Modern homes, both real and fake, as featured in the movies. — vimeo.com
The pre-fabricated, flatpack homes of Pritzker laureate Richard Rogers are a centerpiece for his 50-year retrospective, “Richard Rogers: Inside Out”, currently at London's Royal Academy of Arts until Oct. 13. The homes, which are an adaptation of his 2007 Oxley Woods housing... View full entry
The project – also comprising student accommodation in the form of gently angled big brick structures that meander down the hillside – is the work of Dublin-based Grafton Architects. The firm have created a sublime ensemble that's now in the running for best building of the year, having been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling prize. It would be my choice to win, given how radically it has reinvented two building types often consigned to dismal mediocrity. — theguardian.com
Click here to see other contenders for this year's RIBA Stirling Prize. Grafton Architects are also being featured in the upcoming exhibit Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined at London's Royal Academy of Arts. View full entry
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg penned the review A Panel Discussion for A+D Museum's "Never Built: Los Angeles". Attempting to answer the question "What's Next?" for LA, she suggested "The immediate goal is then to push urban design and architecture into daily conversations -- through political... View full entry
Though it features adult-film star James Deen and some explicit sex scenes, the only porn in "The Canyons" - the new movie directed by Paul Schrader and written by Bret Easton Ellis - is architecture porn. [...]
The Canyons also spotlights a different kind of architecture - the ugly, impersonal design of multiplex cinemas. The decrepit facades and interiors of these abandoned cineplexes form the visual chapter markers of a movie that is, in many ways, about the death of traditional moviegoing.
— latimes.com
Since we first announced that Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was chosen to design the new federal courthouse in Downtown LA, construction for the new cubic courthouse at the corner of First Street and Broadway began on August 8. The approx. 600,000 square-foot building was proposed back in... View full entry
The eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was supposed to be the crowning glory of the bridge-builder’s art, gracefully echoing the rolling hills surrounding San Francisco Bay.
Yet as the project heads for a Labor Day opening after $6.4 billion and 15 years, the country’s most daringly iconic highway bridge stands as a poster child for those who think major infrastructure projects are wasteful.
— bloomberg.com
Previously: Bolts along Bay Bridge bike path fail View full entry
“We have beaten the odds and the obstructionists over and over again,” the mayor triumphantly declared in his State of the City address in March. He chose an appropriate venue: the Barclays Center, the new home of the Brooklyn Nets, which was a lightning rod for his all-out development policy. A vigorous opposition was beaten in the courts and the City Council in much the same way he often steamrolled opposition to his comprehensive rethinking of development. — nytimes.com
While Mayor Bloomberg has attracted media attention recently for his contentious opinions on "stop and frisk" policing and city-wide bans on soda, it's hard to argue with the New York Times' interactive infographic on Bloomberg's twelve-year mayoral run, highlighting his... View full entry
They look like shelters for hikers in a national park, but these wooden sheds in Switzerland have a rather less innocent purpose – they provide a discreet location for men to have sex with prostitutes. — telegraph.co.uk
In an attempt to "regulate prostitution, combat pimping and improve security for sex workers", Zurich has opened nine "sex boxes" in the former industrial zone of Zurich. The boxes are accessed by drivers following signed routes, where customers will find up to 40 prostitutes waiting to offer... View full entry
Renowned British architect Norman Foster has resigned from a proposed expansion to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.
In a statement released on Thursday, Foster + Partners claimed it had formally resigned from the project more than two months ago.
In 2009, the Russian government approved Foster's plans and agreed a sum of $650m (£415m) to modernise and expand the museum.
But the project subsequently stalled.
— bbc.co.uk
“An economic downturn is always a good thing for preservation,” says Regina O’Brien, chairperson of the Modern Committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy. “A lot fewer developers are making a lot less money, and therefore they have a lot less motivation to pursue these profit-oriented flips. But the problem is that the opposite is true when the market picks back up.” — thedailybeast.com
Many of these references are to natural phenomena: the wind-blown sand dunes of the desert or the sanctuary of an oasis; others refer to a way of life seemingly passing beyond recall: the dhows used for trade and pearl diving, or the tents of the nomadic Bedouins. — Atlantic Cities
It is like the new expression of Orientalism. Middle East architecture is defined by few limited metaphors by Western architects who are really looking East to fulfill their payroll obligations. View full entry
"A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living" is the LA-based architect's first major museum retrospective happening now until Sept. 8 at the Hammer Museum. Practicing architecture in Los Angeles from 1939 to his death in 1979, Jones -- or Quincy, as he was known -- is described as a quiet... View full entry
North of the Berkeley Hills, nestled in the quiet community of Kensington, lies an abandoned mansion called the Blake House. At the end of a short gravel path, the home historically reserved for the UC president lies behind two wrought iron gates.
But the 13,200-square-foot Mediterranean-style mansion — with an elevator, two kitchens, a massive library and panoramic views — has been empty for more than five years.
— dailycal.org
The Gold Dome building based on Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome will be preserved. TEEMCO, an Oklahoma-based environmental professional engineering firm has purchased the architecturally historic Gold Dome building located on legendary Route 66. As one of the first geodesic domes in the world, the Gold Dome is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. — todaysfacilitymanager.com
It was a dome of many firsts: the first dome to have a gold-anodized aluminum roof, the first above-ground geodesic dome, and the first Kaiser Aluminum dome used as a bank. Due to these forward thinking attributes, the building was billed as the “Bank of Tomorrow.” View full entry