A team of collaborating Italian architects is sharing with us their rather unusual spin on mosque design. The solar panel-covered "Wall-Dome" concept was the group's entry to the highly debated architecture competition to design the Central Mosque of Prishtina, Kosovo [...]. The team includes the architects Paolo Venturella, Angelo Balducci, Luca Ponsi, and Paolo Gaeta. — bustler.net
Previously: No Clear Winner (yet) in Kosovo’s Central Mosque of Prishtina Competition 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. Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Architect Sure!. ↑ Brown Vujcich in... View full entry
With the blank slate offered by a catastrophic attack, planners, soon joined by the mayor himself, saw a chance to re-establish a great crossroads: Fulton and Greenwich Streets, tying the second World Trade Center into New York — north, south, east and west.
Now, however, they see that vision slipping away, as security concerns trump urban planning.
— cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
One Herald Plaza, the bayfront behemoth from which generations of journalists fanned out across South Florida — and at times the world — to cover the news, passed into history on Thursday after succumbing to a real estate deal.
… She was 60.
— jimromenesko.com
For the first time since Henri Labrouste (1801-1875), currently the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, formulated the conception of the new, democratic library, the central library is fighting for survival. The relevance of these gloriously inflated book boxes is being questioned in an age that looks to the Internet for its intellectual resources. — online.wsj.com
The first life-size Barbie Dreamhouse opened in Berlin on Thursday and is being guarded by police after feminist groups and left-wing activists said they would picket the plastic villa. — globalpost.com
Related: Topless FEMEN Protesters Disrupt Barbie 'Dreamhouse Experience' Opening In Berlin Previously on Archinect: What can a toy do for architecture? Blueprint for Architect Barbie! Think pink – and give her a monster home Winner of the AIA Architect Barbie Dream House Design Competition... View full entry
Also announced this week were the three recipients of the 2013 AIA/HUD Secretary Awards, sponsored by the institute's Housing and Custom Residential Knowledge Community in conjunction with the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD). — bustler.net
Six residential projects have been selected as recipients of the 2013 AIA Housing Awards. The jury recognized projects in four award categories: One/Two Family Custom Housing, One/Two Family Production Housing (none selected this year), Multifamily Housing and Special Housing. — bustler.net
The 2030 Palette is an interactive online tool that puts the principles behind low-carbon and resilient built environments at the fingertips of architects, planners and designers worldwide.
Our goal is to inform the planning and design process at the point of inspiration. By curating the best information... highly complex ideas are made intuitive and accessible. Guiding principles are presented as individual “Swatches”, which together make up the larger fabric of sustainable built environments.
— Inhabitat
The site - www.2030palette.org - looks like a very useful resource. Could be useful for designers but even more so for client to get by in when trying "new" strategies. View full entry
Robert González wants to create a 3D digital replica of Downtown El Paso, using lasers.
The director of Texas Tech’s fledgling architecture program in El Paso says the student project would be part of a new historic preservation program he is developing here. The project would create a permanent record, in 3D, of El Paso’s most historic and endangered buildings.
— El Paso, Inc.
An exhibition of 3D captured border cities from around the world projected onto giant scrims filling an abandoned maquilladora, might be an interesting project. View full entry
The Hirshhorn Museum’s proposed Seasonal Inflatable Structure, also known as “the Bubble,” a project announced in 2009 and intended as an architecturally and culturally transformative space on the Mall, would operate at a loss in each of three scenarios examined in an assessment done by the Smithsonian. — washingtonpost.com
“We’ve said from the beginning, and the secretary [G. Wayne Clough] has said it, this is a bold project,” said Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for history, art and culture. “We’ve encouraged this, but it has to be raised by private money. In terms of doing that... View full entry
Four design firms have been shortlisted by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) for the major rehabilitation of the Athens Chancery project. The iconic modernist embassy building, designed by Walter Gropius with consulting architect Pericles A. Sakellarios, was constructed between 1959 and 1961 and is a protected architectural landmark. — bustler.net
The shortlisted firms are: Ann Beha Architects, Boston, MA DesignLab Architects, Inc., Boston, MA Machado Silvetti / Baker, Boston, MA Mark Cavagnero Associates, San Francisco, CA UPDATE: Ann Beha Architects selected for major rehabilitation of Gropius-designed Athens Chancery View full entry
It’s perched atop the depressing, low-ceilinged maze known as Penn Station, daily hive for 600,000 scuttling commuters.
The Garden’s presence is one major impediment to the 25-year-old dream of turning the decrepit and overcrowded Penn station into a smoothly operating city gateway.
— bloomberg.com
Are cities becoming "greater" these days?
(Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief, May 2013)
— monu-magazine.com
Are cities becoming "greater" these days? When two years ago, in our 14th issue of MONU Magazine entitled "Editing Urbanism", we claimed that in the Western world, the need for new buildings and city districts was decreasing or even ceasing to exist altogether due to demographic changes and... View full entry
The New South China Mall was once promoted as the world's biggest mall, but it's now pretty much deserted. — edition.cnn.com