Instead of being mainly a weight distribution problem for architects, library book stacks are increasingly becoming art installations in cavernous contemplation halls. This is especially evident in Wolfgang Tschapeller's renderings for the Ho Fine Arts Library at Cornell University, in which an... View full entry
In 2007, [São Paulo] Mayor Gilberto Kassab implemented the Clean City Law, labelling outdoor adverts a form of “visual pollution”. In a single year, the city removed 15,000 billboards and 300,000 oversized storefront signs. [...]
The ubiquity of outdoor advertising means that we have come to take it for granted; accepting both its presence and its purpose as natural features of the urban environment.
— theguardian.com
Previously on Archinect: Rethinking Billboards as homeless shelters, and as land art projects in Art + Architecture: The Los Angeles Nomadic Division Sets Up Camp. View full entry
This 21st century trend started with Sweden's 2005 Turning Torso building, then quickly was adapted and modified by Frank Gehry for what became 2011's 8 Spruce Street in Manhattan. Now the twisted apartment building seems to have become its own typology, to judge by recent proposed works by... View full entry
Danziger addressed the issues of perception: How does a patient with a shifted perception experience space? He focused on color, the distribution of light, material, and shape. — NPR Berlin
While designing for medically healthy clients can occasionally drive an architect insane, an entirely different set of challenges is involved in creating a safe and healing environment for mentally ill patients. Architect Jason Danziger found himself asking questions like: what makes a bed... View full entry
Zaha Hadid Architects has been announced as the winner of the Danjiang Bridge competition. Sited at the mouth of the Tamsui River, the bridge will provide a critical link between several highways on Taiwan's northern coast.The Danjiang Bridge is intended to bring economic growth to Taipei's Port... View full entry
"You have generations of people under the age of 35 … who are choosing to live car free and car-lite." – Westside Councilman Mike Bonin — L.A. Times
From the newly installed "protected" intersections in Austin, Texas and Davis, California to additional proposed bus lanes and bike paths in Los Angeles, car culture is becoming less of a given and more of an expensive, perhaps even less desirable, option. Cities across the U.S. are starting to... View full entry
Archive (“Architecture for Health in Vulnerable Environments”) proposes “bringing attention to the built environment and how it is a transmission vehicle for the spread and control of a respiratory illness like TB” [...]
Archive is starting small, with an as-yet-uninitiated project on respiratory health and indoor pollutants in Ethiopia and projects on TB awareness in London.
— nextcity.org
More on the intersection of architecture and public health:A story about death and architectureNew Parsons-led collaborative aims to make affordable housing healthierHow concrete floors can prevent child deaths in Bangladesh5 ways to build health into your architecture, as seen at GW’s new $... View full entry
Here comes another product collaboration between famous architects and affordable-brand giants. Pretty soon, consumers worldwide can add a hint of BIG, Henning Larsen Architects, or NORM Architects into their everyday kitchen space. Danish furniture brand Reform, whose concept focuses on hacking... View full entry
From Kiev to Los Angeles, from mind-bending artist Dan Graham to stately architect Kevin Roche, the Graham Foundation has announced the 49 international winners of its 2015 Grants to Organizations. Each year, the Foundation gives out two sets of grants: one for individuals including architects... View full entry
The published renderings that accompanied the announcement were not terribly reassuring, as they depicted a very long curved terminal with gangly tentacles raised over plane taxiways that hinted at torsos of praying mantises: an awkward rather than a graceful vault. — 6sqft.com
Related: A new LaGuardia is the "airport that New York deserves", says Gov. Cuomo View full entry
Laundromats have recently been closing down in San Francisco, which prompted a Google employee to tweet in response "cost of disruption: washio and others have removed need for laundromat on every block." Who needs laundromats when there's an app for that? Well, people who can't afford to spend... View full entry
From mathematical sponges to nature-inspired havens, a sleek spacious canopy by Team Ultramoderne was selected as the overall winning Chicago Lakefront Kiosk design, as revealed by the Chicago Architecture Biennial today. Launched in late 2014, the global competition invited architects to propose... View full entry
“Musings about a Brutalist building’s friendliness quotient are a distraction” - Anthony Carfello, artist — LA Forum Architecture / Urban Design
Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design Summer 2015 Newsletter surveys and critiques LA's own collection of high-quality brutalist buildings in a 'must be collected" issue that grew out of its own google map “Brutalism Los Angeles” and other resources. The Newsletter features a... View full entry
In the design process, you design buildings and then you leave them. You don't check on them. Every building we open, since space is our product, we can talk to our members. We can close the loop and continue to make our spaces better and put that feedback into new spaces. -David Fano — Architect Magazine
Traditionally, an architect's involvement stops once the building is constructed and the red ribbon has been cut. Clients and tenants often go on to populate pristine spaces with their own furniture and paint schemes, often to the chagrin of the original designer. But what if the architect's role... View full entry
Architects and designers have adapted to the digitization of the creative process, although trustworthy paper sketchbooks, notepads, and journals remain as an essential free-flowing workspace for brainstorming ideas. Morpholio conveniently combines both realms in Journal, a new app that redefines... View full entry