The management at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has defended the installation of sprinkler showers at its entrance, after a visitor complained that the new facilities were a painful reminder of the gas chambers used to murder prisoners. — The Independent
Is Auschwitz now a theme park? View full entry
I think you’re all fucking mad. Deranged. So disengaged from reality it’s not even funny. It’s a fucking TV commercial. Nobody gives a shit.
This has come as quite a shock I can tell you. I think, I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole thing was a bit of a con. A scam. An elaborate hoax.
— Business Insider
"Linds Redding, a New Zealand-based art director who worked at BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, died last month at age 52 from an inoperable esophageal cancer.Redding also kept a blog, and after his passing an essay he wrote about the ad business, titled “A Short Lesson In Perspective,” has... View full entry
A shortlisted finalist in the 2015 World Architecture Festival awards, CRG Architects' Bamboo Skyscraper is not only noteworthy for its unusual choice of material, but its vision of what constitutes a skyscraper. Instead of focusing on a single prominent tower, the design is a cluster of... View full entry
The wildly successful BEACH installation is down to its final exhibition days at Washington D.C.'s National Building Museum. Since opening on July 4, over 120,000 visitors both young and old "splashed" around in its bubbly waters, lounged about on the "shore", and perhaps saw a live band rock out... View full entry
Cheryl Smith planned to move "off the grid" and into a small house near Clark's Harbour, N.S., a year ago.
But thanks to Canadian building regulations, the four-by-six metre structure remains half-built and empty. [...]
Canadian laws require living spaces to have access to power to run smoke detectors and air exchange systems.
But Smith said the point of moving into her tiny home was to disconnect from the power grid.
— ctvnews.ca
More from the tiny home world:Seattle high schoolers push to provide moveable, minimalist shelters for the homelessThe problem with tiny homes - they can get stolenSwedish architects design for un-permited small-space livingThe Tiny House Lover's Guide to RomanceTeenager builds tiny home to avoid... View full entry
“I was a little disappointed in the fire service,” said Belles, standing on the charred hillside next to the dome in his semi-rural neighbourhood on the edge of town. — theguardian.com
Wildfires currently blazing in Okanogan County, Washington, have just broken the record for the biggest in the state’s history. With fire season just getting underway and September looking hot and dry, the so-called Okanogan Complex fires will likely persist for months.In Omak, a small town in... View full entry
The Related Companies, the city’s largest developer, plans to “tube up” the residential towers in Hudson Yards, its massive real estate development atop the MTA’s west side rail yard. The first large-scale pneumatic waste network to be constructed in the US since Roosevelt Island’s, it will serve 5,000 apartments in six buildings, the first of which is scheduled for completion in 2018. — Urban Omnibus
The scenic High Line may soon host more than tourists and weekenders: a proposed scheme to introduce pneumatic garbage tubes into a series of Manhattan apartment buildings includes using the underside of the former elevated rail line to mount the tubes (the rendering below pictures them in... View full entry
In 2003 in Utah, government officials decided to try a radical solution to homelessness: giving people who would otherwise be on the street permanent housing. Twelve years later, the surprisingly cost-effective program is a success: almost all of the people given homes remained in them, and the... View full entry
Initial renderings of the $300 million development depict a cluster of five architecturally distinct buildings distributed across the 2.6- acre site around a central plaza. In total, the project will comprise 333,600 square feet, and have 249 residential units. One of the architects’ primary goals was to make the site as approachable as possible to invite the surrounding community in to shop, dine, or simply relax in the plaza. — Architectural Record
Renderings and model photos were released today of Frank Gehry's proposed design for the 8150 Sunset Boulevard project. Positioned at the so-called Gateway to the Sunset Strip at the curving intersection of Crescent Heights Boulevard, Havenhurst Drive and Sunset Boulevard, Gehry's mixed-use... View full entry
Our world is now ideas driven and our environment needs to be energetic, inspiring and even provocative. Employers also want people to stay longer at work and making the space awesome certainly helps. — The Daily Telegraph
Many architects are designing home/work boundary-eroding office designs, which purposefully mimic the comforts of home to encourage creative employees to stay later. These designs have been embraced by a who's who of movers and shakers including Google, Facebook, and Disney. But is this shift... View full entry
Transformative innovation is inherently risky. It involves inferences and leaps of faith; if something hasn’t been done before, there’s no way to guarantee its outcome. The philosopher Charles Peirce said that insights come to us “like a flash”—in an epiphany—making them difficult to rationalize or defend. Leaders need to create a culture that allows people to take chances and move forward without a complete, logical understanding of a problem. — Harvard Business Review
Filed under Organizational Culture, Design Thinking Comes of Age goes further to consider, "there’s a shift under way in large organizations, one that puts design much closer to the center of the enterprise. But the shift isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about applying the principles of design... View full entry
Now in its fifth edition, the designjunction tradeshow is back for 2015 on September 24-27, this time at The College and the Victoria House in London's Southampton Row. As part of the upcoming 2015 London Design Festival, designjunction will showcase the latest products and cutting-edge designs... View full entry
Mexico City-based firms FR-EE, Frente Arquitectura and RVDG Arquitectura + Urbanism will redesign a 0.8 mile-long stretch of Avenida Chapultepec, one of the city’s most historic corridors, into a multi-modal public space and park.Extending the roadway as a part of Chapultepec Park, their... View full entry
For the overseas investor who has it all, what better trophy to add to the portfolio of properties you will never visit than an apartment with its own “sky pool”? London may already have a fairytale Sky Garden, but now Irish developer Ballymore plans to introduce a “world first” all-glass swimming pool bridge between two apartment blocks in Nine Elms, allowing its residents to float 10 storeys up in the air.
-Oliver Wainwright
— The Guardian
"The design of a school itself might matter as much as something like a gym class. 'The environments in which we live affect not just our behaviors, but our lifelong attitudes about things like healthy eating and active lifestyles...It's also clear that it's so much better to help prevent children from becoming obese than to try to help adults lose weight.' — Fast Company
More on Archinect:Abandoned schools = new development opportunities"Active design" movement wants to trick you into taking the stairsJason Danziger heals psychosis with designNew Parsons-led collaborative aims to make affordable housing healthier View full entry
