An elevated park filling a retired stretch of freeway may sound reminiscent of the High Line, the hugely popular park built along an abandoned elevated train line in Manhattan.
In symbolic and practical terms, the potential of a remade 2 spur is greater than even that project. It would take a working stretch of freeway in Los Angeles, a city still synonymous with car culture, and reinvent it as a vibrant, diverse urban landscape.
— LA Times
Critics rarely take advantage of their position to propose urban initiatives of their own, but when they do, it usually merits some serious consideration.Christopher Hawthorne has issued an inventive, but well-reasoned, proposal to remake the awkward terminus of the 2 Freeway, where it "bends... View full entry
The companies that made and installed the exterior panels on The Address Downtown Dubai hotel say that most of the towers built in the city prior to 2012 used non-fire-rated exterior cladding.
The disclosure comes as investigators probe the causes of the spectacular blaze [...] on New Year’s Eve.
An investigation by The National into the origins and specification of the exterior panels used on the building raises serious questions over the fire safety of hundreds of buildings.
— thenational.ae
Related stories in the Archinect news:Flying firefighters: the jetpack is quickly becoming a realityThe troubles of evacuating one of the world's tallest residential buildings during a fireFire fears for Gulf's high-rise blocks View full entry
Cities around the world have only one generation to meet the twin challenges of climate change and a rapidly growing urban population, the head of a global engineering firm has warned.
Gregory Hodkinson, chairman of the Arup group, said that with more than half the world’s population already living in cities, and the proportion set to rise to 70% by 2050, city leaders need to take urgent action.
— The Guardian
Gregory Hodkinsin, the chairman of the engineering giant Arup Group, has warned that cities must adapt to climate change and booming population growth within the timespan of a single generation. “If we don’t, in my view, we’re screwed: my children and my grandchildren and everybody else’s... View full entry
Designing out homelessness appears to be part of a wider ambition to make consumers and investors feel secure, while avoiding direct human intervention. [...]
It is an indictment of our communities that we have come to identify street homelessness as a form of “disorder” – a sign that something is amiss or dangerous in our public spaces. Yet the reality is that these kinds of design and security measures are put in place because of the breakdown of these very communities.
— theconversation.com
This piece by Rowland Atkinson (Chair in Inclusive Societies) and Aidan While (Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and Planning) at the University of Sheffield gets at how exclusionary design towards the homeless and so-called "rough" sleepers (those who sleep in the city's streets) is a sign of... View full entry
The most influential, controversial, historic and puzzling news items of December, 2015: ↑ "7,000 construction workers will die in Qatar before a ball is kicked in the 2022 World Cup," new ITUC report findsThis staggering statistic brings much needed attention to the dire human rights... View full entry
The people understood that the monster’s power was fed by liquid gold. It could go anywhere and set up a tower, even in the middle of an old neighbourhood where nobody had asked it to come. [...]
The city, however, was not about to go down without a fight. After all, it had survived many a bad period across the centuries, and was still alive – unlike those kings and queens and powerful companies of old. The neighbourhoods could see they had to get together and fight this monster.
— theguardian.com
Saskia Sassen and her son, Hilary Koob-Sassen, wrote and illustrated an urban fairy tale for theguardian.com, complete with villainous gentrifiers, Chinese skyscrapers, Jane Jacobs-style wisdom, and a cautionary conclusion on "smart" cities.More on Archinect:Fairy Tales 2015 competition winners... View full entry
The 2,000-year-old arch is all that remains of the Temple of Bel, part of the Syrian Unesco World Heritage site, captured by militants in May.
It will be recreated from photographs, using a 3D printer.
The institute behind the project hopes the arch will draw attention to the importance of cultural heritage.
