Founded in 1991 by Nader Khalili, the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture has researched and developed solutions, including the SuperAdobe, a structure made with patented, long plastic bags filled with dirt from the building site and held in place with barbed wire. Khalili’s ultimate aim was to empower refugees and the poor to build homes using minimal materials and without the need for highly skilled practitioners such as architects, engineers and contractors. — LA Times
Marissa Gluck of the LA Times writes a thoughtful piece remembering the late Kahili and the influence he's made in the architecture community. Read more about Gluck's coverage of CalEarth and its revival here. Correction 6/13/19: The original article unintentionally used similar language to the... View full entry
The Taliban captured the 12th-century Minaret of Jam and killed 18 Afghan security personnel tasked with protecting the World Heritage Site. Pro-government forces have yet to re-secure the area. The current condition of the brick structure and the surrounding communities, who were both threatened by torrential flooding just last week, is still unknown. — The Antiquities Coalition
Nearly two decades after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan began, significant works of Islamic heritage continue to fall under threat in the country. Just last week, for example, the 12-Century era Minaret of Jam, the world's second tallest Islamic tower, appears to have been captured by... View full entry
The specter of unwanted change has loomed over a quiet corner of Seattle’s Chinatown-International District for nearly the past four years. [...] Displacement is a genuine concern in Network cities, which, in addition to Seattle, include Boston, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Toronto. — Crosscut
Several city staples like Chinatowns are facing the effects of gentrification and urban displacement. "White populations in Chinatowns grew faster, for example, than the overall white populations in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, according to a study by the Asian American Legal Defense and... View full entry
The Urban Food Forest would include edible trees, shrubs, vines, walking trails, community garden beds and a number of other features that would be open to the public for free. — The Hill
The Conservation Fund is working in southeast Atlanta to help create a new 7.1 acre Community Urban Food Forest, the largest in the country. The effort aims to convert an existing agricultural property into a new model for urban park and forestry initiatives by growing a variety of fresh foods... View full entry
What's in a facade? For those outside the architecture and design profession, the function, importance, and commonality facades play in the built environment might not be so clear. But the exterior wall, or "face" of a building, in fact, plays a crucial role in conveying a building's structural... View full entry
Among the Inca archeological sites that abound in Peru, none draw nearly as many tourists as the famed citadel of Machu Picchu. [...]
Now, in a move that has drawn a mixture of horror and outrage from archaeologists, historians and locals, work has begun on clearing ground for a multibillion-dollar international airport, intended to jet tourists much closer to Machu Picchu .
— The Guardian
"In an effort to manage growing visitor numbers, Peru has tightened entry requirements to the site, limiting visits to morning and afternoon shifts after Unesco threatened to place Machu Picchu on a list of world heritage sites in danger," reports The Guardian. View full entry
Daniel Libeskind, the architect famous for the Jewish Museum Berlin, has added another holocaust memorial project to European soil. Rendering of 'Through the Lens of Faith,' by Daniel Libeskind On July 1st, Libeskind will present a new temporary exhibition at Auschwitz-Birkenau, perhaps the... View full entry
What should we do with industrial sites after they have fulfilled their original purpose? Considering the fact that so many of the now disused sites are so close to city centers, the answer to this question can determine the quality of city life for many places around the world. Landschaftspark... View full entry
Should a modern democracy preserve an architecture and landscape designed to glorify the 20th century’s most infamous dictator? And, if the answer is yes, how?
The city of Nuremberg has grappled with these questions for years. It is now about to embark on an €85m plan to conserve the vast Nazi party rally grounds designed by Adolf Hitler’s architect Albert Speer.
— The Art Newspaper
The enormous former Nazi party rally complex, with its Zeppelin Grandstand centerpiece, has been decaying for decades but—preserved and presented in the appropriate manner—could serve as a highly relevant educational landmark. "We won’t rebuild, we won’t restore, but we will... View full entry
Join us in celebrating Ballpark, the latest book by Paul Goldberger, at Archinect Outpost on Saturday, June 1st, 5-8pm. The doors will open at 5 and will close promptly after 6 as the conversation begins between Paul Goldberger and Paul Petrunia, the founder and director of Archinect, on the... View full entry
University of Southern California School of Architecture appointed associate professor Alison Hirsch as the new director of the Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism program, effective August 2019. As a landscape theorist, designer, and historian, Hirsch’s work focuses on how the... View full entry
Urban designers are increasingly being tasked with an emergent ‘design challenge’ for public spaces: how best to deliver anti-terror infrastructure while generating a pleasant urban environment. By allowing themselves to be drawn into this challenge, and by dutifully working to respond with creative and constructive solutions, they are inadvertently helping to normalize a creeping ‘fortification’ of our cities that in turn contributes to a wider process of ‘bordering’ across the world. — Failed Architecture
Urbanist Alice Sweitzer and Failed Architecture editor Charlie Clemoes share their thoughts on a booming new design task, "making an increasingly aggressive urban situation more palatable to an ever more anxious citizenry." View full entry
Everyone hates the Vessel, the stairway to nowhere for capitalism’s grifters at the heart of New York’s latest mirage of a neighborhood, Hudson Yards. Perhaps that’s why it’s so refreshing to see an observation tower that actually leads somewhere meaningful beyond an Instagram selfie frame: the Camp Adventure Observation Tower in Denmark. — Fast Company
While Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel has been a media darling (or pariah) for the last month, a similarly tall, arguably more elegant observation tower quietly popped up in a Dane forest. The Camp Adventure Forest Tower, by EffektThe Camp Adventure Forest Tower, designed by Copenhagen-based firm... View full entry
For 20 years, the American Lung Association has gathered and analyzed data from official air quality monitors creating its annual "State of the Air" report. It's been reported by the association that more than four in ten people currently live in areas where pollution levels are too dangerous to... View full entry
Though buildings are often symbols of permanence, as it may lend itself to the status of an icon for a city or an heirloom for a family, they can be rendered obsolete at any moment. According to Ruin and Redemption in Architecture, Dan Barasch's newest book published by Phaidon Books, abandoned... View full entry
