Young Slovak firm, Nice Architects, has won the first prize in the architectural/urban design competition "Parkhill," aiming to transform the area of a former open air amphitheater in Bratislava, Slovakia. [...]
Nice Architects' winning entry is a collaboration with landscape designers 2ka landscape architects.
— bustler.net
Five design teams have been named to receive $15,000 grants to revitalize Syracuse's Near Westside neighborhood as part of the "Movement on Main: Designing the Healthy Main Street" competition. The initiative, sponsored by Syracuse University, plans to redesign the area around Wyoming Street to once again make it an important agent of the community's social and recreational life. — bustler.net
Three teams were chosen from the submissions in the first round of the competition: Coen + Partners, Inc. (Minneapolis, MN) Stoss Landscape Urbanism (Boston, MA) with Höweler + Yoon Architecture, LLP, Nitsch Engineering, Inc., and Dr. Angie Cradock, Sc. D. King and King Architects... View full entry
"A block of row houses -- narrow, tall, brick- or stone-faced homes, connected side-by-side -- is my shorthand for city perfection....Blocks of row houses generate a perfect urban scale: large enough to support neighborhood groceries, bars, and shops, but not so dense as to create parking crunches or attract huge stores" — the Stranger
Eric Fredericksen examines how Sesame Street was his first experience of urban living. He then draws parallels between Sesame Street and his current living situation, his preference for row houses and stoop-life and the comings and goings of his neighborhood. H/T toasteroven who notes "I... View full entry
Canada’s biggest city is getting even bigger, with a pace-setting number of skyscrapers set to join the city skyline.
According to a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) report dubbed “Canada Rising,” Toronto is leading the western world in terms of new buildings 150 metres or taller currently under construction.
— DesignBuild Source Canada
Designers for The Wave, Muscat, were tasked with the challenge of engineering a luxury, mixed-use development stretching along six kilometres of natural beach coastline between Al-Athaiba and Al-Mawelah while ensuring it was protected as much as possible from the Sea of Oman. — DesignBuild Source
America’s Top Twelve ArtPlaces is a new annual ArtPlace initiative recognizing neighborhoods in the largest 44 metropolitan areas in the country where the arts are central to creating places where people—residents and visitors—want to be. — artplaceamerica.org
America’s Top 12 ArtPlaces for 2013 are: Brooklyn, NY / The intersection of Downtown, Fort Greene, Gowanus, Park Slope and Prospect Heights Dallas, TX / The Dallas Arts District, with parts of Deep Ellum and Exposition Park Los Angeles, CA / Central Hollywood Miami Beach, FL / South Beach... View full entry
A growing number of small urban spaces are creating landscaped gardens that stretch beyond floor pots, with greenery growing upwards along walls and fences.
This new trend toward ‘vertical gardens’ is renewing apartments, offices and restaurants inviting greenery to flourish in small spaces.
— DesignBuild Source
Below are the 12 most visited Firm Profiles during 2012. For a full list of all of our top 12 lists for 2012, click here. 1. OMA 2. Wiel Arets Architects 3. Marmol Radziner 4. Diller Scofidio + Renfro 5. Allied Works Architecture 6. Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors 7. Safdie Architects... View full entry
The Colombian city of Medellín was once the murder capital of the world and ground zero for Pablo Escobar’s cocaine cartel. But Medellín has lately emerged as a hotspot for urban planning and innovative mass transit. The projects are part of a long-term plan to fight poverty and remake the fortunes of the city. — theworld.org
Another hopeful Medellín design initiative previously featured on Archinect: Student Works: INSITU Medellin View full entry
In celebrating the 50th anniversary of the iconic building blocks being introduced into Japan, LEGO’s Japanese subsidiary sponsored a cross-country workshop in which over 5000 people in 6 different regions collaborated to create a gigantic map of Japan.The pieces that were assembled at each site then traveled to Tokyo, where they were put on display for one massive LEGO map. — spoon-tamago.com
Eighteen feet below one of Rome’s most-trafficked junctions is a 900-seat arts center dating back to the second-century reign of Emperor Hadrian, Italian archaeologists have announced.
The discovery, widely seen as the most important in Rome in 80 years, came as a result of digging for the city’s third subway line. Archeologists spent the last five years excavating two halls of the structure under the Piazza Venezia, which is believed to be an arts center, or auditorium, built by Hadrian.
— artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
'[R]emember that a place like Dubai really emerged in the last 50 years. It was a sleepy, you know, Bedouin town half a century ago. And what you do is when you bring in the world’s, you know, most sophisticated architects and engineers, you can literally build anything, including a building of 140 or 150 stories. But designing a municipal network of sewage treatment is in some ways more complex. - KATE ASCHER — Boing Boing
Terry Gross recently interviewed Kate Ascher about her skyscraper book, and ended up discussing the common lack of sewage connections in Dubai - including the Burj Khalifa. So they end up using trucks to cart the sewage to the central treatment plant, where they often end up queuing for 24-hours... View full entry
“Our approval will facilitate development of a significant new building with a distinctive pyramid-like shaped design and thoughtful site plan that integrates the full block site into the evolving residential, institutional, and commercial neighborhood surrounding it,” Ms. Burden said before voting in favor of the project. — observer.com
The building, known as 1 Angel Square, has been designed to deliver a 50 per cent reduction in energy consumption compared to The Co-operative’s current Manchester complex and an 80 per cent reduction in carbon. This will lead to operating costs being lowered by up to 30 per cent. — DesignBuild Source
“Pruitt-Igoe has lived on symbolically as an icon of failure. Liberals perceive it as exemplifying the government's appalling treatment of the poor. Architectural critics cite it as proof of the failure of high-rise public housing for families with children. One critic even asserted that its destruction signaled the end of the modern style of architecture.” — Alexander von Hoffman, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard Univ.
December 16, 2012 (Raleigh, NC) -- Triangle Modernist Houses’ Nowell’s Architecture Movie Series continues in January with a special screening of “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” on Thursday, January 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Raleigh Grande. Pruitt–Igoe was a 33-building... View full entry