Before a city becomes a thing of steel, concrete, and glass it is a theater of visions in conflict. As a city ages, the visions do not die but come up against the physical and ideological resistance of the place and its people. This is an account of a Manhattan that could have been – might have been. A phantasmagorical Manhattan where the visionary meets the everyday. The island as we know it is but a pale reflection of a city designed by visionaries – a city of mad, incongruous utopias.
The film (created for Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale) visualizes several unrealized projects for Manhattan, including Buckminster Fuller’s dome over Midtown, Rem Koolhaas’ City of the Captive Globe, RUR’s East River Corridor, Paul Rudolph’s Eastside... View full entry
"A amphitheater at the base of the Washington Monument. A glass-enclosed restaurant overlooking the Constitution Gardens pond—and a winter-time ice-skating rink where the pond currently sits. A lively new Union Square, with streams of water arching into the Capitol Reflecting Pool.
Those are among the ideas that architects and designers have floated for redesigning and reviving three sites on the National Mall..."
— dcist.com
Updated photos of the schemes to redesign parts of the Mall in Washington DC. Includes proposals from snohetta; Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Ken Smith, Rogers Marvel, Peter Walker, etc. design by Weiss Manfredi and OLIN View full entry
Back in March, three finalist entries were announced at Urban Intervention: The Howard S. Wright Design Ideas Competition for Public Space. [...] We had already published PRAUD's "Seattle Jelly Bean" proposal, and here's now also the finalist entry "Park" by Southern Californian practice Koning Eizenberg Architecture in collaboration with ARUP.
All three finalist submissions are currently in the process of design phase two.
— bustler.net
Also, Koning Eizenberg Architecture is currently hiring. View full entry
“This is a major win not just for the county but for the nation,” Mr. Astorino, a Republican (ed. and Westchester County executive), said at a news conference. “We took a very principled stand against an unwarranted invasion by HUD and the federal government, and the county won.” — NYT
Peter Applebome examines the news, that Westchester is ahead of schedule in building the 750 affordable homes, required under the terms of a far-reaching affordable housing agreement reached in 2009, with HUD and other federal officials. Currently, 206 units have been approved and of those 196 of... View full entry
“People think, ‘Oh we need electricity from solar panels, we need x-y-z system, we need to use less water,” Jones says. “But we absolutely have to make living in denser urban environments pleasant to the senses, or we’ll lose the environmental battle.” — the Atlantic Cities
Emily Badger talked with Thomas Jones, the dean of Cal Poly’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design, about the urban soundscape and how urban noise can enforce a strong prejudice against city living. Jones argues that in order to encourage denser, urban living designers and... View full entry
New studies are showing that Chinese cities are slowly sinking as a result of rapid development and excess groundwater use. According to reports, as many as 50 cities across the country are affected by soil subsidence, including the country’s largest - Shanghai. Apparently, Shanghai has been slowly sinking for at least 90 years. — inhabitat.com
Platescrapers navigates itinerant fare, comestible politics, and gastro-ritual to purvey stories about social issues and exaggerated realities; each story illustrates food as a monument to galvanize the public. — SOILED
SOILED is an architectural periodical based in Chicago. It investigates latent issues in the built environment and the politics of space. SOILED's latest issue, entitled Platescrapers, is out! With three issues to date, SOILED is available in both a print edition and a free downloadable PDF... View full entry
With Nuit Blanche New York absorbed — even if temporarily — into the rebranding of the Lower East Side, it's instructive to recall an earlier era and another light projection. I'm thinking of the November 1984 projection by artist Krzysztof Wodiczko of Ronald Reagan’s hand onto the elevation of the AT&T Long Lines Building just before the election that made Reagan a two-term president. This past November Wodiczko's act of spectacle and protest would inspire Occupy Wall Street's "Bat Signal." — Places Journal
In the latest installment of her ongoing series on Places, Mimi Zeiger surveys some of the events and exhibitions organized in New York City last year and inspired by Occupy Wall Street. Along the way she analyzes the unfolding dynamic between the grassroots tactics of activist artists and... View full entry
What About ideal cities, and counter revolutionary master plans? Avant-Garde The avant-garde is a paradoxical state. In order to exist, it relies on its incongruous condition of being both fundamentally contemporary and ahead of its time. A conceptual palimpsest, the avant-garde requires writing... View full entry
For all its Brutalist charm and rigid adherence to the now-outmoded ‘streets in the sky’ concept, Robin Hood Gardens was an easy target for those who call architects hypocrites eager to champion crumbling estates they wouldn’t dare live in themselves. Many of the current residents can’t wait to be rid of it: a consultation in 2008 found that over 75% supported its demolition. — londonist.com
Though the panelists agreed that the foreclosure crisis will lead to major changes in suburban development, they all thought new patterns are less likely to be brought about by a revised American dream than by economic and demographic factors. And all said it would be very difficult to change zoning laws to permit denser new development patterns, especially in existing “inner-ring” suburbs. — archrecord.construction.com
On Archinect: The CRIT: Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream View full entry
A beautiful new 1.5-acre park, an elementary school, public amenities and a new pedestrian street to awaken a dead corner: all that seems like a fair trade for the neighborhood in return for a couple of the big buildings the university wants, which would replace undistinguished ones. — NYT
In his latest article Michael Kimmelman examines how New York University’s latest plan to expand in Greenwich Village has caused a storm of protest. Although the "crescent towers devised by N.Y.U.’s team...are nonstarters" Kimmelman does suggest that both NYU and the local citizens... View full entry
Feeling a little claustrophobic lately? Well, it’s not just you — newly released numbers from the Census Bureau say Angelenos are living in the nation's most densely-populated urban area.
New York still has the highest population, but at 7,000 people per square mile, the Los Angeles/Anaheim/Long Beach area takes the density prize.
— scpr.org
Lawrence Cheek explored the trend of open office design, amongst recent commercial/institutional architecture in Seattle. George Showman found fault "This is a weird article because one of the examples is an absolute palace (the Gates Foundation) and the others seem a little miserable...I have worked in an open office for years, but it was small enough that there were many moments of productive silence, and poor enough that I didn't expect more."
Orhan Ayyüce cites Reyner Banham, the systems man, in his latest NEXT SERIES: FASTER PUSSYCAT CITY feature. Quoting from Bricologues A La Lanterne, wherein Banham wrote "People who can believe that mass bricolage is a sovereign remedy...should think again, carefully", Orhan... View full entry
We need to redefine what we mean by “parking lot” to include something that not only allows a driver to park his car, but also offers a variety of other public uses, mitigates its effect on the environment and gives greater consideration to aesthetics and architectural context. — nytimes.com