When all stages are completed, the 65,000 people daily who pass through the Hudson Yards’ office towers, residences, shops, restaurants, hotel, public school, and public open space will contribute to a massive stream of data intended to help answer the big questions about how cities of the future should be managed. [...]
“It really started from the question: If we could know anything about the city, what would we want to know and how could we do a better job at measuring the pace of life?”
— fastcoexist.com
From pedestrian bridges to city centre waterslides, sculpture parks to public pianos, here are some of the smartest and wackiest crowdfunded projects for urban improvement — theguardian.com
Silicon Valley is a meticulously researched show [...] and the work spaces that appear on screen are no exception. Production designer Richard Toyon, the man responsible for the visual storytelling, called up friends all over Silicon Valley to get a peek inside the offices of Facebook, Google, Zynga, and others. Security often prevented Toyon from taking pictures inside the buildings, so he made due with mental notes. — fastcodesign.com
Related: Aftershock #2: "Serendipity Machines" and the Future of Workplace Design View full entry
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
The Swiss architect Gion A Caminada is something of a cult figure. Now in his 50s, he's spent much of his working life since the late 1970s practising out of a small village called Vrin in the canton of Graubünden. [...]
Caminada's idea was to boost the place with a collection of well-designed and functional private and communal buildings, among them the Aussichtsturm Reussdelta, an ornithologists' observation tower, and Waldhuette, a woodland cabin containing a school classroom.
— Phaidon
The urban planning community is constantly touting the benefits of building dense communities around public transportation. But according to designers Chad Kellogg and Matt Bowles, few solutions have been ambitious enough to do the whole Transit-Oriented Development idea justice. So they came up with their own.
Behold the Urban Alloy Towers, a proposal to take over spaces immediately surrounding transportation infrastructure like elevated train lines and highways.
— theatlanticcities.com
What is said to be the largest private real estate development in US history is set to become the country’s first “quantified community” as well. Hudson Yards, a 17 million-square foot [...] development on the far west side of Manhattan, will be embedded with technology to monitor environmental conditions, energy production and usage, and traffic flows among its soon to rise towers. The developers are partnering with New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) [...]. — urbanomnibus.net
[...] MoMA has said it would detach and preserve the facade’s 63 textured copper-bronze panels.
One might suppose that salvage is preferable to annihilation, but before we get too comfortable with such piecemeal preservation, it is worth noting that the panel-by-panel disassembly and storage of an architectural treasure’s metal facade has been tried before in New York City, with comically disastrous results.
Who around here remembers the Laing Stores?
— nytimes.com
Related: As demolition of Folk Art Museum begins, Archinect reflects on historical implications View full entry
This year's Designs of the Year jury have chosen their crème de la crème of the world's most cutting-edge design. Since London's Design Museum announced the 76 nominees in February, the competition has narrowed down to seven category winners. In the final step of the competition, one of these category winners will be announced as the overall winner by June 30 at an event hosted by St. Martins Lane London. — bustler.net
The category winners are:(Pictured above) Architecture: HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTER, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN - Designed by Zaha Hadid and Patrik SchumacherDigital: PEEK (PORTABLE EYE EXAMINATION KIT) - Designed by Dr. Andrew Bastawrous, Stewart Jordan, Dr. Mario Giardini, Dr. Iain LivingstoneFashion: PRADA... View full entry
For the latest edition of the Working out of the Box feature Archinect talked with Emily Fischer, Founder of Haptic Lab. In the interview she explains how she started "The very first quilted map I made was designed to be a wayfinding tool for the visually impaired; my mother was diagnosed with... View full entry
Two years after the 2011 earthquake destroyed Christchurch's neo-Gothic cathedral, the building has been resurrected. It has also undergone something of a public transfiguration. [...]
In the past few years cardboard has also become increasingly popular in small-scale design. Hipster boutiques, museum gift shops and high profile public events such as the State of Design Festival now stock cardboard lighting, storage units, stools and kids' toys.
— Sydney Morning Herald
The NYPD said the balloon would remain aloft for about nine hours Sunday in lower Manhattan and more than 13 hours Monday in Midtown.
Police said the balloon will be about 800 feet in the air as it collects data for a private architecture firm conducting height surveys of Manhattan buildings.
— nydailynews.com
[...] architectural historian William J R Curtis has set off the alarm bells by warning about the looming threat of destruction on Chandigarh's architectural heritage, terming the damage to buildings as "vulgarization" and "massacre."
According to Curtis, there is a clear and present danger to the legacy of city creator Le Corbusier and that the restoration measures are needed to be taken now.
— timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Curtis believes that astronomical rise in land prices has posed the greatest threat to heritage in an increasingly materialistic society where there is a "price for everything and value of nothing." View full entry
The telling details are two walls of red granite at the entrance, as well as the tiered reflecting pools in back. The first was Mr. Conforti’s idea and the second, Mr. Ando’s. — NYT
Ted Loos provides a status update for the dozen-year $145 million expansion of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, which is finally scheduled to open in July.Previously on Archinect here and here View full entry
This past Tuesday, The Architectural League of New York hosted a lecture at Cooper Union by architect Sou Fujimoto, entitled “Between Nature and Architecture”. Despite the great number of practitioners and students in attendance (almost a full-house), the event felt more like an intimate... View full entry