A new project, “Walking Shelter,” explores what on-the-go housing might just look like. Here, a portable dwelling is packed right into a pair of sneakers. Essentially a tent without a pole (that’s the clever part), the mobile home can be deployed anywhere you’d like it to pop up.
Rather than relying on the old pole standard, the shelter’s frame is provided by the person(s) occupying it, explains Amelia Borg, one-eighth of Sibling, the Australian architectural collective behind the project.
— fastcodesign.com
Elon Musk's Hyperloop announcement resulted in quite a bit of skepticism. We'd like to think that has less to do with the feasibility of Musk's concept and more to do with the massive mass transit failures of the past.
And there have been some doozies.
— wired.com
Related: L.A. to S.F. in 30 Minutes: Tesla's Hyperloop Would Make CA's High-Speed Rail Blush View full entry
The exhibition re-envisions a series of urban environments that are typical for Chicago in order to examine alternatives to the way architecture engages the city. It is a collaborative effort by five teams – David Brown, Alexander Eisenschmidt, Studio Gang, Stanley Tigerman, and UrbanLab – determined to find potentials for spatial, material, programmatic, and organizational invention within the city. — City of Chicago
Same as it never was? What inspires a city to look back on abandoned plans? Along with the success of A+D Museum's "Never Built: Los Angeles", and anticipating the Bay Area's "Unbuilt San Francisco", The Atlantic Cities took a look at "City Works: Provocations for Chicago's Urban Future" at Expo... View full entry
You learn with experience the things that are not worth doing. Most architects think, no matter what, they can make something out of any commission. For example, I don’t do prisons or hospitals, or restoration work. I do know, by now, who I am. And by now at least clients come to us with their eyes open. They don’t expect something we don’t do. — Architectural Record
It's that time of year when we announce the semi-finalists for this year's Buckminster Fuller Challenge from the Buckminster Fuller Institute. [...]
Each of the 19 projects represent a collective body of work including whole systems solutions and targeted efforts that address pressing global issues in sanitation, materials, water, energy, disaster prevention, poverty, food and ecology.
— bustler.net
UPDATE: ‘Mushroom Plastics’ initiative Ecovative wins 2013 Buckminster Fuller Challenge View full entry
The leggy damsel with raven hair and Doc Martens to match is unequivocal. ''No,'' she tells the small, freckled boy. ''You can't climb here. Go in there where it's safe.'' [...]
But the boy - not recognising her livery - can be forgiven his mistake. To him, the large, gridded edifice that she guards promises infinite climbability. [...]
The climbing frame in question is in fact art. It is this summer's Serpentine Pavilion, by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto.
— smh.com.au
What role should interactivity play in art? Should public opinion decide what is and isn't art? Can good art also have utility? These are a few polemics posed in the Sydney Morning Herald by columnist Elizabeth Farrelly, reacting to Sou Fujimoto's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, featured... View full entry
The success of a public work of art is measured not merely by aesthetics, but rather, by its magnetic qualities that inspire interaction. The art is a reflection of the City, the art becomes a part of the City, the art is instrumental in making the City. — Spirit of Space
Acting as poetic translators between cities and their citizens, the creative agency Spirit of Space uses digital media to showcase humanity's built environment, consequently enhancing the citizen's self-awareness and appreciation of architectural space. Their film for Skidmore, Owings... View full entry
If San Franciscans like to describe their city as “49 square miles surrounded by reality,” the visionary ideas that were too grandiose for even San Franciscans to consider remain some of the most fantastic designs for any city in the world. Imagine a grand casino on Alcatraz, the city wrapped in freeways and a subdivision covering flattened hills north of the Golden Gate Bridge. — Architecture and the City Festival
San Francisco is a small yet fierce city; its 7x7 mile girth is home to a rich history of social activism, tech start-ups, foodies, artists, composting programs and absurdist housing rates. Given its compact and hilly terrain, any addition or subtraction would drastically impact the city’s... View full entry
The Morpholio Project has revealed the winners of Inside 2013! In case you're just tuning in about this competition, Inside 2013 promotes the research, exploration and investigation currently happening in academia and today's emerging talent. — bustler.net
Previously: Inside 2013: Competition Finalists View full entry
Everyone makes mistakes. But when seemingly minor blunders are made in designing and building structures, the results can be catastrophic. Read about some of the more infamous architectural failures in history, and what we have learned from those mistakes. — NewSchool of Architecture + Design
[via NewSchool of Architecture + Design] View full entry
The pre-fabricated, flatpack homes of Pritzker laureate Richard Rogers are a centerpiece for his 50-year retrospective, “Richard Rogers: Inside Out”, currently at London's Royal Academy of Arts until Oct. 13. The homes, which are an adaptation of his 2007 Oxley Woods housing... View full entry
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg penned the review A Panel Discussion for A+D Museum's "Never Built: Los Angeles". Attempting to answer the question "What's Next?" for LA, she suggested "The immediate goal is then to push urban design and architecture into daily conversations -- through political... View full entry
[My Ideal City] is an instrument where all people in Bogota help to create their city by interacting in proposals made for their Downtown in crowd sourcing, thus impacting design through real time interaction and direct feedback. Once the different initiatives are defined, the process is completed by the population crowd funding its own initiatives. — Aedes
Winka Dubbeldam (Archi-Tectonics) and Rodrigo Nino (Prodigy Network) have developed Downtown Bogotá // My Ideal City, an online platform for the citizens of Bogotá to influence their local city-planning proposals. Recognizing that middle-class population growth across Latin America... View full entry
School buses are so much fun. The springy seats, the awkward-to-open windows [..]—it all hearkens back to a time in your life when you were younger, happier and worry-free. But did you ever imagine living in one? Hank Butitta did.
By his last semester at architecture school, Butitta had grown weary of doing projects that only existed on paper, ones that were destined to be filed away and forgotten. He got sick of making things that nobody cared about. So what did he do? He bought a school bus.
— gizmodo.com
"A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living" is the LA-based architect's first major museum retrospective happening now until Sept. 8 at the Hammer Museum. Practicing architecture in Los Angeles from 1939 to his death in 1979, Jones -- or Quincy, as he was known -- is described as a quiet... View full entry