The 378-page recommendation report filed by a group of preservationists, including preservationist Richard Schave and architect and 20th century architectural historian Alan Hess, calls on the city to protect the three most iconic structures of the Los Angeles Times complex [...] Purely from a design perspective, preserving The Times complex — once known as Times Mirror Square — is a difficult proposition. — latimes.com
The Los Angeles Times complex consists of three iconic structures which preservationists are pushing to make historic monuments. There is the 1935 building by Gordon B. Kaufmann featuring “The Times” neon sign and the grand Globe Lobby, Rowland Crawford’s late moderne style Mirror Building... View full entry
“If I were commissioning the interior of any kind of store and someone brought me blueprints including glass staircases, I’d tell him to take a hike,” she wrote then. “I wouldn’t give him a second shot. If he’s not intuitive enough to grasp that women in skirts will be uncomfortable walking upstairs, clouded glass or not, then what other errors has he made in his design?” — Los Angeles Times
Last month, LA Times culture writer Carolina Miranda tweeted that “all male architects should be required to navigate their own buildings in a skirt”, recalling the time she walked on the transparent floors of a Diego Portales University library and happened to be wearing a skirt. Others... View full entry
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has created a free, public report as a resource for architects, designers, clients, funders, and policy-makers involved in the creation of new infrastructure facilities and housing in First Nation, Inuit, and other Indigenous communities. The... View full entry
An astounding collection of architectural projects that never made it into being are being displayed on kiosks around New York City. Based off the 2016 book Never Built New York, LinkNYC—which supplies the city with free wifi—is collaborating with curators and authors Greg Goldin and Sam... View full entry
Groundbreaking research presents credible estimates of the total parking supply in several American cities, and it's not pretty. Parking spaces are everywhere, but for some reason the perception persists that there’s “not enough parking.” And so cities require parking in new buildings and lavishly subsidize parking garages, without ever measuring how much parking exists or how much it’s used. — usa.streetsblog.org
A new report from Eric Scharnhorst at the Research Institute for Housing America, an arm of the Mortgage Bankers Association, estimates the total parking supply in five US cities. Looking at satellite imagery and tax record data, Scharnhorst tallied on-street parking, surface parking, and... View full entry
Three years in the making, this cozy wilderness cabin in Slovakia's Kysuce region looks much more spacious inside than its 40m2 size. Michiel De Backer and Martin Mikovčák of Ark Shelter Studio designed the modular getaway cabin with several large windows that help occupants reconnect with... View full entry
The caption to the photograph reveals that this isn’t New York at all, of course, but Sweden: a life-size replica of Harlem in a forest in the west of the country, near Gothenburg. The asphalt and snow are real enough, but nearly everything else is fake. The streets are void of people and cars; the store fronts are life-size photographs, printed on canvas and hung on steel frames. Welcome to the Potemkin village: a place of clones, impostors, facsimiles, frauds. Maybe don’t plan to stay. — The New York Times
Why is there a life-size replica of Harlem in Sweden? This bizarre space turns out to be a test track for self-driving cars. Why Harlem? Even Austrian artist Gregor Sailer who photographed the space doesn't know. Sailer traveled around the world to capture 25 of these false architectural... View full entry
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 profiles!)... View full entry
"During our architecture practice we felt the need to create a working space which could represent our work and way of thinking" says KOGAA Architectural Studio, a Czech firm based out of Brno, the country's second largest city. Photography by Jakub Skokan and Martin Tůma / BoysPlayNiceAs... View full entry
The only profitable games in modern Olympic history, LA 1984 was a case study in public–private partnerships, corporate sponsorship, and municipal storytelling [...] It’s proof, say LA 2028 organizers, that the city can do it again: re-use the city’s wealth of existing and under-construction stadiums and athletic facilities, house athletes and the media at local universities, and host an Olympics that won’t require new publicly-funded infrastructure... — curbed.com
The Olympics have been promoted to cities as a vehicle for ushering in investment, attention, and urban growth. The reality, however, is often contradicting with failed developments and infrastructure left in the aftermath. As Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 games, large questions remain on... View full entry
“Designing from Instagram for Instagram seems like a snake eating its own tail. Everywhere looks like everywhere else and the eye grows tired of bananas or concrete tiles or mirror rooms.” — The Guardian
The built environment, this article from Bella Mackie suggests, is increasingly being designed as a 'backdrop;' a stage for those masses which might otherwise be disinterested in the fields of aesthetics and art production. This phenomenon can be felt when traveling the world just as apparently... View full entry
[T]hough in practice CVS is context agnostic: A CVS looks like a CVS no matter where it is. It is a structure without character or distinction, and to walk along such a building is an unpleasant experience that degrades pedestrian life, the civic space and all the other properties around it. — Mark Lamster, Dallas News
Architecture critic Mark Lamster of The Dallas Morning News gives his two cents on why CVS Pharmacy, America's largest pharmacy chain, should rethink the “manipulative designs” of their retail stores, describing it as a case of “urban malpractice by chain retailers”. “As a CVS customer... View full entry
The astronomical capital costs associated with starting a large hydroponic farm (compared to field and greenhouse farming), its reliance on investor capital and yet-to-be-developed technology, and challenges around energy efficiency and environmental impact make vertical farming anything but a sure bet. And even if vertical farms do scale, there’s no clear sense of whether brand-loyal consumers, en masse, will make the switch from field-grown produce to foods grown indoors. — civileats.com
A look at the benefits and costs to vertical farming taking into account new technologies, the architecture and economics of production, and consumer demand. In these indoor spaces food is being grown hydroponically, meaning without soil and using artificial LED lighting. As new innovations emerge... View full entry
"Along with their monumental role in Rome's urban fabric, the architectural status of fountains has long been uncertain. It can be hard to determine when they ceased to be viewed as public water utilities, and came to be regarded as purely artistic objects." — Places Journal
In the same week in 2016, a group of tourists were denounced as trespassers for splashing around in one of Rome's historic fountains, while Fendi was praised for its tribute to Italy's artistic legacy by staging a fashion show across another. Anatole Tchikine is prompted by these contrasting... View full entry
In her latest book Medium Design, Easterling turns this idea of disposition to our ways of thinking, and rehearses a set of tools to address unfolding relations in spatial and non-spatial contexts. She rejects the righteousness of manifestos and certainty of ideologies, urging ways of thinking better attuned to complexity and ambiguity. — failedarchitecture.com
Keller Easterling, architect, theorist, writer and Professor at Yale University School of Architecture, discusses her new book, Medium Design, with Hettie O’Brien. In this conversation she expounds on the ideas around no new master plans or right answers, tying together concepts from her... View full entry