When Lord Rogers launched a campaign to save one of London’s most notorious housing estates from demolition, he was adamant that it was a desirable place to live. [...]
It is a claim he may regret. Unhappy residents of the estate have challenged the peer to be true to his word and swap his £12 million Chelsea townhouse for a few nights in one of their blighted flats.
— telegraph.co.uk
Previously: Robin Hood Gardens Set For Demolition View full entry
One year and 1,715 entries later, the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition has selected Paris-based Moreau Kusunoki Architectes as the grand-prize winners today for their design, "Art in the City". In recent years, the Foundation's plans for building a new Guggenheim in Helsinki prompted... View full entry
While the work ethics behind constructing skyscrapers shouldn't be ignored, tall buildings are an architectural feat that will continue to capture the upward gazes and awe of many. Every year in the Best Tall Buildings awards, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat rounds up a jury of... View full entry
The ideals of Novye Cheryomushki may have died, but its methods and techniques remain — having managed to make some people very wealthy. Moscow suburbia is not so much the remnants of a great experiment, perhaps, but suburbia like any other suburbia — a place of dreams and boredom, great ideas being implemented and then slowly crushed. — calvertjournal.com
In Orange, Texas, the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans just built a large Confederate memorial park, complete with a classical-ish monument featuring 13 columns—one for each of the states in the short-lived, and utterly defeated, Confederate States of America. [...]
And this being Confederate sympathizers, they did not hesitate to build the memorial where the highway meets Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
— citylab.com
Related:Building the First Slavery Museum in AmericaHow America is failing to preserve its historic slave markets View full entry
[...] has ordered a review of the procurement process for London’s garden bridge design after the Architects’ Journal revealed apparent irregularities in the tendering process. [...]
Heatherwick’s £173,000 fee was more than three times more expensive than the £49,939 offer by Wilkinson Eyre, and more than 11 times that of the £15,125 offer by Marks Barfield.
[...] cost of the project could fund 30 new London parks or 30 times the amount of open space the bridge would provide.
— theguardian.com
Previously View full entry
MAD Architects is making their U.S. residential debut with the unveiling of 8600 Wilshire, which is scheduled to break ground along Wilshire Boulevard in the one and only Beverly Hills this October. Described by the architects like an oasis-like 'hillside village', the stark-white glass villas and... View full entry
"The river was part of its immediate environment. To move it to higher ground where it never floods would be ridiculous. You would ask: 'Why is it on stilts?' It makes no sense to me." — chicagotribune.com
All along, Mies van der Rohe's iconic design for the retreat of Dr. Edith Farnsworth was intended to withstand floodwaters, but in the past 19 years, the house has flooded three times, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. These incidents were partially blamed on rapid suburban... View full entry
Pritzker Prize-winner Álvaro Siza has been selected to design an "ultra-luxury condominium" in Manhattan, his first U.S. project. Deemed 611 West 56th Street by developers Sumaida + Khurana and LENY, the structure will rise 35-storeys in New York's Hell's Kitchen, enough for approximately... View full entry
The Ponte saga is a classic South African story. Once a Jacuzzi-filled playground for the segregated white elite in the apartheid era, then falling into chaos in the 1990s as the wealthy fled to the suburbs, then the object of failed luxury-condo schemes, the tower is now undergoing a renaissance as an icon of Johannesburg’s urban revitalization. [...]
The hollow core began to fill with garbage and rubble – several stories high.
— theglobeandmail.com
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
A new typology of XL-architecture is emerging in Istanbul, negating the urban context. These ‘Citadels-on-Steroids’ rapidly encroach on the city’s urban fabric. [...]
This might very well be the future of all cities. As city walls and state boundaries erode under late capitalism, the walls are only rebuilt at a smaller scale to maintain immunity from the chaos outside.
— failedarchitecture.com
Tall buildings specialist Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS + GG) has been chosen by the master developer of Dubai’s Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) district to design the Burj 2020 tower - set to be the world’s tallest commercial tower. [...]
The Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ranks New York’s One World Trade Center as the world’s tallest commercial tower, at 541 metres. The height of Burj 2020 is yet to be revealed.
— thenational.ae
Fittingly, Poolside’s version of “Harvest Moon” echoed off the wooden planks of the Broad Arts Center at UCLA on June 10th as a crowd of optimists, architects, and Ira-Glass lookalikes drank their way in and out of the opening reception for BI(h)OME, Kevin Daly Architects’ proposed... View full entry
Flying above New York City in a helicopter can be a beautiful thing, until you look down and see that someone has stolen and is living your dream life in a bucolic cabin on a rooftop in the West Village. Is there anything more enviable in the real estate racket of NYC than a house on a regular old apartment building's roof?
[...] the porch is basically a glorified bulkhead over a hole punched in the ceiling of the family’s loft to make way for a nautical stairway that rises to a landing [...].
— gothamist.com
Require a little more luxury for your Manhattan rooftop abode? A mere $250 million could buy you this. View full entry