While there's no word on what would happen if someone skinned their knee on this bacteria-infused concrete, the premise is certainly intriguing in theory: concrete that patches cracks in itself for up to 200 years after its initial formation. Here's a brief video outlining the process: View full entry
Then we have good news for you, that is, if you have $7,600 a month to spare on rent. The LA-based architect's Santa Monica home has been put up for lease following his recent re-location to Cheviot Hills. Two years ago, Thom Mayne and his wife, Blythe Mayne, bought beloved science-fiction author... View full entry
ICYMI, back in April Nicholas Korody published an interview with Bryan MacKay-Lyons and Talbot Sweetapple, about their contextually-sensitive, regionally specific, vernacular. Therein MacKay-Layons explains "The other non-object sense of our work is that we see the buildings as helmets that... View full entry
The Foster + Partners and Branch Technology team recently won first prize in the NASA 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge's Phase 2: Level 1 Compression Test Competition. The three-phase Challenge envisions a future where autonomous machines can help build extra-terrestrial shelters for human... View full entry
To snap a photo of the Hollywood sign, tourists have clogged hillside streets and hiking paths, spurring battles in Hollywood Hills neighborhoods and in court over how people should be able to access the iconic landmark.
Now Mayor Eric Garcetti has floated an alternative: Building a gondola to ferry visitors to the beloved sign.
— The Los Angeles Times
Instead of having to evade trespassing laws (or take the long way around), those who want to visit the Hollywood sign up close may be able to simply take an aerial gondola lift if Mayor Eric Garcetti's recent remarks become a reality. As this article notes:Garcetti spokesman George Kivork said in... View full entry
Both Vienna and Budapest can be viewed as battlefields in an unfolding European crisis of identity and confidence that threatens the continent’s political unity and raises fundamental questions about what exactly it means to be European, to be Europe. Can we read these crises at the level of architecture? — Places Journal
In light of contemporary political turmoil in the region, Owen Hatherley examines key moments in the architectural histories of two quintessentially European cities, from the development of Vienna's monumental public housing to Budapest's experimentation with an ethnonationalist style. View full entry
Stefano Boeri — known for designing the Vertical Forest typology — was recently appointed as a curator for the 2017 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, deemed as Shanghai's most relevant architecture, city planning, and public art event. Boeri will work alongside Dr. Li Xiangning, professor and... View full entry
Formerly a professor and Dean of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary, Nancy Pollock-Ellwand will become the Dean of the College of Architecture at the University of Arizona starting July 31st. As University of Arizona Senior Vice President for academic affairs and provost Andrew... View full entry
The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum recently bestowed a 2017 National Design Award to Deborah Berke Partners in the Interior Design category. The awards competition recognizes designers, patrons, and companies for “excellence, innovation, and enhancement of the quality of life” in ten... View full entry
In this latest episode of Archinect Sessions, Ken and Donna share their experiences and thoughts on the 2017 AIA National Conference. We discuss the conversation with Michelle Obama and the keynotes by Francis Kéré (awesome), Michael Murphy (political), and Elizabeth Diller (meh). We also... View full entry
[Albert] Speer, Jr., an eighty-two-year-old with a perennially serious expression and a fondness for energetic hand motions, is one of Germany’s best-known urban planners. He has risen to the top of the German planning world over the past fifty years, thanks to his reputation for sustainability and “human scale” architecture, and despite being the son of Hitler’s favorite architect [...]
To his irritation, Speer, Sr., has long cast a shadow over his career.
— the New Yorker
"If Speer, Sr.,’s work was a reflection of the Third Reich’s values, Speer, Jr.,’s is a manifestation of Germany’s postwar identity: a country that has tried to atone for its past by becoming an international advocate for human rights and environmental sustainability, a country that is... View full entry
Working toward fairer professional architectural practice is an ongoing uphill climb in the industry, but which practices are already getting it right? The Architecture Lobby recently co-launched an initiative called JustDesign.Us, a certification process to distinguish architecture firms with... View full entry
After being unanimously chosen out of 11 renowned architecture firms, Peter Zumthor presented his vision for the expansion project of the reputable Fondation Beyeler Museum in Riehen, Basel. Joining the original Renzo Piano-designed museum building, the new expansion will provide more room for the... View full entry
Imagine combining the movable gangway employed for airplane passengers with the slender above-ground urban footprint of a subway station, and you have the basic concepts behind Gensler and Dror's proposed underground cruise operation in their masterplan for the Galataport in Istanbul. Using a... View full entry
[K. Michael Hays] represents an approach to teaching architecture and architectural theory that has held sway in the American academy for at least a generation. This approach doesn’t simply treat architecture as a discipline separate from the rest of the world, with its own passwords and protocols. It guards that separation with its life. — The Los Angeles Times
A spirited Christopher Hawthorne reviews Harvard GSD's first online course as taught by K. Michael Hays, who appears to prize obfuscation and condescension as teaching methods (Hawthorne does explain the history behind this autonomous pedagogy, which resulted from architects of the 1970s needing... View full entry
