No matter how prepared I think I am, December is always a frenzy. Between wrapping up end-of-the-year projects and remembering to buy wrapping paper, the days disappear faster than my coworker’s toffee. If you’re anything like me, the holidays are heralded by a panicky visit to the mall and a... View full entry
![Lafayette Towers, Lafayette Park, Detroit, Michigan. [Photo by Corine Vermeulen]](https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/ul/ules8xn98vo114zm.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=514 "Lafayette Towers, Lafayette Park, Detroit, Michigan. [Photo by Corine Vermeulen]")
[Detroit] will join 47 other cities from 33 countries as a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, which is made up of cities with a strong legacy in one of seven creative fields, from gastronomy and literature to design.
Member cities commit to collaborate, promote creativity and cultural industries, share best practices, strengthen participation in cultural life and integrate culture in economic and social development strategies and plans.
— crainsdetroit.com
Formed in 2004, UNESCO's Creative Cities Network (UCCN) identifies places that leverage creative practices as a major strategy for urban development, giving member cities opportunities for collaboration and promotion across cultural industries. Cities in the UCCN (there are currently 69) belong to... View full entry
Majestic doesn't cover it—to judge by these photos by Adam Mørk and Hufton+Crow, MAD's new 850,000 square foot Harbin Opera House located on the titular Chinese city's Cultural Island is approaching a masterpiece.With two theaters (The Grand Theater seats 1,600, the Small Theater 400) and a... View full entry
The Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health is planning to launch a new, biannual journal in early 2016.
This online journal will help address the challenge of there not being many journals explicitly publishing research on the links between urban design and mental health right now. [...]
Do you have a relevant research paper, case study, review, comment piece, photograph, book review or other relevant content, (or a good suggestion for the journal's name)? If yes, please submit
— urbandesignmentalhealth.com
Interested in submitting? Here's the details from the Urban Design / Mental Health website:This journal is not currently peer-reviewed. Editorial decisions will be made by Layla McCay (UD/MH Director) and Itai Palti (UD/MH Fellow and Guest Editor of the edition). The journal will be open-access... View full entry
In making the long-awaited decision as to who would reimagine its home, the New York Philharmonic — together with Lincoln Center — has made a surprising choice, selecting the London firm Heatherwick Studio and Diamond Schmitt Architects of Toronto to redesign the interior of David Geffen Hall. [...]
He will essentially be replacing the British heavyweight Norman Foster, the Pritzker-winning architect who a decade ago was commissioned to redesign what was then known as Avery Fisher Hall.
— nytimes.com
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
If you’re asking yourself, “What should I give the architect(s) in my life?” the answers are here: we came up with a slew of architect-appropriate gifts, ranging from clothing to furnishings to apocalyptic salvation, for that special detail-oriented someone. The best part? Absolutely no... View full entry
Wi-Fi goes through walls, but it isn’t so great at getting through human bodies. Based in this piece of knowledge, a team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has built a detector that can see people through walls using Wi-Fi signals. It can recognize individuals and can even track the movement of their limbs with spooky accuracy. — Fast Company
If you've been trying to duck the information age by keeping a low online profile, not getting a smartphone, or even living off the grid, you are now officially out of luck: your body itself is a source of information thanks to its relative impenetrability by WiFi signals. Although it's a blow for... View full entry
If architecture is the ultimate fourth dimensional experience, then “Architectural Guide China” by Evan Chakroff, Addison Godel and Jacqueline Gargus is a remarkable fourth dimensional tour guide. It encapsulates not only the physical attributes and detailed locations of architecture in China... View full entry
The first permanent publicly-viewable artwork by Refik Anadol, a media artist known for his immersive, site-specific light installations, was recently unveiled in San Francisco. Virtual Depictions: San Francisco, a series of "data sculptures" based on a publicly-available dataset, occupies a... View full entry
The digital production studio Visualhouse has released film and renderings of how SL Green’s One Vanderbilt will meet the street, and also remind us just how gargantuan the tower will be. According to the tower’s architects Kohn Pedersen Fox, the tower will rise 1,501 feet to its spire, making it the third tallest building in the city upon completion. — 6sqft.com
Being a fresh graduate in the lamentably real world is perhaps one of the steepest transitions an architect ever faces, which is part of the inspiration behind Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation's newly launched Incubator program. Billing itself as a... View full entry
As part of Director Hernan Diaz Alonso's plan to increase the global reach of SCI-Arc, the school is officially launching a four-week Shanghai-based program to be led by Steven Ma (SCI-Arc M.Arch ‘10) in the summer of 2016. The program's studios, which will incorporate a mix of industrial... View full entry
Joining an eye-popping list of previous entrants and winners, the five finalists for the 2016 PS1/MoMA Young Architects Program (YAP) have been announced, and they are: • Ultramoderne (the Providence, Rhode Island-based firm whose 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial Lakefront Kiosk winning wood... View full entry
We live in a time when everything is designed, from our carefully crafted individual looks and online identities, to the surrounding galaxies of personal devices, new materials, interfaces, networks, systems, infrastructures, data, chemicals, organisms, and genetic codes...
Even the planet itself has been completely encrusted by design as a geological layer.
There is no longer an outside to the world of design. Design has become the world.
— Istanbul Design Biennial
Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, the curators of the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial, announced the conceptual framework for next year's biennial in a press release held today in a library of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.Its overlong title, ARE WE HUMAN?: The Design of the Species: 2 seconds... View full entry
