The octopuses didn’t just drift toward the same secure-looking outcroppings, though. Once there, they built piles out of shells from scallops, clams, and other animals they ate, then sculpted the piles into dens, “making these octopuses true environmental engineers,” — CityLab
Scientists have found a new example of animal architecture, this time a city made by usually solitary octopuses. Named Octlantis, this underwater city is engineered by a group of 15 octopuses. Octopuses are known to be builders of their own habitat but, until now, had not be discovered to live in... View full entry
After decades of failed bids and one particularly humiliating loss to London in 2012, Paris has officially been named the host of the 2024 Olympics. Though the city plans on making the most out of its existing facilities, some new development will take place. One of such projects is the Dominique... View full entry
Out of over 2,600 entries, a multi-disciplinary consortium led by Fernando Romero / FR-EE was recently announced as one of the 10 winning teams in the Hyperloop One Global Challenge with the proposal “Mexloop”, the 330-mile Mexico-Guadalajara route. The Mexloop project builds on Mexico's... View full entry
Hyperloop One just announced the winners of its global challenge, unveiling ten teams from five countries with their proposals of the strongest routes for future Hyperloop connections. As a next step, the company plans to work with the teams and expert business and engineering partners to... View full entry
Since 2005, when John Bela and his collaborators(Blaine Merker, and Matthew Passmore) installed the first Park(ing) intervention on a drab street in downtown San Francisco, the idea has gone on to enliven countless blocks around the world, and to enlighten countless urbanites, who get to enjoy spaces normally reserved for stationary cars. — CityLab
Parking Day advocates since 2005 for public access and alternative uses of parking space in cities. This now world wide event transforms parking spots into ephemeral public spaces every year on the third Friday of September. Projects include micro parks, installations by architects and artists... View full entry
It has also been remarkable to watch Amazon pursue a dramatically different strategy. Its plans for a second headquarters suggest that in terms of architecture and campus planning it wants to be everything Apple is not. It wants to lean into the city — and thorny questions about gentrification and housing prices, to the extent that they will be a natural byproduct of this process — rather than away from it. — Los Angeles Times
"Though he took a very different path to get there," Hawthorne writes in his LAT opinion piece analyzing Apple & Amazon's lofty headquarters ambitions with a focus on urban integration (or the complete lack thereof), "Bezos ultimately reached the same conclusion Jobs did: that the wealthiest... View full entry
Creative studio DFA is proposing a 712-foot public observation tower in Central Park that would double as a sustainable filtration system to clean the hazardous Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir and turn it into a non-toxic, useable freshwater pond. Though meant to be temporary, the prefabricated tower would be the world’s tallest timber structure if completed, featuring a 56-foot-wide viewing platform and a glass oculus that showcases the tower’s functional elements. — 6sqft
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Los Angeles’ rollercoaster campaign to host the Olympics — an effort marked by early defeat and last-second negotiations — reached its conclusion Wednesday when the city was formally awarded the 2028 Summer Games. International Olympic Committee members, by a unanimous show of hands, voted their approval at a session in Lima, Peru, ending an unusual bid competition that resulted in two winners as Paris was simultaneously given the 2024 Games. — Los Angeles Times
Paris and Los Angeles were officially awarded the 2024 and 2028 summer games, respectively. Both cities have previously hosted the summer olympics twice, Paris in 1900 and in 1924, and Los Angeles in 1932 and in 1984. The two cities already have some of the necessary infrastructures to host the... View full entry
Amazon has set off a scrum among cities that are hoping to land the company’s second headquarters — with the winner getting the prize of a $5 billion investment and 50,000 new jobs over the next two decades.
(Denver's) lifestyle and affordability, coupled with the supply of tech talent from nearby universities, has already helped build a thriving start-up scene in Denver and Boulder, 40 minutes away.
— The New York Times
The New York Times suggests Denver for Amazon new headquarters as it offers a large and growing labour pool, access to universities, high quality of life and enough space to build eight million square feet of office space. If Amazon was to follow the New York Times advice it could drastically... View full entry
L.A.’s forbidden city consists of the many buildings that we inhabit, use and care about but that are illegal to build today. Some of Los Angeles’ most iconic building types, from the bungalow courts and dingbats common in our residential neighborhoods to Broadway’s ornate theaters and office buildings, share this strange fate of being appreciated, but for all practical purposes, banned. — urbanize.la
In this article, Mark Vallianatos describes how most of Los Angeles' buildings, much like New York, would be illegal to build today. He draws a detailed and fascinating history of the evolution of Los Angeles building and zoning codes and how those changes impacted both the shape of the built... View full entry
The unexpected closure of Angels Flight on Monday, four days after the funicular’s grand reopening, seemed a fitting twist for a railway that has operated in fits and starts for half a century. Since its reopening, 21 years ago, Angels Flight has been shut down more than half the time. — Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles's well known car culture quite efficiently dismantled the city's public transportation, passenger railway system, and the now long-gone network of red cars. Yet, one passenger train, and the smallest of all, keeps rising from the ashes — and dying again. Angels Flight, the... View full entry
The first commercial passenger elevator was installed by Otis Elevator Company in 1857 and climbed at a glacial pace of 40 feet a minute, though it felt staggering at the time. Since then, we have come a long way both in terms of elevator speeds and in terms of the heights these elevators are... View full entry
Art thrives when it collaborates with or takes inspiration from other discliplines, a tenet that is physically expressed in the new campus of the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, located on the east side of downtown Vancouver. Designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects, the campus reflects the... View full entry
For all the concern about the gentrification, rising housing prices and the growing gap between the rich and poor in our leading cities, an even bigger threat lies on the horizon: The urban revival that swept across America over the past decade or two may be in danger. As it turns out, the much-ballyhooed new age of the city might be giving way to a great urban stall-out. — The New York Times
Richard Florida paints a gloomy picture of the state of the great American urban revival in his NYT op-ed, "The Urban Revival Is Over," citing gentrification, income disparity, rising crime numbers, unaffordable housing prices, and the anti-urban agenda of the current White House tenants. Joe... View full entry
Richard Neutra’s glass and steel Chuey House in the Hollywood Hills is being marketed as a ‘tear down’ for $10.5m.
The architect designed the midcentury modern home for poet Josephine Ain Chuey in 1956, and it has since passed down to her niece and nephew, who filed for bankruptcy in June. It’s now being sold as a ‘truly unique development opportunity’, with no mention of its architectural merit – just its ‘spectacular’ Sunset Plaza Drive location and ‘unmatched panoramic views..."
— The Spaces
Iconic, elegant, and now endangered: one of the works of the masters of mid-century modern architecture has been listed more for its lot than for the exquisitely cantilevered structure itself. After its completion, Josephine Ain, who was living with her husband Richard Chuey, wrote to Neutra... View full entry
