Mayor de Blasio, your idea of a mandate for inclusionary zoning begins to address this crisis yet continues to depend on the tender mercies of private developers to actually produce the units. If you are going to tax them, why not collect the money, municipalize the program, and make gorgeous, genuinely affordable housing your greatest legacy, building it where it's most needed? We can do it! -Michael Sorkin — archrecord.construction.com
Dear Mayor Bill de Blasio: Along with many other architects and urbanists, I'm looking forward to your taking office this month as mayor of New York City, and working to implement the theme of your campaign, the elimination of the increasingly radical disparities that underlie that “tale of... View full entry
The New York Federal Reserve’s latest research report discusses a number of difficulties facing recent college graduates, including unemployment. [...]
After dividing the pool into 13 different undergraduate majors, and using data from 2009 to 2011, some academic pursuits proved likelier to land graduates a job. [...]
For instance, the unemployment rate for architecture and construction majors was 8%, likely related to the fate of housing-related sectors following the housing bust.
— Quartz
The Scottish designer, a former colleague of Richard Rogers, is to open what is believed to be the first architect's studio on Tottenham High Road, opposite the police station where protests spilled over into riots in 2011 that spread across English cities.
McAslan's vision is simple: he wants to train local youngsters as architectural apprentices and give them control over their home areas.
— theguardian.com
"In the process, he hopes to help rectify a major imbalance in the make-up of the UK's architectural profession that has hardly improved since the murder two decades ago of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager who wanted to study architecture." View full entry
Is there value in spending time on something with no practical application whatsoever? Josh Lewandowski reckons so. The Minneapolis-based architect-designer has a blog where he has been posting an architectural doodle every day (save a brief hiatus after he fell ill). The sketches are beautiful, colorful, and, in his own words, almost completely pointless. — fastcodesign.com
It’s okay that all this impeccably tailored corporate design glosses over the past and hides the saga of destruction, dismantlement, and rebuilding. The site is becoming so blessedly normal! — NY Magazine
With Four World Trade Center open and One World Trade Center nearly complete, Justin Davidson recently visited the WTC to survey the results of almost a decade of politics, wrangling and construction and took with a visit to the top. View full entry
A German architect accused of improperly installing a fireplace in his Hollywood Hills mansion, leading to a firefighter’s death in February 2011, is expected to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter Friday. — LA Times
Architect, Gerhard Becker, is accused of involuntary manslaughter in Los Angeles in the death of a firefighter in February 2011. He is expected to plead "no contest" and serve a 6 month long sentence. Becker was accused of constructing fireplaces in a 12,000 square foot residence in the Hollywood... View full entry
Charles O. Paullin and John K. Wright produced an Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States in 1932 that remains, 80 years later, one of the most definitive collections of maps (many of them innovative in their time) from early U.S. history. [...]
Just before the holidays, the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab unveiled an ambitious project bringing the entire collection online [...].
— theatlanticcities.com
Yutaka Sho has been working on housing redevelopment strategies in Rwanda since 2008, and from the beginning the challenges were clear. Building materials were severely limited and ripple effects from the 1994 genocide were still strong, leaving Rwandan society displaced and disproportionately... View full entry
Notes on the Year: This year Los Angeles entered fresh civic territory as a range of initiatives across the city helped fuel an urban reawakening. — latimes.com
Gliding through the air on a bike might so far be confined to the fantasy realms of singing nannies and aliens in baskets, but riding over rooftops could one day form part of your regular commute to work, if Norman Foster has his way.
Unveiled this week, in an appropriately light-headed vision for the holiday season, SkyCycle proposes a network of elevated bike paths hoisted aloft above railway lines, allowing you to zip through town blissfully liberated from the roads.
— theguardian.com
flemingr2002 thought a couple of issues were missing "Good list but i am surprised to see gender issues highlighted but the lack of ethnic diversity, especially in design schools, ignored. It would seem that the real issue is white male privilege. -- Also, CO2 has hit 400 parts per million but sustainability is missing from the list. I know its not hip to be into sustainability but at some point, probably too late, architects will finally mobilize to address this very real threat".
It's that time of the year again, so we continued taking a look back at the year 2013 on Archinect by sharing the most trafficked and popular pages in Archinect's diverse online ecosystem, with a list of 13 top 13 lists for '13. News Some of the Top 13 Architectural Issues for '13 included; 3D... View full entry
Three expert candidates who hope to participate in the Audi Urban Future Award 2014 have presented three different ideas that explore this year's theme: how far data can be used as a planning tool for urban mobility in the future. As part of the Audi Urban Future Initiative, the biennial award searches for visionary ideas in urban mobility. — bustler.net
The public will pick their favorite idea by Speed Pitch Voting online before the winner is announced on Jan. 6 by Audi CEO Professor Rupert Stadler -- right before the opening of the International CES in Las Vegas from Jan. 7-10. You can check out this year's Award trailer and each candidate's... View full entry
Actor Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, which has built 100 energy-efficient new homes in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward, is considering legal action against the manufacturer of an innovative glass-infused wood that was used in some of the homes’ outdoor steps and front porches. The wood has begun rotting, despite being guaranteed for 40 years, a Make It Right spokeswoman said. — theneworleansadvocate.com
Santiago Calatrava is facing legal action from his native city as the dazzling City of Arts and Sciences complex begins to fall apart just eight years after inauguration — telegraph.co.uk
In our culture, talking about the future is sometimes a polite way of saying things about the present that would otherwise be rude or risky.
But have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED talks actually happens? So much potential and enthusiasm, and so little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what ideas can do all by themselves wrong?
— Benjamin Bratton, theguardian.com
