Six months since we last checked in, the curving steel skeleton of the Eric Owen Moss-designed Wrapper office tower is starting to take shape next to Metro's La Cienega/Jefferson Station in Baldwin Hills. — Urbanize LA
Designed by Eric Owen Moss Architects, the 17-story (W)RAPPER office tower in Los Angeles generated a stir of reactions among Archinect readers when construction started going vertical in December 2019. The free-form steel exoskeleton, which appears to be wrapping the structure and enables... View full entry
The Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles (A+D) has announced an institutional restructuring initiative as well as a transformation focus on digital and traveling exhibitions and programming in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement published by the museum, Executive... View full entry
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has unveiled yet another building retrofit tool aimed at helping building owners and operators retool existing facilities for re-occupancy following quarantine. The latest set of resources includes reports detailing the "basic building blocks" for... View full entry
I think that, if anything, the quarantine experience that we’re having is the realization that large-scale, drastic changes are actually possible. — LA Forum/Delirious LA
LA Forum's publication Delirious LA interviews BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh on the quarantine as a possible enabler to change in architecture and other conjectures it may bring to architecture and urban design. "For me, as someone who writes about architecture, it was the idea that there was a way of... View full entry
As investigations into the ways in which the coronavirus spreads continue, new research suggests once again that bathrooms, and particularly toilets, represent a potential vector for infection. Recently published research in the academic journal Physics of Fluids finds that toilet... View full entry
Marking the 135th anniversary of the birth of German designer Lily Reich, Fundació Mies van der Rohe presents its 2nd edition of the Lily Reich Grant for Equality In Architecture. Reich was Mies van der Rohe's close collaborator for many years and was a key player in the conception and... View full entry
The public opening of the new HOK- and WSP-designed La Guardia Terminal B in New York City took place last weekend, revealing a new 850,000-square-foot terminal set to become the first component of a totally revamped airport complex. The airport contains a series of mesmerizing public art... View full entry
A second supplemental Quarterly Market Forecast (QMF) from PSMJ Resources conducted to gauge the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Architecture Engineering and Construction industry offers somewhat positive news for the month of May. After posting a steep, 27% decline in proposal... View full entry
The University of Southern California School of Architecture has announced the launch of the HLW Project Héroe Research Initiative, an "interdisciplinary task force comprised of architects, consultants, medical experts, contractors, and USC Architecture students and recent graduates that... View full entry
With the reopening of Danish Architecture Center last week, Copenhagen welcomed a new art attraction: a 40-meter/130-foot-long tube slide spiraling down four stories inside DAC's boxy, OMA-designed BLOX home. Photo: Kontraframe Envisioned by German-Belgian artist Carsten Höller, famous for... View full entry
MVRDV has completed Villa Stardust, a private home that began as a former commercial building. Inspired by the traditional Moroccan riad, the interior living spaces of the villa are oriented around a central patio space and courtyard. Designed as an outdoor "living room," the... View full entry
But death chambers and many solitary confinement cells — they’re officially called segregation units, not incidentally — are extreme cases. Architects should not contribute their expertise to the most egregious aspects of a system that commits exceptional violence against African-Americans and other minorities.
The least the American Institute of Architects can do now is agree.
— The New York Times
The New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman has penned a column highlighting the moral implications of having architects design solitary confinement and execution facilities. In the article, Kimmelman explores the American Institute of Architect's reluctance to take a positive stand... View full entry
Denmark has opened its new exploratorium and "nature arena" called NATURKRAFT (translated Nature Power) where visitors will experience different aspects of nature and how its physical and aesthetic characteristics will shape the sustainable cities and communities of the future. Designed by... View full entry
After a delayed opening originally scheduled for March 27th, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (maat) has begun its new chapter with a museum-wide architectural intervention designed by New York-based studio SO - IL. Titled Beeline, the project is an ephemeral work that... View full entry
It’s no coincidence that Covid-19 has disproportionately sickened and killed members of demographic groups — people who are black, Indigenous and Latino; who are homeless; who are immigrants — that have been targets of systemic segregation that increased their vulnerability. It’s also not hard to imagine the pandemic, and a person’s relative risk of infection, being used to justify new versions of these discriminatory practices. — NYT Magazine
Kim Tingley, spoke with Joel Sanders, Hansel Bauman, Mabel O. Wilson and other academics and designers about how architecture could adapt to address issues of public health and universal design in a post-COVID-19 world. More about MIXdesign's COVID Case Study here h/t @Justin Garrett Moore, AICP View full entry
