The world heritage site status of Liverpool’s waterfront is in jeopardy after the city’s mayor, Joe Anderson, rejected a plea by UN cultural chiefs to halt development in the city [...]
Anderson said he would be writing to the UN body informing it that the city would not be complying with its request [...]
Heritage campaigners recently went to court in a fight to stop the demolition of 10 historic buildings near Liverpool Lime Street station in the buffer zone.
— The Guardian
More Liverpool-related architecture news on archinect:RIBA set to open national architecture centre in LiverpoolTurning the “ugliest building in Liverpool” into an exemplar of public healthAssemble wins Turner Prize, becoming first architects to win "UK's most prestigious art prize" View full entry
The thousands of new old houses in New Orleans reveal the ethos of a people in a place nearly destroyed. New Orleanians have embraced their city’s architectural heritage as they’ve rebuilt for an uncertain future. — Places Journal
What does post-Katrina architecture look like in New Orleans? And what does it reveal about its society? In their survey in Places, Richard Campanella and Cassidy Rosen discover that historical styles are 14 times more popular than contemporary styles in the rebuilt city, despite the focus of... View full entry
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill released new rendering of their proposal for a master plan for Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station Precinct. Described as a “long-awaited vision of a bold, fully-integrated mixed-use urban district, with a vibrant transformation hub situated at its core,” the... View full entry
Block a highway, and you upend the economic life of a city, as well as the spatial logic that has long allowed people to pass through them without encountering their poverty or problems. Block a highway, and you command a lot more attention than would a rally outside a church or city hall — from traffic helicopters, immobile commuters, alarmed officials. — the Washington Post
The article notes that, historically, highway construction decimated black communities, such as in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Oakland, and many other cities. In New York, Robert Moses explicitly used highways to clear "slums," in the process devastating parts of the Bronx and other black... View full entry
Debates are rubbish. We've all been there: a panel of similar people with similar views taking it in turns to talk at length about their similar work - too polite, too deferential, too dull. At best they are lukewarm love-ins, critically impotent, elitist and stuffy. Turncoats is a shot in the arm. — Turncoats statement
Turncoats, a provocative architectural debating society that originated in London last year, has expanded to Scotland, the USA, Canada and Serbia, with more cities in the pipeline. The London originators have turned the premise into a franchise, inviting cities to apply for free and start a... View full entry
A mass shooting scenario changes the function of every object in the built environment. [...]
The buildings themselves, the fabric of the city, ends up not mattering so much. In fact, sometimes it becomes a kind of enemy. [...]
Americans aren’t going to rebuild their cities to accommodate the possibility of violence. The people who protect the people in those cities will just have to learn to see them differently.
— wired.com
Related on Archinect:Guns in the Studio: Texas' new campus carry law prompted Architecture Dean Fritz Steiner to resign. He joins us to discuss the law's effect on architecture education, on Archinect Sessions #55The Architecture of Loss: How to Redesign After a School ShootingHow Jeanne Gang... View full entry
The future of London’s proposed garden bridge has been called into further question after the city’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, halted preparatory work on the structure over fears this could involve more public money being spent.
The Garden Bridge Trust says the bridge from South Bank to Temple, featuring 270 trees and thousands of plants, will be a “tiara” for London, being both an iconic landmark and a vital pedestrian bridge.
— The Guardian
Read more about London's Garden Bridge on architnect: London's garden bridge, the saga continues Why are Heatherwick's proposals succeeding in New York but tanking in London? Sadiq Khan investigates troublesome details in Thames garden bridge project Infrastructure or advertisement? Sky to sponsor... View full entry
[...] during a visit some months before the Brexit vote, I armed myself with a detailed map and trolled all over South and Southeast London — a conglomeration of formerly independent villages, boroughs, towns and green spaces that have long since been incorporated into London
[...] the neighborhoods that make up the great London patchwork quilt are ephemeral, especially now, as the immigrant communities of London wonder what the post-Brexit future will bring.
— The New York Times
Read more about the effects of Brexit for architects on archinect:Architects react to shocking EU referendum resultProperty funds suspend trading in biggest seize-up since financial crisisCreative Currency, post-BrexitPost-Brexit pessimism causes precautionary job lossesAfter Brexit, “the... View full entry
The Economist Plaza was designed by Alison and Peter Smithson in the 1960s and still serves as a seminal example of an inviting and approachable urban space in Central London. The project is successful because it bravely addresses the clash between the aesthetic of the Smithsons and the... View full entry
Bowie hated it. Peep Show besmirched it. The London suburb may get a bad rap in popular culture, but now there is the chance to see a different side. [...]
Watson is helping to organise tours of Croydon taking in architectural highlights such as NLA House (now No 1 Croydon), sometimes known as the ‘threepenny bit’; [...]
The National Trust is turning to Croydon after its successful tours of London’s brutalist concrete buildings, places it argues should be cherished as much as Croydon’s towers.
— The Guardian
To most people, zoning and land-use regulations might conjure up little more than images of late-night City Council meetings full of gadflies and minutiae. But these laws go a long way toward determining some fundamental aspects of life: what American neighborhoods look like, who gets to live where and what schools their children attend.
And when zoning laws get out of hand, economists say, the damage to the American economy and society can be profound.
— the New York Times
"Studies have shown that laws aimed at things like “maintaining neighborhood character” or limiting how many unrelated people can live together in the same house contribute to racial segregation and deeper class disparities. They also exacerbate inequality by restricting the... View full entry
What we’ve done is change the software of the city...We’ve changed how it behaves. We’ve changed how it responds to people who want to try things, do things, and run their own experiments...We don’t build anything, we don’t buy anything, we don’t own anything.” Renew’s annual budget barely cracks six figures — New Republic
Late last year, Greg Lindsay profiled Marcus Westbury and the work of Renew Newcastle. Does this "soft", and non-capital intensive model, suggest a way to avoid concerns over gentrification, privatized downtowns of privately owned public space, and trendy "pop-ups"? Can the lessons apply beyond... View full entry
Less depressing than construction, not nearly as happy-making as arts, design, entertainment, sports and media: according to the CDC, architects are the fifth most likely to commit suicide in comparison with members of other professions, especially if you're a male architect (data for female... View full entry
Sorry, I’m not able to send this directly through SnapFace since your iPhone 6 doesn’t support neural chat. Old-fashioned text pixels will have to do. Remember the movie “Her”? That’s what Los Angeles is like in 2056. L.A. is the densest city in the U.S., with a population that’s about a third larger than it was in 2016. Taller buildings are everywhere, including New DTLA — a corridor of super-talls that runs the length of Wilshire all the way to Santa Monica. — Los Angeles Times
The speculative fiction details a "utopian" city primarily characterized by efficient, far-reaching public transport and fewer cars. There's no longer a drought, and buildings are wrapped in "solar skins" designed by Elon Musk.For more speculative visions of a future California, check out these... View full entry
Construction has started at New Slussen, a major Foster + Partners project in the center of Stockholm. One of the largest urban projects in Sweden, the SEK 12 Billion project is intended to “create a dynamic urban quarter, responding to its historic context and transforming the city centre,”... View full entry