We cannot rely on visionaries and authoritarians to generate more, and better, housing. They might deliver, with enormous risk and perseverance, through personal connections and their willingness to invest their own equity or to defer their developers’ fee, as BHC has done. But visionaries and authoritarians are few and far between. Rather, we need to formalize ways of rethinking and requantifying net-to-gross, studio-to-three-bedrooms, block-and-plank formulas. — urbanomnibus.net
... the 92-year-old structure had fallen into disrepair since it stopped transmitting TV signals in 2002. Plans to dismantle and relocate the tower were announced earlier this year, prompting Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and other architects to petition Vladimir Putin to save it. Moscow's city council has now announced that the tower will be preserved at its current site. — newscientist.com
Architectural experts are to meet in Venice to discuss the restoration of Glasgow School of Art's (GSA) Mackintosh library, which was destroyed in a fire in May.
The art school will host two meetings to explore key questions around the rebuilding of the unique library, one in the Italian city in October and the second in Glasgow next spring.
— telegraph.co.uk
Previously: Glasgow School of Art fire View full entry
[Shigeru] Ban in Aspen represents a high-culture culmination of this goodwashing force. His museum, a beautiful structure faced with a woven screen and featuring a timber truss, uses his signature paper tubes non-structurally, as decoration in the corporate board room and the gift shop—all the style of his humanitarian work with none of the substance. -Dana Goodyear — The New Yorker
In use since September 1, 2014, an elementary school in Tiantai, Zhejiang province, built a 200-meter running track on the roof of its school building. In "School puts running track on its roof" Chinese architect Ruan Hao [LYCS Architecture], chief architect of the teaching building, said "that... View full entry
"Small is huge" - Mac mini slogan in early 2009. — macrumors.com
It's a giant circling pit. How I wish that was a moat filled with crocodile data, making it impossible for software architects to escape the premises and create even more tech for the masses.Is the new thing in architecture medievalism? View full entry
it is clear that the scale of damage is unprecedented, with approximately 13 percent of the housing stock affected, five percent of the housing stock is uninhabitable – an estimated 18,000 housing units have been either destroyed or severely damaged.
This on top of a shortage of 71,000 housing units before the Israeli attack.
— THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
This is a real challenge for architecture. I urge Architecture for Humanity to directly involve and bring this crisis into their working platform, producing ideas of reconstruction. View full entry
Each year Palm Springs dedicates a week to celebrating Midcentury Modernism architecture in the desert city. Now, it has more reason to celebrate.
The Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, is set to open Nov. 9. It will provide a place to showcase the sleek style pioneered by architects such as Richard Neutra, Donald Frey and E. Stewart Williams.
The project is an expansion of the Palm Springs Art Museum, which also is housed in a Williams building.
— latimes.com
The facades of his 515 Highline, a 12-unit condo at 515 West 29th Street in West Chelsea that will almost touch the elevated park, will be rippled like the surface of a sea.
And Soori High Line, a 27-unit condo across the street at 522 West 29th, will have not only rooftop pools [...]. More than a dozen lower-floor apartments will also come with private pools to allow residents to float above it all while contemplating the brash buildings that increasingly populate the surrounding blocks.
— nytimes.com
In 1963, a man in the Nevşehir Province of Turkey knocked down a wall of his home. Behind it, he discovered a mysterious room and soon discovered an intricate tunnel system with additional cave-like rooms. What he had discovered was the ancient Derinkuyu underground city in Turkey — sunnyskyz
Pure interiors. Buildings with no roof and exterior.Also see Aaron Locke's blog; Indo Inquisition 13 weeks in Indiathe most pure form of subtractive architecture- via View full entry
The latest edition of the Working out of the Box: series featured, Julia Watson (landscape architect turned sacred space conservationist) of Studio Rede. jla-x had two comments; first, that the interview with/work of Studio Rede is "Fantastic!" and second "love this series". Plus, Nicholas... View full entry
Google's satellite imaging allows us to virtually tour remote or inaccessible locales the world over, and with recently improved resolutions and initiatives from the Google Cultural Institute, our gaze can go farther and more intimately into places we may never physically visit. Google's interest... View full entry
It's been a long time since the Houston Oilers or any other team called the Astrodome home, and voters rejected a bond measure to adapt and reuse this domed cathedral last year. But Emmett's not giving it up. Yesterday, he led the press on a tour of the Astrodome to introduce his own plan to restore it: By creating the world's largest indoor park.
This isn't the first scheme mounted by preservationists who see a future for the dome.
— citylab.com
Previously:Winners of the Reimagine the Astrodome ideas competitionCan buildings be too young to save? View full entry
Since OMA won the competition in 2009, the Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan is gradually coming to life with the recent celebration of its topping out ceremony. OMA design team leaders Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten, Kris Yao and Willy Yu of KRIS YAO | ARTECH, Taipei city mayor Hau Lung-pin, and other city government representatives took part in the event. — bustler.net
According to OMA, the Center's three theaters are meant to encourage experimental theater productions, while the Public Loop invites public engagement from both inside and outside the Center.Here's a glimpse of the project:More photos and details on Bustler.Previously: OMA to Build Taipei... View full entry
Big real estate projects sometimes go through name changes, but the announcement August 4th that the Atlantic Yards mega-development near downtown Brooklyn, which has faced steady controversy since it emerged in 2003, would become Pacific Park Brooklyn, was an unusual, strategic and dubious adjustment. — nextcity.org
