The Foundry Square, a four-part mixed-use complex in San Francisco's South of Market (SoMa) district, is currently in its final phase with the construction of Foundry III, which developer Tishman Speyer purchased in 2012. The target LEED Gold building will have 265,000 square feet of office space... View full entry
Donna Sink offered up her memories "I spent a summer living in that building. It's very lovely and graceful, though I like ‘suavely-curved’ much better as a descriptor! The views are unmatched, IMO, still. Breathtaking...Back then its only drawback was that it was very removed from the activity of the city
News Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune architecture critic tweeted "George Schipporeit, co-architect of Chicago's suavely-curving Lake Point Tower, once the world's tallest all-residential building, has died". Donna Sink offered up her memories "I spent a summer living in that building. ... View full entry
Developers have promised urgent action to “cover up” the Walkie Talkie skyscraper in the City after an ultra-bright light reflected from the building melted a Jaguar car on the streets below.
The 525ft, £200 million building has been renamed the “Walkie Scorchie” after its distinctive concave surfaces reflected a dazzling beam of light which blinded passers-by and has now caused extensive damage to vehicles parked beneath it.
— independent.co.uk
Architects Alice Kimm, FAIA; John Mutlow, FAIA; Lorcan O’Herihy, FAIA; Warren Techentin, AIA; Patrick Tighe, FAIA; and Ed Woll, Ph.D. will present housing projects in development and discuss the potential of micro-housing units, transit oriented development and changing lifestyles to create livable density in LA. — USC Architecture
This past Wednesday, I attended a panel discussion of architects at the University of Southern California about the future of housing in Los Angeles -- an exciting and highly debatable topic nowadays, as transit networks expand and neighborhoods densify. Presented in conjunction with two... View full entry
Reforming parking policy is an urgent imperative which could have significant positive effects on the natural environment, our cities, the economy, and our society. For many issues, from affordable housing to carbon emissions, it is an obvious solution that has remained hidden in plain sight for too long. — Graphing Parking
Architect Seth Goodman has taken it upon himself to expose how dramatically parking plays a role in planning, through a series of nifty infographics that show just how much parking space is allotted for a given institution or destination. Inspired by Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free... View full entry
[...] WXY Architecture + Urban Design and DLANDSTUDIO have been selected to lead a feasibility study and planning phase for the QueensWay in Queens, NY, after the Trust for Public Land and Friends of the QueensWay announced the competition winners on Aug. 20. Similar to urban revival projects like the NYC High Line, the QueensWay is a linear greenway park that will replace the abandoned 3.5-mile-long railway of the former Long Island Rail Road line—which has been dormant since 1962. — bustler.net
Additionally, the Trust for Public Land and Friends of the QueensWay are sponsoring the just-launched ENYA 2014 "Queensway Connection: Elevating the Public Realm" ideas competition that you can read about here. View full entry
OMA's New York office will design the Bogotá Centro Administrativo Nacional (CAN), led by partner-in-charge Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with local Columbian firm, Gomez + Castro. Winner of an international design competition, OMA's CAN will firstly serve as a new civic center... View full entry
It's one step closer to finding the best design for the International Specialized Exposition (EXPO) 2017 exhibition site in Astana, Kazakhstan—the country's first world fair. For starters, some of the final designs include COOP HIMMELB(L)AU, UNStudio, Snøhetta, and Zaha Hadid Architects. — bustler.net
UPDATE: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill wins Kazakhstan Astana World Expo 2017 competition View full entry
A day camp sponsored in part by the University of Georgia is introducing middle school students to architecture, landscape architecture, and planning [...]
Over the course of a week, the children take field trips, practice using design tools and techniques, and discuss issues related to planning and design. In addition, they have the opportunity to meet and interview design professionals, including some CED faculty.
— American Planning Association
Construction has begun on a 47-story office tower at the edge of one of the busiest rail yards in the U.S. The $15 billion development will ultimately roof much of the 26-acre yards and stretch west from Midtown’s brawny brick to the sparkling park-edged Hudson River. A swath of greenery will flow around 10 high-rise towers. — bloomberg.com
Instead of having parks, the whole city is a park...Like aluminum extrusions the whole building is extruded and then it is cut by laser beams, then inserted into a structure by machine. - Jacque Fresco — BBC News
Paul Kerley explores the 97-year old architect's vision of the future. For the Venus Project, the goal is a radically different society. One replete with monorails and retro-Modernist architecture à la Disney's Epcot, where everything from nations to jobs are no longer... View full entry
“The problem is we’re still building the city of the past,” says Jacob. “The people of the 1880s couldn’t build a city for the year 2000—of course not. And we cannot build a year-2100 city now. But we should not build a city now that we know will not function in 2100. There are opportunities to renew our infrastructure. It’s not all bad news. We just have to grasp those opportunities.” — dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com
The most distinctive trait of the machine city is the lack of human beings. Other animals live within its limits. Not the rats and pigeons of human cities—the scavengers feeding on our remnants—but animals that can thrive in such particular conditions: algae on the water-cooling ponds, lichen and moss on the unadorned walls, flowering plants within the dirt that invariably builds up along the edges of the roadways and in the cracks of the buildings, and, of course, the insects that come to feed. — omnireboot.com
THE MACHINES BUILT THEIR OWN CITY, FULL OF SPACES FOR THEIR SECRET PASSIONS. AN ARCHITECTURAL FICTION. By Adam Rothstein. Read the full story on OMNI REBOOT. View full entry
“We’re trying to fill the gap between the broad stroke of policymaking and the reality of life on the ground,” says Bar-Sinai, who recently returned to Israel after a yearlong fellowship at Harvard University. “Only thinking about these questions from the 30,000 foot high perspective isn’t enough.” — smithsonianmag.com
Previously: The secret to peace in the Middle East, at an architectural expo View full entry
The Copenhagen-Guangzhou firm ADEPT won a large-scale planning competition in China with their project, ‘Green Loops City’. The municipality of Hengyang, Hunan Province chose the proposal for the 17km2 / 6.5 square mile site in Laiyan New Town and Binjian District in the city of Hengyang. — bustler.net