Few cities evoke ideas of the future like Tokyo. When the Nakagin Capsule Tower was built in 1972, it was supposed to mark the Dawn of the Capsule Age. At the time, Japan was preparing for explosive growth fueled by a new economy built on technology and manufacturing. A group of architects from the so-called Metabolism school of architecture, championed by the tower’s architect Kisho Kurokawa, believed new structures should be made to grow and adapt organically with the society they served. — wired.com
Related: I ♥ METABOLISM View full entry
While tiny housing of this kind has existed in Hong Kong for many years, it has expanded as soaring property prices have pushed more and more low-income earners out of the market for regular housing in recent years. Rent on these spaces has risen nearly 20 percent in the last four years, and now gobbles up about a third of the residents’ incomes. — New York Times
A yellow-roofed warehouse that featured in a James Bond film has been given listed status.
The Spectrum building, formally the Renault Distribution Centre, in Swindon, was designed by Sir Norman Foster and features yellow steel 'umbrella masts' and a yellow roof around the single-storey glass-walled warehouse.
Built in 1980, the building featured as the backdrop to scenes in the 1984 James Bond film, A View to a Kill. It has been given Grade II* listing.
— dailymail.co.uk
Archtober–New York City's Architecture and Design Month–is starting next week! The anticipated festival from Oct. 1-31, 2013 continues to grow with an amazing variety of exhibitions, conferences, films, tours, and other activities to celebrate the importance of architecture and design... View full entry
A five-storey apartment block collapsed on Friday in the Indian financial centre of Mumbai, killing at least four people and trapping scores in the latest accident to underscore shoddy building standards in Asia's third-largest economy. — reuters.com
Cooled Conservatories, Gardens by the Bay in Singapore by London-based Wilkinson Eyre Architects is the winner of the 2013 RIBA Lubetkin Prize for the best new international building. This is the second year running for Wilkinson Eyre, who also won the prize last year for Guangzhou International Finance Center in China. — bustler.net
Previously: 2013 RIBA Lubetkin Prize Shortlists Three International Buildings Also announced today: RIBA Stirling Prize 2013 goes to Astley Castle by Witherford Watson Mann Architects View full entry
The winner of the 2013 Stirling Prize was announced at a special ceremony in London tonight: Astley Castle, a groundbreaking modern holiday home inserted into the crumbling walls of an ancient moated castle, in Warwickshire, England by London-based Witherford Watson Mann Architects has won the coveted trophy for the best building of the year. — bustler.net
Previously: 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize Shortlist View full entry
Architect John Parkinson designed some of L.A.'s most iconic buildings: City Hall, Union Station and the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, to name a few. Still, the British expat has been largely forgotten in the shadow of more popular architects [...].
Author Stephen Gee's latest book, "Iconic Vision: John Parkinson, Architect of Los Angeles" takes a look at Parkinson's life and how he maintained a low profile despite being the creator of so many iconic L.A. structures.
— scpr.org
The redesign appears to have become a lightning rod for those unenamored of the changes Arets has made both to the building and the curriculum. — ArchitectureChicago Plus
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an award-winning program that challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency. — U.S. Department of Energy
Students from around the world will bring their designs for solar-powered houses to Irvine, California this October, as part of the 2013 Solar Decathlon. First held in 2002, the Solar Decathlon is a biannual student competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. The Decathlon will take... View full entry
A giant purple structure believed to be the world's first inflatable concert hall is to open on Japan's disaster-hit north eastern coast.
British sculptor Anish Kapoor and Japanese architect Arata Isozaki created the unusual Ark Nova, a balloon made of a coated polyester material that has been erected at a park in the town of Matsushima.
The structure, which organisers say is a world's first, measures about 18m and 35m wide when fully inflated with room for about 500 guests.
— dailymail.co.uk
The houses in Ben Marcin’s project ‘Last House Standing’ seem oddly misplaced, lost and forgotten. The series reads like a homage to the forgotten solo row house. The Baltimore based self-taught photographers interest ‘in these solitary buildings is not only in their ghostly beauty but in their odd placement in the urban landscape. Often three stories high, they were clearly not designed to stand alone like this’. — ignant.de
Mr. Calatrava was paid approximately 94 million euros (about $127 million) for his work. How could that be, Mr. Blanco asks, when the opera house included 150 seats with obstructed views? Or when the science museum was initially built without fire escapes or elevators for the disabled? — NYT
Suzanne Daley visits Valencia, Spain a city that embraced Santiago Calatrava and is home to the huge (86 acres) City of Arts and Sciences, complex. Since completion of the project, costly oversights and repairs have engendered complaints and criticism of architect and his, some say overly formal... View full entry
In the latest Showcase feature Archinect highlighted, the Louisiana State Museum and Sports Hall of Fame by Trahan Architects. The building which opened this past June, is located in the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase on the banks of the Cane River Lake. The project engendered lots... View full entry
In creating associated descriptive metadata, in tagging building entries to describe their materials, types, and, perhaps most especially, their styles, the author of metadata is practicing the historian’s craft and engaging in the historian’s stock in trade. "Name it, then we’ll know what it is," Reyner Banham suggested at the end of “The Great Gizmo.” We can name it metadata creation, but we already know what it is: architectural history. — Places Journal
For several years Gabrielle Esperdy has been part of a team working on the development of SAH Archipedia — an online encyclopedia of American architecture sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians. Here she explores the critical challenge of creating structural and descriptive... View full entry