It’s not enough to just give someone a shelter. A home really needs a certain amount of consideration as to how you live in it. As we look at housing as a solution for helping the homeless and middle class -- especially in L.A. -- we have an opportunity to expand the vocabulary. We’ve never been tied down with what housing looks like in Los Angeles. We can have super interesting approaches to density here. — Mimi Zeiger – latimes.com
More from the world of tiny homes:The Tiny House FantasyWoman's dream tiny home clashes with Canadian lawThe problem with tiny homes - they can get stolenSwedish architects design for un-permited small-space livingPrototyping: Tiny House Design Workshop View full entry
A drone skyscraper has been proposed by designers Hadeel Ayed Mohammed, Yifeng Zhao and Chengda Zhu that acts as a central control terminal for drones to dock and recharge, situated in the heart of Manhattan.
The ‘dronescraper’, dubbed ‘the hive’ has been proposed as an alternative to Rafael Vinoy’s 432 Park Avenue superstructure, which is set to become the tallest residential tower in the western hemisphere.
— Design MENA
The skyscraper has been undergoing some significant design reconceptualizations lately. Here's a round-up of the most interesting takes:A closer look at BIG's West 57th Street "courtscraper"Screen/Print #30: SOILED's "Cloudscrapers"A bamboo skyscraper fosters public life View full entry
What was it like to be Zaha Hadid? From teaching to developing her vision to turning down an opportunity to work with Rem Koolhaas, in this remembrance we collect a few of Zaha's first-person writings and interviews about her life and work from her unparalleled, groundbreaking career. On being a... View full entry
In collaboration with Laisné Roussel and developer Pitch Promotion, Sou Fujimoto's proposed 50-meter tall mixed-use timber-frame structure Canopia would be the tallest of its kind if built. Riffing a bit off the swirling form of Fujimoto's Abre Blanc apartment building, the proposed structure... View full entry
This post is brought to you by Core77 Design Awards. With only seven days left before the Final Deadline hits on April 6th, at 9pm Eastern, designers, educators and strategists from all over the globe are putting the finishing touches on their entries for the 2016 Core77 Design Awards. Once the... View full entry
The plan would build five interconnected pyramid-shaped buildings, comprised of an art center, restaurants, and publicly accessible open spaces. A circular elevated promenade would encircle the island, which Kaufman says would contrast to the linear procession of the High Line. At ground level there will be a central reflecting pool with a promenade leading out to a marina. — 6sqft
New York architect Eytan Kaufman has drawn up a conceptual plan for a nine-acre floating island across from Hudson Yards. The scheme, called Hub on the Hudson, would connect the final leg of the High Line with a pedestrian bridge over the West Side Highway that connects to the circular-shaped... View full entry
As an architect, you have been trained to shape the world according to millennia of design discourse. Giving form to culture is a skill that calls on all the senses and requires a deep understanding of how people interact with their environment [...]
architects know how to "design for people," Johns also points out. This is true of architects as well as UX designers. "You have the user's best interest at heart – which requires consistently hearing and understanding them."
— zdnet.com
Related on Archinect:Working out of the Box: Ania Kolak, Architect-turned-User Experience DesignereMotion and mapping museum experienceMIT's "Placelet" sensors technologize old-fashioned observation methods for placemakingAlicia Eler's ode to Jon Jerde and the mall as "part of the American... View full entry
No longer confined to collecting dust in storage rooms, over a thousand slides documenting modern architecture's emergence in Southern California have been digitized by the USC Library, and are now available to view for free online.The approximately 1300 slides were culled from the collections of... View full entry
London’s inaugural Design Biennale is set to open at Somerset House this September, based around the idea of Utopia to coincide with the venue’s year-long events programme.
The biennale is headed up by London Design Festival director Ben Evans, biennale director Christopher Turner, former editor of Icon, and London Design Festival co-founder Sir John Sorrell. More than 30 countries are taking part in the event.
