A team at the University of Liverpool developed a generative-performative script, which was used to design this installation, with the goal to predict lighting and deceptive blurring effects.A description from the creators...This installation reflects a collaborative, research led design project... View full entry
Modernist houses from Asheville to Wilmington received top honors last week in the third annual George Matsumoto Prize for Modernist residential design across the state, sponsored by the award-winning non-profit organization North Carolina Modernist Houses (NCMH).The houses submitted had to be... View full entry
As the number of homeless people in America’s major cities has increased, so have ordinances criminalizing homelessness and pushing homeless families and individuals into the criminal justice system. Criminalization has become a tactic with which politicians have reconfigured cities to serve wealthier citizens and tourists, at the considerable expense of the poor. — Al Jazeera
Of course, urban spaces are often "cleansed" of homelessness through design. Recently in London, metal spikes were set into the ground of an alcove of a new apartment complex to prevent people from sleeping there. After almost 130,000 people signed a petition, they were removed. This followed a... View full entry
From the creators of the popular Skyscraper Competition, you can now get your hands on a copy of eVolo's latest book, "Digital & Parametric Architecture".This 312-page book dives into the "architecture of the future" — from the development of the latest digital tools to how they are... View full entry
New York City is moving forward with a proposal that calls for a new high-rise apartment complex to feature separate doors for wealthy tenants and those living in the building’s affordable housing unit.
While wealthy residents will be able to enter the building from its designated front entrance, affordable housing tenants will be required to go in through a back alley.
A mandatory affordable housing plan is not license to segregate lower-income tenants from those who are well-off.
— RT
Maybe the higher-ups will employ the low-income folk as maids and janitors? Built-in servants quarters, subsidized by the city. View full entry
Goldsmiths, which is part of the University of London and home to one of the UK’s leading art schools, plans to build a public art gallery behind the art department’s home, in an early 20th-century former public baths. To help raise the £2m needed to convert the old water tanks of the Laurie Grove Baths into an art space, the institution is asking its star alumni and emeritus professors [...] to donate works that will be auctioned by Christie’s, possibly next year. — The Art Newspaper
Rather than laying out exactly what it wants to buy (say, bike lockers), Barcelona is laying out six problems it wants to fix (such as reducing bike theft). Responses could involve buying things, but they might also suggest new services, regulatory changes or any other means of accomplishing the goal. Anyone around the world with a creative idea, including startup companies or even individuals, has a shot at a contract and all the market legitimacy that comes with that. — citylab.com
With all the time and energy cartographers spend preparing maps, it makes sense that they would want to protect their investment. One of the ways they do so — although they don’t always admit it — is by including “trap streets,” deliberate mistakes added to maps to catch unsuspecting copyright violators. These may include fake streets, as the name suggests, but the term is also applied to other erroneous cartographic data included to embarrass those who might steal it. — atlasobscura.com
Herman Miller, the manufacturer of classic midcentury designs, will buy the contemporary retailer Design Within Reach (DWR) for $154 million in a bid to establish itself as a “premier lifestyle brand.” — businessweek.com
From preventing drafts and keeping moisture out of walls, to being used as inexpensive material for crafting 3D models, rigid insulation foam is a familiar friend to many architects and designers during the creative process. But what to do with all those scraps?Designers Elisa Werbler and Lucy... View full entry
With the 2014 FIFA World Cup just coming to a spectacular finale in Brazil, it's a perfect moment for Architecture for Humanity to announce the completion of 20 centers for 2010, a Football For Hope program and partnership legacy of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.Launched in 2007 by FIFA and... View full entry
Magnets might hold mysterious appeal for some, but for Jolan Van der Wiel, they’re just another tool. For the past few years, the Dutch designer has been experimenting with magnetism to shape and create objects like violent looking stools and futuristic couture dresses [...] He envisions that someday—with a big enough magnet, of course—we could use this same principle to shape larger architectural pieces. — Wired
The challenge requires sophisticated understanding of the resources — human, physical, digital, spatial, and civic — that libraries offer to their users. In the conversation below, Shannon Mattern, a scholar who works on libraries, archives, and media infrastructures, and Nate Hill, Deputy Director of the Chattanooga Public Library, talk about what these resources are, how they are evolving, and what design can contribute to how they are deployed. — urbanomnibus.net
The trademark effort was reportedly spurred by copycat competitors seeking to emulate the Steve Jobs-inspired minimalism (and massive business success) of Apple’s retail store. Alleged store copycat Microsoft, by the way, has its own trademark on its not-at-all-inspired-by-Apple retail stores... — qz.com
Microsoft's trademark layoutOf course, it isn’t just dueling technology giants trademarking their retail layouts. The term of art for this kind of intellectual property protection is “trade dress,” and it has long been a staple of the retail world. View full entry
Artist Julien F. Thomas and architecture office Hughes Condon Marler have designed a coffee bar in Vancouver that disconnects you from all wireless networks once you’re inside.
The Faraday Café in Vancouver got its name from the Faraday Cage, a material shield around the bar’s interior that was built by the designers to block all electromagnetic signals. By creating a place without any digital connections the owners [...] hope to restore non-digital, social interaction between people.
— popupcity.net