— BBC
For more in innovative 3D printing news, do check out Archinect's coverage: • ESA proposes a village on the moon• Amsterdam could get a new 3D-printed bridge built by robots• Vote on which 3D concrete puzzles of cities & places to model next View full entry
That headline paraphrases the research question of Danah Boyd, who, as a computer science student in 2000, wrote her bachelor thesis on whether VR systems were being designed in such a way to defer to, biologically, the male gaze. The research is in no way definitive, but probes an essential... View full entry
The Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is visiting Lesbos to document the plight of thousands of refugees who arrive daily on the Greek island by boat from Turkey. For the past two days, Ai has been photographing orange rubber dinghies coming into shore, families huddled around fires, people queuing to register at the Moria refugee camp and piles of discarded lifejackets, among other scenes [...]
It is understood Ai will be creating a work in response to the refugee crisis.
— theartnewspaper.com
Here are just a few of Ai Weiwei's recent photos from the Lesbos refugee camp; giving a human face to people and entire families escaping war and persecution in their home countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, as well as documenting humanitarian workers, such as the Norwegian group, Drop... View full entry
What they weren’t trivializing or coarsening with commerce, railroad executives were simply neglecting. Whether desperately or cynically, they seemed to understand that redevelopment of their money-losing, nine-acre station would be more palatable if the public could be made to forget the glories of Mr. McKim’s original design. Pink granite walls were allowed to turn gray. Straw-colored travertine looked nicotine-stained. Jules Guerin’s murals disappeared under veils of grime. — nytimes.com
The destruction of Old Penn Station in favor of its soulless, uninspiring replacement has garnered an ample share of outraged pixels—but what if the long-accepted narrative has a twist? Apparently, the inspiring sweep and elegance that is so often attributed to Penn Station had fallen victim to... View full entry
After twin earthquakes in April and May claimed 9,000 lives and left vast swathes of Nepal in ruins, survivors worried if they reused the brick rubble, they would end up with the same vulnerable, seismically unsound structures.
[...] Shigeru Ban - who helped bring global attention to humanitarian architecture and continues to influence fellow architects and disaster-relief workers - devised a solution. [...]
"I'm encouraging people to copy my ideas. No copyrights," Ban said.
— reuters.com
"While Ban said he enjoys working on grand projects commissioned by privileged people, he also wants to help people who have lost their homes, and is encouraged that many architects have followed in his footsteps."Previously in the Archinect news:Shigeru Ban: Beauty as a basic human needShigeru... View full entry
November 2015↑ Cut away confusion from your NYC commute with these beautiful subway maps Navigate NYC's subway system with this handy resource that's also easy on the eyes. Locally based architect Candy Chan rendered the city's subway stations into a growing collection of lovely 3D maps... View full entry
A report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has estimated that 7,000 workers will die before the first ball is kicked in the 2022 World Cup. [...]
“Qatar’s labour laws are ruinous for workers. All the government has done is to codify slavery. Employers can now even lend out workers to another employer without the worker’s consent for up to a year”
— globalconstructionreview.com
In its 2015 report Qatar: Profit and Loss. Counting the cost of modern day slavery in Qatar: What price freedom?, the ITUC demands that FIFA would make workers' right a central concern of the 2022 World Cup preparations. The organization has also called on Qatari authorities to take these... View full entry
we rarely talk about how architecture sounds, aside from when a building or room is noisy. [...]
Sound may be invisible or only unconsciously perceived, but that doesn’t make it any less an architectural material than wood, glass, concrete, stone or light. [...]
Acoustics can act in deep, visceral ways, not unlike music ... And while it’s sometimes hard to pin down exactly how, there is often a correlation between the function of a place or an object and the sound we expect it to make.
— nytimes.com
Architecture critic Michael Kimmelman and producers Alicia DeSantis, Jon Huang and Graham Roberts document the sounds of some archetypal city spaces, conveying the personality and subtle (or sometimes not) musicality of interiors. View full entry
October 2015↑ SANAA's meandering "River" community center opens to the public SANAA's gleaming "River" community center, which Archinect first mentioned in 2012, finally opened its doors to the public. While the building is generally favored, Archinector Will Galloway shared an op-ed by... View full entry