— itsnicethat.com
Representing the UK will be the design duo Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby best known for designing the London 2012 Olympic Games Torch and their work with Vitra. Their installation will be curated by London's Victoria and Albert Museum. View full entry
Professionally, [Mistur's] experience includes his firm, the Troy-based Mark Mistur Architect, from 1993 to present, as well as time with Mistur Riebe Architects in New York City and Glynn, Spillane, Griffing Architects PC and Crozier Associates PC, both of Albany, N.Y.
Mistur said in the release that he was honored to be chosen and said the college was “by all indicators a vibrant learning community.”
— Crains Cleveland
Formerly an associate dean at the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, Mistur hasn't announced what direction he plans to take the school in, although he did praise the university's new building (designed by Weiss/Manfredi,) as evidence of pre-existing... View full entry
'I envisage to make a forest of light. A forest which consists of countless light cones made from spotlights above. These lights pulsate and constantly undergo transience of state and flow.'
“People meander through this forest, as if lured by the charm of the light. Light and people interact with one another, its existence defining the transition of the other.”
— Sou Fujimoto
In another collaboration with top-notch designers, fashion label COS has teamed up with Sou Fujimoto to create a nature-inspired installation for Milan's Salone del Mobile 2016 next month. For COS' fifth year of taking part in the design fair, Fujimoto is creating a "Forest of Light" that will... View full entry
Moving offices can be a pain, but it’s also an opportunity to take stock of how the company has grown and what it could still become. With this move, we’ve put an emphasis on capturing the culture, or Quartziness, that defines Quartz employees and their work: global, nerdy, creative, and so on...This diary is part of a new obsession at Quartz, also called The Office, which is exploring the future of work, from management structures to the gig economy to distributed workplaces to compensation. — Medium
From mass-scale organizations like WeWork to four year old "digitally native news outlet" Quartz, the questions of what defines work culture in a largely post-manufacturing, perennially fluid global infrastructural era are still being formulated. Quartz is currently asking how "How do you capture... View full entry
the ‘‘disruptive’’ thinking that insists a workplace ought to care not just for your average needs (supplies, potable coffee, a microwave) but for your deepest psychological ones as well has its insidious side. If the new workplace technology makes it impossible to leave work at work, the ‘‘ethonomic’’ thinking behind new workplace design is intended to make it increasingly difficult to separate our work lives from everything else. — nytimes.com
More on the humanities of office design:SelgasCano creates a stunning members-only workspace for ‘creative nomads’New Ways of Designing the Modern WorkspaceArchinect's Lexicon: "Serendipity Machine"Aftershock #2: "Serendipity Machines" and the Future of Workplace DesignWhy Steve Jobs Obsessed... View full entry
Everyone loves the free samples, kitschy items, and affordable price points of SoCal grocer Trader Joe’s. The one thing that does spark ire about the chain is the small parking lots, which produce equal amounts of anxiety and horn abuse. But the website Strong Towns points out that TJ’s small footprints trickle down to cheaper prices for consumers. — Los Angeles Magazine
If you're not within walking distance of a TJ's (or, if you're just lazy) parking in one of the lots requires the steady nerves of a Zen master and the spatial dexterity of an architect. Whatever method you use to get there, just don't forget your bag, or all of your kitschy sustainability cred... View full entry
San Antonio-based Architecture firm Lake Flato announced that it took upon itself to offer to its employees the opportunity split the $1,000 cost of the reservation deposit for the Tesla Model 3.
"As our Teslas and TSLA have been very good to us for the last 3+ years, we felt that it would be a great time to contribute more broadly to the adoption of sustainable transport." -Lake Flato Partner
— Electrek.co
Health care, a decent salary, and a pretty good deal on one of the globe's most environmentally friendly (and svelte-looking) automobiles: Lake Flato Architects is setting itself apart in the benefits department by offering to go in on the deposit for a new Tesla with its employees. No word on... View full entry