot be stopped.” — 9 to 5 Google
Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs joins the rarefied stable of companies potentially looking to expand from an initial service (in this case, improved WiFi access and traffic flow in cities) into a fully-fledged social experimentation machine. Will they build 21st century company towns or create a... View full entry
The Palm Springs Art Museum has named Brooke Hodge as their very first Director of Architecture & Design. Hodge comes by way of the Cooper Hewitt in New York, where she served as the Deputy Director since 2014, but is already well-versed in the southern Californian architecture and design... View full entry
“A police station could be welcoming...And if you can remake space, you can change a culture."
Out of that comes Polis Station...Working in their home city, [Studio Gang] looked at a typical station on the troubled West Side. Their proposal reimagines the station house, placing the secure areas at the back and a variety of public services – a library, daycare, mental-health-care providers and a community room – all sharing a grand public entrance and adjacent to new park space.
— The Globe and Mail
More on Archinect:Studio Gang Architects selected to design new U.S. Embassy in BrazilJeanne Gang wins Architect of the Year in 2016's Women in Architecture AwardsNYPD admits to using "Stringrays," military tech that sweeps up cell dataA bird's-eye view of LA with Geoff Manaugh and the LAPD View full entry
"Foreigners consider [Kangbashi] to be abandoned. Chinese consider the city to be still developing," [photographer Raphael Olivier] explains.
"A lot of the early news reports focus on it being a failed, weird place -- but it's also a huge accomplishment and people there are not necessarily unhappy, there is a huge sense of hope. You have to respect that on a certain level."
— CNN
Other angles on the effects of China's massive urbanization:China's Manhattan replica continues to lie abandoned as economy slows'Re-education' campaigns teach China's new ghost city-dwellers how to behaveOrdos in 2014 - "Brave City of The Future"Photos Of A Massive Chinese-Built Ghost Town In... View full entry
The Polish government plans to demolish about 500 Soviet monuments throughout the country, head of the Institute of National Remembrance Lukasz Kaminsky said in an interview with online portal Onet.pl, the RBC news website reported Thursday.
Kaminsky — whose institute is responsible for investigating crimes against the Polish nation — said that plans for the demolition of the monuments, would be sent to local authorities in the coming weeks.
— the Moscow Times
According to the report, the monuments will be relocated to museums where they can serve as a "witness of hard times."Many Soviet war memorial have been vandalized and demolished in Poland, whose population views the Soviet role in the Second World War "with ambiguity or outright... View full entry
"We wanted the unit itself to be relatively neutral but warm and inviting," [McKelvey] says. "If you look at WeWork as a brand I think the way we design has a more masculine vibe. It’s a little bit heavier and there are some strong contrasts. In the units in WeLive we wanted to have more lightness. Not necessarily masculine and feminine, but just a variable so someone can come in and easily make minimal [changes] and have an impact." — fastcodesign.com
Check out our Working Out of the Box interview with Miguel McKelvey for more on WeWork's design process.More news from WeWork and WeLive:Can WeWork re-engineer the spatial dynamics of society?WeLive, WeWork's co-living venture, opens for beta testing in New York CityMore details emerge about... View full entry
Sitting atop Lake Washington, the new State Route 520 is now the longest floating bridge in the world—beating its predecessor, the old State Route 520, by 130 feet [...].
This new bridge has stronger pontoons than the last one, and can withstand more buffeting from wind and waves. It also has a stormwater collection system, bus lanes in both directions, a path for bikes and pedestrians, and the capacity to someday accommodate a light rail system.
— atlasobscura.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Seattle builds village for the homelessSeattle's proposed 101-story 4/C Tower considered as too tall by the FAASusan Surface, the "humble pioneer" for socially responsible design View full entry
In new guidance, released Monday, HUD tells landlords and home sellers that turning down tenants or buyers based on their criminal records may violate the Fair Housing Act.
People with criminal records aren't a protected class under the Fair Housing Act... but blanket policies of refusing to rent to anybody with a criminal record are de facto discrimination, the department says — because of the systemic disparities of the American criminal justice system.
— NPR
"Because of widespread racial and ethnic disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system, criminal history-based restrictions on access to housing are likely disproportionately to burden African-Americans and Hispanics." - New HUD guidance on criminal records and the Fair Housing ActFor related... View full entry
It was less than a century ago that India consolidated itself as a nation, after hundreds of years of foreign domination. Since its independence in 1947, it has worked tirelessly to define its identity; from the political stage to its day-to-day social engagements, India has established itself on... View full entry
Among the toughest cybersecurity challenges cities face are recruiting a skilled workforce, increasing education and training for employees on cyberthreats, and taking steps to ensure utility companies and service providers are protecting public water and electrical systems. [...]
Cybersecurity experts say large cities are competing with private companies to recruit and retain skilled workers. Smaller cities, particularly in rural areas, often lack staffing and funds for cybersecurity
— mystatesman.com
More cybersecurity and hacker news on Archinect:Hack The CityFrance moves to block Tor, ban free and public Wi-FiArchitecture of paranoiaTraffic Lights are Easy to HackWhen 'Smart Homes' Get Hacked: I Haunted A Complete Stranger's House Via The InternetThe New French Hacker-Artist Underground View full entry