The city of Sacramento has launched a new campaign to keep the public in the fight for a new arena. The city is asking its neighbors to become citizen architects. Now you don’t really have to be an architect to sign up. In fact, if you’re a Kings fan and you want a new, downtown arena then you’re probably just who the city is looking for. — fox40.com
Prora was designed to accommodate 20,000 people in one go. Hitler was convinced Germany lost World War I because its population lost its nerve. His idea was to create cheap package holidays to wed the nation to Nazism and to shape happy, strong, well-rested new generations capable of winning the next war. — Der Spiegel
Germany's newest youth hostel offers access to one of the best beaches the Baltic has to offer. Sunseekers are flocking to the place, which is booked out for the summer season and is already receiving bookings for summer 2012. The hostel stands just meters away from one of the best beaches the... View full entry
We loved the futuristic lobby, which is decked in purple neon and stainless steel, and has a robot that stores luggage. It feels more like the inside of a video game than another overstuffed hotel entrance. — businessinsider.com
Archinect's Building of the Week series is brought to you by our friends at OpenBuildings.com, the web's most comprehensive directory of buildings. As I set on writing about the City of Culture of Galicia, I was baffled by the amount of papers, articles and comments on the subject and their... View full entry
But the real show is outside, where the garage includes a number of large-scale public-art installations, including pieces by Anne Marie Karlsen (along 2nd Street) and L.A. firm Ball-Nogues Studio (along 4th Street). The Ball-Nogues piece, called “Cradle,” features hundreds of stainless-steel spheres suspended from one of the garage’s exterior walls. The design is open-ended enough to suggest both sea foam and a Newton’s Cradle... — latimesblogs.latimes.com
Renzo Piano recently unveiled plans for a new waterfront cultural center and urban park in Athens that includes a massive opera house and a library that is directly connected to the park by a sloping green roof. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center will also incorporate several sustainable technologies with the hope of attaining LEED Platinum certification. — Inhabitat
For some the plazas will conjure the alienating public spaces found in de Chirico paintings and Antonioni films. And one of Ms. Hadid’s aims over the years has been to rehabilitate those kinds of empty expanses, which went out of favor in the 1970s and ’80s. The difference is in her ability to convey a sense of bodies in motion. — New York Times
Nicolai Ouroussoff who will soon be replaced by Michael Kimmelman has a review of the new Guangzhou Opera House designed by Zaha Hadid. He finds that while the quality of construction (mostly done by unskilled migrant workers) and location/context (generic new business district at the outer edge... View full entry
An alley between an old tenement block and a tower block in Warsaw, Poland, will be the location for the skinniest house in the world.
The four-storey home will have a bedroom, lounge, bathroom and kitchen, stretching back nearly 40ft, but instead of the traditional staircase, each floor will be accessed by a ladder.
It will take over from the world's current official narrowest house, The Wedge, on the island of Great Cumbrae.
— dailymail.co.uk
Olly Grant talks to some of the people behind a new BBC Two series on turning crumbling buildings, laden with history, into sleek modern homes. — telegraph.co.uk
How do you turn a 100-metre-tall incinerator in the heart of Copenhagen into a social and cultural hub? By building a ski slope on the roof, of course. — guardian.co.uk
We also published news of this project back in January. View full entry
Glen Small's visionary urban projects of Detroit 1966-69: KERN BLOCK VERTICAL ROAD MASS TRANSIT DETROIT THE GREAT STADIUM View full entry
starrchitect relates a story about an acquaintance who "spent three years working in Petey's office, but when the interviewer looked at her resume, he discounted the three years as not being real office experience." Hawkin like others thinks the story doesn't add up writing "I think this post is fake/trolling." However elinor thinks "i believe it. architecture is rife with factions, and so many architects will use any excuse they can get to put down another."
For Archinect's latest Working out of the Box feature we interview Igor Siddiqui, Architect-turned-Product Designer. Describing his current practice he writes "At this moment, in both practice and teaching, my work primarily considers the contemporary interior as a framework for encounters... View full entry
I was always attracted to the emptiness of architecture schools during summer break. In fact when I was a student, that was the time I set up my shop in a choice place in school and worked on my projects. The whole place was wide open, I could pick and choose from furniture, equipment, and even... View full entry
Danish Henning Larsen Architects have shared with us their finalist competition entry for the new University Hospital & Faculty of Health Sciences in Odense, Denmark. As part of a team consisting of Friis & Moltke, TKT, Cowi, Rambøll Danmark, SLA Landscape and NNE Pharmaplan, Henning Larsen Architects named their proposal 'Aurora' – as a symbol of renewed hope and a new beginning. Aurora was one of three finalist proposals; the competing consortium Medic OUH won the competition. — Bustler
And here's another one from Henning Larsen Architects: the Copenhagen-based firm has just been announced winner of the international competition for the planned rebuilding of Siemens' corporate headquarters on Wittelsbacherplatz in Munich, Germany. The winning proposal was chosen for its comprehensive approach to sustainable design. — bustler.net
